This past week we were able to spend two days at Disney World and I was able to track steps taken, stairs climbed, and calories burned. Since we have done this for Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Animal Kingdom, I have been able to do some maths and find some patters.The first pattern is pretty easy to find and has to do with a correlation between the park we attend and the steps we take. The second maths realization has to do with calories we burn.
One of the easiest to see is that eight hours spent at any park will get you a lot of steps in for the day. If, that park turns into two different parks and those parks are EPCOT and Magic Kingdom, you are, most likely, looking at about 30,000 steps and 2,500 calories! That is fantastic for a day in the parks, especially when we consider that this is only showing calories burnt from logged movement. This does not include the calories our bodies output for temperature control on either very warm or very cool days.
That being said, it is pretty obvious that a day spend at EPCOT and Magic Kingdom will get you the most steps and the most calorie burn. If we were to do a sliding scale of parks that burn the most calories to the least, it would go:
- Magic Kingdom because of all the back and forth walking and inclines
- EPCOT since it is huge and walking far is not difficult
- Animal Kingdom, again, it is quite large, but not as big as EPCOT or as hilly as Magic Kingdom
- Hollywood Studios fall last since it is the smallest of the four and most areas are quite close together. This park is also extremely flat.
This last trip I was able to log the calories burned and steps taken at Hollywood Studios in 4-hours. After 4-hours of rides, shows, and eating, I was able to burn about 600 calories and walk 5,000 steps. No, this is not much compared to Magic Kingdom and EPCOT's high rolling numbers, but hey, I will happily take a calorie burn of 150 calories/hour any day of the week!
Now, on to the calories. It turns out that if you spend 8-hours in a park, you will, on average, burn between 120 and 160 calories per hour. The higher you want the number, the bigger the park you will need to attend. Both of the smaller parks will leave you at a calorie burn right around 120, but, EPCOT and Magic Kingdom will get you burning 150+ calories per hour! This also means that EPCOT and Magic Kingdom will leave you feet hurting the most and your body the most tired at the end of the day. My best tip for this would be to get some ice from those beloved hotel ice machines and plant your feet on them for the rest of the night. Even if you feet are not hurting at the time, chances are this ice trick will save some soreness on your next day of trecking through the parks or heading home.
