(03-11) 04:00 PDT Lake Buena Vista, Fla. -- It's not such a small world, after all. Actually, it's 22 1/2 miles.
That's how far a fellow can walk in the course of a single day at Disney World -- a place larger than many countries -- if he is determined to cover the entire magical marshy miasma in one shot.
Amusement parks are serious business. Only the strong of foot survive. Alas, too few mommies and daddies truly understand what is required of them at Disney World, besides vast sums of local currency. So this reporter strapped a pedometer on his belt to conduct a personal time-and-motion study of Disney World, a place that consists of no fewer than four full-size amusement parks and makes its Anaheim cousin look like one of Ms. White's dwarfs.
(To be fair, hardly anyone visits all four Disney World parks in a single day. The Disney cartel recommends that families stay a week, so that the maximum fun and cash can be extracted by the two sides. But with the new one-day "park hopper" ticket that Disney World now offers, it's possible to cram the whole joint -- Animal Kingdom, Epcot, Disney-MGM Studios and Magic Kingdom -- into a single day's visit.)
As the sun rose over the swampland, this reporter parked amid the sea of cars, switched on the pedometer and began marching toward the front gate. It was a quarter-mile slog to the ticket booth at the Animal Kingdom park.
No rides yet. Just the ticket booth. But when the woman behind the cash register spoke, it seemed already to be the heart of Fantasyland.
"That will be $119.28,'' she said, with a straight face.
(For the record, that's $67 for the basic one-day ticket, $45 for the additional "park hopper'' feature and $7.28 tax. )
And then, with the pedometer clicking off each step, it was down the path, over the bridge, past the parrots, around the island and onto the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, which was pretty good even if the lions, hippos, rhinos and elephant did appear to be mostly asleep. This can happen when the animals are real flesh and blood, of all things, a novel concept for Disney.
Another half mile to the new Expedition Everest roller coaster, a frantic stomach-churner featuring a giant Abominable Snowman that rips up the track halfway through the ride and forces the train to go backward. After that was over, a bunch of little kids in the next car were looking greener than the parrots.
It was high noon. Nearly four miles on the meter. One park down, three to go.
This reporter hopped the Disney bus to Epcot, which is like hopping the 38-Geary to the Richmond. It's behind schedule, it's crowded and you travel standing up with your hand on your billfold, just in case.
At Epcot, as at the other parks, there's a security check at the front gate. Guards peek into backpacks and pat down diaper bags. After Disney World decided it was a terrorist target, it also erected White House-style security blockades at service gates, persuaded the feds to ban planes from its airspace, installed fingerprint scanners at entrance turnstiles and did just about everything else except confiscate the poison apple from the wicked witch.
Fraught with even more danger than that, however, is Epcot's "Mission: Space" ride, an intense flight simulator that spins guests in a centrifuge to duplicate the G forces of space travel. After two riders dropped dead, Disney toned the thing down and now offers a second, tamer version of the ride -- minus the centrifuge -- for weenies. The ride entrance is plastered with warning signs and the Disney pixies hand each guest in line a printed disclaimer full of legalese.
"Caution!'' say the warnings. "You may be more likely to experience motion sickness if you have a headache, inner ear problem, history of migraine, vertigo, elevated anxiety...''
If that's not enough, alongside each rider's seat in the centrifuge is a dispenser with airplane-style barf bags, another Disney first.
(In the interests of fairness, the pedometer was switched off during the ride, to prevent the 70-million mile round trip to Mars from becoming part of the official total.)
Epcot also features a world's fair-style collection of pavilions from different countries. It's about a mile's trek to pass all the pavilions. It's plenty educational, too, because the gift store at the British pavilion was selling genuine English lavender lotion ("made in China,'' said the lavender box) and the French pavilion was selling genuine French chocolate cookies ("made in Finland,'' said the cookie box).
"Sacre bleu!'' said the bilingual Disney pixie, after this broadside to French pride was pointed out by this reporter. "Theese eees terreeeble.''
The pedometer was reading just under 8 miles when this reporter caught a boat to the next park, Disney-MGM Studios, and got another once-over from the Disney dragoons and another Uncle Walt fingerprint scan. It was a long trek to the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, an elaborately-decorated "drop" ride featuring a haunted hotel and a runaway elevator. The pedometer was again stowed for the duration, to prevent it from flying off into the twilight zone with the vital statistics which, at that point, totaled 11 miles.
After another quarter mile came the "Walt Disney: One Man's Dream" show, a sugar-coated movie about the old guy with the mustache who had originally thought to name his famous mouse "Mortimer" until his wife talked sense to him.
In the movie, Disney said he spent six years as a Kansas City newsboy before shrewdly realizing the journalism racket was not for him and switching to something wholesome, like show business.
"I arrived in Hollywood with $40 in my pocket,'' Disney said, speaking in that magical, avuncular voice about a sum of money that might just cover burgers and fries for an average family at one of his parks.
At the end of that fairy tale, darkness had already fallen and there was still another entire park to go. A long Disney bus ride ("No smoking, Mouseketeers,'' said the driver) ended at the front gate of the Magic Kingdom.
Elapsed distance on the pedometer, 16 miles.
There's little at the Magic Kingdom that isn't at the original Disneyland, besides George W. Bush, which is at least as turbulent an encounter as the centrifuge. Mr. Bush, or rather his talking robot, is on display inside the Hall of Presidents. The Anaheim park has just the Abe Lincoln robot, but the Orlando park has managed to cram all 42 presidential robots onto one stage.
"America grows stronger," said the plastic Mr. Bush, speaking (through the genius of Disney) with fewer malapropisms than the Washington version, "and the world looks in new astonishment at what free people can do."
This reporter looked with new astonishment at his pedometer, which was registering nearly 20 miles, and at his watch, which was approaching 9 p.m., America was growing stronger and one free person's pair of legs was growing weaker.
There was just enough time to catch the Jungle Cruise, with its fake animals that were not asleep, and the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, with its new Johnny Depp robot replacing one of the original anonymous buccaneers, and Splash Mountain, with its splash into very cold water (which might have been why hardly anyone was waiting in line at that chilly hour to ride it.) At any event, all those rides are virtual carbon copies of their original Anaheim versions, because Disney may be an American innovator but it does like to steal from itself (there are currently no fewer than five Space Mountains -- in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong.)
And there was also no line for the 42-year-old "Carousel of Progress" ride either, because everyone on planet earth has already seen it by now. The Anaheim version of the singing robot show about the wonders of new appliances got shut down long ago, but the Orlando one is still spinning around and around -- another Disney pixie proudly declared it to be the stage show with the most performances in the history of the world.
"There's a great, big, beautiful tomorrow,'' sang the head robot, between refrigerators, just before this reporter -- who had first seen the show at the 1965 World's Fair in New York -- nodded off.
And then it was 11 p.m., still an hour short of when Cinderella got kicked out of the ball but right on schedule for the army of Disney guards to begin sweeping out the masses, politely but firmly, so the army of janitors right behind could begin sweeping up the popcorn.
This reporter trudged to the front gate and waited in one last line for the ride called "Exit." Somehow he found his way back to his car in a parking lot far, far away and checked the pedometer one last time, beneath the full Florida moon.
And there it was: 36,098 steps, or 22 1/2 miles.
There were other stats, too. Rides ridden: 24. Lines waited in: 37. Water fountains visited: 15. Elapsed time: nearly 15 hours. Total spent on overpriced Disney cuisine: $0. (This is possible if you cram your pockets full of sandwiches and trail mix before setting out, a highly recommended strategy.)
And, with all four amusement parks visited, there was no reason to return to Disney World on that great, big, beautiful tomorrow. There was only one ride left at Orlando airport -- a San Francisco-bound flight simulator blessedly without the simulation.
Steve Rubenstein writes for The Chronicle's Metro section. To comment, e-mail travel@sfchronicle.com.
