Disney in a Day

Or how I learned to keep walking no matter what.

Rachel and her friends came down to Disney as part of their spring break and I was lucky enough to get to hang out with them during their one day in the parks. I put on my tour guide shoes and decided to do everything I could to get them as much Disney in a single day as humanly possible. We were able to work our way through the big three parks and, apart from completly ignoring the Animal Kingdom, it lived up to all the theories I had about doing Disney in a day.

First things first: it can be done! By golly I don't know how we managed to to it, but if you only have one day in Disney you can do it! With exceptional use of fastpass and well placed parades we were able to experience the major attractions in Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot

We started the day bright and early in Hollywood Studios. Bright is a vast overstatement because it was POURING before and during my commute to the park. As Florida weather always tends to do, it cleared up right as we walked through the front gates and remained sunny for the rest of the day. We ran went on the Tower of Terror, Rockin' Roller-coaster, and Toy Story Mania each twice before we packed up and headed over to Magic Kingdom.

We drove there from Studios for a better exit at the end of the night

When we got to the MK we decided to work our way around the park in a clockwise manor. We began, after a quick lunch at the bakery on Main Street that is, in Adventure Land where we stopped by Pirates of the Caribbean before making our way into Frontier Land for Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain. After that we visited my home, The Haunted Mansion, and then spent quite a bit of time in Fantasy Land where we went on It's a Small World, Peter Pan, Mickey's Philarmagic, and Winnie the Pooh. We finished up our afternoon with a trip to Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster. We met up with Pooh and Tigger before they had to go to dinner and before we had to go to Epcot.

It wasn't until we got to Epcot that I felt a real crunch for time. We had a little more than two hours to get everything done that we wanted to get done before Illuminations of Earth started so we had to kick things into high gear. We finished up at Mission Space, Test Track, and Sorin' with 6 minutes left to find a place to watch the show. We found our spot just as the narration was beginning as took in my favorite of Disney's firework spectaculars.

For those of you keeping score at home that's Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, Rockin' Roller-coaster, Pirates, Splash, Thunder, Haunted Mansion, Philarmagic, Small World, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Space, Buzz, Mission Space, Test Track, AND Sorin' all in one day. Sixteen unique attractions with nineteen total experiences plus a fireworks show! For reference: the average family only goes on eight in a day.

It was a long day, but boy was it a good day. In hindsight I wish we had spent a little less time in Magic Kingdom and a little more time at Epcot. Missing Spaceship Earth was a pretty big loss especially considering one of the group had never been to Disney before. We probably could have skipped Philarmagic, but everyone likes singing along to the classics with an amusing 3D Donald Duck popping up from time to time.

This is probably the last update I'll have time to write for the next week. Liz is getting her on Saturday (!!!) and I'm not packing my computer for my "staycation" so you'll just have to anxiously await the pictures and fun stories that I'll have for you at the end of the week.

Cheers,

David

Song of the day - Simple Math by Manchester Orchestra