Walkabout

For most people a vacation is about kicking back, lying around, and generally just relaxing. Me, on the other hand, it is about walking and lots of it.

As many of you know, I am a huge Disney fan and being so, I am a frequent visitor of their theme parks.

So being a frequent visitor, I am well acquainted with two facts about Disney that are above and beyond the good time that I am having. No matter what I do, I know there is going to be plenty of walking and plenty of line standing.  This is the Disney way.

Through the years, I have often wondered just how far that I walked during a day at a theme park.  

With my recent update to an iPhone 6 plus, I had just the app to track my steps and mileage.

Here’s a breakdown of my daily walking over 7 days both during my brief stay at the beach and while visiting all 4 of Disney World’s theme parks and Disney Springs.

Note: this doesn’t include any running miles that I did before the sun rose above the horizon in the morning.

On the 17^th, the walking was pretty brief – 2.8 miles. This was mostly strolling along the Clearwater beach and shopping.

On the 18^th, we hit Downtown Disney for those of us that have been around for a while. For the new Disney fans, Downtown Disney is now called Disney Springs – 4.7 miles.

On the 19^th, we hit EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow). This ended up being 9.3 miles. While it is a lot miles, it really isn’t that bad because it is a lot leisurely strolling around the world.

On the 20^th, we hit Animal Kingdom for 6.3 miles. Again, Animal Kingdom is a lot like EPCOT lots of strolling with minimal standing.

On the 21^st, we hit the Magic Kingdom for 9.4 miles. These are hardest miles of the entire trip. Because I am either walking or standing, and standing a lot, my legs get well beaten down.

On the 22^nd, we hit Hollywood Studios for 8.4 miles. Hollywood Studios is probably the smallest of the 4 parks, but we are nearly constantly walking as bounce back and forth across the park from a ride to see a show.

On the 23^rd, we finish our trip with a quick visit to Disney Springs for another 3.5 miles.

In full disclosure here, I am likely not your typical Disney Theme park visitor. I walk a lot because I am doing a lot. I am either headed to a ride for which I have a Fast Pass or I am headed to see a show. I build our schedule around bouncing back and forth between one of these two types of activities for the entire day. It keeps us busy but it can also carry us back and forth across the park many times.

Why do I do it this way? Well, I spend a 100+ dollars to get in, so I want to make the most of my visit.

This all started when my daughters were very young, and I wanted to them to experience as much of the Disney Magic as I could get for them

Now, this has become so ingrain in our visits that my daughters are actively participating in the planning of our schedule. They want to see if we can top what we did during our last visit. For example, a few years ago, we scored 11 Fast Passes in one day. We never come close to it again, but we keep going back to see if we can.

 

Life of the Cool Down Runner