Disney Legend (per Bob Iger) because I Rode Every Operating Ride (216 total) at All 12 Disney Parks Around the World in **12 Days**
#DisneyGlobalRideChallenge
So I think it's about time to have a thread of threads for my Scandinavia trip to make it easier to find things and catch up if you missed a day somewhere along the way.
So the Tomorrowland CM's surprised me with a Mickey pretzel, a Mickey bar, a celebratory button, and more! Plus a raucous round of applause from them and all the guests there waiting!
I am floored right now. There was a crowd of CM's waiting at the exit of SSE to congratulate me for finishing EPCOT and to cheer me on! With a celebratory pin too!
Thank you all so much!!
For those of you wanting a cost breakdown, the total out-of-pocket expenditure for the challenge itself was right around $12k:
$4750 for Flights
$3750 for Hotels
$1100 for Park Tickets
$825 for Local Transport (Taxi/Uber/Etc.)
$750 for Food/Drink
$675 for Line Skips
$65 for Wifi
And for those of you wondering where my plan to start with the Orbitron and end with the Astro Orbiter came from, the answer is this:
Me. 30 years ago. On the Star Jets at the Magic Kingdom.
It's been a lovely, relaxing afternoon/evening here at Epcot. In addition to eating tasty food and meeting some cool people, I also got a couple rides in on Frozen, one on Ratatouille, and two more on Guardians. Fantastic way to cap off this grand adventure!!
So in full disclosure, the original plan was totally to end on Astro during the fireworks. But I finished everything else too quickly. And I know all of y'all are waiting w/ bated breath for me to finish this thing.
So I'm in line for Astro now & will do a bonus fireworks ride.
The comments on this are about as awful as you might expect, but the article itself is actually fairly decent. And now I've got coworkers calling me "Natey Fuego Linens". Lol
Today I learned that if your bags don't show up on the baggage carousel within 20 mins of the aircraft door opening on arrival for domestic flights, Delta will give you 2500 skymiles as compensation (after you fill out a form).
In other news, I've just earned 2500 skymiles...
A lot of people have remarked that $12k is a lot of money to have spent on my trip.
I just got curious & looked up what it would cost to get a pair of Taylor Swift tickets in halfway decent seats in ATL. That's essentially what I paid to fly around the globe.
Absolute insanity.
Facebook just reminded me that 11 years ago was my first ever visit to Disneyland! Just a 1-day parkhopper as part of my last ever Spring Break. No challenges. No crazy efficient touring plan. Just going through the parks for the first time like a regular old guest!
Toad literally reopened as I walked up to it. I walked straight in and straight on!
And now I am in line for Pan, with a few minutes to spare!!!
I cannot believe it. Thanks to all of you for believing even when I didn't think it was still possible!
And the tweet that set off the chain reaction of thousands upon thousands of people following me along on my little adventure!
Crazy that this was before I even got into the park!
If Fury has had this crack developing for a week now and nobody at the park ever noticed it, they sure as heck aren't actually doing daily track inspections...which makes me wonder how many other parks aren't actually doing the inspections they claim...
This is really bad.
Had a really great time at the TRON D23 Gold Preview. I think I got like 5 or 6 rides in. Super fun ride. Really enjoyed it.
And we got to end the preview with the fireworks!
I had the realization earlier that I've now ridden Soarin' Around the World all around the world...in the last week!
Lol!
(Plus Over California in California)
So I know I've had a ton of comments & messages & things I haven't gotten to yet. The Twitter app makes it very hard to get to older mentions, because when new notifications come in, it scrolls all the way back up to the top. I'll try to get to them when I can!
But THANK YOU ALL!
Ever since I completed the
#DisneyGlobalRideChallenge
, everybody's wanted to know one thing:
What's next?
Well, how about every operating adult-rideable roller coaster from all 54 chain-operated theme parks in the United States?
@LATSeema
@mattdpearce
Where are the tear gas and rubber bullets for these protesters? Baton beatings? Seizure of personal property? Unjustified detainments? Casual shoves to the ground for no reason?
I wonder what could be different here...
Oh yeah. Sounds about white.
For anyone wondering why "Every Ride" is extremely unlikely to ever realistically happen, just have a look at the Tokyo Disneyland refurbishment schedule just posted. There's not a single date thru the end of this listing (Oct 31) without at least one ride under refurbishment.
Was going to jump on the Carpets just before closing, but it started raining, so I'll save them for tomorrow morning.
Done with Magic Kingdom for tonight. And I'm pretty happy with what all we've got knocked out!
@DrEricDing
At this point, he's built more walls around the White House than he's built along the border with Mexico. And something tells me they're not paying for this one either...
Waiting to get into Hong Kong Disneyland for a fun couple of hours before flying to Tokyo this afternoon.
And ran into
@Monster_Chu
, who's a HKDL CM that's been following along and wanted to come encourage me!
I know a lot of people have a lot of thoughts about this Six Flags/Cedar Fair merger, but I'll just throw this out there:
When is the last time you can remember two large companies merging and some combination of the following not almost immediately getting appreciably worse?
While I appreciate all the support and enthusiasm for a trip of this scale, there's no way I could ever realistically take 8 weeks off work & drop the $20-25k it'd cost to do, to say nothing of how grueling it'd be.
Hope y'all aren't too disappointed by my April Fooling fun!
Ever since I completed the
#DisneyGlobalRideChallenge
, everybody's wanted to know one thing:
What's next?
Well, how about every operating adult-rideable roller coaster from all 54 chain-operated theme parks in the United States?
What's the difference between Indy and Dinosaur?
Indy believes in "show, don't tell". The ride and its narrative stands on its own without requiring constant narration to tell you what's happening.
Dino has to tell you everything because it's so dark it can't show you anything.
Literally all of this paragraph from ITM is false, except the ride count.
I'm not getting on as many rides as possible, I'm getting on all of them.
I've never used friends to hold spots in line during challenges (that would be cheating).
Again, not limiting attractions.
Smh.
This nice gentleman met us at baggage claim to collect our luggage and escort us to our private transport to the Disneyland Resort to begin our
#ABDAroundTheWorld
adventure
And after all that work last night, I managed to sleep through all 4 of my alarms this morning and completely miss both early entry and normal rope drop.
There's no way I can possibly get DCA done in time to make my flight now.
Gutted.
Ended up grabbing a ham and cheese sandwich and some chips. Not great, but certainly better than the risk of food poisoning.
I've now made it on board my flight. Wish me luck, as it's gonna be a long one (12.5 hours!).
Next stop: Shanghai!
Okay...that sucked. But we're on the ground in Orlando.
I kind of feel like crap at the moment. Hopefully that dissipates as I get up and moving...because today is going to be a long day...
Okay, so I *think* I've finally caught up with everyone. If I didn't react/respond to your comment/message, I'm sorry! There were some that gave me errors and said they'd been deleted even though they were still right there. But I do tremendously appreciate all of you!!
So I know I've had a ton of comments & messages & things I haven't gotten to yet. The Twitter app makes it very hard to get to older mentions, because when new notifications come in, it scrolls all the way back up to the top. I'll try to get to them when I can!
But THANK YOU ALL!
@JimShull
You do know that the "animals" depicted in the film are CGI, right? And that said cruelty is played as a *bad thing*?
Meanwhile, PETA regularly kills the vast majority of the very real animals they take in to their "shelters".
This is a very odd stance to take.
It's incredibly frustrating to have a tray of food and nowhere to sit down and eat it because all the tables outside the restaurant are being hogged by people who aren't eating.
Welp. After having to go to a gift shop and buy my own button, they just absolutely butchered the writing on it.
I may have to just buy another one on Thursday and do it myself.
Are you one of the awesome Disney Cast Members that I met along my journey?
If so, comment below with where we met so I can connect you with the memories of those encounters and follow you back!