Coronado Springs - Disney's Hollywood Studios

Image: kathika, Flickr (license)

It’s interesting that Disney opted not to terminate its first gondola line in the parking lot for Disney’s Hollywood Studios when it could have extended it to Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort and added another property that’s a fairly short distance away.

But, perhaps they simply wanted to leave open the possibility to expand if the Skyliner proved successful. As such, this extension would be a natural fit for the next phase of the Skyliner plan.

Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort is fairly popular among conventioneers visiting Orlando, and adding an extension to a theme park would potentially add an incentive to those conventioneers to visit the theme parks when they’re finished with their work — particularly, the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge expansion coming to Hollywood Studios.

Additionally, this spur would give guests staying at Coronado Springs access to the Boardwalk Resort area, and all of its entertainment and dining amenities. Surely, conventioneers would be eager to visit the delicious Flying Fish and Ample Hills.

Epcot - Old Key West - Typhoon Lagoon - Disney Springs

Image: Laura Kelly, Flickr (license)

Sure, Epcot already has one leg of the Skyliner, but why stop at just the International Gateway? Building a Skyliner terminal at the front entrance of the park provides many interesting possibilities. 

For starters, you could link Epcot’s front entrance to Disney’s Old Key West — a DVC resort that currently is isolated from the rest of the Walt Disney World area. Adding just that leg would also give guests staying at Disney’s oldest DVC property access to the monorail should they want to also use that system to venture over to the Magic Kingdom. 

But, once you’ve built the Skyliner line to Old Key West, the options get even more intriguing. It’s only a short jaunt over to Typhoon Lagoon, another water park Disney forces guests to transfer buses to reach. And, Typhoon Lagoon is just across the street from Disney Springs, so why not extend it over that way too?

The result, then, is giving guests staying at Old Key West easy transit options to a theme park, a water park, and Disney Springs, while also enabling water park-hopping for guests staying elsewhere. A half-day at a water park becomes much more tenable when the transfer time to get there shrinks dramatically. 

All told, it would give guests a pretty great incentive to stay at Old Key West — and, with the earliest DVC quickly approaching their end date, it couldn’t come at a better time.

The Disney Skyliner is a brilliant addition to the Walt Disney World Resort, proving the effectiveness of urban gondolas in public transit infrastructure. Here’s hoping Disney doesn’t stop yet.