(Step)Moms Panel: Overcoming fears on the Disney Skyliner - Uncle Walt's Insider

(Step)Moms Panel: Overcoming fears on the Disney Skyliner

UWI Step Moms Panel

The Uncle Walt’s Insider (Step) Moms Panel answers your real questions with their own totally reliable advice. [Lawyer-mandated disclaimer: do NOT rely on this advice. Our panel of experts may or may not be actual stepmoms, but they are definitely evil.]

“Dear (Step) Moms: I started ask this to the Disney Parks Moms Panel, but I figure they would just be bubbly and positive, and I really can’t handle that this early in the morning. I’m curious about the new Disney Skyliner gondola system, but also a little concerned. I’m afraid of heights, and of getting stuck on it in high winds, that sort of thing. Do I have anything to worry about?” – Simone Ikeda, East Hartford CT

X:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself! And being stuck in a car with folks who forgot their deodorant this morning.

Disney has confirmed that the gondolas will only take you up to the top of the (Space) Mountain when wind speed are within an ‘acceptable’ limit. And unlike the chair lift, there’s actually a floor.

Harriet: 

Just don’t go to Walt Disney World. There are already enough people there without you. 

Walt:

Hi Simone, thanks for asking.

Not a morning person eh? I used to not be a morning person. I would stay up late during the construction of the parks, pouring over every detail and comparing the work done to the blueprints, drawings, and budgets — usually with a scotch mist in hand. I’m not a fan of the bubbly myself.

I would wake up the next morning… well, late morning. Okay, it was the afternoon. Late afternoon. Anyway, many years after the parks opened, they got popular. Really popular. Too popular. I would have to sneak in a scotch mist just to handle the crowds. After one long night, I found myself watching the sunrise.

Then it dawned on me and I had an idea: get up early and visit the parks before the people ruin it! So that’s what I do now. So, get to the parks early if you want to avoid the most crowded time of the day. I recommend going in before they open. Have a magical day!

Marty:

Dear Simon:

Heights? High winds? I’m on it. I have some experience with therapy for phobias (Pomeranians in my case). What you need is a little visualization to help you through your fears. So close your eyes and visualize in your imagination what I’m about to tell you. Ready?

You are seated in a gondola car. It is like a park bench, very comfortable, and you feel the car whisked into the air. Up, up, up you go. Higher and higher — not just ten, fifty, or a hundred feet, but even higher than the Skyliner actually goes. One thousand, two thousand, five thousand feet, just you on your park bench. You look up and see the cable your gondola hangs from, just a slender wire. You could swear it’s fraying, but it’s holding you up, for now!

Then suddenly, your gondola car sways to one side as a gust of wind hits it. You begin rocking, rocking, swinging mercilessly from side to side. Wheee! You’re now spinning around the cable. It’s like a E-ticket ride, except without the safety restraints. Then your worst fear comes true — the car breaks free, and you plummet down, down, down, until you and your car crash through the roof of the Caribbean Resort Skyliner station. The car and the park bench shatter around you — but you are standing there unscathed, because this was just imaginary.

There, now don’t you feel better? Enjoy your ride!

Ub:

Hi, Simone.

Where those gondolas are going, you don’t need roads, just the space to get up to 88 miles per hour. Once you do, it’s a good idea to make sure that you’re going forward in time, as the system hasn’t been around long, and if you go back more than about a year, you’re guaranteed to find yourself falling from the non-existent Skyliner. Going forward, you want to make sure that your gondola lands between other gondolas on the system, or else you’ll become a science experiment.

But do you really have anything to fear? Oh, yes. There’s been a documented tornado filled with sharks in the Orlando area in the past, and if you stop along the way for too long, there could be another one that comes by.

Hope this helps.

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