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Len turned his passion and love for Disney World into a career helping over 100,000 vacationers a year. With The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, Touringplans.com and Lines mobile app he continues his crusade to make vacations more fun. We also talk about his other vacation books about Universal Studios Orlando, Las Vegas, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris.

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Buy: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014

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Episode 11

Transcription

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this is the dreamers podcast where
dreamers share their stories to inspire

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you

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now join host Joe Pardo as he interviews
a dreamer who’s living their dreams

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yeah

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welcome to the dreamers podcast on your
host Joe Carter and today I’m

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interviewing land tested

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who is living his dream of making a
career out of visiting disney world

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welcome to the show land picture of Nijo
how’s it going it’s going outstanding

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outstanding it’s a borrow a phrase you
should never heard that before my life

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but I think it’s gonna catch on that I i
think so i think it’s right on the cusp

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of going viral

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awesome so why don’t we begin by giving
our audience a brief background about

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yourself

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I Malatesta my co-author the unofficial
guide to walt disney world official

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guide disneyland and if you’re kinda
disneyland paris that we have to do a

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book called the unofficial guide to be
on disney which covers universal i did a

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book on British theme parks so i’m
really invested in the in theme park

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research and I got that way because in
graduate school I studied a certain kind

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of scheduling problem that lends itself
to figuring out how to write a bunch of

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rides into parks without waiting in line
very long and then fame fame came

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naturally is that so in graduate school
I a I got recruited by Bob challenger

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from an official guide to work on the
guidebook and then it took a few years

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but eventually became a full-time member
of the staff so now I visit Disney is it

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anything park roughly every six weeks
got a staff of people who do nothing but

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work in the parks everyday looking for
things like you know what’s changed or

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what’s new one menus and things like
that

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we run a website called touring plans
com in addition to the guidebooks and we

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try to make people’s vacations as good
as as good as we can so it’s it’s it’s

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really actually kind of identifying the
really makes you feel good sort of the

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end of the at the end of the day or the
end of the year to look back and see how

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many people you’ve helped have a good
vacation at a disney theme park is a

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really good of course because i really
like disney theme parks and I want other

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people like them too so if it is a good
thing

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good feeling yeah it’s definitely good
feeling when you see the the crying kids

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and you’re like wow you know if they had
just bought my book or so subscribe to

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my website work or listen to my free
podcast death

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let’s try to do a podcast at wdw today
you may have heard of it

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we were coming up on episodes

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1400 think so i’ve been doing it since
2005 so very long time and I’m so glad

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that you didn’t stop at the 1000 know
right where they’re talking about

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stopping at 2,000 there’s a will say
well so we’ll see what happens

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that’s like yeah yeah that’s like a sea
under that it’s like five years away

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right for years away like four years
away

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well not if you you speed up the amount
of shows that you have per week strictly

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didn’t want to do we could we could be
done by the end of $MONTH 2015 right

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here let’s get it done get it done
quicker

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that’s exactly there’s really nothing
left the site so what would you say

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inspires you

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you know the the the thing i think that
it keeps us going everyday even

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fundamentally you know we everybody can
officially add loves Disney theme parks

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and your first and foremost we want to
make sure that people who go to

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Disneyworld get the best possible
experience that can I mean we know it’s

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gonna be hot we know it’s gonna be
expensive we need to be crowded but even

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then there are parts of the parks that
are still you know really inspirational

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and really sort of the best themed
entertainment that you can find you know

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in the United States if not the world
and some of its just when you think

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about the amount of worker work that
goes into it or the amount of

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imagination and work that went into
building these things it really is sort

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of you know one of man’s great
accomplishments of the last 50 years you

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don’t cure for cancer but I mean let’s
face it 50 million people your go there

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it’s worth something so and we’ll make
sure that that people come away from

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from disney realizing that it’s you know
it’s way more than just a local

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amusement park the amount of planning
and thought that goes into you know

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entertaining a hundred-and-some thousand
guests 200,000 guest today is a is

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appreciated

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I think that’s really what we’re going
for their if we can make a couple bucks

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off of a Joe I’m just saying it wouldn’t
be it wouldn’t be a bad thing and you

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end up donated most of it anyway that
that’s true we do we do our fair share

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anyway and your podcast is public
service so it is actually it’s free like

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the air around us

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yeah we should begin we should we should
be like PBS exactly so how did your

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dream come about to work not for disney
by to design a whole touring schemes the

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right word

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their mechanism the whole park in a day
so it’s kinda funny it was a a few

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things happened at the same time I was
finishing up my undergrad degree in

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computer science

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get ready for a trip to walt disney
world and i started reading the actually

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an older edition of the unofficial guide
so I do i was going in like 97 and what

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I was doing the 95 unofficial guide to
autism and i was reading the book cover

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and they were you know there are some
tips in there that’s between sister and

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she and i would go meet a couple every
couple months we would drive down from

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North Carolina to Orlando was one of
those things where you know you finish

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work at five o’clock hop in the car
drive all night you’ll get to the park

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by 6am play all day saturday after
descending and start driving for home

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noon on Sunday to be back at work it you
know monday morning so during the 95

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guide and you know I thought there were
some tips that my sister had come up

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with over the years that we could
include the book and I thought you liked

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it you know i can actually contribute
something meaningful to this book i

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think the big catalyst was you took this
trip my sister I between my senior year

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in college my first year as an undergrad
student do you remember when the line

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for cream of your ride used to extend
out down towards innovation quarter

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ah you know I don’t think there’s a palm
trees

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it was just a vaguely cuz i was i would
be pretty young when that was when that

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was happening but I was there like
almost every year after that opened so

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we’re standing up there in the Sun and
it’s just beating down on a span and

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it’s just hot were there for like two
hours for great move your head and I’m

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thinking myself you know halfway through
this thing like there’s gotta be a

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better way that you do this where if I
could come up with a computer program

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you know where you tell what you want to
ride and it took it figures out based on

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the wait times you know how to minimize
your wait in line to get you everything

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you want to do I thought that would be
that’d be really useful so when I

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started graduate school I told my
advisors about this idea and they maybe

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go to the library remember libraries
they have right now right

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maybe go to library and do what’s called
a literacy literature search where you

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look up other people who have tried to
solve similar problems and the funny

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thing was i spent about two days just
trying to figure out what the thing is

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called right so imagine you cut it you
got a problem right but you don’t know

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what other people call it and you don’t

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access to Google you doing it right this
is this is pretty google right so this

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is like what do you know so i’m actually
using the card catalog in you know what

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I think gopher was the thing before the
the world wide web is the internet was

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all connected

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I’m you know trying to type in all the
things I can think of all the different

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terms i can think of like in a
scheduling problem and stuff like that

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and it took me thinking that like the
afternoon of the second day of trying to

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start shit i find out what the name of
the problem actually is called a

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time-dependent travelling salesman
problem and then once I had the name of

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it obviously then I can start looking up
into research papers that are based on

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it but yeah it took me two days to
figure out what that thing was called

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yeah just that was that was a major
thing there but the interesting thing

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was so I made I made two significant
contributions to this field and that’s

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it i’m not like a revolution thanks but
I’ve done two things i think really well

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one is that when i first started looking
at this problem i realized that it’s

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it’s the same kind of kind of problem
that people who deliver packages for a

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living have to solve everyday so if
you’re a if you’re like a delivery truck

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driver like UPS or FedEx or post office
guy right

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it’s not so much how long it takes you
at how far you drive everyday its how

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long it takes you to drive and and then
they’re more talking there about there

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is traffic right you might need to go
from like one end of Philadelphia to the

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other two to deliver a package right in
the time it takes you to do that is

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going to be vastly different at two
o’clock in the morning vs 5 p.m. on like

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a friday right because there’s traffic
right so you have taken traffic the

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distance the same but the time that it
takes is going to be different because

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of traffic and and so the first big
thing that I came up with was that this

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is actually an instance of a vehicle
routing problem is called and it’s a

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special case of it so what I ended up
doing for my thesis to work with

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scientists at UPS who had studied the
problem to come up with some starts with

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some solutions that was like the one
thing the this that otherwise would have

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been out of gun a completely different
paths and and in trying to solve the

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problem but the other thing that was
that was interesting was i went to Bob

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he was working with some guys at MIT on
how does how to do to our implants and

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they’re taking the approach they had
looked at the problem of minimizing your

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weight loss

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sounds as if they were running disney
world like from a management perspective

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so there are the way that they solve
this they had no things like how many

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logs were floated on Splash Mountain how
many cars are running on Space Mountain

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how many people are staffed how long
people were willing to wait in line just

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a whole bunch of things the results that
they got the trunk things that were

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really really dependent on this whole
set of assumptions that they made about

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all those other things like how fast the
water was flowing Splash Mountain how

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many people are in line how many logs
were going to like that it was just this

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enormously complicated model work try to
me all the time with saving three and a

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half hours in line per day and ability
to educate them so clearly enclosed

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inside the price yeah it’s gonna get you
in the ballpark doesn’t even take into

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account when they stop the ride because
of people with special needs to get on

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and off where they can’t keep the
Haunted Mansion running right yeah they

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literally had stopped ride so it’s a
concealer CSO done a lot of really good

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things like figuring out who did they
play at that point had already figured

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out like how long it takes on average to
get across the rivers of america on the

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raft to get times for Alan
seven-and-a-half minutes so there’s a

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lot of a lot of research has gone into
that and then when i started looking at

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the problem you know I i started looking
at frankly all the math that was going

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to be involved in me trying to replicate
that in and I’m just not that good at

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math I mean I’m a really good computer
science i’m not at all good map so

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looking at this going my god there’s
gotta be a better way and it turns out

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there there is so we approach the
problem from not from the perspective of

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somebody who’s running the theme park
but from somebody who’s visiting the

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theme parks so from the consumer
perspective if your if your consumer

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right if you’re just a guest in the
theme park really the only thing that

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you have to go by that tells you like
how the writers running is the wait time

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right

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you don’t know how many cars there are
in running space mountain don’t know how

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many people are stopping it

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you don’t know you know how fast they’re
running the cars are they the water

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through splash mountain all you really
have is the number right the wait time

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the post away time it turns out that’s
actually all you need because that that

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is a pretty fair encapsulation are
pretty fair representation of everything

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else that’s going on behind the scenes
right just in our Jack disney as a full

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entity probably doesn’t even know

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how many bars are any given time because
one could be broken or something like

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that so what they’re utilizing is that
card system where they give it to

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somebody when they first get in line and
then they hand it off to somebody when

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they get onto the ride

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yeah it’s called the flick card systems
Lord Kars ringing yeah yeah that’s true

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the other interesting thing by the way
just a little side thing you use the my

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Disney experience app right i have used
it

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cool so on the internet that my Disney
experience section is the pushaway time

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are all the rides right it’s reasonably
accurate sometimes it’s off by 15

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minutes but so does this like delayed
like 15 minutes like it’s a stock quote

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or something but did you know that in
the app actually track the the Disney’s

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computers actually transmitted to your
phone not only posted wait time but the

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actual wait times they just don’t
display it in the app really know it’s

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past that yeah so it’s there it’s a
there’s a bunch of things in the others

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will tell you whether the abbot of the
weather the attraction is closed

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whether to accept fast pass the latitude
and longitude of the of the attraction a

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whole host of stuff that gets beyond the
scenes so there’s a ton of data that’s

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getting transmitted in the end of my
Disney experience have only out that

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tiny fraction of which is actually
displayed to you and the reason why i

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think that they send that is essentially
the same feed that Disney’s management

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is using to manage the park so you know
the managers probably have a completely

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different view of the data they probably
for view of everything

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whereas you get only a little bit of the
view but from behind the scenes there’s

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only one data feed that shows everything
it’s what we call the single version of

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truth right if there were two different
data feeds 14 users and/or 14 guests at

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14 management it’s possible that over
time they could be different but by

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having only one truth that everyone use
everyone gets the same version of the

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truth

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yeah yeah no I that makes perfect sense
then they don’t have to worry about

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doing two feeds yeah or updating two
things at once yeah exactly yeah so

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there’s one feed one system

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yeah it was it well as the interesting
thing is that it’s it’s how we know that

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Disney artificially inflates the wait
times of attractions every once in

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awhile to get people to do something
else

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so there were times over a Christmas
where space mountain have 200 minute

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posted way but the actual wait time was
like 45 minutes and what Disney was

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trying to do is to push people off out
of Tomorrowland and making dosa models

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there’s a signal that they were using
wow that seems pretty sneaky

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00:13:39,840 –> 00:13:43,350
it’s a complicated thing but what else
we’re also going to write that mean you

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have a cast member brother that says
yeah I know the actual wait times only

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you know

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48 49 minutes but don’t don’t do this go
to ride the jungle cruise me that’s that

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that’s like that’s not gonna work right
so behind in on and else’s case they

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just put a 4-hour wait time is your
opinion so my daughter in disneyland

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waited four and a half hours to meet
them and they’re super nice by the way

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totally worth it i’m not totally worth
it but it was worth it anyway for hours

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00:14:08,130 –> 00:14:12,450
i mean i don’t know i couldn’t recommend
that to anybody he that’s paying the

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price to get in the park wait four hours
yeah i mean if it’s your only trip to

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you know it’s only to disney world you
know for five years or whatever it’s a

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special event i wouldn’t recommend you
blowing a fruit of your day on that you

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know if you if you if you’re there
fairly often it is a pretty nice meeting

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00:14:28,140 –> 00:14:31,949
greedy they lavish you with tension you
get like a minute or two just by

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yourself

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00:14:32,580 –> 00:14:37,560
actually when I want him at Rapunzel for
some Lorelei Rapunzel and I ran out of

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00:14:37,560 –> 00:14:41,939
things to say it was Rapunzel and snow
white that’s like the game’s up

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00:14:41,940 –> 00:14:45,330
complementing snow-white up for having
divorce which is sort of awkward

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00:14:45,330 –> 00:14:50,10
conversation at era awkward hurt yeah
i’m looking on blind dates

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00:14:50,790 –> 00:14:56,310
yeah anyway so it was a fun so how was
your dream received by your family and

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00:14:56,310 –> 00:14:57,719
as well as friends

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00:14:57,720 –> 00:15:02,160
he was it was pretty good the uniform
was always big Disney fans and they sort

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00:15:02,160 –> 00:15:07,79
of you know intuited the value of the
idea in fact they actually actually

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helped collect the first set of data
that we got so one of the things that we

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we need when we do the touring plans as
we need to know what the wait times are

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all the attractions it a pretty granular
level we need to be able to predict you

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00:15:19,50 –> 00:15:21,959
know what the wait times are going to be
at space map and you know every five

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minutes from the time the park closes to
the time apart

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00:15:24,660 –> 00:15:29,189
sorry for the times are park opens until
it closes so we needed to gather data to

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do that so we ended up doing is for two
years during summer vacations weekends

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00:15:33,900 –> 00:15:39,480
off christmas slow times i am my family
and I would would go down and we’d walk

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around the parks we’re trying to a loop
of an entire Park in 30 minutes it would

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write down in the special notebooks that
we had created with the weight terms

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were all the different attractions and
then I get home and enter them into

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00:15:50,160 –> 00:15:52,889
excel and try and come up with models

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of them and they helped out for a couple
years with that mean we had huge trips

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you bringing down like 10 people at a
time trying to to cover all the parks

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and they were me a voluntarily giving up
their own vacations and stuff is great

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00:16:04,679 –> 00:16:08,939
yeah i mean do you have any stories that
stick out in your mind from all those

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00:16:08,939 –> 00:16:13,410
those trips that you you first brought
all your I know your sisters were pretty

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00:16:13,410 –> 00:16:18,868
supportive in helping you out as well as
bleeding for you yeah if so the first

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00:16:18,869 –> 00:16:24,269
time I went I brought my younger brother
Mike and we had figured out pretty early

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00:16:24,269 –> 00:16:28,439
on like after about a day that you
really need to take care of your feet so

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we tried now you know moleskine is right

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00:16:31,980 –> 00:16:35,730
sticky stuff the printer feet we do you
know so your toes blister just because

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00:16:35,730 –> 00:16:39,29
they’re rubbing against each other for
about 16 hours day we’re walking like 20

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00:16:39,29 –> 00:16:43,139
25 miles a day so it’s it’s a hike and
we’re doing it day after day after day

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00:16:43,139 –> 00:16:46,529
it’s not like here if you’re running a
marathon which is 26 miles and it’s very

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hard you know you’re usually you get to
rest the day before and you get to rest

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for a long time afterwards was for us we
were walking 25 miles a day and a pretty

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00:16:54,689 –> 00:16:59,9
decent you know pace you gotta hustle to
get to the park what we were doing it

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00:16:59,9 –> 00:17:02,669
for like 45 days at a time so we’re
walking like a hundred miles over over

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00:17:02,669 –> 00:17:06,658
four days and you know you’re between
your toes start to blister your he’ll

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00:17:06,659 –> 00:17:10,470
start to blister every just being all
your feet start to chafe in places you

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00:17:10,470 –> 00:17:13,649
shouldn’t be chasing so my brother and I
figured out that would put duct tape on

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our feet duct tape sticks like like
nothing man’s the duct-tape really

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00:17:17,130 –> 00:17:20,279
sticks if you put down the bottom of
your feet you can it’ll pretty much be

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there all day and you’ll never blister
because your socks rub up against the

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duct tape and not your skin and the
other thing is we can we shift away from

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00:17:28,830 –> 00:17:31,740
cotton socks pretty much immediately we
started going with you know

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00:17:31,740 –> 00:17:35,10
moisture-wicking nylon socks because
they don’t rub you know we’re taking

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00:17:35,10 –> 00:17:37,260
advil like you’re popping advil like
it’s candy

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justjust try and get through this and we
realize that the animal kingdom is just

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brutal because you know that pavement is
uneven right because it’s supposed to

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00:17:44,190 –> 00:17:47,130
look like that supposed to look like
natural trails it just it does a number

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00:17:47,130 –> 00:17:50,669
on your knees and your ankles if you’re
doing 25 miles a day inside the part is

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is painful so anyway so my brother and I
figure this out and you know for the

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next time we come down my twin sister
Linda is going to be there with my

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00:17:57,29 –> 00:18:00,539
younger sister Christine as well and
system and prepared for them I give them

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00:18:00,539 –> 00:18:04,649
each a roll of duct tape and give them
each their own huge bottle of advil

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00:18:05,610 –> 00:18:09,840
I give them you know sunscreen and in
everything that they need but here’s a

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00:18:09,840 –> 00:18:13,590
quick tip for anyone listening if your
first day on the job your boss gives you

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00:18:13,590 –> 00:18:17,189
pain killers you think really hard about
what it is you’re about to do right

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00:18:17,190 –> 00:18:20,549
because that something’s up right so my
sister goes out and you know we’re all

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00:18:20,549 –> 00:18:23,580
wearing running shoes you know
high-impact running shoes with really

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00:18:23,580 –> 00:18:27,720
thick cushion souls that breathes
something in Linda’s out there and she

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00:18:27,720 –> 00:18:31,799
brings your Mickey Mouse sandals or
flip-flops because they’re cute

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00:18:31,799 –> 00:18:36,360
ok that’s why didn’t I tell them like
you know I wouldn’t wear those 25 miles

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00:18:36,360 –> 00:18:39,510
you know you should put something on
your feet so the end of the first day

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00:18:39,510 –> 00:18:43,710
you know she’s worn these flip-flops and
our feeder just blistered and that looks

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00:18:43,710 –> 00:18:48,720
painful the second day she wears a
slightly different set of flip flops but

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00:18:48,720 –> 00:18:53,580
still she’s not wearing the right shoes
the third day she’s pretty much you like

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00:18:53,580 –> 00:18:57,30
your grandparents woodcreek every time
they walk where they’re going

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00:18:57,30 –> 00:19:02,40
whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo that’s Linda literally
every single time she’s walking then

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00:19:02,40 –> 00:19:05,820
by the fourth day you could tell that
Linda’s you know struggling to walk

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00:19:05,820 –> 00:19:09,418
finally on the fifth day she was at the
animal kingdom and she said she just

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00:19:09,419 –> 00:19:12,809
couldn’t go on and she says coming back
to epcot international actually couldn’t

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00:19:12,809 –> 00:19:17,10
walk out of the animal kingdom they had
to take her out any wheelchair and so

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00:19:17,10 –> 00:19:20,850
she arrived at epcot in a wheelchair and
that was it for the day but her her feet

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00:19:20,850 –> 00:19:26,129
had swollen up to the size of like you
know like a whole tenderloin looks like

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00:19:26,130 –> 00:19:30,720
he’ll pick a whole tenderloin side of
beef thing looks like he has is swollen

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00:19:30,720 –> 00:19:35,549
up like that like the size of like a
salmon just big and and purple like the

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00:19:35,549 –> 00:19:39,780
color of dried beef they weren’t they
weren’t flesh-tone more was it was

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00:19:39,780 –> 00:19:45,59
purple and swollen so she eventually
lost all of her toenails in both feet

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00:19:45,59 –> 00:19:47,790
but you know but you know someone was
coming up so she actually painted the

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00:19:47,790 –> 00:19:50,730
dead skin on her toes to look like
toenails so she can go to the beach and

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00:19:50,730 –> 00:19:54,450
stuff after that she sort of us stops
volunteering and the rest of us sort of

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00:19:54,450 –> 00:19:58,919
salad forth but it was a it was your
mission learned that it’s a was a

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00:19:58,919 –> 00:20:02,429
serious thing the other thing that the
other thing is really cool was the first

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00:20:02,429 –> 00:20:08,160
time we went to do work date in question
the magic kingdom we had like six or

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00:20:08,160 –> 00:20:11,940
eight people in my idea at the time was
that everyone was going to work for to

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00:20:11,940 –> 00:20:17,190
our ships so like over the course of a
16-hour day everyone work two shifts so

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you would work like that

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00:20:18,470 –> 00:20:22,280
two hours then you’d be off for hours
they need to work two more than 24 hours

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00:20:22,280 –> 00:20:25,610
and what turns out was everyone hated
that schedule with a would-be everyone

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00:20:25,610 –> 00:20:30,649
would much rather or three straight days
like have two people do nothing but the

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00:20:30,650 –> 00:20:34,789
magic kingdom for an entire day which is
brutal right but then into work at the

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00:20:34,789 –> 00:20:37,610
next day then they work the studio’s
then they would give them a day off then

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00:20:37,610 –> 00:20:39,168
that work the animal kingdom

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00:20:39,169 –> 00:20:42,590
it says that people would much rather do
that than working two hours and sit

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00:20:42,590 –> 00:20:46,730
around for hours doing nothing and then
working again for two hours so so we can

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00:20:46,730 –> 00:20:50,360
learn how how people like to work from
that and that was that was really

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00:20:50,360 –> 00:20:55,459
interesting so actually ended up taking
us fewer people to do the work but yes

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00:20:55,460 –> 00:20:58,700
that was that was really something you
need to learn now of course we have 4

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00:20:58,700 –> 00:21:02,390
million users of the website and hundred
fifteen hundred sixteen thousand paying

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00:21:02,390 –> 00:21:05,780
customers so we get all kinds of wait
times now for free

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00:21:05,780 –> 00:21:09,230
well hey again you do the public service
VW today

335
00:21:09,860 –> 00:21:15,199
yeah super grateful about the line that
that’s really awesome that you have you

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00:21:15,200 –> 00:21:20,510
have so many stories to tell and your
sisters expense at that and it was a

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00:21:20,510 –> 00:21:23,990
content which they left about it so
we’re going to wrap up this episode now

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00:21:23,990 –> 00:21:29,120
and have you back on for the next
episode 4 . well thank you thank you for

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00:21:29,120 –> 00:21:32,149
joining us for this episode of the
dreamers podcast

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00:21:33,40 –> 00:21:38,950
follow us on twitter and dreamers
podcast join us on facebook at

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00:21:38,950 –> 00:21:45,400
facebook.com slash dreamers podcast if
you or someone you know would like to be

342
00:21:45,400 –> 00:21:52,90
a guest on the dreamers podcast please
send an email to j @j par . co this

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00:21:52,90 –> 00:21:56,169
podcast is copyright 2014 by j parr .
comb

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00:22:08,530 –> 00:22:18,100
have you ever wanted to share something
with someone just because well we do a

345
00:22:18,100 –> 00:22:25,330
lot so we started a podcast about well
whatever we want my name is joyce and

346
00:22:25,330 –> 00:22:28,750
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00:22:29,530 –> 00:22:37,30
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