Disney: Ride of a Lifetime

Its not everyday that someone can advertise a destination as the place where "Dreams come true" and live up to it every step. I have been fortunate enough to visit both Disney World at Orlando as well as Disneyland (Euro Disney) at Paris and must say my experiences in the magical land of Disney have been nothing but amazing. The support staff there are truly helpful and courteous and the rides are out of this world. But what takes the cake is a magical piece of paper called the Fastpass. The Fastpass allows the visitors to come back to the ride at a later time and wait in a shorter queue rather than waiting in the regular queue where one could end up spending twice or thrice much as time as the Fastpass queue. Fastpass thus allows you to plan and take as many rides as possible without getting stalled at any one ride.

But how does Disney know how long would it take on a particular queue (Fastpass/Regular) for any particular ride. How does Disney measure the wait times such that visitors get a reliable idea of when they might come out when they take any particular ride? All these questions were answered when i entered the regular queue for the Space Mountain. As soon as i entered the queue the service staff representative there handed me a card which had the current time on it and asked me to hand it over to the Disney staff only at the time of getting on to the ride. I held onto the card throughout the time I was in the queue and handed it over to the service staff only when I was about to get onto the ride. Simple as it may sound this might just be one of the ways Disney might be using to measure the end-end turnaround times for different rides on the park. With my curiosity satisfied I just went on to have a wonderful day at the Disney Park with several fun rides. Here are some rides which you cannot miss if you are visiting Disney World at Orlando:

1) Expedition Everest - Disney's Animal Kingdom

2) The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - Disney's Hollywood Studios

3) Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular (For all the series fans who want to have a real time feel of how the action unfolds on the screen) - Disney's Hollywood Studios

4) Splash Mountain - Disney's Magic Kingdom

5) Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - Disney's Magic Kingdom

6) Space Mountain - Disney's Magic Kingdom

Additionally while traveling from one park to another try different modes of transport. I took a
bus from Animal Kingdom to Hollywood Studios, a ferry from Hollywood Studios to Epcot and the monorail from Epcot to Magic Kingdom.

I guess I created a record of sorts or at least joined a select few when I visited all the four major Disney World Parks (Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, Epcot and Magic Kingdom) on the same day. Do drop in a line if you visited all of them on the same day like I did.

Wishing you nothing but fun in the land of dreams. May you garner memories, experiences, excitements, thrills, etc etc which will last a lifetime.

Yours Always,
J.J. Chaitanya

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