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

[Togadadof2]

We've done this a few times now and just did it again in Feb. We were staying at Beach Club and this was our plan:

Rope drop MK (bus) - no FP+ needed, we just went on whatever we wanted taking advantage of the lower, rope drop crowds. We stayed for around 2 hours and left at 11 something
AK - we tried to get here by lunch time to eat at Satuli Canteen and use our FP+ for FoP, KS, and Dinosaur. Left after the 3 FPs
HS - bus here where I refreshed like crazy on the way and got TSMM. We did that and Star Tours.
Boat back to BCV where I got a FP+ for Illuminations. We freshened up in the room quickly and dropped off our bags.
Walked into EPCOT where we had dinner, toured some of the countries, got a drink and some dessert, then watched Illuminations.

As a previous poster mentioned, it's not the most efficient use of your time, but we love doing it. We're not the "eat somewhere special type" either, so we love doing crazy things like this.

FWIW, this was with our kids (10 & 8). They love doing it and request an all 4 parks day every trip.

 

[tinkerbellybutton]

On one trip we had a left over day on a hopper and one water Park day, both from a previous trip. This was years ago when the tickets didn't expire. We took our summer vacation to Disney's Vero Beach resort and surprised our kids with two days in Disney on the way home.

On day one we did the waterpark. My kids hadn't done either water park so we decided which one by which bus came first. It ended up being Typhoon Lagoon.

On day two we knew we were going to DHS first because Toy Story Mania had recently opened. We started out there because they had morning EMH. We ended up doing RNRC, ToT, TSM, and Startours. Then we hopped over to AK because my youngest was finally tall enough to ride Everest. I think we managed a few rides there, Everest, Dinosaur, and tough to be a bug if I am remembering correctly. On the bus to the TTC a guest overheard us talking about our day, and my comment that we really shouldn't leave Epcot out (we were ending our day at MK). She said I think you need to do Ecpot, 4 parks in one day!!! So at the TTC we hopped over to Epcot before heading to MK. We didn't do much at Epcot, maybe TT and SSE. We did a good bit at MK. Even monorailed to Poly for dinner at Ohana's around 9, then back to MK to close the park.

It was one of our most memorial two days in Disney because it was unexpected (the kids didn't even know we were near Disney until we drove through the "gates"). But it was just so fun to be spontaneous in a place we usually have all mapped out and planned months in advanced.

 

[Cotillard]

Have often hit three parks in one day, but only once did all four parks. SO fun and we felt quite accomplished
I highly recommend it.
We did MK-AK-DHS-Epcot and had a blast. Can't really help with the planning except to say start early and, obviously, use the park hours to your advantage.

 

[Oneanne]

I've done it with the same routing: AK-HS-EPCOT-MK, with a day that AK had early EMH that day which really helped. My criteria was to do three attractions in each park, eat something, have my picture taken with the park icon and use each type of transportation (bus, boat, monorail). I didn't use any FP+ or ADRs, just did what was available with minimal wait times when I got there, which worked great because I wasn't stressed trying to keep to a time schedule. But this was before the current flexibility with FP+, so if I did it again I would probably try to utilize them at least a little. I got done a lot faster than I thought I would... I think I had factored in three hours in each park and an hour transportation in between, but it all went very smoothly - and was a blast!

Hope you have a fantastic time!

 

[YawningDodo]

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've done this twice, solo, and I do indeed have some advice!

1. Your park order looks good to me--I don't think there's a wrong order, but this is the same order I did on my more recent four park day, for some of the same reasons.

2. BUT, as someone else has mentioned, morning buses for AK are probably going to be the most crowded this time around. Decide whether you want to ropedrop FoP and/or N'avi River Journey. I did that and it added at least an hour and a half to my morning in my efforts to get to the park gates ahead of opening time--aka an hour and a half less sleep. If Pandora isn't that important to you (or if you can see it on another day), you could probably walk right on rides like Dinosaur and Expedition Everest at rope drop, without having to show up particularly early.

3. I would recommend scheduling out your day and deciding on a "drop dead" time by which you have to leave each park. As long as you stay on top of it the four park schedule is not difficult, but if you lag on the first two parks you're going to create a problem for yourself. Always allow an hour for park-to-park transfer; it rarely takes that long but scheduling it that way means you'll have pleasant surprises rather than unpleasant ones.

4. Create a short list of priorities for each park, with the understanding that you probably won't do all of them. Schedule your AK fastpasses for as early in the morning as possible, and refresh your FP selections to try to move them up as you finish them. Refresh MDE constantly on the buses between parks to snap FP for your next stop. I was able to get day-of fastpasses for Toy Story Mania, Tower of Terror, and the Frozen ride--it can be done!

5. Stay flexible. If you can't get a FP moved up to a time slot ahead of your drop dead time, ditch it and move on. If a line's too long, ditch it and move on.

6. Sneak in your breaks at meal time and on quiet rides. Carousel of Progress may not be on your MK must-do list, but it sure is twenty straight minutes of sitting in the dark.

7. A word of caution: others have advised, and I would have advised in the past, that you should start at whatever park opens the earliest and end at whichever closes the latest. While that's a very practical approach and gives you a safety net if you lag on your expected schedule, it may (if you're park commandos who don't know what's good for you, like I was on this last trip) lead you to think that it's a good idea to go go go from the moment the first park opens to the moment the last park closes. If you have EMH on either end and AK opens at 8:00 and MK closes at midnight, that is sixteen uninterrupted hours of park time. Do not do sixteen uninterrupted hours of park time. I did that and I was sick for a week afterward. Even if EMH is available to you, I suggest that you build your schedule to be accomplished in ten hours or less.

 

[disneygirlsng]

I did this 2 weeks ago and it was so much fun!! This was a last minute, very short trip (was actually supposed to just be one day, but I ended up going a second day), and I wanted to make the most of it. I was by myself so that probably made things a lot easier, but I did almost 30 rides and got 18 fastpasses that day.

I started in HS, did RnR x2, ToT x2, and Star Tours all by 9:45 then walked to Epcot. I had only pre-booked one FP and that was for Soarin. I ended up getting to Epcot much earlier than I anticipated, but was able to shift my Soarin FP up about an hour so I did that right away. Did 4 more rides in Epcot (Figment, SE, TT single rider, and Gran Fiesta) then took the bus to AK and got there about 1. After I did Soarin I had made FPs for both Navi and the Safari. I had about 2 hours until the end of the timeframe for my first FP at AK and the FoP standby said 90 min so I jumped in. I was off the ride in less than an hour so that was great. Did my 2 FPs then did EE single rider x2 and got a FP for Dinosaur. Then I took the bus to MK around 4:30. Got FPs for lots of rides including SDMT, Peter Pan, Pirates, Space x2, and lots of smaller rides like Little Mermaid and Dumbo. I also did Philharmagic and Monsters Inc stand by. I could have pretty much gotten anything I wanted that afternoon/evening as a FP. It was fantastic and I would easily do it again. And I never had any problems with the buses, didn't wait more than 10 minutes for one.

 

[baozi]

Did this once solo last December (9:00 - 0:00), finished many rides.
9:00 rope drop from international gateway at Epcot (for FEA), then rode every ride in Epcot except SoarIn, exited around 12:00pm.
12:30 AK, FP for FoP and Safaris, rode every ride in AK except EE, and grabbed another FP for FoP while in the line. Out 7:30pm after riding FoP a second time (at the time wait time was 390 minutes due to reduced capacity caused by a technical issue, so gave up on riding it a third time after park closure).
8:00pm back to Epcot, rode TT and SoarIn, and part of Illuminations.
10:00pm at Magic kingdom, I grabbed a FP for Peter Pan while riding the bus to Epcot, so rode Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion and Peter Pan. Entered the queue of 7DMT at 11:55pm.
So around 20 rides in that day.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I'm planning on doing this in November with DD12. It'll be the last full day of our trip. We are staying at BWV and the plan is to RD AK- bus to HS - boat to Epcot - walk back to BWV and rest/nap in the room - dinner at YM - then PM EMH at MK (hoping for it to stay open until 2 am like it did last year on the same Saturday). Since it's the 9th day of our trip I think I'll be fine getting a FOP FP+ for early morning at AK. We will RD EE and probably Dinosaur, use our FP+ for FOP and once I tap that I'll just roll my FP+ for DHS. My plan is to ride 2 or 3 rides, get a picture in front of the park icon and/or Christmas tree and a picture with Mickey in each park. I have to decide what our plan is going to be in regards to how many rides and what pictures we want. If meeting Mickey is too long at each park we might scratch that idea. I'm hoping to be back at our room to rest by 2 pm. Get a good 3-4 hour nap before heading out to dinner and PM EMH at MK. DD12 is very excited for this.

 

[canyoncam]

I did once. Solo and rainy afternoon. You can read if interested. Day 6.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/just-a-little-rainy-solo-trip.3352255/#post-52701181

 

[GBBTomorrow]

My husband and I once did Around the World in a Day, using only Disney transportation, and we even had time for a swim in the afternoon! Don't let people dissuade you from this idea. It's a ton of fun, and something kind of different to add a new element if you've been to WDW a lot. We had a blast and it was a very memorable day.

We did three major attractions in each park. At that time, Fastpasses were on paper, so had a different strategy than you will. We tried to get a Fastpass for a big ride right when we entered a park, and then we did our other two headliners while we waited for that window to open. Here was our day:

• Rope drop at Magic Kingdom (morning EMH)
  
• Bus to Animal Kingdom
• Bus to DHS (Disclaimer: we counted Muppet Vision as a "headliner" here because it's one of our favorites, so that cut down on wait time.)
  
• Walk to Swan/Dolphin: swim and nap
• Walk to Epcot
• Monorail to Magic Kingdom, pulling into the station just as Wishes began
• Post-Wishes Dole Whip to celebrate

We had so much fun! I don't really have any specific tips for you on Fastpasses, except that I think I wouldn't use them in the first park, but save them for a later park. In the first park, lines will still be so short that you won't need them.

 

[ssleepy1]

I just did this yesterday. Only thing I had planned was FP at Animal Kingdom and an early dinner at Boma.

Arrived at Epcot half an hour after park opening. Pretty much walked onto Frozen Ever After, Soarin’, and Journey Into Imagination. Even decided to take a lil break and saw the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival and then grabbed some food from the Fance Pavillion.

Took a bus to Animal Kingdom and used the 5 minute grace period and scanned into Kali River Rapids about 2 minutes before they expired. Then headed over to FOP. Watched the Finding Nemo Musical and then grabbed a last minute 4th FP to Dinosaur.

Headed over to Animal Kingdom Lodge for dinner at Boma around 4:45. Reservation was at 5:25 and left the restaurant at 6:25. Grabbed a FP for Buzz Lightyear.

Hopped on a bus to Magic Kingdom, rode Buzz and went to Hollywood Studios. Got a FP for TSMM and then camped out for a spot to sit and watch the Star Wars fireworks.

It can easily be done. Didn’t feel rushed at all throughout the day. It is very tiring. I went into the day planning on going to Hollywood Studios after dinner and then Magic Kingdom for EMH since they were open til midnight. Plans changed after the food coma I got from Boma. I would totally do 4 parks in 1 day again next time.

 

[katmatry]

Staying at BC my plan would be.
1) Rope drop HS, ride RR and star tours
2) Walk (or boat) to Epcot, single rider for TT and nemo and friends
3) Bus to AK, FP+ FOP, Everest and Dinosaur - Eat lunch at Santui Canteen
4) Bus to MK, check whats available to FP or wait in line

 

[MaC410]

Staying at BC my plan would be.
1) Rope drop HS, ride RR and star tours
2) Walk (or boat) to Epcot, single rider for TT and nemo and friends
3) Bus to AK, FP+ FOP, Everest and Dinosaur - Eat lunch at Santui Canteen
4) Bus to MK, check whats available to FP or wait in line

We were debating hitting HS and Epcot first since we were right there. We then decided that taking a trip on the monorail to Magic Kingdom was something we wanted to be part of our day. We also wanted to limit our park to park bus trips since we haven't had such great experiences getting park to park buses. Pretty much every time we've done a park to park bus we've had to wait insane amounts of time for buses to show up.

 

[loves to dive]

My son and I did it a couple of weeks ago, we didn't set out to, it just happened. We started the morning at AK, we decided to start at Dinosaur so I grabbed a FP for around 9 and intended to ride EE after that, we had already been to AK twice that week. We got there right around rope drop, went to Dino while everyone else was running to Pandora, walked right on, they didn't even have the cars running yet so we had to wait about 5 min. for that. Left there and grabbed a FP for EE but it was down so we walked the tiger trail, stopped and watched all the monkeys being silly, EE still down so we walked over to Pandora to grab a pin for my son, EE still down so we left and went to MK because we didn't ride COP when we were there earlier in the week. We walked right on COP, did a little bit of shopping on Main Street and hopped a bus to HS. We walked around a little bit, shaking our heads at the line for TSMM, went and rode ToT for the fourth time that week, went to the HBD lounge for lunch where we watched the Star Wars show, walked from there to Epcot. We wandered around WS looking at the people and grabbing a refreshing adult beverage, walked over and rode Figment since we hadn't done that earlier in the week, wandered around the Living Seas for awhile sighting some new fishes. Wandered back to Norway and walked through the church. We walked around WS going into the shops at all the countries and grabbing another refreshing adult beverage. We decided we didn't want the booths for supper and didn't want anything heavy either so we walked back to the Dolphin where we were staying and sat at the bar and had a light supper there. We really hadn't planned to go to four parks, it just worked out that way.

 

[Laura's Dad]

I did it on our last trip. i used the guidelines set up by AllEars in which you had to do 3 attractions in each park, eat 1 meal, and use WDW transportation. Here is how I did:

I set up FP+ for my second park and only did two FPs so that I could add additional FPs as I went.

Bus from PO-FQ to AK: Got a breakfast sandwich at the PO food court and was on a very early bus to the AK. Had to change my ticket to a park hopper at Guest Relations because we had some left over single day tickets and I had to park hop to do the challenge. No problem doing this.

Rope drop at AK (Pre-Pandora): It was Extra Magic Hour 8 am opening. Did Safaris first and had a great trip. The lionesses roared and semi-charged at us. Great video. Did Expedition Everest next in the single ride rider line and shot right through. Did Bug's life and exited the park. Excellent start.

Bus from PO-FQ to DHS: Had to wait a while for this bus and met a lady that was trying to do something similar to what I was doing. Took the only selfie that I have ever taken in my life with her. Finally got a bus to DHS.

DHS: Had FPs for Star Tours and ToT. Timed them out so that I could use one and then the other immediately afterwards. Did Star Tours first, then Rock 'n' Roller Coaster single rider line (about a 10 minute wait), then ToT. Got FP for Spaceship Earth in Epcot just after I entered ToT. Caught the Star Wars stage show in front of the Chinese Theater as I had not seen it yet. Exited the park and rode the boat from DHS to Epcot's International Gateway.

Boat from DHS to Epcot: Slow but relaxing ride. I know that you can walk this faster, but I just wanted to relax.

Epcot: Went counter-clockwise around World Showcase Lagoon to get a Safari Amber at the Refreshment Outpost. Went to Norway's fast food (Kringla Bakeri Og Kafe) and got a Ham, Apple, and Cheese sandwich with a Fruit cup for lunch. The sandwich was one of the best cold sandwiches that I have ever had. I then rode the boat ride in Mexico as my first ride. Second ride was The Seas with Nemo and Friends before using my FP on Spaceship Earth. Got a FP for Space Mountain (wanted to do Splash Mountain but it was down for refurbishment) and exited the park.

Monorail from Epcot to MK: One of the best rides at Disney World.

MK: MK was crowded (TP Level 8) Rode People Mover while waiting on Space Mountain FP time. Entered Space Mountain and got a FP for Small World (earliest FP attraction available). Rode Space Mountain than took in Mickey's Philharmagic before using Small World FP. Exited the park.

Rode bus from MK back to PO-FQ. Finished up about 4:30. Went to pool and put feet in the water and drank a beer. Great day!!!

 

[Skippyboo]

We were debating hitting HS and Epcot first since we were right there. We then decided that taking a trip on the monorail to Magic Kingdom was something we wanted to be part of our day. We also wanted to limit our park to park bus trips since we haven't had such great experiences getting park to park buses. Pretty much every time we've done a park to park bus we've had to wait insane amounts of time for buses to show up.

If you go to AK first, instead of waiting for park to park bus, why not take the AKL bus to AKL and take 2nd park bus from AKL. It’s a super short bus ride between AK and the hotel so that maybe faster than waiting for park to park bus.

 

[kdisser]

We did this back in 2016, I too posted a thread and had many of the "waste of your time" "don't do it" responses. But in all actuality we go often to WDW and this was a bucket list item and knew we wanted to do it.
It was when a decent amount was closing in HS so we knew we wouldn't spend a whole day there anyways and figured that was our chance to attempt the 4-in-1 day. We picked our starting park with one that offered morning EMH and ended at the park closing the latest.
We wanted to accomplish 2 rides at each park and a picture in front of the park icon. And we would use our FP at HS and picked rides at the next park with whatever was a walk-on, we were not wanting to be tied down too much. We picked the smaller rides that generally do not gather a long wait.

We started at AK because of the EMH being in the morning.
We then headed over to HS right at opening and had our FP's there.
-
We had enough time in our travels that day to then take a break and head back to the hotel in the middle of the adventure.
-
Next was EPCOT.
Finishing up at MK.

It was a fun time! My only advice is don't do it on your very first trip to WDW, unless you are staying for 10+ days then go ahead. But at the end of the day vacation how ever you want! I loved doing this challenge and marked it off the WDW bucket list. Now someday I hope to do the 6-in-1 challenge that includes DL.

 

[cosmicmommy]

We are planning this for our upcoming trip. And by we, I mean *I* am planning this since the kids don't know yet. Exact same plans for park timing and similar for rides. It is going to be our LAST day, so a last hurrah if you will of our favorites. We're staring down the barrel of 10s for Animal Kingdom AND Magic Kingdom (yuck!) but because we're only hitting favorites, I think we can manage.

Animal Kingdom - Everest, Safari, Bug and Dino
Hollywood - (FPS) Toy Story Ride (whichever we can get), Tower of Terror and Rockin Rollercoaster, Star Tours if we have time.
Epcot - Test Track, Soarin' and Spaceship: Earth.
Magic Kingdom - Planning to arrive just ahead of Fireworks. Going to have a sundae while watching HEA, then try to get in a ride on Splash, Space and Jungle Cruise (or Pirates) and end the night at 7 Dwarfs. EMH to midnight, so even though it's a 10 level, we're only after 4 rides and my middle son will have disability pass, so hoping it will work out for us.

 

[BebopBaloo]

I would suggest booking your most desired FP and then building the plan around that. So, if you really want FOP, but can only get it a 2pm, then build your day around being in AK for that 2pm slot with other park(s) prior. It sounds like you've already got a good handle on what you really want to do, so I think that helps. Sounds like a lot of fun Don't forget to get a "I'm Celebrating" Birthday Button/Pin!

 

[JETSDAD]

We did this just this month. 4 parks and then ended up at TOWL for dessert and fireworks for my daughter's 13th birthday. I actually found it to be an easy day because we had travel breaks spread throughout the day. We started with only a FOP FP...rope dropped EE a couple of times. Once we tapped the FOP FP we made one at HS and one at EPCOT. Was a fun day!