Guests of all kinds helped set numerous Guinness World Records.

Image: Frank Phillips, Flickr (license)

Many Guinness World Record attempts necessitate large numbers of people in the same place at the same time, and where better to draw large crowds than a theme park?

In September 2012, members of the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit set out to form the world’s longest handshake chain, which they successfully pulled off with a record 2,380 participants. The record was subsequently bested the following autumn, when the Hong Kong Blind Sports Federation arranged a chain of 3,434 handshakers at a local stadium in Hong Kong.

More recently, seven Six Flags locations -- Six Flags Magic Mountain, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Six Flags over Texas, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Six Flags Great Adventure, Six Flags, St. Louis, and Six Flags Over Georgia – devised a mistletoe-kissing event to commemorate their annual Holiday in the Park event in 2016. Couples were instructed to assume the traditional mistletoe position (that is, holding hands and kissing under sprigs of real mistletoe) for ten seconds in order to earn their place in the record book. While 839 total couples achieved the feat, Six Flags Over Georgia came away with the record for a single-location kissing event with 402 people and 201 couples, which was easily broken in 2017 after the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando hosted 448 holiday smoochers.

Other notable Guinness World Records have included the most onesie-wearers in the world, with 3,152 pajama-clad guests gathering at Staffordshire’s Drayton Manor Theme Park in 2014; the longest scream by a group of people (clocking in at eight minutes 45 seconds), also at Drayton Manor Theme Park; the oldest person to ride a roller coaster (105-year-old Jack Reynolds, who braved the Twistosaurus at Flamingo Land in Yorkshire in 2017); and the most attendees for a simultaneous swim lesson, which took place in the summer of 2011 as over 30,000 swimmers flocked to various bodies of water around the world -- including Walt Disney World’s own Typhoon Lagoon. As far as we know, none of these feats have been beat so far.

Of course, sometimes setting a world record has nothing to do with attendance numbers at all. Take EPCOT, for example: Between 2006 and 2011, Disney employees at Living with the Land earned recognition after growing the largest tomato plant in the world (610.63 feet), harvesting the most tomatoes from a single plant in a year (32,194), growing the largest cucumber plant (610.31 feet), harvesting the most cucumbers from a single plant in a year (2,563), and landing the heaviest lemon in the world (15.05 pounds).

Emily Rose and Lex Emmanuel sealed the deal with a clandestine wedding ceremony at the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)

This is one location you won’t find listed among the approved Disney Parks wedding destinations. Rather than shelling out thousands of dollars for a Disney-sanctioned ceremony on-property, one couple decided to tie the knot in the darkened chamber of the Enchanted Tiki Room -- for free.

How did they pull it off? According to the best man, the couple arranged for 25 of their closest family and friends to join them at Disneyland on a weekend in 2015. They quickly settled in at the Enchanted Tiki Room and orchestrated a brief ceremony during the customary four-minute window prior to the start of the show. That gave them just enough time to say “I do,” exchange a necklace (rather than wedding rings; per the best man’s report, those hadn’t been finished in time), and share true love's kiss before anyone was alerted to the nature of the gathering.

Emily and Lex weren’t the only couple to attempt something as wild as a secret wedding in a theme park, either. Later that year, their idea was co-opted by Disneyland guests Andrea and Gabriel Estrada, who arranged their own secret ceremony under the shadow of Sleeping Beauty Castle.

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What’s the strangest thing you’ve done to commemorate your love for theme parks? Would you cross the globe, pull off a guerrilla-style wedding, or take part in the next Guinness World Record attempt to prove it?