If you’ve visited Walt Disney World more than once, and are looking for something new and exciting to try for your next trip, I’ve got the perfect idea for you!
All Four Walt Disney World Parks in ONE Day!
First, a few caveats:
I wouldn’t recommend this for your first trip to Disney. If it’s your first time, you’ll want to enjoy all the fun in each park and take your time experiencing all the special attractions that Disney has to offer. I also wouldn’t recommend this if you only have a few days here, for the same reason – Soak up each park on your visit. And if you have small children in your group, this may not be for you.
But if you’ve visited Walt Disney World several times in the past; if your traveling party consists of older kids, teens, and adults; and if your stay is a week or longer, this can be a really fun way to spend a day!
Here are some helpful tips:
Book your vacation at one of Disney’s Resort Hotels to take advantage of Extra Magic Hours, where parks are open extended hours just for resort guests. This will give you more “wiggle room” in your plan!
Check the park hours for your trip. You may want to begin your day at the park with Morning Extra Magic Hours, and end your day at the park with Evening Extra Magic Hours.
You’ll also need to schedule some meals and FastPasses to get the most out of your day.
Decide on some “ground rules” for what you’d like to experience in each park, to make it kind of like a scavenger hunt!
My husband and I were at Disney World without the kids on a recent trip, and decided to give this a try!
Here’s what we did:
We set our ground rules: For each park, we decided we would experience two attractions, get one character photo, and eat something. Once we had accomplished these, we’d consider the challenge completed and we could move ahead to the next park for the day.
We picked our park order: We didn’t want to wake up super early, so we just chose the park that was nearest to our resort for our first park of the day. We chose the park with Evening Extra Magic Hours for our final park. And we filled the other two parks in the middle. (In retrospect, I should have paid more attention to the transportation options between the parks, but it all worked out in the end!)
We allotted several hours for each park, and selected fastpasses and a lunch reservation for our second park. This ended up working very well.
We posted on Facebook as we went along, and it was so much fun to have our friends cheering us on!
Our actual plan:
Four Parks in One Day – One Photo, One Food, Two Attractions Each
8:45am Epcot – Soarin’, Test Track (utilized the Single Rider Line), Photo with Baymax, Starbucks for breakfast
12:00pm Animal Kingdom – Expedition Everest, Primeval Whirl, and Character Meet (all with FastPass); Lunch reservation at Yak & Yeti. When we completed our last FastPass, we selected one for Hollywood Studios.
4:00pm Hollywood Studios – Great Movie Ride, Toy Story Midway Mania, baked potato at Fairfax Fare, Star Wars photo (Chewbacca). When we completed our last FastPass, we selected one for Magic Kingdom.
7:00pm Magic Kingdom – Mad Tea Party, Winnie the Pooh (ride AND characters), and Wishes Fireworks Dessert Party.
We still had a few hours for rides at Magic Kingdom after the fireworks were over, due to the Extra Magic Hours, and we had a great time! It was a really fun way to spend the day.
We made a few changes “on the fly” – some things went more quickly than we expected, and a few things we planned didn’t really work out and we had to make some substitutions. But as long as we completed our Ground Rules for each park, we checked it off the list! For example, the Starbucks line at Epcot was really long, so we opted for popcorn and ice cream for breakfast instead (Hey, it’s vacation!). And when we saw Russell and Dug at Animal Kingdom, we just had to have that photo instead of the characters we originally planned.
If you’d like to try something new or different on your Disney trip, or if you just want to get the most out of your family’s first trip to Disney, please contact me. I’m Brenda Arnold-Richard, and I’m a travel planner with Travel With The Magic. I’ll help you with your whole trip, from booking the best hotel and ticket package for your family, to helping you plan your park days, to getting exactly what you want from your visit to Walt Disney World in Florida! Email me at Brenda@TravelWithTheMagic.com and we’ll start planning a great trip for your family!
Leave A Comment