Four Parks, One Day
Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 8:08AM By: Kevin Quigley
We all have our Disney bucket lists. I still haven’t done an Ultimate Touring Plan, in which you hit every attraction and event in a park in a single day. Mike Scopa, blogger and podcast superstar, came up with what may be the nuttiest one awhile back: you travel to Disney World with only the clothes on your back, buying everything you need for a week’s vacation on a week’s vacation. I’m planning on trying that out when I’m famous and rich and have a mid-sized entourage to wait in line for Soarin’ for me.
Smack in the middle of these bucket lists is the Four Parks In One Day Challenge. I heard about this early in my Disney fascination, and it fired my brain up in a very specific way. You see, I was at the stage of my Disney development in which I was doing everything commando, racing through the parks trying to take in everything at once. What better way to do that than going to all the parks in a day.
I know what you’re thinking. This is because I am psychic. Anyone can go to all four parks at Disney World in one day! There are monorails! And buses! Duh!
Ah, but there are rules to Four Parks, One Day. As laid out by the first Disney podcast I ever listened to, the rules are as follows:
- You have to do all four parks in the same “awake” day. No hitting Magic Kingdom during Extra Magic Hours till like 3:00 AM, then waking up at 10 and doing the rest of the parks at a lackadaisical pace. That’s just cheating!
- At each park, you must ride at least 3 attractions: one headliner, one “major” ride, and one “minor” ride. In Magic Kingdom terms, this would be like going on Space Mountain, Peter Pan, and Prince Charming’s Regal Carrousel.
- You have to have two meals on property during the day. No bringing along breakfast bars and calling it a Disney meal. That’s convenience, not Magic!
- Seriously, have fun. It sounds cheesy, but you really need to keep this last one in mind more. Challenges like this are meant to get you to see Disney World in a different light, experience them in new ways. If you go into a challenge like this with grim determination but without playfulness or whimsy, you’re just not going to have a good time. And that’s what this is about!
I add to these rules a suggestion: bring a friend. I’ve done the Four Parks, One Day (4P1D) Challenge with a buddy and solo, and I can assure you that my alone trip was quite lonely. Going to Disney World alone can be a blast. I’ve done it and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. But on Challenge day, I had no one there to share in the triumphs, to boost me up during the low moments (waiting an hour and a half in line for Soarin’; it’s not the longest wait I’ve ever spent in Disney World, but it’s close), or to share my celebratory dinner at Pecos Bill’s. The word you’re grasping for is sigh.
My buddy Joe (the guy who introduced me to Horizons years after it had been torn down and created this tortured soul you see before you) and I dragged ourselves out of air-conditioned slumber one late September Saturday and jaunted out to Animal Kingdom, which had yet to get Animal Kingdom hot. That itself would be a good reason to start with this park, but the main reason is because it generally closes earlier than the other three, and you’d hate to be nearing the end of challenge day only to discover that your last park is shuttered up for the night, and all you can do is stand by the barren entrance, mewling and pawing gently at the gate. It will be futile! Not that I know from experience, or anything!
The plan was to do Everest, Dinosaur!, and the Kilimanjaro Safaris, but we all know what happens to plans (you add them to men and canals and somehow you get Panama; I never understood the more abstract maths). We slammed over to Everest with the bustling crowd, screamed at the still-functioning Yeti, then screamed even more as a carnotaurus tried to attack us, then kindly feed us some McDonald’s food quickly before the sponsorship ran out. Then, split-second decision time, we clambered aboard Triceratops Spin and took an early morning flight around Dinoland USA. I’d never done Triceratops Spin before, and though it’s a minor ride in an oddly-themed area of Animal Kingdom (and also there’s the fact that triceratopses can’t fly, unlike elephants and carpets), I counted that as an accomplishment in itself.
An even bigger accomplishment: we were done with our three rides in Animal Kingdom at 9:45. Nine forty-five! We rejoiced and then piled into Joe’s air-conditioned car, because seriously, Animal Kingdom Parking Lot Hot.
I promised Joe we’d slow down a little bit in Hollywood Studios, a promise I instantly broke when I saw that Tower of Terror only had a ten-minute wait. There’s nothing like plunging thirteen stories at 10:15 AM! Then there was Rock N Rollercoaster, a Disney portmanteau people delight in ruining if only to give me a complex. (Why would you say Rock and Roll Rollercoaster, people? It’s redundant and lacks whimsy! Are you going to go use the Utility Corridors next? Perhaps tour the Innovative Inventions in Epcot?) Our sole bit of actual strategy for the day occasioned itself here, when we decided to take places in the single rider line separately in order to make things a little faster. Wait a minute! I loved that idea! I know how Aerosmith feels about their fans. To the Forum! (I stunningly got the front row. What?!)
Now, after a light snack at Starring Rolls (Joe: “Kevin, if we don’t get some form of sustenance, I will eat my hands.”), we headed to Star Tours 1.0, which had a history of making me sick. I won’t go into how thoroughly history repeated itself. I will say that there’s a new Star Tours in town and it’s oodles better … but that’s a post for another day. We left the Studios at 11:00 AM, meaning we’d completed half our 4P1D Challenge in two hours. What the hydrolator!?
We got to Epcot by 11:30, and by then, our bodies had begun registering pain and real hunger. As swiftly as possible, we beelined for The Land, where I got FastPasses for Soarin’ and we collapsed into seats at Sunshine Seasons (which, by the way, is the best Quick Service eatery in all of Walt Disney World. This may seem a controversial choice, but since it’s true I don’t really see how you can dispute me.) The break gave our bodies time to register pain and exhaustion, so the journey from lunch over to Test Track was a shambling, lurching affair. We employed Single Rider again and through the power of Disney Magic (and a super-nice family who didn’t want to be separated), Joe and I got to sit next to each other. In and out of Test Track in less than ten minutes, and the rule still applies: the shorter the wait for this particular attraction, the better it is.
After a slow-moving slow journey slowly through Spaceship Earth (seriously, how many times do they say it’s a slow ride in the preshow?), we utilized our FastPasses for Soarin’. Our Chief Flight Attendant was Patrick! He was nice! And then we ended up over Disneyland, which seemed incongruous, since neither park that features Soarin’ is Disneyland. Oh, Disney!
By the time we finally got to Magic Kingdom, we were all in. And yet I somehow found the strength to run. The second we were inside the gates, I grabbed Joe’s Annual Pass and bolted to Splash Mountain. FastPasses in hand, I met Joe at Big Thunder and there was only a twenty-minute wait! That in actuality only took thirty minutes! Then a quick spin inside the Haunted Mansion – after which I vowed to return, and to bring my death certificate – and our Splash Mountain FastPasses were ready to use. At the final crest, I shouted to Joe, “Number four and a thumbs up!”
“What?”
“Four and a thumbs-up!”
This is what triumph looks like!
We didn’t eat our final meal as much as we fell into it: Cosmic Ray’s Café at Tomorrowland. It was six o’clock on the dot when we finished our 4P1D challenge – we’d done the whole thing in a mere nine hours.
I looked up at Joe. He looked at me. We were both exhausted, bone-weary, and thinking only of getting back to Pop and air conditioning and sleep. I said, “Next time, let’s make it four attractions in each park.”
How about you? Ever done the Four Parks, One Day Challenge? If so, I’d love to hear about it: travelogues, tips, and tricks. I’ll need to come well-prepared for next time!
Reader Comments (2)
great read......i did actually laugh out loud, well it was more like a chuckle out loud, but clearly i had fun.
thanks.
scott
Kevin = Awesome. Thank you for the post and the story. Very well done.