Have you ever watched a documentary about some crazy daredevil guy?
Maybe a guy who jumps off of buildings with parachutes or a surfer in shark infested waters. Maybe it was about a guy who climbed some incredibly massive mountain.
The footage can be gripping, the cameras are often right there, right in the guy’s face allowing us (the viewers at home) to vicariously live the adventure.
Then did you ever think that for every guy doing every incredible thing there is ANOTHER guy doing the exact same thing only backwards and with a camera!
Maybe they need to do a documentary about the cameramen who shoot the daredevils doing all the same stuff all while lugging heavy equipment and framing shots. Of course then the cameramen who were shooting the cameramen who were shooting the documentary would be the REAL stars.
But I digress. During WDW47 (yes, we are still milking this baby for a little longer) I was carrying a small video camera. We knew that we wanted to capture the day on video but really did not know how the day was going to go so much what that video of the day needed to be.
Between running, not dying, and worrying about incredibly tight windows to make the next ride the importance of taping the event slowly slid down the list of priorities. However we did manage to make sure that we captured at least some part of every ride, all time stamped in the camera and official.
We edited it together is chronological order and the results give a really good idea of what it was like to do this. If you want to get a feel of what running WDW47 was like watch this video while sitting under a heat lamp with a few hair dryers blowing on your face and don’t eat anything for 12 hours.
Parkeology.com is proud to present:
WDW47: The Video
Has anyone else attempted this since you two? If so, did they succeed? I think it is amazing you were able to do this even though two rides were shut down. I consider it a successful mission factoring in the compensating attractions. I’ve always wondered if this could be done. I have a question though… If one were to attempt this, say me and a family member, would catching an early day for resort guests disqualify the attempt??? IF we were to attempt this feat this year, it would up the count to 48 — NEW ride (Seven Dwarfs Mine Train) Thoughts???
Early entry days are totally fair game! In fact, we used the evening hours at MK during our attempt. Sometimes those evening hours are even more crowded than the regular day though, so you have to make sure you go at the right times.
Yes, the ride count is going to go up this year, but I assume the Seven Dwarfs coaster will be available during Early/Evening hours, so it may not be bad. After all, we were able to ride 48, even though 3 were duplicates.
THIS is what should be on repeat in all the Disney hotel rooms. BRAVO GENTLEMEN!
But… what would happen to Stacey?
(probably showing my age; is Stacey even still on resort tv?)
You two are my heroes! I can’t wait to cheer you on when you try again.
BTW- the music pause for Small World was brilliant
Ha!
You may want to aim higher than us but thanks!
I am so happy you posted this. You should be so proud of what you accomplished it is so amazing. I can’t wait for others to try and do the same. I loved how fresh you looked in the morning and the pure exhausted you were at the end of the day. Good job.
Thanks Victoria… we were BEAT by the end of the day!
Great job guys! I really enjoyed watching the video and then going back to read some of your previous posts about the day. You did an excellent job planning what rides to do at each time of day to not have them be closed, and to avoid waiting in lines.
Next time (if there is one) would possibly be very different since you would be able to use Fastpass+ and actually setup your times before the actual day (which wouldn’t be cheating even).
The only thing I am left wondering from the video and posts is how you pulled off some of the park hops. One was Taxi and two were running… but how did you do the others? You made very good time.
Fun to watch guys great job,
Thanks Butch!
Loved your great adventure. Wish I had the experience. I’d like one of those shirts, too.
Sadly for reasons beyond our control the shirts are currently not available.
This is PHENOMENAL! Honestly, NEVER thought it was possible — and even gave my sister a “There’s no freaking way…” look when she showed me the article — now Im inspired to try this on my own! Would definitely make my friends back home do a double take — right now I just tell them that I can give them the “best of” Disney when they only give me ONE Day for a park. Next time? I’ll just show them this video, haha. Well done!!
I can tell you that you shoudl NEVER attempt this with visitors looking for a fun day… this is WORK!
Go for it and see how you do but don’t do it for the fun of the rides. by the end of the day you are barely even aware that rides are happening around you!
Hi Guys, one question, how did you manage the wait times?
Did you get a VIP pass or did guests let you through?
Great video, loved the concept!
Hi Kev:
Niether… we did it 100% legit.
Theer was no line cutting of any type, no “back dooring” of any type and no multiple fast passes of any type. In fact we only used TWO fast passes all day (Toy Story Midway Mania and Soarin’).
Basically we planned it to hit certain popular rides either very early or very late when lines were lower, we used single rider lines whenever possible and we had some luck (good and bad). We scheduled the rides that typically have smaller lines for the mid day period whenever possible.
If you scroll back a few pages in the blog you will fine a long post (WDW47 Teev’s Take) that will detail it all for you. If you go back even farther you will find a FAQ and other posts that list the rules and so on.
That is truly impressive!
It’s a great story to tell when people ask if it is possible to fit a whole park in a day!
We are looking forward to your next Adventure!
Hope the toe is better!
Toe is getting better Kev… it’s the price one must pay I guess!
Thanks for the nice words. The encouragement and positivity from this has been really fun and great!
Great article in today’s Orlando Sentinel!
It was fun!
Amazing feat gents!!! I’m jonesin for that t-shirt! Will you be selling it soon? I’d love to have it for my October DisneyMoon.
We had been selling them and then there was some sort of issue.
We’ll let you know if they got back up for sale.
Can you sell just the graphic for others to make their own shirts?
It seems like there is a possible issue with simply representing certain ride vehicles that are a specific Disney design. Might be better to play it safe.
Definitely agree! They should buy your design from you 🙂
That was ALL SHANE! Credit where credit is due… his design and awesome work.
Guys, this is really great, and the video makes it look really fun…though I’m sure it eventually became anything but by the time the rain rolled around. I would have made the Carousel a Theater attraction…you were courageous to make it a ride attraction. Also, how did you reason World Showcase Friendship Boats as not being one of the rides? It seems as much a ride as the horse-drawn trolley.
Still…an amazing, and an amazingly long day! Kudos!
Thnaks…
By the end of the day I had a broken toe and Shane was hobbling like an old man… but we also had a second (third? Fourth?) wind by that point. The low point for me was midway through Animal Kingdom and getting from Nemo to Test Track at the end of Epcot… I hit walls both times then.
Friendship Boats is not listed as a “ride” anywhere… they consider it transportation. Teh others such as the Main Street Vehicles and the trains are considered “rides” or listed as “attractions”.
Basically if Disney calls it an attraction and it moves “ie: Carousel of Progress” we included it.
The one exception is Sum of all Thrills which is never broken out as it’s own attrcation but rather considered a part on Inoventions.. and frankly all it is is a corporate plug. the rest is pretty cut and dry.
I think that including the the Main St transportation was a very bold and honorable move too Jeff.
Personally Disney fans would generally let the guys off with those!
Not sure if Stitch is a ride or not, I’m kind of leaning towards the fact it is, but again, in true Disney spirit the guys deserve an honorary award of achievement of the highest order!
What’s next for them? A bite of food from every single WDW restaurant?????
Now that would be great to see!
To us what was or was not a ride was and us very simple:
1) Disney must reccognize it as it’s own attraction. This eliminated Sum of All Thrills which while good is a part of a larger exhibit.
2) it must move. A ride is not a show. Carousel of Progress moves, Stich does not. Gray area for Star Tours but come on… It’s major and moves enough to count for sure.
3) is not listed as transportation by Disney which the monorail and Friendship Boats are.
You get 47 that way and we think its really a super fair way to count.
I have to agree with you on the Stitch point. My first inclination was that it was a ride. However only the theatre seat features move. If you included it you would have to include captain EO, muppets, and tough to be a bug, and Philiharmagic. Which I would not consider rides, but shows. Well done! I also thought twice about mission space and the two options but that would be like saying you have to ride both space mountain tracks because they are slightly different, which I wouldn’t consider necessary. Well done!
We included Tom Sawyer Island and the ONLY thing that moves there is the rafts… we really tried to be SUPER fair. If you go back and read Shane’s WDW47 FAQ he fills in all the specific details on this stuff and why things were included or excluded.
The key to know is that we REALLY wanted this to be 100% fair. We could have reasonably removed things like Carousel of Progress or Tom Sawyer Rafts but that was not the point. The point was never to ride MOST rides or to see how many rides we could get in… the point was to prove it was possible to time things right so that under just the right circumstances one could ride EVERY ride… even borderline ones… I think we succeeded in that.
I was agreeing 100% with your choices. I think you rationalized fairly. Here’s a question, is it possible to do everything at MK including parades and fireworks in one day. So rides and shows? Even the trolley show and I guess the Jack Sparrow show.
All the rides AND the shows at MK in just one day?
We have not crunched those numbers so I can’t speak with authority but my sense is that yes, that would be very possible.
My wife and daughter did all 24 MK rides at the same time we did WDW47 and still had time to take severals hours off mid day to go to the pool and they finished WELL before closing time. SO that’s probably 5 hours to spare and they were not moving anywhere near as fast as we were. So my educated but not totally informed guess is that it would actually be totally doable.
I’d love to try to do all the MK attractions/events in one day while maintaining a breakfast ADR but I guess that would cut out the rope drop show. Also during my upcoming Oct trip Peter Pan and the railroad are down. I bet scheduling the best day is half the battle. Living far away makes that tricky. Fun to work on a schedule though! Something to work on for a future trip. Might be a good primer for a WDW48 (Mine train) in the future. Reading all the back blog posts… so much fun! Lots of gems I didn’t know about and I consider myself a veteran.
Yes, finding a time when EVERYTHING is open is half the battle. Otherwise it’s a loss before you begin.
All the MK attractions, parades, shows:
http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/touring-plans/ultimate
Amazing. Love that T-Shirt..selling those for round 2 try?
Brilliant job by Ted on the video. The man’s got skills! Wow that was fun to relive. It was amusing to see the video clips get shorter and shorter throughout the day as we descended into exhaustion. The bright eyed optimistic young lads of early on are not the same grizzled, world weary travelers who are running around Tomorrowland in the rain.
And for everyone who watched us go into radio silence those last 15 minutes at Epcot (twitter silence?), I think you can see why. Jogging up to Test Track 3 minutes before park closing.
Brilliant. Very nice editing on this and the musical score great. My favorite was at the end where you cut the sound and just had Its a Small World for 5 seconds. That my friend is amazing. Good Job and Thanks. I hope to one day accomplish this feat (or at least try). I am going to try and put something together for my trip in September, not sure what yet or if it will even be worthy of something decent.
Bathrooms? We don’t need no stinking bathrooms!
Basically did not eat aside from jamming some power bars down on the run. As for drinking… I wish we had done much more of that because we were extremely dehydrated at the end and feeling it big time.
Great job! Was fun watching but where did you fit the bathrooms breaks, eating and drinking?