When my grands came to visit they had some lofty ambitions…
3 parks worth of new and old memories they wanted to cram into one day and 1 park they tried to throw at me while sitting at dinner… HA no. They wanted to ride all 3 mountains, Tower of Terror, Rocking Roller Coaster, see the Lion King Show, see Fantasmic, ride Pirates of the Caribbean, ride Haunted Mansion, and ride Avatar rides. Needless to say I had my work cut out for me! (While getting burgers in Animal Kingdom they decided to ask when we were riding Test Track… we were NOT.) The only thing on this list that I didn’t accomplish with 4 seniors was riding the rides in Pandora, I’m pretty proud of myself. Here is how I did it:
Our goal was to get to the Magic Kingdom at 9 and get GOING, after a little snafu we ended up in MK at 10:30. We parked in Hollywood Studios because that was where we wanted to end the night. We used the Disney Busses to travel to MK, and the busses put you closer to the entrance to MK which makes it easier to get in quickly. After getting a wheel chair for my grandma, we happened upon the Move it Shake it Parade and made our way to our first fast pass Space Mountain–for 2 and the remainder of our party went to do Carousel of Progress)! I was able to secure a fast pass for Mine Train (and fast pass is the only way to do this and maintain your sanity… the wait times can get intense and I definitely will not pick this over riding any of the mountains). Haunted Mansion’s wait time was short and so was Thunder and Splash those were our next 3 stops. (My grandma had no desire to ride the mountains so I set her up in front of Pirates with some dole whip 10/10 recommend). When pops and I returned from the Mountains we hopped on Pirates and moved on to Animal Kingdom.
My goals of Animal Kingdom were definite. If I could swing fast passes for Pandora we would do it and we didn’t. (I learned a few more tricks since their visit and know now that if you go within the last hour of closing generally you can ride Flight of Passage with a much lower wait.) But anyway, we got the wheel chair for Animal Kingdom and headed for DinoLand. I parked Grandma at a restaurant to get some food while we headed to our fast pass over at Mount Everest.** following Everest, half of us headed to the greatest show on property–Festival of the Lion King–while the other half went to ride Dinosaur. Using the Disney buses we went back to Hollywood Studios. We arrived at Hollywood JUST in time to get to our fast pass for Tower of Terror while my grandmother (and her friend) went to secure our spot for Fantasmic. When you leave fantasmic there is an exit that heads near Tower of Terror, if you hop on over toward Tower you can then ride Tower or Rockin’ Roller Coaster, which is what we did.
After a very very long day we stumbled back to our cars while the Star Wars fireworks were going on to avoid the rush (and they’re not my favorite night time spectacular, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying them!)
**disney fast pass trick**once you have used your fast pass you’re allowed to make another fast pass in ANY park this trick is very helpful for attempting multiple parks in one day
Grand List
- Move it Shake it
- Space Mountain-fp / Carousel of Progress
- Mine Train-fp
- Haunted Mansion
- Thunder Mountain / dole whip
- Splash Mountain
- Pirates of the Caribbean
- Mount Everest
- Dinosaur/ Festival of the Lion King
- Tower of Terror
- Fantasmic
- Rockin’ Roller Coaster
The Wordy Over Thinker 