Living on the East Coast, WDW is the park I visit the most with my family - usually in the 1st quarter of every year. Even in January and February, I have never been on their monorails where the air conditioning wasn't running.

Florida is just too hot and humid to open the windows. I would think California has times during the year where they have the same problem.

California is hot, yes, but not humid. It's a dry heat in the west coast.

Having lived in the Bay Area my entire life, I've learned that I'm a total and complete weather wimp. I experienced humidity for the first time in my life about ten years ago and ugh...you have to be really tough to stand up to that.

Which, I'm sure, is the cause some of those astounding aromas one encounters on the WDW monorails.

Actually, the real cause is a lack of bathing and deodorant. The heat on the monorail just brings out the aromas more.

Also, the inevitable dirty diaper. The WDW monorails always smell bad to me. If not the odd body odor, then that disinfectant they use. You'd think that with mainly hard surfaces on the inside, the monorails wouldn't hold onto funky smells. The Tokyo monorail had upholstered seats, which you would imagine WOULD retain odors, but it smelled much better. Maybe they had better AC or something.

Born and raised in the A-T-L, consider me very tough. We LOVE our humidity!

The Tokyo monorail does smell much better. I was really impressed by it. Then again, the Japanese know how to run trains, even if they aren't steam!

I did some rummaging through my photos and figured out why the Tokyo Disney monorail was always so April fresh compared to the WDW monorail. Each seat (at least the ones in my photos) has a very large AC vent in its base. Here's a photo from last April:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbachma/46 ... pool-radp/

Goodness knows how long it's been since I've been around but obviously way too long. At any rate Looking at what has happemed with these monorails it seems like they are just perfect looking apples with rotten cores. I know this sounds like a dumb comment but the only two options they really have are to do an expensive conversion to roll down windows(on a project that i'm sure is overbudget by now) and delay their revenue service even longer or just strip them down to the chassis and start over( which is probably out of the question). My suggestion would be to delay revenue service and do the conversion. this would allow them to also not have to worry as much about electrical usage as the fans for ventilation will no longer be needed for five huge passenger compartments per train. also the fans removal would lighten the load a little bit.

I hear the weight of the chassis and the steering are both problems, among other things. I think the new trains may need to be ENTIRELY replaced- although I do hope they keep the new look.