Disney guests evacuated from new Skyliner gondolas

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Walt Disney World park-goers were stuck for hours aboard the Florida resort's newly launched aerial cable car system Saturday night, prompting firefighters to lift people from the gondolas to bring them back to the ground. There were no reported injuries.

Riders reported being stuck as long as three hours as rescuers worked their way up to evacuate the Disney Skyliner. Disney officials said in a statement that one of the new cable car system routes "experienced an unexpected downtime."

"The Skyliner will be closed while we look into the details surrounding this downtime," the statement said. "We are working with each guest individually regarding impacts to their visit with us."

It was not immediately clear what caused the incident.

The Skyliner air gondolas opened to visitors last week. The cable cars whisk visitors from hotels to theme parks three stories above the ground while going 11 mph. No more than 10 people are allowed in each cable car. There are almost 300 air gondolas, allowing the cabins to handle about 3,000 people an hour. They are painted with neon colors and with the images of almost two dozen Disney characters.

Aaron Murray, one of the park-goers who was stuck in a gondola with his girlfriend and six other people, said on Sunday that the long wait and lack of communication was the most frustrating part of the incident.

"They didn't really say the reason that was causing the delay. The message that just kept coming over again and again is that they were sorry for the delay," Murray said. "We were getting better information off of Twitter."

The gondola behind them was assisted first possibly because there was a person that needed help, he said. Murray said he saw a woman being placed on a stretcher.

Murray recently moved to the Orlando area from Missouri and became a Disney pass holder. He was hoping to catch the new "Epcot Forever" nighttime show on Saturday.

"We were trying to celebrate at Epcot, and we ended up seeing 'Epcot Forever' but from the sky," he said. "We could barely see it."