A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 3 – Four Parks, One Day

Disclaimer: This post is going to be a little more detailed and time oriented than typical as I know many are interested in doing 4 parks in one day and many are also curious as to how much can be done on a VIP tour.

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walk Disney

Today we all woke up pretty early at 6:00AM when our alarm went off because we needed to get an early start if we were gonna do all 4 parks in 1 day. I didn’t sleep too much as Notre Dame beat Indiana in the 1st college football playoff game ever, and I was just hyped. It was a toasty 45 degrees Fahrenheit and a light wind so felt more like 40 and had an expected high of 60 F, so we decided to break out the winter gear. The high would be 60 today, but we only brought our winter coats and in the evening it would be back to the 40s around 10PM so it just made sense to layer up.

We were out the door by 7:06AM and headed to Capt. Cooks for breakfast. Capt. Cooks is just a quick service restaurant which is just what we needed. Kendall and I typically just split meals as we don’t each much and as such we split a breakfast burrito and Lucy had Fruit Loops.

While we were eating someone spotted my Notre Dame jacket and we started talking. Apparently she was a ND grad, and so were her siblings and their dad was a Notre Dame grad and also a board member, and they were all here on vacation together. So we talked Notre Dame football for far too long than we should as we were on a tight schedule.

I eventually pulled myself out of the conversation and we went to the bus stop at the front of the Polynesian at 7:35AM and there was already a bus waiting for us.

Kendall has come miles in her recovery since the accident but she still can’t quite walk a full theme park day, and as such we still brought along a wheelchair as backup to help reduce the number of steps. Disney is about as accessible friendly as it gets and they opened the rear doors to allow me to load in the wheelchair.

In what felt like a once in a lifetime occurrence, we had our own personal bus this morning which was a pleasant surprise.

At 8:02AM we arrived at Animal Kingdom. We went through security and made our way to take a photo a the Tree of Life. As part of our 4 parks in 1 day challenge, we needed to take a picture at each parks icon, eat a snack and ride a ride.

While we have a 7 hour VIP tour today, we still bought the Lightning Lanes Multi Pass and the Single Pass for Flight of Passage for Animal Kingdom. Our first LL was at 8:25AM for Dinosaur. I know from many years of Disney going this was an essentially useless LL as Dinosaur is a walk on at that time. There weren’t many LL options for right when the park opened left so I booked full well knowing it was useless, but I wasn’t booking this LL for its line cutting advantages. I was booking it so I could use it early on so I could unlock LL’s at other parks. When you buy a LL you have to pick a park for your first three LL. After you scan your first LL in the park you chose, you could the start booking LL’s in other parks.

Any LL for right when the park opens is pretty useless as the lines are short at that time. I needed to be able to scan a LL as soon as possible so I could back load our day with Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom for after our VIP tour ends. So the moment I tapped in I immediately booked another LL for that night at Magic Kingdom.

We were on the ride by 8:33AM and off at 8:38AM.

Dinosaur is not exactly my favorite ride but it will be extinct soon (pun intended) when it’s replaced by a new Indiana Jones ride so I felt I needed to go on it for nostalgia’s sake. Lucy like most younger kids was somewhat traumatized by the ride. We then started walking to Flight of Passage.

At 8:50AM we arrived at Flight of Passage which is my favorite ride in Animal Kingdom and one of my favorite rides of all time. We were right on time for our Lightning Lane. We tapped in but because this was a Lightning Lane Single Pass and not a multi pass we couldn’t choose another one after we redeemed it.

At 9:15AM we exited Flight of Passage and then started heading to Everest which was our next Lightning Lane. We stopped on the way to do some pin trading.

We got to Everest at 9:38 AM and tapped in, and selected another LL at Magic Kingdom. By 9:48 AM we were done.

We hadn’t eaten since 7:00AM so we took a snack and bathroom break. Kendall ordered a chai latte from Joffrey’s and we then started heading to Kilimanjaro Safari for our final LL in Animal Kingdom. Kendall and Lucy stopped and traded some pins on the way.

At 10:20AM we started walking to the Safari and we tapped in at 10:25AM. Safari was enjoyable as always and we even saw the cheetahs move a fair amount. The cats tend to be pretty lazy so seeing them up and about was a pleasant surprise. We were done by 10:59AM.

On the way out we stopped and bought a churro. It wouldn’t be a Disney trip without a churro.

Afterwards we started heading to park #2, Hollywood Studios, albeit me and Kendall will forever call it MGM. We made it out of the park and to the bus stop to Hollywood Studios at 11:20AM and arrived at Hollywood Studios at 11:36AM.

I had not mentioned this earlier but throughout our time at Animal Kingdom I was receiving text updates from one of the other families on our VIP tour. Apparently they were delayed getting out of their airport in New Jersey due to ice and needed to offload people due to the weight of the plane. So they were going to be late for the tour. We ended up pushing the tour back by an hour so they could make it on time. This then changed our LL plans as I moved one of the LL I had booked for the end of the day to Rock n Roller Coaster so we could do a ride at Hollywood Studios prior to the tour.

We eventually get into the park at 11:48AM after a holdup with security and walked down Sunset Boulevard to take a pic in front of the Tower of Terror.

While I was setting up for my shot, Max decides to photobomb us.

We mobile ordered some food at Rosie’s All American Cafe nearby as we waited for our LL time at 12:20PM as it is very close to the ride. Just had a quick burger and some chicken tenders for Lucy so nothing exciting there.

We finished lunch and went to bathroom and tapped in at 12:34 PM for Rock ‘n Roller Coaster. We then picked another LL for the end of the day at Magic Kingdom. It was our last one of the day and Lucy chose Space Mountain which we will be doing on the VIP tour as well. We got off at 12:50PM.

We still had 40 minutes till our tour so we pin traded and took some more pics. Kendall and Lucy took this time to converted from cold weather to warm weather mode as well. This AM when we left the temp was 45F with a feels like almost in the 30s. It was now beautiful, sunny and about 62F, so Kendall and Lucy went to the bathroom to shed their base layers.

We then met our VIP tour outside the Vacation Gun Theater. Given the cost of the VIP tour, we never would have done one, but by sharing the tour with two other families it brought the cost down from what was completely unreasonable to just kinda unreasonable. The goal of this trip was to do Disney like we’ve never done it before so we went for it.

Our guide’s name was Kennedy and she was amazing. She was full of Disney knowledge and had a very warm personality. The other two families had a total of 3 more kids for Lucy to hang out with. Thankfully one was 9 years old as well and they clicked immediately.

At this point in the day and for the first and only time this vacation I will get to take a mental break. I am just along for the ride. One of the other people we were on a tour with had been on 9 previous tours so the group kinda deferred to her as to what was the most efficient rides to do while on tour. She then pretour told Kennedy, our guide, the plan so we already had guideline for the day. For the next section, for brevities sake, I’ll just be listing the times and rides and if we had a special entrance rather than the Lightning Lane entrance with some occasional commentary.

1:29 PM Started with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Used a back entrance straight to the pre show.

1:46PM Done with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. I always enjoy Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, although I enjoyed The Great Movie Ride more. Every time I go on this ride it reminds me just how much MGM has changed from it’s roots. When it first opened it was a true studio park in the same vein as Universal Studios Hollywood, and that now it’s just a mishmash of random IPs. Hollywood Studios has basically become an IP dumping ground.

13:57PM Used the Lightning Lane for Slinky Dog Dash.

2:05PM Done with Slinky Dog Dash.

2:08PM Used shortcut in line for Toy Story Midway Mania.

2:23PM Finished Toy Story Midway Mania.

2:35PM Used Lightning Lane entrance on Tower of Terror. I had always heard of people that released pennies while the ride was operating to see them float in zero G. Well, I had my sunglasses draped on my T-shirt and when the elevator thrust downward they became dislodged and starting floating in space. It was pretty surreal to be honest. Thankfully, after a couple tries, I was able to snatch them out of the air, but it was a a very cool moment to see them just floating in the air.

2:54PM Done with Tower of Terror

2:57PM Used Lightning Lane entrance on Rock ‘N Roller Coaster

3:13 PM Done with Rock ‘N Roller Coaster

I was kinda sad getting off Rock N’ Roller Coaster as it will be getting rethemed to the Muppets soon, so that may be the last time I ever go on it in its current state.

We then took a quick bathroom break and Kennedy went and fetched us some drinks. Thankfully, for the price of the tour it at least has a couple freebies. The drinks included in the tour include water and soft drinks. In regards to free snacks, it basically includes some snacks between parks and basically happens to be in a nearby snack stand.

3:23PM We take a backstage exit to get to our van that was valet’d near the backstage exit near the now retired Lightning McQueen Racing Academy.

We did the Racing Academy a couple times, it was nothing special, but burned time and had a low wait. The Lightning McQueen animatronic was the most impressive part, and I hope they can repurpose it elsewhere. The space will be transformed into a villains stage show, Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After, and I’m sure unless it’s just awful will assuredly garner a bigger crowd than the Racing Academy.

Of note, when you are backstage you are not allowed to take any pictures. We then proceeded to head on over to Epcot in the van.

Continue the day here.

Read about the previous day here.