What Actually Happened At Disney World?

Walt Disney World is a place every child between the ages of 6 months to 2 years of age already knows about and desperately aspires to visit. I was one of those children, as were most of you— whether you admit it or not. At Ashley Hall, eighth graders visit Disney World every year to study physics. If you’ve ever wondered what it is like, this is for you.

The trip is made up of two traveling days and two days in the parks over the course of one week. This year (2024) the trip was from January 16-19. 

January 16: This was the first day of our trip .We drove down to Disney World, and the drive took much longer than expected because it was raining. We went to Blue Springs to  see manatees and that was pretty fun. Overall it was a long yet exciting day, but Blue Springs was beautiful. 

January 17: This was our first day going into the parks. We started at  Hollywood Studios, and got to go on plenty of rides. We woke up at 6:30 AM, and we got to the park around 7:00 AM. We went through the security and finally entered the park. 

The first thing we did was a workshop with the Imagination Campus. That day it was focused on how roller coasters and drop towers work. A guide led a group of us through some basic physics (I.E. acceleration, distance, displacement, Newton’s Laws etc.) and then told us how some rides work. One thing I learned was that launch roller coasters use electromagnets to start. I honestly thought that electro-magnets were made up by sci-fi people to explain how you could make a magnet gun without magic. She then took us on the Tower of Terror and ran us through a few more concepts and before we knew it, three hours were gone. 

After the workshop we had free time. We were able to go anywhere we wanted as long as we had two other people with us at all times, and we met the teachers back at the assigned times (1:00 PM, 5:00 PM, and 7:00 PM). So everyone spent the rest of our day having fun and bonding with friends before we got back to the hotel and crashed into our beds.

January 18: This was our last day in the parks and we intended to make the most of it. We spent the day in Magic Kingdom (the one with Cinderella’s castle in the middle).

We started the day off with a workshop, this time about theme park design. It was really a fun workshop because our groups were turned into even smaller groups to design our own theme parks. Then our groups got back together and made a bigger theme park combining all of our designs. It was a really fun exercise in creativity and collaboration. And after three hours the day was ours. 

We spent the day going on all the best rides, hanging out, and pretending like we ruled the world with how on top of it we were. We then watched the fireworks show as a grade and went back to the hotel. It had been a long day, so we crashed hard. When I fell asleep that night, I remember thinking about how sad it was that we had to leave already. 

January 19: The bus ride back was long in the way that a trip home always feels longer than the trip there when you’re excited about what’s ahead. It was weird, to know that this trip that I had been looking forward to for years had come to an end already. But at the same time, I was excited to sleep in my own bed and see my mom and sister again. And when we got back to Ashley Hall at 3:00 we couldn’t be happier that the long bus ride was over. 

The Disney trip was a really great experience. We had fun, learned, and overall got to just be dumb with our best friends. It’s as fun as it is surreal to be in Disney with my friends because I had been looking forward to that trip since sixth grade and now it’s behind me. It’s one of the strangest feelings in the world honestly. But what the trip taught me was that I can’t let the time I have with my friends go to waste.  I could sit and be sad that things aren’t perfect, or that I have school the next day, or I could take the day and “rule the world” if you will, Ferris Bueller style. That is what I hope someone else can learn from me or this trip too. Don’t let your time go to waste.