Before last August, I was nervous to ride Skyliner due to my fear of heights…but we were booked at Pop Century. But once we were there, actually Skyliner ended up being a non-issue, despite my fear of heights. However, I quickly learned that week that Skyliner isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be…and, in fact, I think, in hindsight, it probably wasn’t a wise investment for Disney. That is due to how unreliable it was. On three of the mornings we were there, we had a voicemail on our phone informing us that the Skyliner would not be running and we would need to use buses. (In our case, these incidences happened to fall on days we weren’t going to HS nor Epcot, but if we had, it would have been frustrating.)
Then, one day in Epcot we had planned to take Skyliner back to Pop, but it was shut down due to wind. So, we walked to the front of the park where they were to have buses, but buses never came. After waiting a while, we looked…and Skyliner was back running! So we had to walk all the back to the IG again!
Another time, we BARELY made it back to our hotel on Skyliner when it was shut down for lightning in the area. If we had been just 3 minutes slower, we would have been “stuck” at the CBR station .
Finally, as all this relates to this point, when we attempt to RD HS from Pop, we got to the station early enough…but it ended up taking us 53 minutes! The major delay was at the CBR station, where you have a mixing bowl of folks from Pop, CBR, and Riviera all coming together to try to get on the HS leg of the trip. The Epcot leg was not open, but people were already queuing for it, so I imagine it would have a similar problem (although likely not as bad) as trying to RD HS.
All this to say…if I were to stay on property going forward, I do NOT see Skyliner as an advantage. The fact is, as unglamorous as they are, the buses are far more consistent and reliable, which to me makes non-Skyliner values and moderates the better choice.
Having said all that…the ride on the Skyliner was lovely when it was operating.