WDW Theme Park Challenge – 4 in 1 Day

Park-hopping can be a fun way to spread out your day and experience more of WDW Resort, however, have you tried to do ALL 4 Theme Parks in 1 day. We did during December 2019, and here is a guide on how you can.

Planning

Every WDW expert knows, planning is key to every WDW trip –booking hotels, dining reservations, FP+ rides, etc, but you can experience this challenge without too much planning, as follows: 

• Main Objective: Attend all 4 main theme parks (MK – Magic Kingdom, AK – Animal Kingdom, HS – Hollywood Studios and EP – Epcot), then decide on extra challenges e.g. – including number of rides/attractions/food/photos/etc per park – key note each will add time to your day.
• Set Date: Choosing a day where you have ‘free time’ – i.e. allowing for time contingency planned, not clashing with extravagant ‘time consuming’ dining reservations, when parks are ‘less busy’.
• Logistical Planning: Knowing where your resort is, types of transportation you can ride from your resort to theme parks and to other theme parks – key to review to reduce time spent traveling to and from each park.
• Theme Park Booking: To ensure any of your objectives that require booking are booked within the specific time frame, e.g. dining reservations are booked within 180 days. Most importantly ensure your WDW tickets include park-hopping and secondly, FP+ booking use wisely. Tip: Use FP+ selection ONCE in your 1^st/2^nd choice park and after riding rebook your next FP+ ‘available’ choice to your next theme park destination using MDE, but carefully select the time when you are expecting to be there.
• Challenge Day: The magical day where you have a fun packed day trying to complete the challenge and all your objectives. Tip: Take photos/videos as evidence.

Our Plan/Guide

Objective 

Minimum 1 ride/attraction in each park, least 4 different modes of transportation, 1 photo (as evidence) in each park, and 1 quick service/1 snack throughout the day.

Date

As we had a split stay vacation, we were staying at Bay Lake Tower (BLT) and went to Animal Kingdom Lodge (AKL) therefore the challenge was set on the day we moved from BLT to AKL. Reason as we had no other dining plans for this day, and due to luggage service provided by Bell services, we were able to do this.

Logistics

Our trip was laid out as below, noting that we looked at the efficient way of traveling (i.e. which parks were closed to each other), and were planning on using 5 different types of transportation.

Theme Park Booking

We decided to use Animal Kingdom with our first FP+ (with the intention of using the rest of our FP+ selections throughout the day).

Challenge Day

Here is our days event. Wish us luck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Park 1 – Animal Kingdom

Animal Kingdom has EMH (extra hour helpful) and we arrived for rope drop 07:45, our FP+ was Flight Of Passage at 09:25, so we headed to Pandora (safely) and managed to get onto Na’Vi River Journey, which was a lovely relaxing way to start the day.

 

We explored Pandora land.

 

and viewed some animals before our FP+ time.

 

Harrison excitedly waiting before his first time ever on Flight Of Passage.

After Flight Of Passage, we walked to our bus stop back to Bay Lake Towers. We left approx. 10:00 but en route we secured our next FP+ at Magic Kingdom – Tomorrowland Speedway. Tip: Flight of Passage is a must, so try and get FP+ early (20 mins wait instead of 2 hours)

Park 2 – Magic Kingdom

Arrived back at Bay Lake Towers within 20 minutes and checked out around 11:00 and walked over to Magic Kingdom (just 5 min walk). Photos of the Christmas Tree and Castle are always a must at Magic Kingdom.

 

After photos, we managed to get on Tomorrowland Speedway, for a nice relaxing ride (unless your child is driving).

For lunch we ate Casey’s Corner (nearest quick service to MK exit), whilst eating we luckily found our next FP+ (Test Track at Epcot).

Tip: Use mobile order service on MyDisneyExperience to save time, plus find space to eat at Tomorrowland Terrace Restaurant.

We left Magic Kingdom around 12:45.

Park 3 – Epcot

From Magic Kingdom we took Ferry Boat to TTC and then the monorail to Epcot.

Beautiful views of Seven Seas Lagoon on the ferry,

or Epcot Future World on the monorail.

Tip: Ferry Boat is emptier traveling to TTC from Magic Kingdom during midday.

We arrived at Epcot within 20 minutes and with time to spare before our next FP+ we managed to magic shot photos outside Spaceship Earth before venturing upon the Test Track.

Harrison was keen on designing the most powerful car, although I need to work on my photogenic skills.

 

We enjoyed a swift stroll through World Showcase, stopping to see Germany (model trains and Holiday Season singers)

and grabbing snacks in France – they were yummy. Our time was now just only 14:45.

Tip: Skyliner is located just outside International Gateway (between France & UK)

The skyliner was another relaxing and scenic mode of transport to get to another park and can be considered as an attraction itself.

The skyliner journey took approx. 20 mins, although stopping once at Riviera to get a different line to Hollywood Studios.

Park 4 – Hollywood Studios

Once at Hollywood Studios, we took in a little entertainment with sensational Galaxy Far, Far Away.

We then headed over to Toy Story Land to queue up for Alien Swirling Saucers.

Tip: You can use more than 3 FP+ selections in a day but this ride only had 30 min wait time.

Celebration

Time 16:30 and CHALLENGE COMPLETED so before heading to Animal Kingdom Lodge (via WDW Bus transportation) celebration photos were a must.

It was the loveliest memorable day, and our next visit we will be doing something similar – maybe add in a water park, or an extra ride, a dining reservation, a firework show, etc. Maybe you can give us some ideas.

So, try the challenge, and HAVE A MAGICAL DAY when you do.