Day 17: Four Parks, Seven Hours: Challenge Accepted

Hello MatM blog followers!

It’s Katie and Emily tuning in to give you an inside look at our day competing in the “Amazing Race: Disney Extreme Edition” aka Four Park Challenge. If you remember from a couple of days ago, we all competed in the Traveling Tourist Problem (TTP), which was a race to complete 12 rides in Magic Kingdom as quickly as possible. Today, we put an extra spin on it. Unlike the 12 specified rides in the TTP, we expanded the challenge to all attractions in all four parks. Each attraction was assigned a point value based on average wait time, ride time, and average ride downtime. For example, riding Slinky Dog earned a team 700 points while Dumbo was 150 points. In addition, bonus points could be earned if a team completed a specific task (like a side quest) such as completing a ride in all four parks. The goal of this challenge was to earn the most points possible by 3:00 pm. In a mathematical context, the Four Park Challenge represents a real-life example of the knapsack problem, which requires us to select the options that are most valuable to us, given that choosing all options is not possible. The knapsack problem is very difficult and sometimes impossible to solve on such large scales. Given all the options, each team had a unique strategy for determining their plan for the day, and below we will offer you some insight into each of our groups’ thinking. 

We woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to congregate for breakfast in the hotel lobby prior to our 7:00 am departure. This breakfast was unusual in the sense that we were all glued to our MyDisneyExperience App, selecting our team members and preparing to click the “join virtual queue” button for TRON Light Cycle Run. This is the only way to ride this attraction, unless paying for an individual lightning lane; TRON was one of the top attractions for points in the Four Park Challenge. Once everyone gave shouts of joy (or disappointing sighs), we loaded up in the vans and headed out for an action-packed, fun-filled day. We had a total of nine teams: one professor/presidential team, three alumni teams, and five student teams. We are so grateful to President Davis and Dr. Davis for joining in on the challenge and supporting this MayX. Let the race begin!

Katie here! Erin, Jacob, Riley, and I made an awesome team and had such a fun and memorable dash around Disney. I am excited to report that we are the official winners of the inaugural Four Park Challenge, so read the next bit closely so you too can maximize your experience the next time you visit Disney. Our strategy was to first focus on accomplishing at least ten rides (earns us bonus points) in Magic Kingdom since this was closest to the van parking location, and we were familiar with some efficient strategies from our previous TTP. We followed the lead of the winners from the TTP and headed to Space Mountain at park opening. A few other groups followed us, including one Math and the Mouse alumni group. From here, we proceeded to ride ten attractions throughout the park before heading to Tron. We are excited to say we visited all these attractions by 11:00 am!

Tron was our last stop in Magic Kingdom before we rode the monorail to Epcot. In Epcot, we quickly visited Journey of Water and rode Journey Into Imagination before speed walking to ride the skyliner to Hollywood Studios. We had less than 2.5 hours left and two more parks to visit. While riding the skyliner, we noticed Tower of Terror had dropped to a 20 minute wait! We celebrated. But moments later, we groaned- the wait time jumped to 90 minutes. We suspected 90 minutes may be an overestimate, so we thought we would give it a try. Once there, we immediately noticed very long lines for both lightning lane and standby. It was going to be a long wait, so we pivoted to Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, which had an estimated wait time of 50 minutes. This ride was the same point value as Tower of Terror. While in line, we checked the app and Tower of Terror decreased to 40 and then to 35...and then to 30...and then to 20 minutes. We were bummed but decided to stay positive and were determined to speed walk as fast as we could after Runaway Railway to catch a bus and make it to Animal Kingdom in time to complete a ride before 3:00 pm. Our team theme song became “Nothing Can Stop Us Now,” which played at the very end of the Runaway Railway attraction. We sang this song over and over as we raced against the clock. As we arrived in Animal Kingdom, we made a beeline for TriceraTop Spin, which was the closest and shortest ride. The ride itself is not all that exciting, but for us, it meant we would officially complete a ride in all four parks–one of our goals of the day. We were thrilled! 

We finished the ride at 2:41pm, so we rode Dinosaur to gain a few more last-minute points. In summary, we visited all four parks, completed sixteen attractions, and rode all four modes of transportation (monorail, ferry, skyliner, and bus) in seven hours. Our positivity and support of one another were key reasons for our successful and fun day. I am so thankful for such an amazing team!  Also, a huge shoutout to everyone who competed today!  We gave it our all, persevered in the hot temperatures, and enjoyed a memorable Disney experience.

It’s Emily! I’m back on the blog to tell everyone how my team and I spent our day competing in the Four Park Challenge. My team consisted of Hannah, Alyssa, Morgan, and me. In all honesty, we were all feeling a bit under the weather and did not think it was smart to completely exhaust ourselves in the sun all day. Instead, we decided to stay inside to watch shows and meet characters. My team was more focused on not over exhausting ourselves, staying happy, and having fun. Our one big roller coaster of the day was TRON. We fortunately received a virtual queue this morning, and although our plan was not focused on hitting the big rides, TRON is ALWAYS worth it. We began our day in Magic Kingdom. After stopping by Starbucks on Main Street (caffeine is very important to us), we rope dropped Space Mountain and hit some other rides and shows in Tomorrowland before heading over to meet our first character of the day, Minnie! She was absolutely fabulous- I mean look at that tiara and feathers!

Despite our strategy not being very physically intense, we still earned a respectable amount of points. You may ask, “How could you earn points just hanging out with Mickey and Minnie all day?” Well, my team decided to take advantage of the “Fab 5” bonus. This was a bonus activity to earn a whopping 1000 points if a team met Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, and Goofy. Further, my team thought we could earn the bonus points for riding a ride, seeing a show, and meeting a character in all four parks. However, after reaching our 3rd and final park of the day, Hollywood Studios, we quickly admitted defeat to that plan. We literally all collapsed on the cold concrete outside of Mickey and Minnie’s Red Carpet Meet and waved the white flag to Animal Kingdom. You wouldn’t think watching shows and meeting characters would be so exhausting, but we were proven wrong! Our hard work of meeting the “Fab 5” paid off because we ended the day in 3rd place! I was overjoyed that we did so well and so incredibly proud of my team for being so adaptable throughout the day. Even though it was hot and we didn’t feel 100%, we still managed to have fun, look out for each other, and communicate. We found a strategy to maximize our points without over exerting ourselves and being mindful of our physical health. As one of my wise classmates said, “it’s about the people (or animals) you meet along the way,” and I totally agree. P.S. Pluto gave the best hugs.

Now, back to the two of us. After a long day of speed walking, sweating, and screaming on rides, we had the privilege to celebrate our hard work at Splitsville Luxury Lanes in Disney Springs, a restaurant and bowling alley owned by a Furman family. This was also the perfect opportunity to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Math and the Mouse. So, we were joined by a few alumni, Mr. and Mrs. Gibson, President Davis, and Dr. Davis! We spent the evening enjoying heavy hors d’oeuvres, chatting, and bowling. 

To top off our amazing day, we were treated with a drone light show in the night sky right outside the windows of Splitsville. 

Onward to our final four days and have a great weekend!

~Katie and Emily 

Here's a few honorary photos of the alumni who competed alongside us today. Again, a huge thank you to everyone who came to compete in this challenge and support Math and the Mouse!