4 parks in one day...any tips from people who have done this?

[MaC410]

Our next trip to WDW will be a special one for my 30th birthday and we will also be celebrating some other stuff with this trip. My wife and I aren't "let's eat somewhere special type people". We are more "let's do something ridiculous" type people. We were trying to decide what to do on my actual birthday and couldn't really come up with anything. Then the idea came to us...If we can't pick one favorite thing or park to do let's try to do as much of our favorite things as possible!

The plan is pretty simple. Hit all 4 parks in one day and ride at least two rides at each park. We also want to use some of the more fun forms of transportation. So our general plan is this:

1. Take the bus from the Beach Club to Animal Kingdom in the morning. We typically find Animal Kingdom to be the least crowded buses.
2. From Animal Kingdom take the bus straight to Hollywood Studios.
3. From Hollywood Studios take the boat to Epcot. (this may not be the quickest but we love taking the boat)
4. From Epcot take the monorail to Magic Kingdom (again this may not be the quickest way there but we felt we needed to take a ride on the monorail on a day like this)

We aren't too sure yet how we will plan out fastpasses and which rides we do. We aren't sure if it's better to just use 3 fastpasses as quickly as possible in Animal Kingdom and then make additional fastpasses for other parks as we go. Or maybe to wait to use fastpasses for the middle of the day so we could get on some better rides at other parks.

I'm sure many of you have done a day like this! Any tips?

 

[sponica]

Animal Kingdom is a strong morning draw, just keep that in mind....my bus got stuck at a traffic jam at the entrance just after parking opening...

 

[PSUGuy]

Yes, don't, it's a huge waste of travel time.

Bill From PA

 

[MaC410]

Yes, don't, it's a huge waste of travel time.

Bill From PA

Thanks for the input but we're going to do what we enjoy. We like this type of thing.

 

[clutter]

We just did three parks on Monday! Our plan was to do Epcot, but my friend really wanted to see Avatar land, so we added hoppers to our one-day tickets. (Best $63 ever!) We went to Studios before AK to do Star Tours, and got on line for TSM with a stated 40 minute wait. Off about 20 minutes later. It was an exhausting, but fun day. I can't believe how much we did.

I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you REALLY want to do in each park and plan your fastpasses and trek from there. I'd recommend doing the fast passes first thing. We skipped our third one in Epcot to do something else (margaritas, lol). And once that freed up, we could pull another one in another park. By design, we ended up in Animal Kingdom last. With the spur of the moment, we could not get even a solo FP for FOP, so we got on the 80 minute line about an hour before closing. Met some delightful folks here from England and had a lovely time in line.

We were staying at BWV, so walked to Epcot, went back and got the car to do the others. It was a blast!!!

p.s. my dd and I did all four many, many years ago. It is kind of fun.

 

[Bethislucy]

We did this past Nov. With just the girls. We had a blast. We started at DHS because they had morning magic hours we rode 3 rides and walked out at 9 am to take the bus to AK. We rode a few things at AK then went to MK to have lunch. Spent some time there riding rides and then we went to Epcot at 4:00 which is where our fastpass was because we had a 8 year old with us and Frozen was on her list. We had a great time and lots of laughs. Oh and one of our things was a photo pass picture from every park. It was something we all wanted to do so we all enjoyed it.

 

[piratepride]

Get a good night sleep the night before...your going to need it!

 

[MaC410]

We just did three parks on Monday! Our plan was to do Epcot, but my friend really wanted to see Avatar land, so we added hoppers to our one-day tickets. (Best $63 ever!) We went to Studios before AK to do Star Tours, and got on line for TSM with a stated 40 minute wait. Off about 20 minutes later. It was an exhausting, but fun day. I can't believe how much we did.

I think the best thing to do is to figure out what you REALLY want to do in each park and plan your fastpasses and trek from there. I'd recommend doing the fast passes first thing. We skipped our third one in Epcot to do something else (margaritas, lol). And once that freed up, we could pull another one in another park. By design, we ended up in Animal Kingdom last. With the spur of the moment, we could not get even a solo FP for FOP, so we got on the 80 minute line about an hour before closing. Met some delightful folks here from England and had a lovely time in line.

We were staying at BWV, so walked to Epcot, went back and got the car to do the others. It was a blast!!!

p.s. my dd and I did all four many, many years ago. It is kind of fun.

Our initial plan is to try and get fastpasses for Flight of Passage for as early as possible and then get two other fastpasses for some other rides. Once we clear the Flight of Passage fastpass we will try moving the other two up so we can get all 3 fastpasses done as quickly as possible. After that we plan to just take the day as it comes to us. We will get some fastpasses for whatever rides we can in Hollywood Studios and Epcot. Then we can end the day in Magic Kingdom at whatever time we get there.

 

[ultimatefans]

We did this once and surprisingly it was one of the most relaxing days we've had! (long, but relaxing!) We started at HS because like the poster above they had morning EMH. We got a lot done in those first 2-3 hours, rides plus Star Lord/Groot and Star Wars M&Gs. We then walked over to Epcot (could have done boat but I love the walk). No rides here, just enjoyed F&W and also had a demo for a culinary demonstration. Then took bus over to AK which is where our FPs were. We had planned on ending the day there, but MK had evening EMH so we took the bus over there to finish out the night. So for us AK was our only FPs. We didn't ride a lot, but certainly experienced a lot and had a ton of fun.

 

[gap2368]

Our next trip to WDW will be a special one for my 30th birthday and we will also be celebrating some other stuff with this trip. My wife and I aren't "let's eat somewhere special type people". We are more "let's do something ridiculous" type people. We were trying to decide what to do on my actual birthday and couldn't really come up with anything. Then the idea came to us...If we can't pick one favorite thing or park to do let's try to do as much of our favorite things as possible!

The plan is pretty simple. Hit all 4 parks in one day and ride at least two rides at each park. We also want to use some of the more fun forms of transportation. So our general plan is this:

1. Take the bus from the Beach Club to Animal Kingdom in the morning. We typically find Animal Kingdom to be the least crowded buses.
2. From Animal Kingdom take the bus straight to Hollywood Studios.
3. From Hollywood Studios take the boat to Epcot. (this may not be the quickest but we love taking the boat)
4. From Epcot take the monorail to Magic Kingdom (again this may not be the quickest way there but we felt we needed to take a ride on the monorail on a day like this)

We aren't too sure yet how we will plan out fastpasses and which rides we do. We aren't sure if it's better to just use 3 fastpasses as quickly as possible in Animal Kingdom and then make additional fastpasses for other parks as we go. Or maybe to wait to use fastpasses for the middle of the day so we could get on some better rides at other parks.

I'm sure many of you have done a day like this! Any tips?

I do the same thing that you said every year AK to HS to EPCOT to MK I FP rides at HS starting around 11 Loom for any thing that has a FP at EPCOT and then I will do the same thing for MK. there have been times I go back to the hotel for a swim between HS and EPCOT

 

[MischaOz]

Did it yesterday, it’s easy peasy. Even went back to our hotel for a short break/nap mid-afternoon. We didn’t have anything we HAD to ride so I just booked our FP on the fly. But if you want to ride FoP or 7DMT you’d probably want to pre-book one of those. Have fun!

 

[Bostonbeans99]

With park hoppers I usually only do 2 to 3 parks in a day max......but if I was doing 4 like you I would do rope drop at first park and not use my fast passes until the second park. Then immediately after I used my magic band at my FP ..I would be on my phone adding FP to the third park. Then repeat for fourth final park
GOOD LUCK & have a while you are there !!

 

[Kellykins1218]

We did 5 parks (Epcot twice) the day after Hurricane Irma. We had so much fun!

 

[Pmlocke]

Did it on my 60th birthday with my wife. First went to Hollywood Studios. Spent 2 hours, went on two rides and saw Beauty and the Beast performance. Next went to Animal Kingdom, spent two hours, went on 1 ride and ate lunch. Next to Epcot. Stayed for 2 hours and went on three rides. Ended the day at MK. Went on 6 rides and ate dinner at Crystal Palace. Saw the fireworks and went back to the hotel and went to bed. Should point out we did this in September, 5 years ago and the crowds were light that day. Also got very lucky as we never had to wait for a bus or the monorail. They were there waiting for me as if Magic had happened. Hey, it's Disney. A place where magic is common place.

 

[GillianP1301]

We did the 4 parks in 1 day last year and it's really not that difficult if you only have a handful of things you're trying to do in each park, so your 2 rides in each park is definitely doable. When we did it, we did at least 1 major attraction, show, tour or meal in each park + 1 memory maker photo.

Our day went something like this (we were staying at CR and we had a car).

Started at MK with the ticketed EMM event and rode 7DMT 8 times, Pooh, Pan + buffet breakfast as part of EMM then did Speedway and CoP before heading to DHS late morning.
Next at DHS (this was the park we chose to have our pre-booked FP) we did TSMM, Star Tours and the Indian Jones Tour. Left that park about 2ish and headed to AK
At AK we rode Dinosaur and did the Caring for Giants tour.
Last stop was EP, we arrived about dinner time and had a nice meal at Le Cellier, roamed WS and then rode Spaceship Earth on our way out just before 9:00 closing.

The EMM got us a good jump on the day, but it was also a really jam packed first few hours. That along with the fact that it was day 9 of our 10 day trip contributed to a bit of fatigue by the time we sat down for dinner, so I was really happy to have that nice long meal to relax. I think the driving rather than Disney buses probably saved us about an hour overall, which allowed us to get around with really no worry of running short on time.

For your plan, I would RD AK and try to hit a couple of headliners and then have your fastpasses for DHS, with any luck you will be able to snag a decent fastpass or two for EP and MK always has pretty decent fastpass availability, even later in the day so that's a good one to end at.

It's fun to do and will likely do it again, but will probably put it closer to the start of our trip than the end.

Have fun!

 

[Surr]

I would start at whichever park has the earliest opening and end at the park open the latest. You probably will not need a FastPass for that park, but can if you wish. If you choose AK, I would go to Everest and Dinosaur both should be walk on at opening. If you must ride FoP then you may want to try for an early FP+. Just be warned, AK is now the second busiest park in Disney World, behind only MK. The bus from Beach Club to AK is likely to be busy.

After your two rides at AK, head to HS and use your two fast passes. As soon as you check in for your second FP+, book a third for Epcot. Take the boat to Epcot, ride your two rides, using FP+ and/or book a FP+ at MK. The monorail ride to TTC and MK may take a while, but you should have plenty of time.

When we did this last year we did one or two rides per park, and a photopass at each parks icon.

 

[LindaOwl1]

I did this solo a few years ago - Did one ride, one show, and one meal or snack in each park. ALso got a photopass picture at each park in front of it's icon (tree, castle, etc) holding up one finger for first park, two fingers for second, etc. It was a very relaxing day with no kids or grandkids! I rope dropped the first park and did Fs in second park - but this was before FOP! Have fun! Sounds like a great day!

 

[Flamingeaux]

The OP plans are what I was planning to try on our next trip.

Get to AK first thing and ride Navi, EE and maybe Dinosaur. Then bus to DHS and ride Slinky and ToT with FP. Maybe ride Star Tours. Depending on how we are doing we may eat lunch here. Take the boat over to EPCOT and if we haven't eaten get a quick meal in Japan. Try to ride TT single rider, Figment and then SSE on the way out. Take the monorail to MK. They will have night EMH so we should be able to catch a few rides, eat and see HEA before they close.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

The most we have done is 3 - but agree that you should rope drop the first park and use your fastpasses on the 2nd park to get them over. Have fun!

 

[gatorlisa]

We have done this and plan to do it again in September. I think your park order is perfect (it's what we did last year). As long as you aren't aiming to do Flight of Passage on this day, and you start early (I recommend rope drop), you'll be fine. I think we did Dinosaur and Everest for our AK rides and both were pretty much walk-on, so we were done in AK pretty quick. My recommendation would be to schedule FPs for HS. Perhaps one early that will expire before you can use it. We did this, with a Star Tours that expired before we got there, used ToT and Toy Story, and as soon as we tapped in at whatever our third one was, we started looking at getting one for Epcot. We didn't need FPs at AK and we were able to get the best use of our FPs this way. We did 2 or 3 rides a AK, 2 rides at HS, 2 or 3 rides at Epcot, and I'm not sure how many at MK (quite a few). We also did park icon photos and photos with Donald Duck at each park.

However you plan your day, you'll have a great time!