I had an audition in Miami over the weekend, so my sister and I went to Disney World on Friday. My sister decided that we would conquer Disney World. By conquer, I mean go to all four parks in one day. That's right. ALL FOUR IN ONE DAY.
Kate and I, though very impressed by all of Disney World, knew that we wouldn't spend a ton of time in the Animal Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios. So, Tip #1: Sacrifice. Pick the things you really want to do in each park and save the best for last. In our case, we knew we'd want to do nearly everything in the Magic Kingdom, so we devoted about six and a half hours total to the Animal Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.
Tip #2: Eat. You need energy. Pro-Tip: LIE. We didn't stay at a Disney World Resort, so we lied and said we were checking in to a resort and ate breakfast at the resort and caught the bus from there to Hollywood Studios. We also had a dip in energy about 11:30am and ate lunch in the Animal Kingdom. The only time we left the park was to catch the monorail to dinner at the Polynesian resort where we ate dinner and then caught the monorail back to the Magic Kingdom. Seriously, this takes so much energy. Eat well.
Tip #3: Be ready to go, go, go. I had a backpack. That was it. That's what we brought into the park. Inside that pack, I kept both our phones and wallets, our tickets, charger cords, our water bottles, sunscreen, and my glasses. We put everything in the bag while on the bus in between each park. We didn't make many purchases, but we were able to put them all in the bag because we packed efficiently and lightly.
Tip #4: Keep the purchases to a minimum. Especially because we weren't staying at a Disney Resort and couldn't send purchases to our hotels (which is awesome when you can), we decided early on that we'd buy some small knick-knacks for our family (it was our dad's birthday on Friday, so we picked him up something special) and maybe one item each (I bought a mug, Kate bought a shirt). This kept our trip on the cheaper side, but also gave us more mobility.
Tip #5: TAKE PICTURES. You're conquering Disney in a day. That's impressive, document that, Holmes. As I detailed above, we weren't buying much, so we took a ton of pictures and vlogs to celebrate our mini vacation and remember our fun.
Tip #6: Don't plan. Because, honestly, you really can't. Disney is set up around the idea that you're going to spend at least half a day in each park. Our fastpasses were spread out all over the place, so we kind of had to ignore them, and just see what was available to us. This allowed us to meet more characters (like MOANA, which was awesome) and take our time.
Tip #7: Get the app. Like I mentioned, we had to ignore our fastpasses sometimes, but we could change them out on the app. This was a godsend. The coolest moment being when, as we walked from Splash Mountain to the Winnie-the-Pooh ride, we set up fastpasses for the Winnie-the-Pooh ride and the Dumbo ride. We only waited twice in the day for less than 30 minutes each because of this awesome app.
Tip #8: HAVE FUN. I don't live at home anymore, neither does my sister. It was really fun to get to spend a crazy day with her. It was magical and super awesome. #DisneyinaDay
