Danglewatch (4)Dangleway dining
As onboard snacks aren't available you're likely to be parched and hungry after enjoying your ten minute ride on the Dangleway. So it's fortunate that multiple refreshment options are available close to the terminals on either side, some serving local needs and others gathered round the honeypot to take advantage of starving passengers in unfamiliar territory.
North
» Housed in a converted double decker parked permanently close to the north terminal entrance, the Heroica Pizza Bus is emblazoned with murals and 'hilarious' signs ("Unattended Children Will Be Given an Espresso And A Free Puppy"), so could hardly scream 'tourists welcome' any louder.
» City Hall has a cafe of the decent but dull variety, but it's closed over the weekend.
» On the dockfront the Oiler Bar is an ex-Royal Navy refuelling barge that now does cocktails.
» If it's just coffee you want, Perky Blenders x Goodvibes is better at barista-ing than naming itself.
» Long before the Dangleway arrived, Nakhon Thai had been serving up "a wealth of harmonious and mouthwatering dishes bringing together the best of both fresh and dry spices creating unique tastes only found in Thailand" from its restaurant beside the Silvertown Expressway. You can tell it's popular because they cancel your reservation if you deign to turn up more than 15 minutes late.
» Alongside Nakhon Thai, in a pool in a hut in a fenced-off enclosure, experience the full sweat-tub experience at Sweheat Sauna. Regular events include lunar dips, oakleaf whisking, the wafting of herbal brooms, the application of ice balls and realignment workshops. They don't normally do food but the Mythic Sauna at the end of the month ends with tea and a snack.
» Walk straight out of the terminal and across the street to Fratelli's Deli-Cafe for a low-key old-school mug and pastry.
» Or there's Tesco Express across the way.
South
» The aforementioned London Cable Car Experience Cafe could do with more customers.
» The ice cream kiosk opposite the pedestrian crossing is currently closed.
» At the heart of the Design District, the two-storey yoof-focused Canteen houses multiple independent streetfood types.
» If you get as far as the O2, every possible chain dining experience (except a proper Toby Carvery) is readily available.
» Or there's Tesco Express across the way.
Danglegeek (4)Tripadvisor
The cablecar currently has a 4.5 rating on Tripadvisor and is ranked #117 of 2694 things to do in London. It's also #1 in the category Public Transportation in London, just ahead of the Underground and St Pancras station.
And that position is hard earned, indeed of all TfL's assets this is the one that goes all out to trumpet its Tripadvisor status and to respond to Tripadvisor feedback. Every customer comment gets a personal reply from TfL underneath, every single one, usually along the lines of "Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. We're glad to hear you enjoyed the experience and the service. We hope to see you again soon. RG". Given the number of times member of staff Mark's been mentioned, I hope he's had a bonus.
But not everyone's pleased. I particularly enjoyed this review from a Georgia resident who visited in September and awarded just 1 out of 5.
Possibly the Worst Cable Car Ride on the Planet
I am absolutely flummoxed. Did the other reviewers ride the same cable cat as we did? The station was an absolute ghost town. Set up for long queues but no one was there except us. That should have been our first warning. The cable cars are a long distance from central London and the “views” are of a massive construction site and a very new and very modern city hall. It only lasts a few minutes and there’s nothing to do on the other side, so we stayed on the car and rode it back. Somewhere around $60 US for the privilege. This was an utter waste of time. I’m not knocking those who rave about the view but, my heavens, honestly? were you in the same place as us?
They also hated Borough Market, for what it's worth, and couldn't spell that either. A lowly TfL minion duly responded.
Hi, thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We are sorry to hear that the experience did not meet your expectations. We'll use your feedback to make improvements. ^GR
I'm not sure what possible improvements GR was thinking of, given that the views and the tumbleweed location are far beyond TfL's control, short of filling in the Silvertown Tunnel construction site with a wildflower meadow. Imagine if TfL responded in similar detail to your latest overcrowded tube journey, replacement bus ride or suspended train service, they'd be overwhelmed in hours. But the Dangleway lives or dies by its customers, so that's where true customer service lies.
Danglegeek (3)Ridership
As we all know the Dangleway is an embarrassing failure and struggles to pull in sufficient punters. Except, according to the official data, that's not true.
This is perhaps not the shape of graph you were expecting, other than the massive dip in 2020 when not even nurses heading to the Nightingale could be tempted aboard. Annual passenger numbers have instead been impressively consistent at around 1.3m to 1.5m, with a slight dip in the years before the pandemic balanced out by a return to form in the years after.
A few notes
• TfL have been publishing weekly passenger totals on their website since 2012, because making the data public prevents people from sending in repeated FoI requests. I now have a spreadsheet with 588 rows totalling 14,690,000 passengers altogether.
• The figure for 2012 is for only half a year, specifically 28th June - 31st December, much boosted by the Olympics and general novelty value.
• My figure for 2023 is an estimate, but is based on accurate data up to 7th October and then last year's final 12 weeks added on.
The cablecar's best five weeks were all during the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, each with passenger numbers over 100,000. Since then the total has only topped 60,000 twice, both in the week of the August bank holiday, once in 2013 and again in 2021. The lowest totals aren't so clear cut due to closures for poor weather and annual maintenance, but these days numbers only dip below 20,000 in winter weeks. School holidays always perform better than term time, even in February, confirming that the cablecar operates mainly as a tourist attraction.
Whether you think the cablecar's busy or not likely depends on when you turn up. On weekdays queues are generally non-existent and multiple cabins cross the river empty. But at weekends provincial families turn up in greater numbers and you'll likely find yourself having to share your ride with bubbly kids, cross-generational groups and globetrotting couples, all after a lengthy wait to board. This is why the Dangleway still covers its operating costs, and how it still pulls in one and a half million punters every year even if you have no intention of being one of them. Against all the odds, expect the graph to continue its upturn.
Danglequiz (2)Name that station
How many tube station names can you make using the letters of
IFS CLOUD CABLE CAR?
All the vowels are in there, so you might think it'd be a lot. But the consonants aren't so good, in particular there's no T and no N, so even promising-looking names like EUSTON and EAST ACTON don't work. Once you factor in the lack of H, M and W it wipes out even more, indeed I can confirm that none of the 272 tube station names can be made from the letters of IFS CLOUD CABLE CAR.
Ditto the DLR, nothing. Also the Overground, none at all. But if you spread your net wider across all the National Rail stations in the capital it can be done. Answers in the comments box and, please, only one guess each.
Danglewatch (3)The London Cable Car Experience
When Emirates ruled the roost at North Greenwich, the Airline Experience was a paid-for add-on to your journey. It wasn't especially exciting unless you liked bits of aircraft and soft-sell marketing, but it gave families who'd come visiting something extra to do. When the new sponsor took over last year the space was refreshed with completely different activities, none of them specific to cloud-based computing but more generic. And what I hadn't realised is that nobody checks you on the door any more, it's completely free to enter. So I went in and experienced The Experience.
The space is divided approximately into four parts, chief of which is the Engineer Workshop. Here you can "browse the interactive exhibition", by which they mean some buttons light up and some wheels turn. It includes four upright displays, visibly made from sheets of chipboard, plus a table with some bits on it. If you have a couple of minutes spare you can locate various attractions on a map, discover which weather conditions are too extreme for operation and watch a blippy representation of three gondola speeds. You can also get hands-on with what looks like an actual slice of cable but is actually "a real piece of rope used to carry the cars". Most excitingly they have on show the very first Boarding Pass ever issued in 2012, to a certain Mayor Boris Johnson, although it's faded so much that the issue date is pretty much illegible.
The other quarters are less impressive. The Selfie Factory is just an enormous painted backdrop of a gondola above a putative river. The "chance to immerse yourself in virtual reality" is an add-on with a VR headset which makes a pattern on a carpet look exciting, and has gone up in price from £8 to £10 since the Experience opened. The most blatant money-making activity is the Teddy Workshop, a couple of tables piled with stuffing and a wall of twee bears stacked behind. For £20 you can "hand-stuff your bear using our vacuum sealed fibre packs" before adding "a special heart and a magic wish inside" (or you can buy one ready-stuffed for £17.50). You can see how some of this would engage the right sort of child, but the overall effect is of a large room scarcely filled by the results of an inadequate brainstorm.
Finally comes the cafe and gift shop. The souvenir stock is sparse and mostly bear-related, although they have a good supply of Dangleway tote bags, Dangleway water bottles and personalisable Dangleway snow globes. On my visit the cafe was empty and the staff were entirely unoccupied, which might have been because the outside doors were locked so no passers-by could simply wander in. The only useful thing was the toilets, which are upstairs beside a room they'd love to hire out more often, so do remember they exist if you're ever caught short while in the area. As Experiences go I'd give it ★☆☆☆☆, although I imagine an excitable child with generous parents might perhaps stretch to ★★★☆☆.
