Two Guys, 55 Attractions, 11 Hours and 38 Minutes
On Monday Dec. 14th, Fred and me managed to break the Ultimate Magic Kingdom Touring Plan record and experience 55 unique attractions in the Magic Kingdom in one day.
Here are the stats: it took us 11 hours and 38 minutes to hit 55 attractions in the Magic Kingdom, including every operating ride, show, parade, and live performance. To put this in perspective, according to our reader surveys, average families experience 12 to 16 attractions on a given day. We averaged one attraction every 12.7 minutes, with our average wait time less than 2 minutes and average time between attractions less than 3 minutes.
The day included, but was not limited to, a 15 minute stay on Tom Sawyer’s Island (complete with visit to Fort Langhorn), meeting one Princess (Aurora), a chat with a talking trashcan, a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells on a horse drawn carriage, two Dole Whips, three parades, two sprints through the Main St. shops to avoid parade traffic, two shows with fireworks (Wishes, Dream Along with Mickey castle show), three arcade games (Frontierland Shootin’ Gallery, Shrunken Ned’s Junior Jungle Boats, and a fiercely competitive game of 25 cent Junior Hoops at the Tomorrowland Arcade), two grown men in one Indy Speedway car, and five FASTPASSes.
How — and why? — did we do this? Well, in planning we combined experience gained from previous attempts (I’m crazy enough to have done this twice before) with Fred’s well known statistical prowess. Our main strategy was to focus on shows that run continuously with no set schedule (WDW Railroad, Country Bear Jamboree, Hall of Presidents, etc) while relying on FASTPASS to experience headliners (Space, Splash, Big Thunder Mountain, Jungle Cruise, and Buzz Lightyear). This strategy enabled us to see continuous shows early and only when they were about to start. We also dedicated our first hour to getting through particularly problematic attractions: Dumbo, Peter Pan’s Flight, Astro Orbiter, and the Main St. Vehicles (never underestimate the Main St. Vehicles).
Here is a spreadsheet with our exact list and times. And here’s the order of attractions we completed:
- Magic Kingdom Welcome
- Dumbo
- Peter Pan’s Flight
- Astro Orbiter
- Main Street Vehicles
- Toontown Hall of Fame
- Barnstormer
- Winnie the Pooh
- Haunted Mansion
- WDW Railroad – Frontierland
- Hall of Presidents
- Tom Sawyer Island
- Fort Langhorn
- Shooting Gallery
- Storytime with Belle
- Country Bear Jamboree
- Jungle Boats
- Swiss Family Treehouse
- Liberty Belle Riverboat
- Monsters Inc Comedy Club
- Glassblowing Demonstration
- Tiana’s Showboat Jubilee
- Big Thunder
- Splash Mountain
- Tiki Birds Under New Management
- Celebrate A Dream Come True Parade
- Pirate Tutorial
- Push the Trash Can
- Space Mountain
- Tomorrowland Arcade
- Stitch’s Great Escape
- Carousel of Progress
- Exposition Hall
- Flag Retreat
- Buzz Lightyear
- Dream Along With Mickey
- Snow White
- Street Party
- Cinderella’s Carrousel
- Ariel’s Grotto
- Pooh’s Playful Spot
- Minnie’s House
- Mickey’s House
- Donald’s Boat
- Cinderella’s Holiday Wish
- Mad Tea Party
- Philharmagic
- It’s a Small World
- SpectroMagic
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Jungle Cruise
- Tomorrowland Transit Authority
- Wishes
- Tomorrowland Indy Speedway
- Kiss Goodnight
And here’s a slideshow of the day’s photos, including a picture of Fred and I on every single attraction. Click here to view on Flickr with captions.
You May Also Like...
-
'Tis the season! Though Halloween is still six weeks away, Disney is busy getting ready for the Christmas season. Check out…
-
The Disney Villains After Hours event kicks off tomorrow night and for those who are looking to attend this hard ticketed…
-
The cute craze of Disney Wishables continues with a new attractions and theme park icon collection. The Wishables are a super…
-
The popular Disney Villains After Hours event which is held at the Magic Kingdom is returning once again for 2020! This…
I thought the rules say 5 minutes for the glass blowing demo. you guys only spent 1! 😛
Yeap, we made that rule after deciding that a quick stop there wasn’t enough. And didn’t “count” that attraction in the hall of fame. Nice catch.
How did you decide in what order to acquire FPs? I understand getting them ASAP but am a little unsure what order maximizes their usage. (And did you *really* need them for the Jungle Cruise? Or Stitch? lol)
That’s… amazing. I went last summer and I think we only hit maybe 15 attractions in one day… I can’t IMAGINE doing 55!! wow.
Do we have a 4 park ulimate plan? 5 to 8 major attractions in each park. Guidelines and a goal would be great for this to type of challenge.
I am curious…what was the crowd level number predicted for 12/14/2009?
Crowd Level was a 5–so not too terrible.
How did you get to Tom Sawyers Island? Raft? That makes 56.
Did you cross the rickety suspension bridge? 57
Toms Cave? 58
Floating barrel bridge? 59
Hey Ray,
59 sounds good to me! It’s all in what you define as a “attraction” I guess!
Two more pictures for people to enjoy….
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45742010@N06/4205618835/in/pool-2009reunion
http://www.flickr.com/photos/45742010@N06/4206377522/in/pool-2009reunion/
We had hoped to see the guys off in the morning, but had no intent of trying to keep up with them. But let me tell you, if you need to get through the hub right before fireworks, there’s no folks better to make that happen than Henry and Fred. Somehow people would just part like the Red Sea as they jogged through. It was wonderful!
Hey Julia!
So sorry I didn’t get to this earlier. Thanks for the pictures, and the support! Great seeing you at the beginning of the day, and what a surprise to see you at the end! Hope you guys had a great trip. Look forward to seeing you again!
NICE! Great idea concentrating on on the shows so you don’t get stuck in the “doldrums” of trying to get cram in all the shows while you still have 1/2 the plan left. It’s a way better use of fastpasses than the suggested plan too. You guys must have been exhausted! Way to get the Main Street Vehicle in as well. That’s the only one we missed in November. Great work!
Thanks! Did you guys do a write-up of your day? If so, please let me know 🙂
Woot! Great job to both of you! I hope you rested the next day.
Yeah we were pretty dead! Have brief ideas of hitting Raglin Road late night, but it was closed!
FYI- i am very impressed- Kudos to the both of you. Me and my brother in law tried a test run and no way did we finish- ran into too many snags
Thanks Bryan! Interested to hear your plan report if you put it online.
So how did you get all those fast passes? were they from the previous day?
Nah, you have to do everything that day (well, you can buy tokens for the arcade games the day before), and you can’t send friends who aren’t doing the TP out to get them for you. When Henry, Kelsey, and I did the Disneyland Ultimate Touring Plan back in October, Henry was a good sport and made side trips to pick up FASTPASSes before catching up with us again. He has longer legs than the rest of us, but it did involve a lot of backtracking on his part 🙂 Not sure how Fred & Henry did it this time.
Yeah, as Kate says, all FASTPASSes were received on the day from the normal FP booths (can’t get any handouts from CMs / guest services). It’s actually not that bad as long as you start early. Get the first FP at 9am for 9:40am, get one at 9:40am for 10:20am, etc, etc.
thanks for providing me with entertainment with this post while i was stuck at MCO! Awesome to meet you guys too!
Great to meet ya Kristen 🙂
Now that is impressive! Were you running most of the day or just a fast walk?
Fast Walk + Jogging earlier in the day. One thing I think is really important is not affecting other guests’ experiences–so we tried to be safe while hustling as much as we could.
Congrats to you and Fred. Enjoyed listening to you on BOG podcast. As for your blog, I half expected your description of the day to end in “a partridge in a pear tree”. Great job!
Thanks Cathy! Was thinking about ending the paragraph with such 🙂 Love the BOG podcast. Hope to sneak back on it soon.
I got tired just looking at all your photos! It was hot that day…I was over at DHS taking it easy! Very cool to read about it, thanks for sharing your adventure.
Thanks Abby! Have a good trip?
You guys rocked it! It was great to be with you upon completion of the tour. The kiss goodnight was it!
Cheers Chris! Great meeting ya at the reunion. All guests should be able to view the Kiss Goodnight with Scopa narration!