During my Disney College Program, my friend, Maddie, and I decided to do 4 parks in 1 Day on our last day off. We figured that there would never really be another convenient time to do this, as rushing through the parks isn't a way to enjoy them, and how often after this would we get free admission to all 4 parks whenever we wanted?
We set some ground rules as our way to maximize our experience at every park. At each park we went to, we had to:
- Eat something
- Ride something
- Meet someone
2 and 3 were interchangeable for one of the parks, mostly because we had more rides we wanted to ride than characters we wanted to meet. We based the entire day off of our favorite things about Disney World and things we didn't get to do yet during our program that we wanted to get done.
We began our day in the Magic Kingdom, where we parked and rode the ferry boat over from. We got to the park around 11 because both of us had had a closing shift the night before and didn't get out of work until 1:30AM. We planned to both begin and end our days at the Magic Kingdom, mostly because we wanted to meet Merida and she stopped meeting at 6 PM. When we got into the parks, it took us about 20 minutes to find celebration buttons, but when we finally tracked some down, we headed over to Sleepy Hollow in Liberty Square for some breakfast.
After breakfast, the two of us made our way over to Merida, who had a surprisingly short line. We met her, got our pictures taken, and then walked all the way back to the front of the park. Because we would be back later for fireworks, we figured we would leave the ride until after dark when the park started to die down.
We decided to use Disney transportation to get around, as it was free and fast. We got on the bus to Animal Kingdom around 12:45 and we got there around 1. We decided that our ride for Animal Kingdom would be Dinosaur, something I'd never been on but Maddie loved. It also helped that the wait time was only 20 minutes, while Everest was 55.
After we got off Dinosaur, we made our way over to Discovery Island to meet Dug and Russell from Up, two of my favorite characters. For our snack, we got dole whips from the only place that sells them in AK, Tamu Tamu Refreshments in Africa. And so, we got our ice cream and continued on to our next destination, Hollywood Studios.
In Hollywood Studios, Maddie and I made our way to Star Tours, the ride that had the shortest line (only a 15-minute wait). Then, we made our way over to meet Star Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy, but not before stopping in Pixar Studios to get coffee at the Joffery's stand. Then, we walked over to see Mupet Vision 3D, one of my favorite shows at Hollywood Studios.
We only spent about an hour and a half in Hollywood Studios, as it's not that big and there wasn't much of a wait for anything. So, we decided to try to take the boat over to Epcot, only to realize that the boats were down for refurbishment. So, back to the busses we went to our 4th park of the day.
In Epcot, we made our way over to the World Showcase, where we got dinner at the Boulangerie Patisserie in the back corner of France. We made friends with a dad and daughter at the table next to us, who we talked to for a little too long, so we decided to not meet any characters in Epcot. After dinner, we made our way over to Soarin', my favorite ride ever. We traded pins with people outside of The Land, and then we made our way over to Spaceship Earth, another ride I had never been on before.
After Spaceship Earth, we were both pretty tired, so we decided to get on the Monorail over to Magic Kingdom for the Happily Ever After fireworks. We made our way back over to the park around 7:45 (the fireworks started at 8:55 that night.) When we got into the park, we decided to stop at our workplace, Casey's Corner, to see any of our friends working. Then, we pushed our way forward in the crowd to try to get a spot front and center on Mainstreet USA.
After the fireworks, we pushed our way through the crowds to ride our final ride of the night, the Haunted Mansion, aka my favorite ride in Magic Kingdom. By the time we got off the ride, we had about 15 minutes until park close, so we stopped in to see Maddie's roommate at work and then made our way to the front of the park. We stopped in the confectionary for me to get a rice krispy treat to go, and then, we said goodnight to the Magic Kingdom.
I would recommend doing 4 Parks in 1 Day to any DCP participant. It was a really fun way to end our program, and I really enjoyed getting to spend the last day off that I had doing all of my favorite things in the parks. It does take a lot of planning and a lot of energy, so I would not recommend doing it after a closing shift like Maddie and I did because we were so tired by the end of the night, neither of us wanted to stand on the ferryboat back to the parking lot. I would, however, suggest waiting until later in your program to do it, as you'll be more familiar with the parks and you'll have a better idea of how long everything is going to take.
