For my daughter’s 15th birthday, we did the 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge! I’m an avid Disney World parks fan, but I usually only visit one park per day. I was excited to take on this challenge and learned so much in the process. Here are some tips for taking on the challenge of visiting all four Disney World theme parks – Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios – in a single day.
Buy Park Hopper Tickets
Once you’ve chosen the day for your 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge, you will need to purchase a Disney World ticket. Make sure you purchase a Park Hopper ticket that allows you to enter more than one park per day. Before buying your ticket, take a peak at the Disney World Park Reservation Calendar to make sure that all parks are available for your amazing day.
Choose Must-Do’s in Each Park
To take on the 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge, determine what you want to achieve during your visit in each park. Some people simply choose one attraction, one food item, and a photo with the park icon in each location. Others include meeting a Disney character or seeing park entertainment in their itineraries.
For our visit, my goal was to experience new offerings since our last visit, do our favorite attractions, have our favorite meals and snacks, and take a photo by each park icon. Since we had visited only six months before, the list of new offerings was not lengthy so we had time to do our favorite attractions in each park and have a few snacks and meals.
Create a Touring Plan
Once you have determined what you want to do during your 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge, you should create a touring plan. You can do this manually, or you can use a tool like Touring Plans to help you. I’m a huge fan of Touring Plans, and you don’t even have to have a subscription to create a personal touring plan. By using the Touring Plan tool, you can figure out how much you can fit into each park before you have to hop to the next one.
I created four personalized Touring Plans for my day. We wanted to do the most at Magic Kingdom, so we started our day there. Then we hopped to Animal Kingdom, arriving at 2 p.m. We left for Hollywood Studios at 4 p.m. and spent about 90 minutes there. Finally, we hopped to EPCOT around 6 p.m. and spent the rest of the evening there.
Throw Money at the Mouse
Lightening Lane Multi Pass is Disney’s skip-the-line service. It costs between $16-40 per person per day, depending on the date and park you are visiting. Lightening Lane Multi Pass gives you the ability to book three attractions prior to your trip and to book other available attractions after you use one in the park. Having access to Lightning Lanes allows you to walk right by all of the people standing in line for certain attractions and board the ride first. Skipping the line at a few of the most popular attractions is only possible by purchasing an Lighting Lane Single Pass. These passes cost between $10-25 per person per attraction.
Unfortunately, most people doing the 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge will need to throw money at Mickey Mouse and purchase the Lightening Lane Multi Pass service. Depending on the ride you want to do, you might also need to purchase a few Lightening Lane Single Passes as well.
I bought the former Lightening Lane Multi Pass service, Genie+, for my trip. In Magic Kingdom, we used Lightening Lane Multi Pass to ride Peter Pan and Haunted Mansion. I bought a Lightening Lane Single Pass for Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom. We had Lightening Lanes reservations for both Rockin’ Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror in Hollywood Studios. Finally, we used Lightening Lane Multi Pass for Spaceship Earth and a Lightening Lane Single Pass at Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. The total cost of all of this for the day we went was $33 per person plus tax.
Plan Meals & Breaks
The 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge is tiring! Make sure you add breaks and meals into your itinerary. We shared a hamburger and fries at Cosmic Rays around 11 a.m. in Magic Kingdom. For dessert, we had Dole Whip at Aloha Isle. In Animal Kingdom we took a break around 2 p.m. at the Nomad Lounge, enjoying fancy drinks and delicious churros. We ate at the new Space 220 restaurant in EPCOT at 7 p.m. Having set times to sit down and refuel made our day less tiring.
Consider Transportation Options
There are many different transportation options at Disney World. You can take buses, boats, gondolas, monorails, rideshare services, or your own car. If you have your own car, your 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge is easier. But it’s still possible to do it using park transportation. The best way to get to Magic Kingdom is always by bus from another park or a Disney hotel. The only provided transportation to Animal Kingdom are buses. Hollywood Studios and EPCOT have a host of transportation options. You can take the Skyliner gondola, a boat, or walk between Hollywood Studios and EPCOT. There’s also a monorail running between EPCOT and Magic Kingdom.
Transportation between the parks does not take very long – usually about 15 minutes to drive between parks. But waits for buses and other forms of transportation can double or triple that time estimate. Since the 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge requires a tight schedule, it might be prudent to spring for an Uber or Lyft to get between parks. This will cost $10-15 for each ride.
We took a bus from our hotel to Magic Kingdom. We took another bus from Magic Kingdom to Animal Kingdom. We called a Lyft to get from Animal Kingdom to Hollywood Studios. We hopped from Hollywood Studios to EPCOT using the Skyliner. Finally, we took the boat back to our hotel. In hindsight, we should have taken the monorail somewhere to have experienced all of the forms of Disney transportation!
Know When to Call It Quits
We had a great experience doing the 4 Disney Parks in 1 Day Challenge! But I had hoped to watch the fireworks show at EPCOT at the end of our day. Unfortunately, we were pooped and just couldn’t stay in the park another 45 minutes waiting for the show to start. We were approaching our EPCOT area hotel when we heard the fireworks start. We didn’t even have the energy to pause outside and watch the show from afar! Still, we consider our day a success, perhaps because we knew when to call it quits!
Have you experienced the 4 Parks in 1 Day Challenge?
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