Macau, the former Portuguese colony and current undisputed gambling mecca of the world, has just added another jewel to its crown.
The $4.2 billion Wynn Palace luxury resort and casino officially opened its doors to customers yesterday. Alongside the grand inauguration ceremony, guests were invited to a journey onboard SkyCab — the casino’s very own MDG system.
Typically cable cars can’t turn corners without a mid-station, but this system is able to make a total of 6 turns with 2 stations because it operates in an unidirectional configuration. As we’ve discussed before with the Kolmarden Wildlife gondola in Sweden, the basic rule of turning without intermediary stations is this: Cabins can only flow in one direction and all turns must be either to the left (in the event of a clockwise traffic flow) or right (in the even of a counter-clockwise traffic flow).
Aside from its unique operating characteristics, the gondola was undoubtedly designed with opulence and glitz in mind to match its environment. Two of the system’s towers were built in the form of a golden dragon while the cabins were all equipped with a custom audio system and air conditioning. Despite the advances made in ropeway technology, air conditioned cabins are still uncommon.
Operators from other cable lifts are excited about this development and have already travelled to Macau to learn from the SkyCab to better understand how air conditioning could impact user experience.
1 of Dave’s dragons 🐲 #wynnpalace #proudwife A photo posted by Ashley- wife and mama x2 (@teamconway4) on
Based on the reactions so far from netizens, it seems like the Doppelmayr-built cable car has been a huge hit despite its short length (~650m).
Cable cars found in the coming new hotel of Macau……Wynn Palace #cablecar #wynnpalace #macauhotel #insvideo #discovermacau #awesome #travelling #utravelmacau A video posted by Christina Chow (@chow_christina) on
#wynnpalace A video posted by Nicole Hoi (@nicoleklhoi) on
As you can see in the resort map below, the gondola is located at the west end of the resort and transports passengers around the spectacular light and water shows seen in Performance Lake.
Map. Image from Wynn Palace.
And although the system is purely a recreational system, transit enthusiasts will be happy to learn that the gondola system is designed for integration with the the city’s upcoming People Mover system (Macau LRT) — currently scheduled to open in 2019/2020.
While Macau isn’t known for its ropeways, the SkyCab is actually not the City’s first cable car. That title belongs to the Guia Cable (1997) which is designed to transport visitors up Guia Hill.