Two middle-aged men have completed a feat that most kids only dream of.
On Nov. 7, Shane Lindsay and Ted Tamburo rode every ride at Walt Disney World in Orlando over a stomach-churning 17 hours.
No ordinary Disney fans, Lindsay and Tamburo run the website Parkeology—a devoted fansite to all things related to life at Disney parks—and detailed their achievement in a post last week.
After riding all 46 unique rides, the duo had time to go on four duplicates before Magic Kingdom closed at 1am.
“We exited the Magic Kingdom on an empty Main Street, with the Castle Dreamlights glowing in the mist behind us,” Lindsay and Tamburo write. “Physically exhausted, mentally spent, but very happy with how things had turned out.”
Lindsay and Tamburo met over 20 years ago in an AOL chat room devoted to theme parks. The two bonded over their mutual love of Disney but never met until they attempted to ride all of the park’s rides last summer. Inclement weather deprived the park-hoppers of completing their mission with two rides closed in the later hours of the day.
Planning for the second attempt started almost immediately after. The two note that three things must align to make their mission a reality:
- Pick the right day.
- Pack the right gear.
- Plan the right route.
While the formula seems simple, every step involved a lot of planning. Knowing the right day included being aware of peak park hours and the operation times of every ride on the schedule. The two obsessively mapped the best route to take and strategically planned the order of kingdoms to visit.
The men also used Fast Passes which allow riders to whiz through the park notoriously lengthy queues. Happy and exhausted, the friends are thankful to the support of their friends and web fans.
“We had not only survived all the curveballs, but we had actually exceeded our original expectations.”
The two men kept their cameras running throughout their adventure and have released a small preview of the day’s frenzied activities.
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