WDW47 FAQ

Because I can’t resist talking about this crazy plan, I wanted to address some questions that have come up. I’m not going to tip the whole schedule this early, because what’s the fun in that? But I can’t help obsessing over the details.

When is the attempt?

Sunday, June 16th. Which happens to be Father’s Day. How thoughtful of us to not spend it with our kids (side note — and this is the cutest thing ever — Teevtee’s kid is thinking about tackling #MK24 on the same day).

Why in the world are you doing this on a weekend during the summer, and not waiting until the crowds die down?

This reminds me of that Muppet Movie quote:

Gonzo: “I’m going to Bombay, India to become a movie star!”
Fozzie: “You don’t go to Bombay to become a movie star! You go where we’re going. Hollywood!”
Gonzo: “Sure, if you want to do it the easy way.”

I first dreamed of this challenge back in April, and would have rushed out and tried it the very next weekend, if not for one thing: the stupid Tea Cups. The refurb schedule had them down for a month. Then the Prince Charming Carousel for a couple weeks. Then Pirates.

I didn’t want to wait half the year, so I checked for the next available date that didn’t have major Star Wars crowds or Gay Days and found June 16th.

How long will #WDW47 take?

According to the nay-sayers, 3 days minimum. But our stated goal is a single operating day. Failure looms around every corner.

Let’s put it this way: The four parks open at 9am, and close anywhere between 8pm and 11pm. Magic Kingdom has Extra Magic Hours that day until 1am.

Extra Magic Hours are absolutely necessary to complete #WDW47. So we have a grand total of 16 hours to work with, which means we have to average 3 rides an hour. That sounds easy if the three rides are Carousel, Tea Cups, and the People Mover, but not so easy if it’s Rock n Roller Coaster, Tower of Terror, and Toy Story Mania.

Why didn’t you do this during the 24-hour Monstrous Summer event a couple weeks ago?

We thought about it. Even thought there was a high probability of success. But again, the Gonzo rule intervened. We decided it was more fun to try during a normal situation and not a gimmicky, once-a-decade type of event.

Also, it was a holiday weekend, and who knew what kind of crowds were going to be in the parks? It was also a Star Wars Weekend at Hollywood Studios, so that park would be abnormally flooded as well. Also I was scheduled to be out of town, which kind of makes it tough to go to the parks.

Which park are you starting at?

Let me give you a cryptic zen answer: The one you must.

Before we really started planning for this, I would play these sort of “how to” games in my head. “Start here, proceed there, grab FP here, etc”, based on how I frequently toured the park. But I quickly realized my normal park activities exist in a vacuum. I may be there for a couple hours to relax, or maybe I’m there to show a friend around and hit the highlights. It’s one thing to account for Space Mountain, but it’s a completely different thing to account for literally every ride on property. Especially the bad ones.

You’re not just working against crowds and your own navigational knowledge, you’re working against the very real operation parameters Disney has set up. If you played the mind games yourself, would you remember that sometimes rides don’t have the same hours as the park? There is at least one ride in every single park that does not run the full operating day.

And those aren’t even the hardest challenges to account for. If you apply brutal logic, there is only one park you can start at. It is a mathematical inevitability.

So what is the hardest part?

Dealing with the snorts of derisive laughter.

But in terms of planning, a lot of people have already guessed it: accounting for the two rides that will absolutely, unequivocally wreak havoc on any plan you put together. These two rides are the biggest jerks on property.

Soarin’ and Toy Story Mania will hit 70+ minute standby lines within an hour of opening, run out of FastPasses a few hours later, and NEVER drop below those wait times all day long. Remember how I said I need to average 3 rides an hour? Hard to do when 2 rides are consuming 2 and a half hours all by themselves.

How do you plan to get around that?

In the words of Dr. Marsh: That’s proprietary.

Are you sure there aren’t more than 47 rides? What about Sum of All Thrills?

I tried to be as fair as I could with the criteria. To make the list, it had to be an official attraction as recognized on Disney’s web site, and it had to involve a vehicle of some kind. Sum of All Thrills is a simulator, much like Star Tours or Mission Space (which both made the list). But Sum of All Thrills is not listed as an attraction, and isn’t even featured in the description of Innoventions. Sum of All Thrills is a glorified arcade game, like some of those racing simulators at DisneyQuest that technically move you around, but aren’t complete attractions in their own right. So says the official #WDW47 rulebook.

I had to make the same judgement call with the Friendships. They are vehicles that are technically inside the borders of Epcot, but Disney treats them purely as transportation. They are not attractions, and they are not included in the official Disney list.

Are you going to eat at all that day?

Well we don’t have a reservation for Victoria and Albert’s, if that’s what you mean. The schedule is so tight that I have made no accomodation for meals. That said, I do plan to be well stocked with protein bars and the like. And outdoor food vendors can be accessible quickly with no line, if we’re really feeling famished. But I have to limit myself to food that can be eaten on the go (or a picnic luncheon snuck into the dark corners of Universe of Energy).

What about bathroom breaks?

Come on, this is the big leagues. Adult diapers all the way.

You’ve got a minimum of three park hops. Monorail, bus, or ferry?

Hmmm… we don’t like any of those options. Might as well chain us to a turtle. But since we are limited to publicly available transportation, we’re going to have to find some way to plan for the park hops. Every second counts.

You posted a list of all 47 rides. Is that the order in which you are riding them?

No. I was just trying to list them all out in case you couldn’t decipher the icons on the poster. The order is very convoluted, and much more meticulously planned than you might expect, with flexibility built in, much like the NFL’s scheduling algorithm (hint: the TTA is the Jacksonville Jaguars of #WDW47).

If you’re using Extra Magic Hours, you must be staying on property. Don’t you live down there?

Yeah, but my wife signed up for the Dopey marathon thing, so I figure I deserve a few hundred dollars to indulge my crazy obsessions too.

Where are you staying?

Stop stalking us.

No seriously, will we see you in the park?

Possibly. But we will be a blur, moving faster than the human eye can comprehend. Actually, we would be thrilled if somebody happened to spot us and cheered us on. It would make us feel like quasi celebrities, which has been one of my quasi goals all my life.

I’ll have on an official #WDW47 t-shirt. Just please understand that I cannot stop and pose for pictures or share a cup of juice, being the quasi-celebrity that I am. You can however snap a blurry picture of me as I speed past and post it online and hashtag it with #WDW47 so that it will be the hottest trending topic in the world and I will reap fame and fortune and become a reality TV star.

But my expectation is that only some of that will happen.

Have you thought about trying x strategy or y maneuver?

Probably, but we need all the help we can get, so don’t be stingy with your secrets. We’ve gotten a few good ideas already. Crowd-source us across the finish line!

It’s brutally hot. Massively crowded. Be honest. How many of these rides do you really think you’ll see?

Around 55 or so, if the time travel machine works like it did last week. I mean next week. Side note: If You Had Wings is not nearly as good as we remember.

I do have a master spreadsheet that attempts to map out the day. I’ll admit it is wildly optimistic and assumes that we don’t suffer from Imagineering Syndrome (aka “something goes wrong”). But it does account for every ride.

Realistically, I’ll probably pull a hamstring an hour in and that will be that.

 

 

 

 

Comments (24)

  1. If this works you could be starting an annual tradition….

    • Great idea! Only next year, thanks to that Dwarf coaster, it becomes wdw48

  2. Since there is two of you guys, will you take advantage of single rider lines or will that be off limits? (sorry if this has already been addressed)

    • Single rider lines are still fair game. We just have to wait for each other if necessary.

  3. My enthusiasm is turning to concern for your well being.

    Are you going to release a tentative schedule or reveal it all through the live tweet?

    • Stay tuned tomorrow to follow as we go.

  4. Alright….so you have to start at MK….and I guess try to knock out the Main Street vehicles and 2 other quick walk on rides at least to meet the hourly goal (hitting most of the big MK rides later that night). Hopefully be out of the MK “early” before 10 and then head to MGM for TSM?? Maybe via walkway to contemporary and bus to MGM? Although by then fast pass will prob be at noon. so maybe complete MGM while waiting for your past pass return. The only other suggestion I have is that it could be much quicker if you we’re to run from MGM via the boardwalk to epcot a international gateway. Hit Norway, Mexico, then future world. Will just need to deal with standby for soarin’. Then to animal kingdom. And back to MK. Also, don’t forget to use single rider line for anything you can.

    • You’re kind if thinking along the right lines Lou but still missing some important pieces.

      I think enough has been said. We’ll put it to the test Sunday.

  5. We are going to try and shoot some of it while we are attemtping it… but I’m not sure how long that will last before it gets in the way…

    • We’ve already got a “no bags” policy (can’t afford the slowdowns of the bagcheck lines). So we’re working on mounting a camera to Teevtee’s head.

  6. I am so intrigued by this that I find myself wishing it was going to be filmed for a documentary or something so I could actually watch the attempt. Have you tried giving Ken Burns a quick ring? 😉

  7. You basically HAVE to start at MGM (I refuse to call it H Studios) because of Toy Story. You can also knock out TT and RR in a short amount of time before the crowds kick in.

    Then hit up Animal Kingdom and on to EPCOT with Soarin’s done last while people are getting ready for Illuminations. After that Magic Kingdom where it should be late enough where most of the little kids will be gone thus leaving Fantasyland rides with shorter wait times than during the day.

    That is my guess as to the basic game plan or at least how I think I would attack it.

    • Nice plan Ryan… But if we did it that way we would fail right from the start.

      Remember this is about EVERY ride, not just the good ones.
      Hint: one ride is open for a very very short period of time and it counts on the list of 47.

      • I guess I need to actually look over the ride list to see what could be the linchpin to planning the endeavor and take into account the early closures for some rides.

        There has to be a “ride” that closes extremely early at another park to not start at MGM.

        I’m actual considering joining twitter to follow the live tweeting of this project just to find out the ride order.

    • The MGM triumvirate is the nemesis of everyone. Starting at the Studios does make a ton of sense in any sane touring schedule. Unfortunately we are trapped by our sense of duty towards every ride, great and small. There can only be one starting park. And it is not the Studios.

      • So. Baffling. I have been staring at the ride vehicle poster and all I can think is that maybe those horse-drawn carriages are only open in the morning? I am wondering if you plan to go to Magic Kingdom, ride that, leave and head for AK or MGM to knock out Toy Story or the safari.

        I don’t know how often the train leaves for Rafiki’s Planet Watch but it’s a shame that has to count as a ride! It seems like a glorified tram to me.

        The question I have now is, do you think you’ll actually get a milligram of enjoyment from any of these rides? Or will you just be staring at the ticking clock the whole time, thinking “HURRY UP SMALL WORLD! GO FASTER DARN YOOOOUUU!”

        I really want one of those t-shirts if they are ever made available to the public!

        • Enjoyment! We are literally just trying not to die.

        • Melanie I am tempted to bring along a big stick and push those Small World boats through faster!

          • Ha ha, you should also hijack the Great Movie Ride before the gangster gets there and speed through Oz and the final movie.

  8. I’ll be cheering you on from Michigan. Can’t wait to see how you accomplished this because we all know you’ll be able to do it.

    • The more we plan, the more I’m convinced that it IS possible. But doing it on a crowded summer day makes it really insane.

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