Six parks, three days, about twenty rides ridden, ten hours and fifty minutes spent in line, 20.76 miles walked, one cup of Dole Whip eaten, one hell of a trip.
Theme parks are built on lines and time. Time is currency. Time has a price. First, you buy a ticket for the chance to spend a certain amount of time in a park. Then you add passes that let you skip the lines, or you stay at a special hotel that gives you early access to the park. Every upgrade promises the same thing: more experiences equals more memories. Theme parks aren’t about magic so much as optimization.
Standing in line used to be the great equalizer. It didn’t matter if you stayed in the fancy Contemporary Hotel with its own monorail to take you to the Magic Kingdom, where a room is $700 a night, or parked your camper at the Fort Wilderness. But now, waiting in line is for those who are unprepared or can’t afford to bypass it. Now at Disney, it’s still affordable to skirt some of the long waits. You have options like choosing the Single rider lane or grabbing a Lightning Lane pass quickly before they sell out. The line doesn’t disappear; it just becomes someone else’s problem.
Disney is especially good at disguising waiting as participation. The lines wrap and warp; they curve and narrow. You pass by curated props and outrageous designs that make the ride immersive. By the time you reach the front, you’ve really bought into the ride story—is it clever storytelling or delusion from waiting three hours to ride a three minute ride? Who knows? You aren’t just waiting; you’re anticipating. The line becomes part of the experience, a lesson in patience wrapped in air conditioning and Mickey Ears wallpaper.
Time is also weird at Disney and Universal; it stretches and compresses in strange ways. Ten hours in line feels fake, and 20.76 miles feels crazy. Now my body absolutely feels like it walked twenty miles in three days, but my mind only remembers how frightening and awesome the Velocicoaster at Universal is. The bar comes down just enough, so you fly out of your seat a little every time it goes upside down or slows. That ride is filled with screams of joy and fear. I also remember the drop at the Tower of Terror. The laughter on Hagrid’s motorbike ride at Universal. The cold relief of Dole Whip in the afternoon heat.
It all comes down to time for memory. For traditions. For nostalgia. You hand over your hours and attention—standing, shuffling, fixing your socks, popping Advil—and in return you get some sweet moments. You leave sunburnt, exhausted, lighter in the wallet, and probably a little sick. Somehow, despite all that waiting, it still felt worth the time.
Now here are all the rides I rode and what I thought of them:
Disney: Day 1
Pandora Flight Ride: Waited 1:30 / Like Soarin on crack / Line was cool / glad we did early in the day because my dogs would have been barking in that line.
Yeti: Waited 25 minutes / Loved the little museum / Glad it didn’t break down / I’m always going to be team Yeti.
Guardians of the Galaxy: Waited 1 hour / Worth it. Loved.
Test track: Waited 30 minutes / Got delayed / Only went on because they had a single rider lane / They try to sell you a car at the end? / Skip.
Soarin: Waited 40 minutes / My mom loves this ride.
Disney: Day 2
Millennium Falcon Smuggler: Waited 20 minutes / First ride of the second day / Big fan / You can’t be having a crumby pilot though.
Rise of Resistance: 5 min single rider lane / Ultimate Star Wars fan ride / Sad we missed the pre-show stuff, but my feet thanked me.
Slinky: Waited 50 minutes / CUTE / FUN / Joy / All that needs to be said.
Rockin’ Roller Coaster: Lightning Lane, waited 20 minutes / Tried to ride when I was a kid, was turned away for being too short / Not too short now, bitches! / Fun.
Tower of Terror: Lightning Lane, waited 15 minutes / Broke down midway, that was scarier than the ride / But eventually got to ride again / I’m a fan.
Minnie’s Theater Ride: Waited 40 minutes / Cute / ride with the whole fam and maybe a little tipsy.
Millennium Falcon Smuggler again: Waited 5 minutes / Better pilots this time.
Tiana Bayou Ride: Waited 20 min / LOVE / As a tot, I loved Splash Mountain, so glad they changed it to this / Inner child joy the whole ride / line was so short we hopped on and rode twice.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Waited 5 minutes/ride, maybe it isn’t for kids LOL, but saw a lot of kids on it.
Universal: Day 3
Castle Forbidden Ride: 5-minute wait, single rider line / honestly kinda scary / closed my eyes for a second or two / very cool though.
Hagrid motorcycle: Waited about an hour, then switched to single rider when we heard it would be another 2 hours / So fun! / Worth about an hour to two hours wait, but not three to four.
Velocacoaster: Waited about 40 minutes / Mom bailed / Honestly, most scared I’ve been on a ride/animatronics are SICK.
Hogwarts Train: Waited 40 minutes / Was pissed we had to wait in line, but glad we rode it.
Gringotts: 30 minutes in the single rider line / Cool! But would not wait a second longer than that for this ride.
Izzy Nunez graduated from Calvin in 2022 after studying graphic design and sociology. Today she lives in North Carolina where she is living out her dream of being a graphic designer.
