KathyTX
DIS Legend
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- Mar 9, 2002
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Our very own resident tour planning genius is featured in a front page story in Sunday's Dallas Morning News today.
The story is about how a Texas man set a record by visiting each of the 41 operating rides, attractions and show at the Magic Kingdom in an amazing 10 hours and 40 minutes!
In order to achieve this super-commando feat, the man used Len's touring plan strategies...
Check out the article! (Go to www.dmn.com to read it online- you'll need to register first. Or read the text of the article below)
The story is about how a Texas man set a record by visiting each of the 41 operating rides, attractions and show at the Magic Kingdom in an amazing 10 hours and 40 minutes!
In order to achieve this super-commando feat, the man used Len's touring plan strategies...
Check out the article! (Go to www.dmn.com to read it online- you'll need to register first. Or read the text of the article below)
The line king conquers Disney
Calculations helped Texan set a record - and could revolutionize transit efficiency
10:12 PM CDT on Saturday, July 3, 2004
By LARRY BLEIBERG / The Dallas Morning News
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. Rich Vosburgh worked out hard, spending four months with a personal trainer. He scrutinized maps and a detailed timetable. He even deployed a secret weapon: artificial-intelligence research to chart a course through death-defying drops, torrents of water and fiery heat. And when this Texas adventurer clambered out of a floating log a year ago, he had reached his holy grail: visiting in a single day each of the 41 operating rides, attractions and shows at the Everest of theme parks, Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. His time: a record 10 hours, 40 minutes.
"It was a challenge, and I loved the idea," said Mr. Vosburgh, 45, an information technology manager for Dell Computer Co. in Austin. "There are a lot of things at Disney World that I had not done. Why would I go on teacups when there are mountains to ride? This way I was forced to try everything."
Call his quest quixotic, silly, even geeky. But don't dismiss it. The computer science that guided him has serious military, commercial and manufacturing applications.
At heart, the challenge is an enduring and perplexing quandary: What's the most efficient way to route someone to multiple places, taking into account constantly changing conditions?
Mathematicians call it the Time Dependent Traveling Salesman Problem. Or in Disney terms: How can I ride Thunder Mountain, It's a Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean without spending hours in line?
The answer could help fighter-jet pilots chart bombing targets or freight companies schedule package deliveries. For example, if a driver had stops in Plano, Fort Worth, Mesquite and Duncanville, the shortest route in mileage might not be the quickest. At certain times of day, driving miles out of the way could avoid traffic and save time.
But the Disney scheduling challenge is immense. Creating a plan for just 20 attractions in a day would involve considering more than 50 million billion combinations, or six times the number of grains of sand on Earth. Having a computer check every one would take more than 1 million years.
Seeking a solution
Enter Len Testa, a doctoral candidate from North Carolina A&T University with a Mickey Mouse-ear tattoo on his ankle. He developed a patent-pending artificial-intelligence program to give visitors the most efficient park-touring plan. Instead of testing every option to find the best route, a computer quickly settles on a plan that's almost the most efficient.
And on July 4, one of the busiest weekends of the year at the busiest theme park in the world, that solution is anything but trivial. It's the basis of the best seller The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World , which aims to save hours a day for its readers. They're among the 28 million who visit the theme parks around Orlando, Fla., each year.
"When it comes to Walt Disney World, you either need a good plan or a frontal lobotomy," says author and executive publisher Bob Sehlinger. He says the guide, which is produced by a team including researchers, a child psychologist and a Disney historian, helps visitors tour the parks "with the greatest efficiency and economy and with the least hassle."
His book includes touring plans based on Mr. Testa's work for each of the Disney parks and specialized one- and two-day itineraries for adults and kids, including the ever-popular "Dumbo-or-Die-in-a-Day" plan for parents of young children.
The record-setting plan isn't included in the book but is available by request through its Web site (www.touringplans.com). Mr. Vosburgh, who had been using the book for years, read about the Ultimate Touring Plan and wanted to try it.
New title holder
The previous record for seeing all open attractions was held by Houston resident Ed Waller, who visited the 37 attractions open that day in 11 hours. Mr. Vosburgh saw four more attractions and beat the previous time by 20 minutes.
But he said he wasn't thinking about record books when he laced up his park-touring Adidas. His wife was busy with a conference in Orlando all day, and he figured it was a chance to check out some new rides and old favorites.
He outfitted himself with sunglasses, a water bottle, cargo shorts, a T-shirt and a runner's nutritional supplement called GU. In his hand, he gripped a spreadsheet listing the touring plan.
Such extreme park touring isn't for children, warns Mr. Testa, the data research director for the book. "This plan sacrifices virtually all of your personal comfort for saving time in line. If the software thinks that you'll save an extra two minutes by walking across the park to ride something, you'll walk across the park."
Data: More is better
But a computer program is only as efficient as the information it's processing. So Mr. Testa and a volunteer crew spend several weeks in Disney parks collecting information. They want to know the average wait time for every Disney ride at any time of day on any day of the year.
Right now they have a representative sampling of about 30 days.
This spring, Mr. Testa and his field research team which includes a government statistician from Canada, an Auburn University associate professor of computer science, and his brother-in-law, a former Army Ranger were back in Orlando.
Like most academic field research, it was grueling.
At the Magic Kingdom, two data collectors worked the park, making a complete round every half hour. During a day, each researcher walks 18 miles, noting ride wait times, which are posted in front of almost every attraction by Disney employees. The mileage over paved terrain led to so many foot blisters that the data collectors now put a protective layer of duct tape on the bottom of their feet before putting on their shoes every morning.
On this day, Mr. Testa does laps of Tomorrowland, Toontown and half of Fantasyland. His rounds take him by Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin and Goofy's Barnstormer and through the Toontown Hall of Fame, where he can peer past Mickey Mouse's house and calculate the wait for an autograph. "Ten minutes," he estimates.
Then, it's back by the Mad Tea Party, Winnie the Pooh and Snow White's Adventures. He can usually make the trip in 18 minutes. Like a cop on a beat, he knows where to spend his 12-minute break: an air-conditioned corner of Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe, or on a quick ride on the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, a monorail that does a quick lap and provides a refreshing breeze.
"We're getting some good data collection on Dumbo," Mr. Testa reports as he rests his feet. The flying elephant is a perennial favorite among toddlers and often a nightmare of a wait. It's a slow-loading, carnival-style ride without the guest capacity of most of Disney's newest attractions.
Custom notebooks
The data is recorded in custom-made notebooks laptops or a PDA are deemed too risky in the harsh Disney climate. Mr. Testa even tested his tools to ensure that his entries wouldn't smudge if they got wet. That meant standing with a notebook in his front yard under a sprinkler to mimic an Orlando shower much to the dismay of his wife.
"She told me I was bringing down property values," said Mr. Testa, who also works as an information technology consultant.
But such diligence has paid off. With each lap Mr. Testa and his collectors make, his program becomes more powerful. With more data to average, he has a better idea how long a visitor would have to wait to ride Splash Mountain at 2:30 p.m. on a holiday weekend in July. Answer: about 135 minutes.
The program also knows that just after the park opens at 9 a.m., the line is tiny. And an hour after that, the Haunted Mansion will be easy to visit because most guests are by now working their way over to Splash Mountain.
Mr. Vosburgh said he could see the computer logic at work during his record-breaking visit.
"You're just ahead of the crowd," he said. "You can look over your shoulder at the rides when you're getting off of them, and you notice there are a whole lot more people in line now than there was just a few minutes ago."
All was going according to plan during his visit until he overlooked a ride in Toontown. Mr. Vosburgh made a cellphone call to Mr. Testa. The programmer recalculated the plan and suggested returning late in the afternoon to catch the missed attraction.
The only thing Mr. Vosburgh would rather have skipped was Storytime with Belle, a 20-minute retelling of Beauty and the Beast. "I was itching to walk away," he recalls. "I had to stand there for the duration."
When Mr. Vosburgh reached the last attraction, Splash Mountain, he was running out of time. The posted wait was 45 minutes. But 25 minutes later he was floating to the exit.
He left humming "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah" and with a record.
Then he met up with his wife. They spent the next five hours in the park, hitting his favorite rides again.
How cool is it that Len hangs out here on the Dis?
