Day 8: Disney Springs and Getting Ready for New Things

It has officially been one week since we arrived in Orlando, time really has flown by! We hope you have been enjoying following our journey thus far! After wrapping up the first project of the trip yesterday, we were rewarded by being able to sleep in after 3 consecutive days of rope dropping, with class starting at 9:30 am. 

Today in class we learned more about resource allocation modeling and assignment/ transshipment modeling. In the section on resource allocation, we learned that when there is a supply of raw materials that are needed in order to manufacture a product, mathematicians use a model to accurately maximize the potential profit. And the section on assignment and transshipment basically uses a similar model except that the raw materials and products are not a physical item, but instead are assignments to imaginary things, like pairing groups together. 

Afterwards, we were able to do practice problems in small groups to gain experience for our next upcoming project. While working diligently in our separate groups, Dr. Harris accidentally stepped on Annmarie's claw clip during class and, despite her reassurance that it did not matter nor did she care, he insisted on buying her a replacement at some point on this trip so she plans to keep her eyes peeled!

At around noon we got a break for lunch before the majority of the group headed to an optional trip to Disney Springs!

For those who chose to go to Disney Springs, we had around 2 hours to look and shop around. Out of all the cool stores, restaurants, and attractions, our favorite places include the World of Disney store, the Lego store, and Gideons(a delicious cookie place). Additionally, those who stayed at the hotel got to take naps, do laundry, and relax by the pool after a long week of hard work! 

When we arrived at Epcot, the professors told us to head towards Morocco in the World Showcase and go all the way down the Moroccan street for a surprise. As we walked down the empty street we were met with a secret passage exclusively for Disney Annual Passholders! As we made our way through the passage, we discovered a lounge room filled with comfortable cushioned seating and yummy snacks. Here we were introduced to Project 2. For this project we will be divided into 2 sections, those who will work in Project 2A and those who will work in Project 2B. Those in 2A will solve the problem of scheduling Disney Cast Members with the most efficient schedule and breaks, and those working in Project 2B will be modeling a queue simulation for either Big Thunder Mountain and TRON. 

After our brief break and talk about Project 2, the professors let us run free in Epcot for the rest of the night! Everyone went to explore the World Showcase, which features eleven different countries, each with their own attractions, restaurants, cultural shops, and more. While we all split up into groups, rode different rides, and ate dinner at separate places, we all ended our night at Epcot on a crowd favorite ride, Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Fun fact: Guardians of the Galaxy has 6 different song options that are randomly chosen for each ride. So there are 6 different variations of the ride. For the many times Dr. Hutson has ridden this ride, he has listened to every song that is played on this ride except for Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fears, five out of six of the songs played on this ride. However, today, against all odds, he rode Guardians and the song started playing! But that’s not even the best part, not only did he get to hear the song the first time he rode Guardians of the Galaxy today, but also the second time when we all rode together! He was 2/2 for the day! Feeling on top of the world, he can now finally say he has heard all six songs that are played on this ride.

 

Today's blog was written by Julia Torres and Annmarie Henderson!

Day 7: No Rollercoaster Quite Like Group Presentations (But We Rode Those Too!)

We started the day strong and early by rope dropping Epcot to meet Len Testa, the owner of TouringPlans.com, for our first guest speaker. During the talk, we learned a lot about his background, his company, and the story behind its creation. I was especially surprised by how Len transformed a common vacation problem -long wait times at Disney parks - into the topic of his master’s thesis and eventually an entire company built around solving it. By collecting large amounts of data and applying computer science and mathematics, his team is able to predict ride and restaurant wait times, estimate crowd levels, and create personalized touring plans for different demographics and guest needs. It was really interesting to see how math and technology can be used in such a practical way to improve the guest experience at Disney parks.

The 2026 Cohort with Len Testa!

When the talk was over, smaller groups split up to get lunch, ride attractions, and walk around the world showcase. This month at Epcot is the Flower and Garden Festival; all around the park, there are different kiosks and food stations with yummy, unique spring foods from all over the world. Right before we left, we realized that Soarin’ across America was open for previews for annual passholders, which is us! Soarin’ across America is a special program replacing the normal Soarin’ across the World for a limited time, celebrating America’s 250th birthday. It was such an amazing experience to walk onto Soarin’ and be among the first to see the new program. Patrick Warburton of The Emperor’s New Groove fame, who filmed the original pre-show safety announcement for Soarin’ across the World, filmed a new segment to be included in the program. 

The Anh's group in Japan (Epcot's version!)

Della's group on Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind

The group on Soarin' across America

After a short break in the hotel to freshen up, we got right to class! Continuing with topics we were introduced to during our first day in Orlando about states and decisions, we learned how to turn decision-making into a linear mathematical model to achieve a goal. The example we used in class was determining how Disney decided how many Buzz Lightyear and Woody toys to make. This technique is also really useful in solving larger optimization problems where companies, like Disney, want to maximize their profits with resource constraints. 

After our class period, we got started on our FIRST round of presentations! As the professors have told us, one of the biggest improvements students see from this experience is in their presentation skills: good becomes great. So, after about twenty minutes to run through everything one last time, each team presented their work to the rest of the group. Although we all know the premise of the project, we presented our work as if we were standing in front of Disney executives (no pressure, right?), and the rest of the group gave feedback so that whenever someone outside of our group does get to see our work, they can understand everything. Everyone was a little nervous, but all of the presentations went well! Everyone got valuable feedback, ranging from small structural changes to the color of the data points on graphs. Each group had unique strengths and insights, so it was interesting, even after having worked on basically the same project, to see everyone’s different perspectives. 

Dylan, Cassie, and Aidan

Luke, Mara, Harrison, and Isabella

The Anh, Ashton, and Annmarie

Tram, Della, Connor, and Julia

With our first project presentation came our first big group dinner! After some time to recharge, we headed over to Hollywood Studios and ate dinner together at Roundup Rodeo BBQ. This restaurant is in Toy Story Land, so when we walked in, we were all toys! Every now and then, someone yelled “Andy’s Coming!” so we all had to freeze! The food was amazing and the company was better. A group of us even rode in on stick horses. Everyone was laughing by the end of dinner!

Aidan, Ashton, and The Anh riding stick horses

Since the park didn’t close until 10pm, we had time to ride Rise of the Resistance (it was our first time, and such an immersive experience) and Tower of Terror (again), but we had to RUN across the park in 5 minutes to make it before closing! We managed today to have an elevator full of just Furman! Once we got off the ride, we realized that Fantasia still had one more showing at 10:30pm, so a little over half of us stayed to see the performance. Overall, our day was packed, but it was such a magical day!

Signing off, 

The Anh and Della! :) 

Day 6: (Don't) Run to Finish a Rollercoaster of a Race

Hi everybody, and happy Magic Kingdom Race Day!

As Luke and Connor mentioned in yesterday’s post, we were tasked with finding the fastest way to make it through 12 Magic Kingdom attractions, and today we got to test out our plans. Each group used projected wait times, attraction duration, distance between attractions, and some good old fashioned Disney magic to inform their decisions. One graph, pictured below, demonstrates just how complicated this gets, even when just comparing walk time between attractions!

After a short monorail ride, the groups made their way to their chosen Rope Drop locations. Interestingly enough, all of the student groups rode Jungle Cruise first, despite our varying methods of determining our route. After this initial meetup, speed walking (NO RUNNING!) and calculated choices led each group on their own path to our finishing spot. Some groups followed their initial itinerary quite closely, while others deviated almost immediately. Once every group finished, the professors treated us to some celebratory (or consolation) Dole Whip. Win or lose, everybody had a great time engaging in some friendly competitive spirit. 

Stay tuned for the results of our competition! The group with the fastest time is currently enjoying their bragging rights and will be featured on an upcoming blog post by the professors.

After a very long day of running around Magic Kingdom, everybody returned to the hotel for a little rest and relaxation before returning to work. A few people even decided to beat the heat by jumping into the hotel pool!

However we each decided to reset from the day’s activities, we all gathered after dinner for a post-park debrief. First, we learned what worked (and didn’t work) for the winning team, and then we discussed our methods for planning our itineraries. 

(The day definitely took its toll on everyone involved)

Finally, we learned how actual trip itineraries are planned using computer modeling and real-time data. This lesson previewed our activities for tomorrow, where we will meet with professional data analyst and CEO of Touring Plans Len Testa, our first guest speaker. We wrapped up the day with some group work time to prepare for our Mickey Bar presentations that are coming up tomorrow!

Fun Facts from Race Day:

Aidan, Julia, and Mara’s group ate a combined 5 Uncrustables waiting in line today!

Ashton, Isabella, and Tram got stuck on rides 4 times throughout the day, and Ashton also drank zero ounces of water for the entire seven hours of competition.

Annmarie, Connor, Dylan, and Luke all got to know each other by sharing their most embarrassing stories in line!

Dr. Bouzarth, Dr. Harris, and Dr. Hutson’s Jungle Cruise tour guide reminded them of a Math and the Mouse alum!

Cassie, Della, Harrison, and The Anh’s group didn’t make any stops during the race, not even for the bathroom!

This blog was written by Isabella Sanchez and Mara Johnson!

Day 5: The Ballad of Traveling Salesman and Data: Big Thunder Mountain and the Tron-tastic Saga of Basic Graph Theory

Today’s blog entry was written by Luke Brownlee and Connor Lockett!

Welcome back to the fifth day of the 2026 Math and the Mouse cohort’s adventure to uncover the mystical secrets behind mathematical decision making!

On perhaps our most anticipated (and earliest) day yet, the group departed for the Magic Kingdom to obtain some data on the Tron Lightcycle/Run and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad attractions! Filled with excitement and a slight desire for a little extra sleep, we made our way towards the Magic Kingdom on the monorail where a handful of group members elected to play a round of Monorail Surfing to galvanize our spirits before meeting the CEO of Touring Plans: Len Testa. Len personally escorted us to Tron to secure the best possible placement in the regular entry crowd to measure the actual wait time for the ride and the amount of people who exited the ride before our first rider showed up; our three terrific professors made sure the other members of our Tron and Big Thunder Mountain crews were in position for the data collection to start as well (all the data we collected today is going to be used by Touring Plans to contribute to their own decision making for their customers. The Big Thunder Mountain group successfully finished collecting their data first followed by the Tron crew after a relatively brief delay in line movement.

Once we all regrouped, we noticed that the line for Tron was considerably shorter than normal, so it was a given that the entire group rode on Tron since many group members still had not been on the ride, especially after a focused session of data collection. We all received a serendipitous surprise from Dr. Harris who used his sweet talking skills and overall congenial personality to snag our entire group lightning lanes to Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (the reworked and revamped Splash Mountain), another ride multiple group members had not yet experienced. The overall atmosphere of the ride was quite homey and invited our group to relive the story of “The Princess and the Frog” via a relaxing ride through the vivacious Louisiana bayou. As the original name of the attraction suggests, we ALL got soaked, albeit at varying levels. Of course, this did not dampen our morale, and we left the park content knowing that we had already had a day full of both work and play! On our way back to the hotel for lunch, we relaunched onto the water after discovering the monorails were temporarily down which gave the group an opportunity to “surf” back to the hotel after
all.

Once we got back to the hotel we all still had considerable work ahead of us but that would wait until our lunch break was over at 2pm. The Mickey Bar Stand projects were our first order of business and would be worked on until 5:15. Though the groups had finished working with their data to find the optimal places to locate their Mickey Bar Stands for all three parts, they needed to work on their presentations. The presentations themselves did not have any strict guidelines, which gave us lots of freedom on how to present the information.

During our class today we learned some basics to Graph theory and what Complete Graphs are. These are graphs in which all the vertices or corners are all connected to one another by edges. This is also the basis for the Traveling Salesman Problem. This problem is one in which a salesman is trying to go to all the towns (vertices) in the most optimal way. The roads (edges) which connect all towns all have different lengths of time, which makes this problem complex. This problem is also known to be NP-hard, meaning the only way to know the solution would be to check all possible solutions, and the number of solutions grows factorially! Even with just 20 vertices it could take millions of years to check all the solutions, so how would you figure out the best solution? This is where heuristic solutions come into need, as they find a good but not optimal solution, allowing us to find solutions in a quick time frame.

Next, we were explained the Traveling Tourist Problem, which makes the times between locations change as the time changes, making the problem even harder. Then we were broken up into four groups so that we could solve this problem for Disney rides. The four groups plus the professors would need to create their own itinerary based on the average queue time of rides, how far away they are, and how long the rides were, and then compete to see who made the best itinerary. Though at the park we will be allowed to change our plan in case of better opportunities or disastrous events that might occur. For this we will be going to 12 rides in Magic Kingdom, including Big Thunder Mountain, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and It’s a Small World, all without lightning lanes. After looking at the data, the teachers and students got worried that the time to ride all these rides would take longer than the original ending time of 4pm, so after we gaggled and discussed for some time, we decided to extend the time in the park to 5pm.

While the groups were working on their itineraries the professors bought them food from a nearby Greek restaurant named PITA Mediterranean Street Food. The food there was delicious and this also gave us more time to work on our new projects. After the groups decided on their plans, many of us decided to head to Target to make sure we had portable lunches and snacks to not waste any time in Magic Kingdom tomorrow. After that everyone was exhausted and decided to go to bed early for another long and fun day tomorrow!

Thanks for reading today's blog!

-Connor and Luke

Day 4: Mickey Treats, Data Sheets, & Animal Kingdom Streets

Our fourth day of math and the mouse was spent with lots of group work in the morning followed by a fun time in Animal Kingdom in the afternoon. For the first time of the trip, the group was finally able to sleep in. On their own time, groups woke up, grabbed hotel breakfast, and got to work on the Mickey Bar project. Today was all about Excel and Tableau! For part one of the project, groups had to figure out where to put two Mickey Bar stands throughout the day on one half of the park in order to maximize efficiency. In part two, groups were given a hypothetical scenario where one of the rides shut down for an hour and a half and were forced to adjust their Mickey Bar stand locations to account for this. Finally for part 3, you paired up with another group that was assigned a different side of the park and you put your data together with the new scenario of only having three Mickey Bar stands throughout the entire park for the day. These projects will be finalized and presented on Tuesday so today’s task was to mainly wrap up your calculations and match them with spots on the park map.

After groups felt like they were at a good stopping point for the day, the whole class headed to Animal Kingdom! This was the last park we had yet to visit so far on the trip so the group was excited to try new things! To start off we went to arguably the most famous section of the park, the Kilimanjaro Safari’s. This was a 25 minute drive through of the animal sanctuary part of the park with a tour guide pointing out all the animals and telling us fun facts on each. We got to see all sorts of animals experiencing their days as if no one was watching. Our group was lucky enough to see some giraffe’s, rhino’s, elephants, hippos, cheetah’s, and many more fun animals.

After this we headed to the best thrill ride of the park, Expedition Everest. This fast moving rollercoaster goes all throughout Mount Everest and encounters a scary Yeti. There’s even a part of this ride where the track appears to be broken so we have to move backwards and down hill throughout the mountain in the dark. This was definitely a fun one for those who had never experienced it before!

Shortly after riding Everest, we decided to switch things up from classic rollercoaster rides and headed towards the more screen and movie based ride of “Zootopia Everybody Together.” While Expedition Everest was a fast-paced, thrilling rollercoaster, “Zootopia Everybody Together” was a 3D short film that took place inside a large, stationary theater. The show still offered many thrills as the 3D had the characters jumping out towards us, and the theater sprayed the audience with water and rumbled our seats. Overall, it was a nice change of pace from Expedition Everest.

Following the Zootopia show, we moved on to another ride involving a screen and set off for Avatar Flight of Passage. Since this is the most popular ride in Animal Kingdom, we decided to buy a Lightning Lane for this ride. It ended up being a great decision as the stand by line was a whopping 125 minutes. Avatar Flight of Passage involves riding on a banshee (a large flying predator from the Avatar movies) and has a 3D screen that makes you feel like you are really in the world of Pandora. This ride was definitely spectacular with amazing visuals, and it really is no surprise that this is one of the most popular rides in all of Disney World.

After some hours spent in the scorching sun walking about the park, we decided it was time for dinner and stopped at Satuli Canteen right by the exit of Avatar Flight of Passage. The restaurant was Avatar-themed and had some exotic-looking desserts inspired by fruit from the movies. The entrees mainly consisted of rice and noodle bowls with choices of chicken, shrimp, chimichurri beef, and pork. Overall, the food was great, and while we did not try any of the desserts, they looked good from a distance.

Finally, the professors allowed us to split off for free time to enjoy the last two hours of the park until it closed at 8:00pm. Our first thought was to try to ride Avatar Flight of Passage again, but we quickly realized the wait time was far too long. We decided to settle on Expedition Everest, and it ended up being the right choice. The standby line read 20 minutes for the wait, but it actually only turned out to be a 5 minute wait as the line moved quicker than expected. Even though it was our second time riding it today, we all had a great time, and as we were walking out of the exit, we noticed the wait time read only 15 minutes. Collectively, we decided to hop straight back in line and got up to the front even quicker than before. Now that we were all Expedition Everest veterans at this point, we decided to start posing for the picture, as we were well aware of the spot where it was taken on the ride. After the ride finished, we all rushed towards the screens that showed the pictures from the ride and had a good laugh looking at our poses. We decided to continue this pattern, and because of the short wait time were able to ride Expedition Everest 4 consecutive times with a new pose for each ride. This was one of the most fun parts of the day, and we were still able to rush back to the entrance of the park to meet the professors at the agreed-upon time of 8:00. Overall, this was an amazing way to cap off a great day of work and play as we visited Animal Kingdom for the first but definitely not last time on this trip.

Today's blog entry was written by Harrison Brown and Dylan Daniels!