The adventure started on March 8. He flew from his home in Atlanta, Georgia to Disneyland Paris. From there, he visited Disney theme parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Anaheim and lastly Orlando on March 19, 2023.
Could you visit every Disney theme park located around the world and ride their combined 216 operable rides in as many days as there are parks? Nathan Firesheets did.
The 34-year-old set out on a personal quest to ride every operating ride at all 12 Disney parks around the world in just 12 days, including travel.
“Just because I like a challenge,” he tells Inside Edition Digital’s Leigh Scheps. “This was a really huge logistical puzzle. I'm an engineer, so logistical puzzles are my bread and butter, so figuring out how to piece it all together was a big part of the adventure for me.”
The adventure started on March 8. Firesheets flew from his home in Atlanta, Georgia, to Disneyland Paris. From there, he visited Disney theme parks in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Anaheim and lastly Orlando.
“It's really surreal,” he says of the journey. “It's one of those things like you're in it and you're going and you get done. Then you're like, wait a minute, did I just do that?”
He started thinking about this trip in 2022, but some COVID-19 restrictions were still in place in Asia, which made the challenge impossible. Once the travel restrictions were lifted in January, he went to work mapping out his itinerary. One of the many challenges was simply figuring out flights.
“As an example, they told me that Air France used to operate three flights a day between Paris and Shanghai. Currently they're operating three a week. I could only make that trip on a Tuesday, a Thursday or a Saturday," Firesheets says. “Originally, I wanted to go Paris to Hong Kong, to Shanghai, to Tokyo because it's a more linear flow. But there are no non-stop flights from Shanghai to Tokyo. Then in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Disney is still only operating with a limited schedule. They're not open on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
People all around the world started following Firesheets’ journey after an image of a sign on his backpack that got ruined in the rain went viral.
“Somebody took a picture of my backpack and sent it to their sister. Then she tweeted it and that tweet is what went viral and started getting attention,” he says. “But what people don't realize is, it was only on my bag that very first day. It did its magic.”
Firesheets does not consider himself a Disney Superfan and prior to starting Disney ride challenges five years ago, had only visited the parks a handful of times. Still, he wanted to start the adventure based on happy memories as a kid.
“We went one time when I was 4 years old. We spent a day at the Magic Kingdom," he says. "There is a photo of me on the Star Jets, which no longer exist, and was replaced by the Astro Orbiter. To pay homage to that visit 30 years ago, I started the trip on the Orbitron at Disneyland Paris and then I ended the trip with the Astro Orbiter at the Magic Kingdom. To bring it all full circle in a couple of different ways and that was really special.”
Some might think Disney helped sponsor the excursion, but Firesheets insists they did not. The journey cost him about $12,000 in expenses, including flights, hotels, park tickets, line skips, taxis and ubers, as well as food and water.
“I was out there all by myself,” he said. “I didn't have any VIP treatment, cast members weren't walking me to the front of the lines, none of that."
He did utilize publicly-available line-skip options such as Genie+, Individual Lightning Lanes, Premier Access and Single-Rider Lines, as well as early entry benefits included as part of his hotel stays. Otherwise, he waited in normal standby lines.
The only time Disney intervened was at the end, he explains. After Firesheets completed the challenge, cast members in Tomorrow Land let him ride Astro Orbiter again during the evening’s fireworks as a way to note his grand finale.
Firesheets says the best part of the whole trip was the internet watching from afar.
“I was not expecting thousands of people to be following along in real time and cheering me on the whole way,” he says.
Firesheets doesn’t have any more Disney challenges lined up but he does want to visit North Dakota and Montana, the two remaining U.S. States he has not been to.
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