A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Final Itinerary, Stats and FAQ

Posted on by Ramon

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

The following article covers the final itinerary AFTER all the changes due to Air France. It also includes the final stats of the trip, and the most frequently asked questions regarding our once in a lifetime Disney journey around then world.

The Final Itinerary

Click on an individual day to be taken to the trip report for that day.

The Final Stats

  • Number of Disney Parks: 12
  • Number of Park Days: 10
  • Number of Rides: 96
  • Number of Hotels: 11
  • Number of Disney Resort Hotels: 8
  • Number of Disneyland Hotels: 5
  • Number of Flights: 11
  • Number of Airlines: 10
  • Number of Countries/SARs Visited: 6
  • Number of Airports: 14
  • Number of Airport Lounges: 12
  • Number of Miles Flown: 21,197
  • Number of Hours Spent on a Plane: 41 hours 3 minutes
  • Number of Steps Taken: 337,543
  • Number of Time Zones Crossed: 24
  • Number of Times Wrongfully Denied Boarding: 1

Frequently Asked Questions

Why would you do this? This seems absolutely miserable.

This is similar to the age old question of asking a climber why he climbs. The classic answer to that is, “Because it’s there.”

My answer is then, “Because they exist.” For a more detailed answer about the trip inception, I suggest you check this post.

How did you plan this? This seems like a pretty intense trip to plan.

That is a very looong answer. I’ll just refer you to the set of articles I wrote here, as the amount of planning involved in this trip was insane.

Were you glad you did it?

Totally! This was hands down one of the most unique and ambitious trips we’ve ever taken. It was incredible to experience all the Disney Parks in one trip and is something that will almost assuredly never happen again. This ticked off a lot of boxes on our bucket lists including:

  • Circumnavigating the globe in one trip
  • Visiting all 12 Disney Parks
  • Staying in a club level room
  • Doing a VIP tour
  • Doing all four parks in one day at Disney World
  • Staying on property at all the Disney Resorts
  • Staying at all the Disneyland Hotels
  • Spending a night inside a Disney Park – Three nights actually as Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau and Hotel Miracosta are both inside Tokyo DisneySea.

Really staying on property was a real treat for us, as despite our innumerable Disney trips we had only stayed on Disney property as a family a total of 6 nights prior to this trip.

Despite the Air France debacle which definitely caused a significant amount of grief, we still had a great time at each park and loved seeing all the different shows, parades, attractions and nighttime spectaculars. This was definitely a dream trip for us.

What was your favorite park?

Tokyo DisneySea hands down. It was just so well themed. They clearly put a lot of thought into the flow of the park when they initially designed it. The sheer attention to detail was incredible. They spared absolutely no expense when designing this park, and it almost felt like they had a blank check as pretty much every single attraction and land was just so well done.

Nearly all the rides were grand and had a massive sense of scale about them. Unlike most of the US parks it is very much thematically intact with minimal IP injected. It is just such a unique park compared to all the other Disney Parks. The new land, Fantasy Springs, is awesome and has added some great new rides to the park.

Also the fact that Tokyo DisneySea has not one, but TWO hotels that are literally in the park is an added bonus.

What is your least favorite park?

Walt Disney Studios Paris. We had been there before and knew going in it was pretty subpar.

They have made some improvements since the last time we went such as retheming an area to Avenger’s Campus, but it’s still very small without many attractions, and the theming is pretty much nonexistent. There are some highlights though in that it has the Crush Coaster and the best of all the Tower of Terrors.

How would you rank the parks?

That’s tough as they are all so good except for Walt Disney Studios Paris. It’s also hard because each park has some strengths and weaknesses, and everyone has personal preferences, but for the sake of making a list here it goes.

  1. Tokyo DisneySea
  2. Tokyo Disneyland
  3. Disneyland
  4. Magic Kingdom
  5. Disneyland Paris
  6. Epcot
  7. Hollywood Studios
  8. Shanghai Disneyland
  9. Hong Kong Disneyland
  10. Disney’s California Adventure
  11. Animal Kingdom
  12. Walt Disney Studios Paris

What was your favorite hotel?

Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau was absolutely amazing.

I had lowered my expectations going in as many bloggers and reviewers have not been very hot on Fantasy Springs Hotel describing it as bland and uninspired. I did not feel that at all. It was not as ornate as the Hotel Miracosta or Disneyland Hotel, but it was impressive in its own right. Our room there was just magical and definitely exceeded expectations.

Our balcony had a view of Fantasy Springs and it was just fun to people watch. The service there was absolutely top notch and among the best of any hotel we have ever stayed at.

What was your favorite ride?

That is a tough question and akin to asking someone who is their favorite child. In the end though we are talking rides and not children. I’d probably have to say Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast. It’s definitely not the most thrilling ride, but of all the rides I’ve been on in all the parks it captures the spirit of a movie the best.

It also doesn’t rely on screens and is really just a very amped up modern dark ride with a very unique ride vehicle that really draws you into the scenes. It basically just took tried and proven concepts and improved upon them in all aspects. They further combined it with some impressive practical effects and one of the best Disney movie soundtracks of all time. That is the definition of a winning combination. It’s just an amazing ride.

Rise of the Resistance is the only other ride that could possibly compare and for most people it probably comes down to personal preference which is better. Rise of the Resistance is more thrilling and technologically impressive with grander set pieces, but Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast is more whimsical and just quintessential Disney.

What shoes did you wear?

There is nothing fancy here. I was wearing either Under Armour size 6 kids running shoes or on colder days I would wear my Columbia hiking boots .

Is this some type of Guiness Book of World Record?

Not even close. The fastest is 75 hours and 6 minutes by a Canadian named Lindsey Nameth in 2017.

There was also a guy named Nathan Firesheets who did all 12 parks in 12 days and did ALL the operating rides at the time in that time span as well.

For comparison we only did 96 rides in 16 days. Our goal was not to do as many rides as possible, as we sprinkled in shows, parades, dining, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, character greets, and nighttime spectaculars. We were not remotely trying to do every single ride. We wanted to experience a variety of what the parks had to offer and rides are only a part of the entire park experience. Also, traveling as a family of 3 with a 9 year old is just going to slow you down compared to an adult couple or a solo traveler.

In terms of records set though, I am willing to bet Lucy at the age of 9 is the youngest person to have done all 12 parks in a single trip though. The Adventures by Disney 115,000 USD private jet tour had a minimum age of 12 years old. I have scoured Facebook groups and forums extensively searching for tips and trip reports for a trip like this and there were only a handful of people I could find that have done this that were not on the Adventures by Disney trip. Most either visited all 12 parks over a multi year time span, or in the rare situation where they did it all in one trip, were at minimum a family with older teenagers. I could not find a single child that had done it. This is not an easy trip for a child, but Lucy was an absolute trooper and aside from some occasional jet lag did amazing on this trip.

I would also bet we were the first family to do this and stay at all the Disneyland Hotels. So if you’re looking for some kind of world record, I’d say we were the fastest to ever stay at all the Disneyland Hotels clocking in at around 10 days. No other trip I found did this, and even the Adventures By Disney Private jet tour did not stay at the Disneyland Hotels each time, opting for the Explorer Lodge in Hong Kong, and Grand Californian in Disneyland, and in the 2023 trip they stayed at Disney’s Hotel New York instead of Disneyland Hotel Paris as it was undergoing renovations at the time.

Did you feel like it was too rushed?

The way it ended up, absolutely. For the Asia portion we initially had 4 nights in Shanghai, 3 nights in Hong Kong and 4 nights in Tokyo for a total of 11 nights in Asia. In order to keep the vacation together after Air France denied us boarding we ended up with 2 nights in Hong Kong, 1 night in Shanghai, and 4 nights in Tokyo for a total of 7 nights. That is a long way to go and a lot of flights for just 7 nights in Asia. We only had 19 hours in Shanghai total, and that is obviously not enough time.

Our hotel hopping situation was amped up due to the changes as well. Originally the number of nights per hotel was 3 nights in the Polynesian, 4 nights in Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, 3 nights in Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau, 1 night in Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, 2 nights in Hotel Miracosta, and 2 nights in Disneyland Hotel. So our hotel situation looked like this: 3-4-3-1-1-2-2.

The way it ended up was 3 nights in the Polynesian, 1 night in Fairfield Inn in Miami, 1 night in an Airbnb in Paris, 2 nights in Disneyland Paris Hotel, 2 nights in Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau, 1 night in Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, 2 nights in Hotel Miracosta, 2 nights in Disneyland Hotel, and the 1 night in the Residence Inn in Charlotte due to our overnight delay. So ultimately our hotel situation was: 3-1-1-2-2-1-1-1-2-2-1. That is a lot of hotel hopping. If this was a road trip, that would be marginally feasible as you aren’t going through air port security and you’re just hopping into and out of a car. Given this was combined with 11 flights, 14 airports, jet lag, and a variety of other forms of transportation it definitely got pretty hectic at times.

We had always planned on hopping in Tokyo as it is a very complex resort to book. If you get a Vacation Package, you will assuredly need to move hotel rooms at least once because of the how hotel bookings work in Tokyo Disney. Hotel hopping in Tokyo is a VERY common thing and practically a necessity for many.

Initially, we only had 7 hotels booked, and didn’t really hotel hop until we got to Tokyo. Unfortunately, we ended up with 11 hotels, and never stayed in one hotel for longer than 2 night after our stay at the Polynesian Village Resort in Orlando, which made for a lot of packing and unpacking. Thankfully, we are team carryon which helped keep the insanity down some.

What was the hardest part?

The jet lag for sure. I am Filipino so I know what the jet lag is like going to Southeast Asia, and that’s why we had more time scheduled in Asia initially to help our bodies adjust. Sadly, due to circumstances beyond our control that is just not how it turned out, and our bodies adjusted to the schedule right as we were leaving Asia.

What souvenirs did you buy?

To be honest we bought very few. I personally only bought a hat, which I subsequently lost the same day I bought it. I was looking for a zip up sweatshirt or fleece the whole vacation but never found one I liked. We did buy a magnet at every hotel and park that had them, but not all hotels had a souvenir magnet. Lucy bought some pins to trade, a lanyard, two sweatshirts, a signature book, a Stitch purse, a Stitch water bottle, a hat and some pens. Kendall also bought a lanyard and pins along with a Disney World VIP Tour Spirit Jersey, VIP Tour Loungefly, a hat, and a sweatshirt from Disneyland. We also bought a couple very small souvenirs for some friends at home. Amazingly, we bought zero t-shirts on this trip.

I did keep some of the documentation from the hotels and all the hotel keys for every Disney Hotel we stayed at.

I also kept any physical park tickets we had, but the only park that had physical park tickets was Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland. The Tokyo Disney Hotels each gave us several souvenir tote bags so we brought home one tote bag from each hotel. Fantasy Springs also gave us a small memory book that we could put our room keys, and other trinkets and souvenirs from our stay and we brought it home. Believe it or not, but that was all we took home despite going to all 12 Disney Parks in the world.

Which is your favorite castle?

Tokyo’s Cinderella Castle. Tokyo is a clone of the Cinderella’s Castle in Magic Kingdom except it still has the original color scheme which I prefer compared to the pink color scheme Magic Kingdom has now.

What was your favorite nighttime spectacular?

After seeing all the nighttime spectaculars around the globe, my favorite is ironically the one we didn’t get to see. Happily Ever After was sadly replaced at Magic Kingdom by the holiday fireworks show, Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks, while we were there. Happily Ever After is exactly what you look for in a nighttime spectacular in that it does an amazing job of evoking emotions via the use of music, projections and fireworks. It’s just absolutely magical.

Of the ones we saw, even though we didn’t see it up close with the projections, Illuminate in Shanghai Disney holds a special place in my heart. They had great music, and the effort it took to get to Shanghai really just amped up getting to see it as we really didn’t think we were gonna make it to Shanghai after Day 4. The fact we watched it from the terrace at our hotel as we had a late night snack also just capped off our short stay in Shanghai in the most perfect way.

How was the weather?

The weather was actually great! God threw us a bone and it only rained 15 minutes the whole vacation and we even happened to be indoors when it happened. In regard to the cold, it actually wasn’t that cold except our last day in Tokyo. We prefer to go to the parks in cold weather rather than hot weather, as the heat just wears you down and people in the parks tend to be grumpier in the hot weather. You can only strip off so many clothes, but you can always layer up more to stay warm.

If we were to do this again, we’d without a doubt do it the same time of year well before we’d try to survive the parks in the summer in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Orlando. The heat and humidity in those three cities would absolutely kill us.

What was the best thing you ate?

McDonald’s obviously!

Aside from that though, the gumbo in Blue Bayou was pretty good and probably my favorite food the whole vacation.

The beef chuck in peanut sauce on the Air France flight was pretty good as well.

What was your favorite flight?

That would be a competition between Virgin Atlantic and Air France. They both are excellent carriers, but I think the service on Virgin Atlantic was just a little better. I’ll say if you like to drink, Virgin Atlantic has the most attentive drink service I’ve ever experienced on a plane. They almost won’t let you see the bottom of your glass. The British I have met take great pride in how much they can drink, and I’d say that definitely extends to their airlines as well. I really enjoyed the cabin lighting as well and the seats.

Just not having those bright cold LED lights and having a more calming magenta colored lighting for some reason really just makes for a much more enjoyable experience. Those cold bright LEDs on most planes just does not invoke relaxation.

We did enjoy Air France though, aside from their service in Miami. The amount of space Lucy had in her Air France pod was pretty crazy.

What was the best airport lounge?

Of the ones on this trip, I’d have to say Cathay Pacific’s Business Class lounge, The Pier, in Hong Kong was without a doubt the best. They easily had the best food by a mile. They served a large variety of Western and Asian Options.

They had a multitude of places to sit, and it felt way “homier” than the average lounge.

How are you still alive?

Thankfully, despite all the McDonald’s I eat my heart continues to beat and my lungs also exchange air pretty well so I’m still ticking.

What would you do differently?

I would either get a Chinese Visa just to be on the safe side OR start the Asia part in Hong Kong that way we wouldn’t have a potential issue going into China. I have zero faith in the airlines to know the rules going to China, and after discussing our case with consumer advocates, they state airlines that are not based in Asia can really struggle with this rule unfortunately occasionally wrongfully deny passengers despite this benefit being clearly listed on the Chinese Embassy website and US.gov travel site.

I’d also maybe try and find a way to reduce the amount of hotel hopping in Tokyo. The issue is that Tokyo Hotel Booking is very complex, and it was almost required to do multiple hotels based on what we wanted to accomplish, so I’m not so sure how to get around that.

Is there anything you wish you hadn’t spent money on?

I feel that Blue Bayou Fantasmic Dining Package wasn’t really worth it. The dinner with tip ended up being around $300 total for 3 people. We don’t eat that much so we ate very little of the whole dinner, and had no way to take it home as we were flying out the next day. The seats while nice, weren’t that much better than if we’d shown up 30 minutes before given the crowd level that day, and we coulda used the time we waited for the table and to eat to have done more at Disneyland.

We also felt that the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique in Hong Kong was very overpriced at $325 USD for the quality of the makeover. This was not our first time doing a Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, so we know that they are pretty good at making it such that the hair can stay in place regardless of what a child can throw at it. We didn’t really do anything too intense and after about 3 hours Lucy’s hair was falling apart. I will say that the dress quality was top notch though.

What was your best purchase or upgrade?

While it was expensive, purchasing the Unlimited Premier Access Vacation Package, more officially known as the “Even More” package, at Tokyo Disney Resort was definitely worth every penny. Tokyo Disney Resort is actually even MORE complex than planning a Walt Disney World Vacation, and having the Vacation Package completely eliminated nearly all planning required.

It also allowed us to take our time in the mornings as without a Vacation Package the majority of guests who want to actually ride most of the rides will arrive well before the park opens to secure Premier Access passes. This truly streamlined our time in Tokyo making for an incredible time there with minimal friction. Tokyo had the busiest parks by far the whole vacation with many wait times topping 180 minutes, and having unlimited access to any Premier Access line was a huge time saver.

Would you do it again?

While we are incredibly grateful and fortunate to have been able to take a trip of this nature, we probably wouldn’t do it again, at least not with how our itinerary eventually ended up. It was already a very fast paced trip, but the itinerary adjustments due to the Air France debacle really hurt us toward the end. It took a trip that was already a 10 in terms of pacing and amped it up to 20 and didn’t give us much time to adjust to the jet lab. The original itinerary had 57 percent more time in Asia which would have given us more time to get over the jet lag. Sadly, that’s not how it ended up due to Air France, so we’ll never know how the trip would have gone if it went off as originally planned. If I was to do it again, I would without a doubt stick with an absolute minimum of 11 nights in Asia.

Are you getting any compensation from Air France?

Unfortunately, as of the time of this writing that is a resounding NO. They state that “you were not able to mention or provided a copy of the ticket that you have an onward flight to Hong Kong on 28 December 2024 since your flights with Air France are only up to Shanghai.”

This is absolutely absurd as we spent 2.5 hour discussing this and I argued vehemently that all we needed was proof of onward flight out of Shanghai. I have multiple witnesses stating that I was arguing all that all we needed was to show proof of an onward flight which is what I had IN HAND. This is clearly a case of the airlines covering their !@# to be honest, and we are fighting it, but are unlikely to win based on the opinion of some consumer advocates I have contacted as Air France is notorious for refusing to approve claims.

If anyone has any experience regarding cases like this I am open to any and all suggestions as it cost us over 300k more miles and several thousand USD to fix the problem they created. This doesn’t even account for the loss of vacation time and the drastic changes in our itinerary which incurred significant cancellation penalties or just loss of cash due to nonrefundability.

Weren’t you exhausted from spending that much time in the air and in airports?

To be totally honest, the airport and plane flights, especially the long hauls were where we actually got the best rest. Flying business class makes the airport an enjoyable place as the lounges are very nice and have tons of free food and drinks. We actually look forward to the airports if they have a decent lounge.

Also the service in business class combined with having a private little pod on the long haul flights makes the time in transit incredibly relaxing and enjoyable. To be honest, you don’t want to get off the plane. Lucy gets upset if the flight is just a short couple hours she enjoys it so much.

There really isn’t much else you can do on a plane other than eat, sleep and watch some TV, and it was actually our chance to regenerate in preparation for the long park days when we were actually not in transit. I definitely think Lucy slept better on the plane than land.

What was the most surprising part of the trip?

Probably how it seems the Walt Disney World equivalent of most rides tend to be worse than their counterparts elsewhere in the world. This is regardless of whether Disney World was the first to get it, or if it was cloned into Disney World. I’m not sure why that is, but for some reason if a ride exists elsewhere, the worst version seems to exist in Disney World. Like anything though, there are some exceptions. Dumbo is best in Magic Kingdom given there are two rides and you have a playground to wait in. Also Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and Journey of the Little Mermaid are marginally better in Magic Kingdom than Disneyland.

Fantasmic is better in Disney World, and better by a lot right now given the dragon is currently down in Disneyland.

I was also surprised just how thematically disjointed Disney World has become in comparison to the other Disney Parks. Aside from Walt Disney Studios Paris which is basically themeless, the other parks maintain a great deal of thematic integrity. Animal Kingdom is really the only Disney World park left at this point that hasn’t become a total mishmash of IP and ideas.

Walt Disney World is fun don’t get me wrong, but they are definitely hurting on maintaining an overall theme these days. Hollywood Studios and Epcot being the worst of the park offenders. Tron is absolutely gorgeous, but just doesn’t totally flow with the rest of Tomorrowland. Hopefully, at some point when they do a total overhaul of Tomorrowland and Tron will look less out of place. On the resort front, the new Island Tower in the Polynesian Resort is just so out of place between the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian, it is obvious Disney has thrown thematic integrity out the window at Disney World.

The new Island tower looks JUST like the rest of the Polynesian.

What was your favorite part of the trip?

The Japanese Culture. It has been over 20 years since I’d been to Japan, so I had forgotten just how unique it is. Everyone is just so polite and respectful ALL THE TIME. Everything is just incredibly orderly and calm at the parks.

Even after the nighttime spectaculars, there aren’t people who are shoving and pushing just to get out 30 seconds sooner. Everyone just walks in an orderly fashion. It was so refreshing to experience and made the experience just so much more enjoyable than the environment in the US parks.

To be honest, it kinda ruins the US parks for me because it shows me that as a society you can have fun AND respect other peoples space and rights in a public setting. In the three full park days we did in Tokyo we never saw one confrontation anywhere. We only had two park days in the US this trip, and we either witnessed or were part of multiple confrontations in our time in the parks. We obviously also have many other data points from our innumerable visits to the US parks over the years, which definitely leans in an obvious increase in entitled behavior and confrontations over the last 30 years.

The Japanese parks are also just immaculately clean. It is incredibly rare to see any trash or even food on the ground. This is in spite of the complete lack of garbage cans almost anywhere. There is also a total lack of chewing gum on the ground as well.

How did Kendall do?

Kendall absolutely killed it. We didn’t use a wheelchair in the airport at all. She also did not use a wheelchair in Shanghai, Hong Kong or Anaheim. Her foot held up incredibly well, and she walked way more than we ever anticipated, including walking a true FULL day at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure on our last park day that totaled over 26,000 steps! Just eight months prior she went with some friends to Disney World and was only able to walk 4 hours before requiring wheelchair assistance. This was a huge accomplishment for someone who just 2.5 years was run over by a car and couldn’t even stand or do ANYTHING without assistance.

What was the most magical moment?

In the past it was almost always character or cast member encounters with my kids. This time though I’d probably have to go with our first ride on Journey to the Center of the Earth. At the time we were all kinda tired, jet lagged, and really weren’t expecting too much out of this ride. I don’t want to elaborate too much, as it would spoil things if you ever rode it, but it definitely caught us off guard and was a blast. It was definitely the most talked about moment of the vacation.

You seem like at least a semi normal guy. How can you be a Notre Dame fan?

Notre Dame is my alma mater. I bleed blue and gold. GO IRISH!

Read about the planning, logistics, initial cost breakdown prior to all the changes here.

Read about the inception of the trip here.

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3 thoughts on “A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Final Itinerary, Stats and FAQ”

  1. An absolutely incredible adventure!!! What an amazing journey so wonderfully documented. I’ve spent an hour reading the blogs and am so fascinated and inspired by your family! My husband and I recently got married and look forward to one day hopefully going on trips as memorable and meaningful as yours! Thank you for sharing!

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  2. Pingback: A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 21 – The End Redux – The Small World Family

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Published by Ramon

I am a American Ninja Warrior NICU doc exploring the globe with my family of 4!