The Disneyland Skyway's Final Night

By Ken Pellman

[Note: I wrote this report live, on-line, to a Usenet newsgroup after returning from the event. Someone else read it and liked it enough to put it up on a web site (with my blessing) before I even knew what a web page was. Over the years, I've gotten many responses to this account. Now that I have my own web site, I've gone back and changed the errors in the text and added some info at the end. Otherwise, this is the original message.]

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9 November 1994

The weather forecasts say a storm is headed to southern California. For some people, gloomy skies came early. They were the people sad over the fact that tonight, Wednesday November 9, 1994, The Disneyland Skyway made its final run.

For days, Guests who frequent Disneyland have been getting in their last rides of the milestone attraction that Walt Disney himself opened. People were getting emotional tonight - both guests and cast members - because they are going to miss this piece of Disneyland they have grown so fond of and developed memories with.

I suppose I have always taken the Skyway for granted; for some reason it seemed like it was always there and would always be there. I guess my fear of heights (at least while hanging from a cable instead of inside something solid like a 747) always kept me from really noticing and fully enjoying the spectacular and unmatchable view. The view of Fantasyland, Sleeping Beauty Castle, King Arthur Carrousel, Storybook Land Canal Boats, Dumbo, Small World, Mickey's Toontown, parades, tea cups, Submarine Lagoon, Tomorrowland, Rocket Jets, and especially the Matterhorn. The Skyway provided a unique view of the Matterhorn and what is inside of it. I know I'm going to miss these things.

So, I turned out to get my last rides in, along with several friends and a whole lot of other people. Cast members were even being allowed to ride the attraction in costume, and in the Tomorrowland station, where the cabins were stored, cast members were signing a banner, getting pictures, and sharing memories over chips. It seems like almost every group of guests and even cast members had their own still and video cameras to capture the beauty of the attraction while they still could.

I was able to get in five trips, ending on the Tomorrowland side. There were relatively long lines - Disnoids of all sorts were getting in their last rides. Even a top Imagineer, Tony Baxter (a swell guy), was there to get in his last rides and say goodbye. I'm sure it was am emotional thing for him too - he grew up at the park and was a cast member for a few years.

As my friends and I prepared to take our final trip, we waited to be among the last. There were plenty of other people determined to be in the last cabin, so we didn't even try for that. We dispatched from the Fantasyland station and headed towards the Matterhorn for one last time. Shouts of "long live the Skyway!" and other such sentiments could be heard echoing into the night. I could even see the new Team Disney Anaheim building that is under construction.

As we descended to the Tomorrowland station, we could see folks waiting down by the entrance of the Tomorrowland Autopia. We exited the attraction for the last time and joined the rest of the crowd below. Several groups of cast members departed for their last trips behind empty cabins, and finally Mickey and Minnie climbed into one of their own, the last one. As it left the Tomorrowland station on its final round trip, the people gathered cheered and applauded the attraction we're all going to miss. We all waited, and soon there was a picture flash in the Matterhorn, as the last two cabins approached their final return to the Tomorrowland station. In the first cabin was a photographer, the second carried his subject matter, Mickey and Minnie, in the last Skyway cabin to carry anyone over Disneyland.

The crowd cheered them all the way to the station. They stepped out of the cabin, and the Disneyland Skyway officially closed. As the crowd broke up and headed for Main Street to exit, it appeared that dismantling of the Tomorrowland station began immediately, almost as if they wanted to make sure it would not run again. Most likely it was because they felt it best to get the attraction out of the way.

Soon, the towers will be gone. Eventually, the Matterhorn will be altered, as there is no need for the passages that the Skyway used.

Such was the final night for the Disneyland Skyway. It was an attraction popular with amorous couples, people who wanted to smoke controlled substances at Disneyland without being caught, graffiti vandals, people who wished to expectorate on others below, and an attraction that will also be missed by those of us who behaved ourselves while on it.

Disneyland will always be changing. I know that, and I support that. But some of us will still miss attractions that are no longer there, and be sad to see them ago, even if that appears silly to some. I'll miss the Skyway, but I sure do look forward to Indiana Jones!

Sincerely,

Ken Pellman

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The towers were removed within days. The Fantasyland station is still there, but the Tomorrowland station as renovated away. The Matterhorn was indeed altered so that it looks significantly different where the Skyway used to run through it.

One final note: The Disneyland Skyway was NOT closed due to safety concerns or due to any incident. There was indeed an incident not too long before the Skyway closed where a man stood up, reached out of the bucket, struggled with the door lock until it opened, and purposefully dropped from the cabin into a tree just a couple yards under the cabin. He was not seriously injured by his little stunt. However, it was well known among Disney cast members and fans, prior to this incident, that the Skyway was slated for either replacement or removal.

Read Ken's account of the Final Voyage of the Disneyland Submarines.

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