12 Parks in 16 Days - Disney Parks Around the World Trip Report

[Rimmit]

Here's my trip report from 12/19-1/7 for our Disney Parks Around the World Trip 12 Parks in 16 days from 12/21-1/5! We stayed at 8 different Disney Hotels, including all 5 Disneyland Hotels AND Tokyo DisneySea Hotel Miracosta and Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau.

Day 1 - Away We Go

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney

Enough talk. After over a year in planning, over five years since we last tried to do a similar trip, AND Kendall getting run over by a car in Zimbabwe in that time frame we are finally embarking on our adventure across the globe to do all 12 Disney Parks over Christmas break.

First thing’s first and we had to pick Lucy up from school. Given it’s the Thursday before Christmas break we weren’t too concerned about her missing half a day today and a full day Friday because as everyone knows, the week before Christmas break is spent watching Christmas movies and doing Christmas puzzles and worksheets.

After we picked her up, we went home and waited for our taxi. We had never ridden in a taxi in our town so we were already starting our journey with a brand new experience. Ride sharing does not exist in Ashland, KY and taxi’s are primarily used for medical transport so this was a somewhat bizarre experience for us. Traditionally, we typically just park our car at the airport when we fly out of our local airport because if we go out of Huntington it’s on Allegiant for a quick trip to Florida. This is obviously NOT a quick trip and as such we took a taxi for the first time ever as there are no ride sharing services in our area. It costs $10/day to park at our airport, and when you’re gone for nearly 20 days, it just makes financial sense to take a taxi for $82 dollars round trip.

I cannot even remotely convey the amount of joy I have when we have the ability to fly out of Huntington Tri-State Airport. The convenience of flying out of a small regional airport a mere 25 minutes from our house in which the security line if you have TSA precheck is nonexistent CANNOT be understated. It feels like your own private airport. From when the plane touches down to getting home it typically takes us about 45 minutes. When we fly out of Cincinatti or Columbus, it takes 45 minutes or more from the time we touchdown to just get to our car. Add a 2.5 hour drive after a long day of flying just puts a sour taste in the mouth after a vacation. We would love to fly out of HTS more often but it is incredibly cost prohibitive except when using Allegiant or redeeming award flights on American Airlines.

We arrived at the airport 1.5 hours early which for Huntington is just excessive, but we always budget for a flat tire, or some other bizarre occurrence. As always, the TSA precheck line had zero people in it, and from drop off to gate it wasn’t even 10 minutes. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet today, and unfortunately food options are super limited at HTS, in that outside of one vending machine there often are none. Thankfully today the small kiosk that sells pizza and some snacks was open, and Kendall and I split a small pizza while waiting for our flight.

HTS is a small regional airport with two gates. Back in its hey day it had a number of carriers, but these days it’s limited to American and Allegiant. It’s small and efficient and we love flying out of it when we can.

This is the entire terminal. Not the smallest commercial airport I’ve flown out of, but it’s up there.
Today is by far the most pedestrian of the flights we are taking on our trip, being a standard flight on Allegiant. No fancy lounge, no lie flat seat. Just an standard A320, with a seat with about 17 inches of width with no recline that feels like you’re sitting on a 2×4. You get what you pay for and for this flight of just over 1.5 hours it was just $402 dollars for 3 people including the 3 carry on bags so you can’t really complain on the cost front.

I love this airport!
Boarding and take off and were on time and our flight to Sanford was about as uneventful as it gets. We were seated in row 7, Seats D,E,F.

We never pay for seat selection so these were the Allegiant assigned seats. For a 1.5 hour flight it honestly doesn’t matter to us. The seats have the standard 17 inch width and 30 inches of pitch. This is one of the ONLY times in life being 5’3’’ comes in handy.

There are many disadvantages to being short such as a general disadvantage at the majority of sports or a lower lifetime income compared to your taller cohorts in the same field, but there is one advantage that far outweighs any disadvantage. I can fit comfortably in an Allegiant seat! It’s a pretty great trade off in my opinion.

We landed at 5:08PM two minutes earlier than our scheduled arrival time. Thankfully, my parents live in Orlando and as such they are our own personal uber, which definitely saves on cost. I texted them that we had landed, so they could be ready to pull the car around to pick us up and take us to the Disney’s Polynesian Resort where we were staying.

After we landed, we we were picked up, it was getting close to dinner time, so on the way to the Polynesian we stopped at Lucy’s favorite restaurant, Chick-fil-a. I had originally had ‘Ohana booked and timed the reservation for the Magic Kingdom fireworks, but it was pretty hectic couple of days leading up to this trip, so we decided having a quick dinner and early bed time was in our best interest. Just for the record, if you are foodie, THIS IS NOT THE BLOG FOR YOU. We do a wide variety of activities when we travel, but food has never been our priority, and the one area we can skimp on the budget. My food reviews will be composed of words like “Tasty”, “Yummy”, “Standard”, “Adequate”.

Upon arrival at Chick-fil-a we walked in and it was slammed. Chick-fil-a is always crowded but today was excessive in that when we walked in, there wasn’t a free table anywhere and people were even standing around waiting on tables. We didn’t quite know what was going on, until we saw Santa and a Santa Cow in the corner and realized why it was so crowded. Santa Cow and Santa made their rounds to the table like it was a character dining at Disney.

Lucy clearly is enjoying Santa Cow
Unlike Disney however, it was significantly cheaper. Like $250 dollars cheaper. The food was more than tasty, and tasted just like our Chick-fil-a at home.

Of note, while we were at Chick-fil-a at 6:34 PM I received a notification that our room was now ready.

Given check in time is 3:00 PM, a 3.5 hour delay I feel is pretty substantial. It did not matter to us as we were not yet there, but if I arrived at 3:00 PM I would be pretty annoyed, especially for the price you are paying for the room. We eventually arrived at the Polynesian at about 7:15 PM.

We had never stayed at the Polynesian before so this was a totally new experience for us. We checked in and then dropped our luggage off at the room before we decided to just explore the resort for a bit. For the future planners out there, we were in a Standard View Deluxe Studio in the Tokelau building. I am not going to give a full review, as that is not the purpose of these articles, but we enjoyed the room and would definitely book it again. The rooms in the DVC section of the Polynesian were impressively well designed.

They came with not one, not two, but three sinks, two bathrooms, one with a shower and one with a tub and toilet, a murphy bed, queen size bed, a wet bar, and a bed that pulled out from under the TV. The room was also beautifully lit and many of the switches even had dimmers. I am an absolute sucker for good lighting and I was impressed with the attention to detail. Lucy initially wanted to sleep in the little nook under the bed until she discovered the murphy bed.

We then left the room to explore the resort, take some pics and scout out a place to watch the Notre Dame game tomorrow.

We visited the gift shops as Lucy needed to buy a new autograph book as her previous one was out of pages. Then we proceeded to start walking to the brand new Polynesian Tower as it just opened up two days ago, and this thing is almost as controversial as the last election. On the way, Lucy did her typically Lucy thing of wanting to take pictures with everything she could find as we walked around.

The grounds look beautiful at night and the temperature was an absolutely perfect, especially after coming from 30F degree temps just hours earlier. After a short walk, we eventually made it to the brand new monstrosity that has caused more heartache among Disney fans than the first 10 minutes of UP, the infamous Island Tower.

The infamous Island Tower
It is a beautiful building, but I must agree with other bloggers that after seeing it in person it just feels out of place. If taken out of the context of being between the Grand Floridian and Polynesian it would be applauded for its design and modern aesthetic. Unfortunately, its main fault is existing between two resorts that are just not thematically coherent. I must say it is gorgeous on the inside, though, and I’m sure the fireworks views are spectacular from the higher floors.

If Disney ever did a themed Vegas mega resort, they could carbon copy this and just blow it up on a larger scale and it would fit right in. After looking around the new Island tower for a short bit we then walked back to our room at about 9:30 PM and called it a night.

 

[scrappinmom]

WHat an incredible opportunity! I can't wait to read your report! & I feel sorry fory our daughters' future partner! No trip he/she could ever surprise her with is going to top this one! You achieved my number one life bucket list item IN ONE TRIP!

 

[Rimmit]

WHat an incredible opportunity! I can't wait to read your report! & I feel sorry fory our daughters' future partner! No trip he/she could ever surprise her with is going to top this one! You achieved my number one life bucket list item IN ONE TRIP!

Thanks for following!

Start planning for the other parks! Outside of airfare which you can hack with points and miles, the Asian parks are significantly cheaper than the US ones. Especially Tokyo. Airfare and time to get there is without the biggest barrier.

 

[Rimmit]

Day 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

I am a chronically early riser, and today was no different, and I woke up at 5:00AM. I originally had no intention of even having these articles up while we were traveling but I had nothing else to do that early so I just started writing. Today was going to be a pretty calm and slow paced day by our standards as our goal was to rest up for our 4 parks in 1 day gauntlet tomorrow.

I have previously been given feedback regarding my trip planning in that I plan things at a thousand miles a minute, so I decided to try and slow things down as best as I could for our current trip. In an attempt to at least incorporate some rest we only had two set things on our agenda today, ‘Ohana for breakfast at 9:45 AM with my parents and a 4:00 PM reservation at the Hoop Dee Doo Revue, which is a dinner show. We had never done the Hoop Dee Doo Revue before and so we were gonna check that off our list.

I eventually got out of bed and started my day off with a run. I always love running around Disney resorts, especially in the morning while the resort is quiet and most people are still starting their day. It’s definitely a nice change of pace from the treadmill or the scenery at home.

I return from my run and Lucy was already up and taking a bath. One of the beauties of having a room with a shower and bathtub in separate rooms was being able to shower even though Lucy was still bathing. We got dressed and headed to ‘Ohana about 9:40 AM and met my parents. There was no line at check in and not even two minutes later we were called to sit down. The waitress brought us to our table and dropped off our Pineapple-Coconut Breakfast bread. The bread was pretty yummy and between the five of us we ate all of it.

The menu at ‘Ohana was about what you’d expect for breakfast, but most importantly, they had Mickey Waffles. From a beverage side they also served unlimited POG juice, which is their famous mix of passion fruit, orange and guava juices.

We’ve been to a fair amount of character meals over the years, but without a doubt this was the most hectic. Within less than 60 seconds of sitting down we were approached by Pluto, and then Mickey and the Lilo all in rapid succession. There were a total of 3 characters that stopped by within the first 10 minutes. Typically, in our previous character meals, we have all the characters stop by over a 30-60 minute time span. This allows you to eat, talk, and let the kids (and adults) have some anticipation of meeting the characters.

They were coming so fast that Stitch was trying to stop by, but Mickey was still at our table which created a traffic jam, and to Lucy’s dismay he skipped our table temporarily. The characters then did their little parade to “Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride” from the movie.

This was definitely different than the last time we did ‘Ohana for breakfast. Not sure when they changed it, but my guess is like many things at Disney, the kid parade was killed during Covid and they never bothered to bring it back. Previously, they lent the kids instruments like maracas, and they were part of the parade with the characters. This really added a lot more energy to the parade than just having 4 characters parade around the room. It was still fun with Stitch, Lilo, Mickey, and Pluto, but it just lacked the same level of energy and chaos it that can only be created by having a bunch of kids playing instruments in a completely random nature can create.

A couple minutes after the parade Stitch came back around, and Lucy finally got to meet Stitch.

The food was more than adequate, and in particular we really enjoyed the bread and the ham. It was served family style, but we didn’t need any seconds as we couldn’t even come close to finishing the first round of food.

Afterwards we hopped on the monorail and took a short ride to the Grand Floridian to see the Gingerbread House Store. This is actually a life size gingerbread house that sells some sweets.

Lucy really wanted to buy something and ended up buying picking the chocolate chip cookie as it was one of the cheapest items on the menu.

Posing normally is not something she does well.
We then proceeded to ride the monorail back to the Polynesian.

One of benefits of having parents living in Orlando is they are your own personal uber. So we went off property for a short bit as Lucy out of nowhere had a sudden urge to get into pin trading. The pins at the stores at the Polynesian run from $12.99-16.99 for a single pin. Lucy will go broke real fast if she’s buying a couple pins to trade at minimum $12.99 a pop. So instead of paying those painful prices, we drove 12 minutes to the Mermaid Gift Shop in Kissimmee.

They had a pretty good collection of official Disney pins for significantly lower price.

Lucy debated what pins to get for way longer than it should have taken, but thankfully she ultimately settled on a set, and the total for it was just $24.99 for 10 pins or $2.49 a pin. To get 10 pins at the Polynesian would have been a minimum $129.99, so that was a savings of $104.99. Kendall then decided to hop onboard the pin trading train, and bought a set to trade herself as well. I resisted this newfound obsession that was brewing in my family. Overall, the costs savings was definitely well worth the short drive.

We then drove back to the Polynesian. Despite passing by this sign more times than I can count it never gets old.

This was also my first chance to see the Island Tower in all its glory in daylight. I must say, it truly just sticks out like a sore thumb.

We said good bye to my parents, and Kendall and Lucy started trading pins with the various pinboards around the resort. Given we were going to have a long night, or at least I was given Notre Dame plays at 8:00 PM, we headed back to to the room to rest for a bit.

The Hoop Dee Doo revue was at 4:00 PM, and the most efficient way to get from the Polynesian to the Hoop Dee Doo Revue at Fort Wilderness was to take the monorail to Magic Kingdom and then take the boat to Fort Wilderness. In theory, it should take about maximum of an hour to do that, but we left the room a little early at 2:05PM to give ourselves ample time. We also wanted some extra time so Kendall and Lucy could continue their newfound pin trading hobby at Fort Wilderness. Randomly, the sign at the dock for the boat that took us to Fort Wilderness still had Mickey’s Backyard BBQ.

While Disney is typically pretty slow to change out signs, this closed in 2018, so about 6 years ago. I find it mind boggling they still haven’t changed this sign out.

On the way to Fort Wilderness you can’t miss the cranes lining the sky.

We haven’t been to Fort Wilderness since we did Mickey’s Backyard BBQ in 2017. Sadly they destroyed that area where they used to host it in favor of yet ANOTHER DVC to was previously going to be called Reflections: A Disney Lakeside Lodge, and then due to Covid they halted construction but have now restarted construction and it is now renamed Disney Lakeshore Lodge.

It is quite obvious at this point that Disney is becoming a timeshare company that runs theme parks rather than a theme park company that has time shares. The speed which they can put up whole towers compared to the time it takes for them to get rid of the EPCOT dirt pit truly shows the priorities of Disney, but that soapbox is for another time.

We arrived at 2:58PM and had an hour to burn, so we walked to the Settlement Trading Post. Kendall and Lucy traded some pins and played checker’s on the porch while I walked around taking some quick pictures of the area.

We checked in for the Hoop Dee Doo Revue, and let Lucy play on the playground near the theater until it was time to go see the show.

We had a Category 2 table, which meant we were seated on the sides of the theater. This was a dinner show, so our seats were just a typical table and chairs you’d find at any restaurant. The total price for 3 people was $185 which for Disney really isn’t bad for a meal and some entertainment.

We happened to have table 31, which was actually the first table on the edges from the stage, so our table was actually pretty good for being a 2nd tier seat and we had a very close view of the table.

When we sat down the salad, cole slaw, and corn bread were already at the table.

No one in my family eats coleslaw or cornbread, and Kendall is really the only one that eats salad, and so the 1st course was a bit of a bust to be honest, we knew the menu before hand so this was not a surprise.

The show started just prior to the second course being served and was composed of some fried chicken, ribs, beans, mashed potatoes and gravy. We all definitely enjoyed the main course. The ribs aren’t exactly fall off the bone, but they weren’t bad and I enjoyed them and even asked for seconds. Lucy and Kendall ate ample fried chicken.

Third course was dessert and was composed of Strawberry Shortcake. Yet another item that neither me nor Lucy eat. Thankfully, Kendall likes strawberry shortcake so at least someone had a bite and it wasn’t a total waste of food.

Show was pretty enjoyable but nothing spectacular. It was filled with lots of dad jokes and was pretty hokey. It was pretty high energy and it had the crowd into it for the vast majority of time. Kendall and I both felt it coulda just been a little shorter.

Overall, it was exactly what we expected in that it was a decent deal for price. We really Mickey’s Backyard BBQ better and really wish they’d bring it back. I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed sadly.

We the left the show and waited about 10 minutes for a boat to get us back to Magic Kingdom, and then monorail to get back to the Polynesian. Lots of people leaving due to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party starting, so once we got to Magic Kindom there was a small line at for the resort monorail.

On the way back, we passed the cranes again. The lighting definitely did them some favors, as I actually found them less obtrusive on the way back.

Eventually got back to room right at 7:00PM just in time for me to get to Tambu, the hotel bar, to watch the ND game. I would be content to just watch it in our room, but I don’t think I could stay calm enough to let Kendall and Lucy sleep, and given our goal is to get to Animal Kingdom tomorrow by 8:30 AM at the latest we need everyone to get a decent night’s sleep. Sadly, win or lose, I was not likely sleep well, as I’ll either be too traumatized to sleep or too hyped to sleep. I am sincerely hoping for the latter.

So I left the room to go watch the game and went to Tambu which is a small bar beside ‘Ohana. I have been traumatized by Notre Dame football for many years, and I thought for sure this year would be no different, but being a fan hope springs eternal.

There was no sound, and I was the only person who cared about the game so not exactly the most ideal watching environment. Through some miracle of God, Notre Dame actually beat Indiana 27-17 in a relatively drama free game. I was still too hyped to sleep well though, but I did eventually fall asleep in the wee hours of the morning.

Tomorrow is the first of many park days this trip and but out of all the park days it is the most intense as we will be doing all four parks in one day along with a VIP tour. Let’s do this!

Day 2, December 20th, 2024 Step Count – 15,544

Total Step Count – 30,171

 

[suse66]

Joining in! You're off to a great start and I am really looking forward to hearing about your next adventures!

My prediction is WDW>DL>Tokyo DL>Hong Kong DL>Shanghai DL>Paris DL.

 

[rlk]

Great start. I'm looking forward to reading about your around-the-world adventure.

 

[Rimmit]

Joining in! You're off to a great start and I am really looking forward to hearing about your next adventures!

My prediction is WDW>DL>Tokyo DL>Hong Kong DL>Shanghai DL>Paris DL.

Let's see how close you get. =)

 

[Rimmit]

Day 3 - 4 Parks 1 Day
Today we all woke up pretty early at 6:00AM when our alarm went off because we needed to get an early start if we were gonna do all 4 parks in 1 day. I didn’t sleep to much for good reason as Notre Dame beat Indiana in the 1st college football playoff game ever, and I was just hyped. It was a toasty 45 degrees Fahrenheit and a light wind so felt more like 40 and had an expected high of 60 F, so we decided to break out the winter gear. The high would be 60 today, but we only brought our winter coats and in the evening it would be back to the 40s around 10PM so it just made sense to layer up.

We were out the door at 7:06AM and headed to Capt. Cooks for breakfast. Capt. Cooks is just a quick service restaurant which is just what we needed. Kendall and I typically just split meals as we don’t each much and as such we split a breakfast burrito and Lucy had Fruit Loops.

While we were eating someone spotted my Notre Dame jacket and we started talking. Apparently she was a ND grad, and so were her siblings and their dad was a Notre Dame grad and also a board member, and they were all here on vacation together. So we talked Notre Dame football for too long than we should as we were on a tight schedule.

I eventually pulled myself out of the conversation and we went to the bus stop at the front of the Polynesian at 7:35AM and there was already a bus waiting for us.

Kendall has come miles in her recovery since the accident but she still can’t quite walk a full theme park day, and as such we still brought along a wheelchair as backup to help reduce the number of steps. Disney is about as accessible friendly as it gets and they opened the rear doors to allow me to load in the wheelchair.

In what felt like a once in a lifetime occurrence, we had our own personal bus this morning which was a pleasant surprise.

At 8:02AM we arrived at Animal Kingdom. We went through security and made our way to take a photo a the Tree of Life. As part of our 4 parks in 1 day challenge, we needed to take a picture at each parks icon, eat a snack and ride a ride.

While we have a 7 hour VIP tour today, we still bought the Lightning Lanes Multi Pass and the Single Pass for Flight of Passage for Animal Kingdom. Our first LL was at 8:25AM for Dinosaur. I know from many years of Disney going this was an essentially useless LL as Dinosaur is a walk on at that time. There weren’t many LL options for right when the park opened left so I booked full well knowing it was useless, but I wasn’t booking this LL for its line cutting advantages. I was booking it so I could use it early on so I could unlock LL’s at other parks. When you buy a LL you have to pick a park for your first three LL. After you scan your first LL in the park you chose, you could the start booking LL’s in other parks.

Any LL for right when the park opens is pretty useless as the lines are short at that time. I needed to be able to scan a LL as soon as possible so I could back load our day with Lightning Lanes at Magic Kingdom for after our VIP tour ends. So the moment I tapped in I immediately booked another LL for that night at Magic Kingdom.

We were on the ride by 8:33AM and off at 8:38AM.

Dinosaur is not exactly my favorite ride but it will be extinct soon (pun intended) when it’s replaced by a new Indiana Jones ride so I felt I needed to go on it for nostalgia’s sake. Lucy like most younger kids was somewhat traumatized by the ride. We then started walking to Flight of Passage.

At 8:50AM we arrived at Flight of Passage which is my favorite ride in Animal Kingdom. Which was right on time for our Lightning Lane. We tapped in but because this was a Lightning Lane Single Pass and not a multi pass so we couldn’t choose another one after we redeemed it.

At 9:15AM we exited Flight of Passage and then started heading to Everest which was our next Lightning Lane. We stopped on the way to do some pin trading.

We got to Everest at 9:38 AM and tapped in, and selected another LL at Magic Kingdom. By 9:48 AM we were done.

We hadn’t eaten since 7:00AM so we took a snack and bathroom break. Kendall ordered a chai latte from Joffrey’s and we then started heading to Kilimanjaro Safari for our final LL in Animal Kingdom. Kendall and Lucy stopped and traded some pins on the way.

At 10:20AM we started walking to the Safari and we tapped in at 10:25AM. Safari was enjoyable as always and we even saw the cheetahs move a fair amount. The cats tend to be pretty lazy so seeing them up and about was a pleasant surprise. We were at 10:59AM.

On the way out we stopped and bought a churro. It wouldn’t be a Disney trip without a churro.

Afterwards we started heading to park #2, Hollywood Studios, albeit me and Kendall will forever call it MGM.

We made it out of the park and to the bus stop to Hollywood Studios at 11:20AM and arrived at Hollywood Studios at 11:36AM.

I had not mentioned this earlier but throughout our time at Animal Kingdom I was receiving text updates from one of the other families on our VIP tour. Apparently they were delayed getting out of their airport in New Jersey due to ice and needed to offload people due to the weight of the plane. So they were going to be late for the tour. We ended up pushing the tour back by an hour so they could make it on time. This then changed our LL plans as I moved one of the LL I had booked for the end of the day to Rock n Roller Coaster so we could do a ride at Hollywood Studios prior to the tour.

We eventually get into the park at 11:48AM after a holdup with security and walked down Sunset Boulevard to take a pic in front of the Tower of Terror.

While I was setting up for my shot, Max decides to photobomb us.

We mobile ordered some food at Rosie’s All American Cafe nearby as we waited for our LL time at 12:20PM as it is very close to the ride. Just had a quick burger and some chicken tenders for Lucy so nothing exciting there.

We finished lunch and went to bathroom and tapped in at 12:34 PM for Rock ‘n Roller Coaster. We then picked another LL for the end of the day at Magic Kingdom. It was our last one of the day and Lucy chose Space Mountain which we will be doing on the VIP tour as well. We got off finished at 12:50PM.

We still had 40 min till our tour so we pin traded, and took some more pics and converted from cold weather to warm weather mode. This AM when we left the temp was 45F with a feels like almost in the 30s. It was now beautiful, sunny and about 62F, so Kendall and Lucy went to the bathroom to shed their base layers.

We then met our VIP tour outside vacation fun theater. Given the cost of the VIP tour, we never would have never done one, but by sharing the tour with two other families it brought the cost down from what was completely unreasonable to just kinda unreasonable. The goal of this trip was to do Disney like we’ve never done it before so we went for it.

Our guide’s name was Kennedy and she was amazing, full of Disney knowledge and had a very warm personality. The other two families had a total of 3 more kids for Lucy to hang out with. Thankfully one was 9 years old as well and they clicked immediately.

At this point in the day and for the first and only time this vacation I will get to take a mental break. I am just along for the ride. One of the other people we were on a tour with had been on 9 previous tours so the group kinda deferred to her as to what was the most efficient rides to do while on tour. She then pretour told Kennedy, our guide, the plan so we already had guideline for the day. For the next section, for brevities sake, I’ll just be listing the times and rides and if we had a special entrance rather than the Lightning Lane entrance with some occasional commentary.

1:29 PM Started with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. Used a back entrance straight to the pre show.

1:46PM Done with Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. I always enjoy Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway, although I enjoyed The Great Movie Ride more. Every time I go on this ride it reminds me just how much MGM has changed from it’s roots, in that now it’s just a mishmash of random IPs, rather than a thematic studio theme park.

13:57PM Used the Lightning Lane for Slinky Dog Dash.

2:05PM Done with Slinky Dog Dash.

2:08PM Used shortcut in line for Toy Story Midway Mania.

2:23PM Finished Toy Story Midway Mania.

2:35PM Used Lightning Lane entrance on Tower of Terror. So I had always heard of people that released pennies while the ride was operating to see them float in zero G. Well, I had my sunglasses draped on my T-shirt and when the elevator thrust downward they became dislodged and were floating in space. Thankfully, after a couple tries, I was able to snatch them, but it was a surreal moment to see them just floating in the air.

2:54PM Done with Tower of Terror

2:57PM Used Lightning Lane entrance on Rock ‘N Roller Coaster

3:13 PM Done with Rock ‘N Roller Coaster

I was kinda sad getting off Rock N’ Roller Coaster as it will be being rethemed to the Muppets soon, so that may be the last time I ever go on it in its current state.

We then took a quick bathroom break and Kennedy went and fetched us some drinks. Thankfully, for the price of the tour it at least has a couple freebies. The drinks included in the tour include water and soft drinks. For all intents and purposes, basically whatever is available from a nearby snack stand.

3:23PM We take a backstage exit to get to our van that was valet’d near the backstage exit near the now retired Lightning McQueen Racing Academy.

We did the Racing Academy a couple times, it was nothing special, but burned time and had a low wait. The Lightning McQueen animatronic was the most impressive part, and I hope they can repurpose it elsewhere. The space will be transformed into a villains stage show, Disney Villains: Unfairly Ever After, and I’m sure unless it’s just awful will assuredly garner a bigger crowd than the Racing Academy.

We then proceeded to head on over to Epcot.

 

[Rimmit]

So we continued on our 4 parks in 1 day journey via van. On the way to Epcot Kennedy gave us the VIP Merchandise menu so we could strategize our purchases in advance.

The VIP merch is brand new for Walt Disney World and only started at the beginning of December so very few people have ever had the opportunity to purchase it.

3:35PM We arrived at Epcot and used the backstage exit near Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Also, just so you are aware, there are no pictures allowed in backstage areas and as such there will be none in this post for those who were wondering.

We stopped for a quick picture with the golf ball AKA Spaceship Earth.

3:44PM Used Lightning Lane entrance for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.

4:17PM Done with Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind.

4:22PM Left via same backstage entrance and went back to the van and used van to transfer to Magic Kingdom.

Our VIP tour group!
On the way to Magic Kingdom I noticed the coolest parking tag of all time. I sooo want one!

4:35PM We arrived at Magic Kingdom and upon exiting the car were again offered snacks. It was the same variety as before, but this time they had added some Clif and Kind bars. We then entered via the backstage walkway that is only opened before fireworks to allow more fireworks viewing space and also to decrease congestion on main street afterwards.

This is right next to Tomorrowland Terrace where they hold the dessert parties. We stopped for a quick bathroom break, and while we were doing our business, Kennedy went and fetched some ice cream. Me and Kendall split a Mickey Ice Cream Sandwich. We then started the trek to the newest ride reimagining, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

4:55PM Used Lightning Lane entrance for Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. We all donned our ponchos and jackets as getting wet when it’s low 50’s outside is not exactly ideal.

This was the first time I had been on it since it was rethemed from Splash Mountain. I found it a worthy successor, but nothing will ever be as good as the original to me. The animatronics were impressive and definitely far more advanced than previously. I definitely missed “Zip-a-Dee-doo-dah” as the ending song though.

5:21PM Done with Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. While we were on Tiana’s, Kennedy went off to get us some real Disney snack’s. Options included popcorn, ice cream bars, churro or a pretzel. Kendall and Lucy went for some popcorn and I took a Mickey Pretzel.

5:34PM Used the exit entrance for Haunted Mansion.

5:41PM Done with Haunted Mansion

5:46PM Used Lightning Lane entrance for Seven Dwarves Mine Train.

6:05PM Done with Seven Dwarves Mine Train.

We were the supposed to do Tron but it was down. So the group then chose to go to Space Mountain

6:13PM Took a bathroom break near Space Mountain.

6:20PM Used Lightning Lane entrance for Space Mountain.

6:29PM Done with Space Mountain. The group decided to keep waiting around Tomorrowland hoping Tron would come back online so the group decided on Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.

Me and Kendall saving the galaxy from the Evil Emperor Zurg
6:37PM We then used the exit for Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.

6:46PM We exited Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin. Tron still not online so we decided to go on Space Mountain one last time.

6:52PM Used Lightning Lane entrance for Space Mountain.

7:02PM Done with Space Mountain and Tron was still down.

7:15PM We march on over to Curtain Call, a store at the very front of the park that sells the VIP merchandise. This can ONLY be purchased during your tour time AT Magic Kingdom so you have to use some tour time to buy the merchandise further adding to the cost. The merch is not on display, and must be requested by a tour guide. Interestingly, enough for the price you’d think there was at least some basic presentation but they just kinda bring it out half hazardly in a box. For something of this price you’d think they’d have a little better presentation.

Merch in a box.
We shopped for a bit, and every one buys something. In the end, we bought some ears, a lounge fly, spirit jersey, a collectible pin set and an ornament.

7:40 PM We then headed over to the VIP fireworks area which is in the lawn area near Casey’s corner. It was shockingly pretty empty. Per our tour guide there could have been 200 people there today, but I counted maybe 50 at best so it was very spacious and the girls in our group could play. Kennedy offered to grab some water or snacks for us but we were full from all the snacks. While we waited because Tron was down during our tour, Kennedy got us an anytime Lightning Lane for Tron to be used later. We took some pics with the castle in the background and waited for the fireworks.

8:00PM The fireworks started. It was the holiday fireworks rather than Happily Ever After which was kinda neat, but it has been a bit since I saw Happily Ever After and was really looking forward to having a good view of it so I was little disappointed.

8:14PM The fireworks finished up. It’s a much shorter show than Happily Ever After, and so that was another small disappointment given that we didn’t get to use the VIP area a little longer as well. We then said goodbye to our newly made friends and I started to walk to the lockers at the front of the park with our VIP merch. We still had 2.5 hours of park time and I was not gonna drag the merch on all the rides. I was there and back to pick up Lucy and Kendall in less than 12 minutes which was crazy fast given how congested Main Street is after the fireworks. We then started to walk to our first Lightning Lane, the ride with the eighth wonder of the world, The Jungle Cruise.

8:31PM We got to the Jungle Cruise or really it’s holiday themed version the Jingle Cruise. We used our Lightning Lane and enjoyed some holiday themed dad jokes.

8:48PM We were done and decided to go finally do Tron as it had just reopened.

9:04PM We made it to Tron and apparently everyone else had the same idea as the Lightning Lane was really backed up.

I guesstimated it was probably a 30 min wait with the Lightning Lane and that proved about dead on accurate. I always find the Tron loading area so soothing with all the blue lights.

9:45PM Finished Tron and at that point we decided to go home as we were getting pretty tired as we started the day at 7:00AM. We still had two Lightning Lanes that we could have used, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and another Space Mountain but this trip is a marathon and not a sprint and we chose to let those go dead. I missed the days when you could just hand someone your unused fast passes as a little pixie dusting. I did stop for one final pic of the castle on the way out. It truly does look beautiful at night. No wonder it’s the number one most instagrammed spot on earth.

10:01PM We had made it outside Magic Kingdom. The number one most glorious thing about having a room at the Polynesian is not having to deal with the mass chaos of trying to take the ferry or monorail back to the Transportation and Ticket Center and then make your way home via car or deal with the painfully long bus lines back to your resort. We just took the monorail to the resort. That was it. Doesn’t get much simpler. This was a real milestone moment for us after years of trekking home exhausted, hot and sweaty after waiting in the crazy long lines for the monorail or ferry at the end of a Magic Kingdom day. We had waited our whole lives for this convenience. It was absolutely glorious.

10:25PM We were back at the Polynesian and stopped at Capt. Cooks for some food as all we had eaten since noon was a bunch of ice cream, popcorn and pretzels. Kendall and I split a BBQ sandwich.

We were exhausted at this point as it had been a long day so we then went to bed to prep for a day of transit to Paris… or so we thought.

Day 3, December 21st, 2024 Step Count – 33,800 Steps

Total Step Count – 63,971

 

[hardcorestitch]

Nice start to your Orlando visit!

Although (this is just my opinion) the third party Disney outlets on the streets aren’t really “official” in my book. I only ever get my Disney merchandise from official Disney stores (like the Disney stores in MCO and the parks, the Character Warehouse, etc). Getting my Stitch plush and other things anywhere else like Hot Topic or Target just doesn’t have that magic inside. It may seem high end, but it really makes that moment special.

 

[Rimmit]

Nice start to your Orlando visit!

Although (this is just my opinion) the third party Disney outlets on the streets aren’t really “official” in my book. I only ever get my Disney merchandise from official Disney stores (like the Disney stores in MCO and the parks, the Character Warehouse, etc). Getting my Stitch plush and other things anywhere else like Hot Topic or Target just doesn’t have that magic inside. It may seem high end, but it really makes that moment special.

Thankfully my daughter doesn’t care. She’s on a tight budget given she is 9 years old, so the extra $30-$40 bucks to buy pins on property really sting her budget. I didn’t have time to go to eBay and buy a huge lot for cheap, and my daughter is not exactly a pin affficianado. I wanted to go to character warehouse but it is a madhouse around Christmas due to the parking situation. It would have taken half an hour minimum just to find parking at the outlets. She just needed SOMETHING to trade. Ironically, the majority of pins on the trading boards just so happened to be the ones available at the non official third parties. lol. So clearly every one has the same idea to get there collection off the ground.

 

[Rimmit]

Day 4 - Man plans, God laughs
“The best laid plans of mice and men…”

Today I woke up at 6:00 AM and decided since I was up that I might as well go start some laundry. The laundry is located in the Moorea building right next door, so I get dressed and walk on over. I walk outside to a very pleasant surprise. It is MUCH warmer today then the low 40s Fahrenheit it was yesterday. It felt like the mid 50s and I wish I had time to go for a run as it was perfect running weather.

The laundry machines were free to use which was nice and you only had to pay for detergent if you didn’t bring any from home. There was only one other person doing laundry at this hour so I didn’t have to wait for a machine thankfully.

I brought the laundry back to the room and Kendall and Lucy help fold, and we packed up the room. One of the joys of traveling with a carry on is it doesn’t take long to pack a room as you really aren’t bringing much. We left the room right at 11:00AM and my parents pick us up to go to mass a short drive away at Mary Queen of the Universe.

Another bonus of having my parents living in Orlando, is that they can ship and buy any merch we buy on vacation. We traditionally buy only a magnet when we go somewhere, but this trip we did buy some of the VIP merch and we didn’t want to drag it across the world so they’ll ship it home for us.

We went to mass, and like any Catholic mass it was totally uneventful. Afterwards we went to Panda Express for lunch. We don’t have a Panda Express in Ashland and Lucy and I love it, so anytime we have a chance to go to one we typically do. We bought the family meal which was an insane amount of food for 39.99 which included 3 large entrees, and 3 large rice.

Our next stop was Walgreens, or “Greenwalls” as Lucy likes to call it for some last second items, like some snacks and a hair brush. Airport snacks are ungodly expensive so we always try and buy some prior to arriving at the airport to save some money.

It’s been many years since we flew out of MCO, the main airport in Orlando, as due to Allegiant we typically fly into Sanford. Our family is all about smaller airports, so having Allegiant fly to Sanford is perfect. Most prefer MCO because it’s closer to WDW, but I find it the time it takes to get to WDW somewhat equivalent as the time it takes to get your car rental and the added time to get out of MCO somewhat neutralizes the shorter distance to travel. Also, since the loss of the Disney Magical Express MCO really lost a huge advantage to flying there.

Our flight on Delta was at 5:25PM out of Terminal B and we arrive at the airport at 2:50PM which gives us ample time to get through security. Since we are team carry on it was nice to not have to stop by the check in counter as the line was kinda long to check a bag.

Interestingly enough the regular line today is shorter than TSA.

TSA far left vs the regular security line
We debate for a short moment which line to go for. The main difference in TSA vs the regular line is that with TSA you don’t have to pull out your electronics, liquids, or take off your shoes, belt or light jacket. Pulling the electronics and liquids out of our carryons is an absolute pain so we’d rather wait a couple minutes rather than go through regular security. Unfortunately, that was not an option for us today because when we get to the front of the TSA checkpoint, the security officer notes we don’t have TSA on our boarding pass. The KTN number apparently fell off when we upgraded the flight and we didn’t have TSA precheck. We could go to the counter to add it on, but it’s just not worth it to be honest so we get out of line into the regular line.

We go through security and as we are just finishing we hear Kendall’s name called on the overhead to go to ticket counter. Kendall then leaves Lucy and her luggage with me and she goes out of security back to the Delta ticket counter. My assumption is it’s likely something we dropped or left behind. Normally a passport or ID tends to be the most likely thing but I wasn’t missing either of those so I wasn’t sure what it was. Kendall comes back a couple minutes later, and thankfully, it wasn’t anything too exciting. It ended up being a credit card that must have fallen out of Kendall’s wallet when she pulled out her ID for security. We can only hope that’s the biggest mishap that happens this vacation.

After the minor snafu we then go to The Club at MCO. This is a lounge we have access to via either our Capital One Venture X or Amex Business Platinum. We arrived and they say they are full and it’s a 45 minute wait. They tend to overestimate wait times significantly as people fall of the list fast because they have to make their flight and end up being no shows when called back. It ultimately ended up only being 17 minutes long.

This wasn’t the greatest lounge ever nor the worst. The furniture was pretty worn and needed replacement, but it’s free food and drink and better than sitting in the terminal so I’ll take it.

It had a cute little kids area, but Lucy wanted to sit in the comfy chairs though so we did not utilize it.

It was definitely one of the larger The Club branded lounges that I’ve been in.

The food was pretty scarce though and not really enough to make a meal. The good news is we had just stuffed ourselves with Panda Express so we so we just got a drink. Interestingly enough, they had gummy bears which was definitely unique in terms of lounge food, and they were shockingly pretty gummy and not hard like a rock like you’d expect. We eventually headed to the gate at 4:35PM for 4:45PM boarding and we boarded on time.

Today we were flying Domestic First Class via my Flying Blue and Delta Skymiles in seats 2A,2B,2C. It was a pretty standard Delta First Class seat on what appeared to be a newly refurbished A319 with larger in flight entertainment screens than typical.

Being only 5’3” I have ample leg room in economy, so this felt palatial.

We were offered a preflight drink, pushed off from the gate and left on time. The flight was a brief 37 minutes and they didn’t even turn off the fasten seatbelt sign. Unfortunately, Lucy ended up spilling a ton of water on herself midflight and we’d have to change clothes in Miami. This isn’t a big deal though as we planned on all showering at the Miami lounge and changing clothes before our long haul red eye flight anyway. We landed at 6:10PM but we had a last second gate change so we didn’t taxi to our gate till 6:35PM.

After arriving at the gate, we left the terminal to check in with Air France as they had not issued our boarding passes despite completing the online check in. This is not a particularly abnormal occurrence for an international flight as sometimes they just need to see your passport prior to issuing your boarding pass, but today my spider senses were going off and I was starting to get a sinking feeling in my stomach.

Unfortunately, over time, through conditioning, our family has been trained to expect the worst when we travel. I know many families in which the worst thing to ever happen was maybe a delayed or missed flight or a lost luggage. I would absolutely kill to have that travel record. I’ve had the misfortune of having experienced the vast majority of travel issues and disasters over the years such as:

• Kendall being run over by a car in Zimbabwe
• Me and Zack being quarantined with COVID in Ecuador
• Skidding off a road in middle of nowhere Alaska into a bog prior to the days of cell phones
• Riots around the Arc de Triomphe the day we were to see the Champs-Elysee.
• Getting scammed by a taxi cab in Russia for $250 dollars for a $10 dollar taxi ride
• Being left behind by our tour group in Columbia and then subsequently get into a car wreck in the taxi getting back to our tour group
• Being stranded in the sketchiest area of Quito at night with no way out. So sketchy in fact Ubers and Taxis do not go there due to a very high carjacking rate
• A cruise being blind sided by a massive storm causing the ship to tilt so much that the chief safety officer on board attempted to launch a life boat during the storm
• Driven to the wrong airport on the day of our flight missing our flight
• Having our hotel room broken into and my camera and other items stolen
• Booked the wrong date for a flight finding out at the airport on the day of the flight
• Nearly missing a flight because we did not have the physical credit card the flight was purchased on with us, so we had to produce other documents proving we purchased the flight
• Hotels ceasing to exist and no one informing us. This was even a Marriott branded hotel, so not some random brand.
• Trips to the ED in foreign countries
• Massive last second airline itinerary changes by the airline
• Sickness of family members at home while on vacation causing a trip interruption
• The standard overbooking, missed flights, lost luggages, missed port stops, and stolen and lost phones, and other lost items.

Needless to say as I approach Air France’s desk I ask myself what could possibly go wrong? Well, buckle up boys and girls because you’re about to find out and it’s a doozy.

 

[Rimmit]

“It’s not about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

So we approached the Air France desk and I handed over our passports. They then proceeded to ask me if I had a Chinese visa. We did not as for our trip it was not at all necessary. While you need a visa for China if you are touring all around China in non visa free approved areas, if you are entering in from one country and then flying out to another country and stay within approved regions or cities you do NOT need a visa if flying out within 144 hours. This is called the 144 hour transit without visa rule.

Ironically on 12/17, two days prior to starting this trip it was actually increased from 144 hours to 240 hours of allowable transit time and they added the ability to move within allowed regions and cities. So it just changed to the 240 transit without visa rule. They literally just relaxed the rule even more! You can read about this straight from the Chinese embassy or on the US.gov Travel site, via forums, or on a Disney blogs as a just a few references. I had researched extensively about the rule, and through my reading the itinerary of Miami-Paris-Shanghai-Hong Kong was a completely legitimate transit. While Hong Kong is part of China, it is an SAR, Special administrative region, and counts for the transit rule. I fulfilled all the requirements to the letter.

Apparently Air France was not informed of any iteration of the 240 hour transit without visa rule also known as “TWOV” and because of this ignorance upon check in they were refusing to issue a boarding pass despite their OWN website stating that we do not need a visa if transiting.

In highlighted yellow “Transit visa is not required provided they are traveling directly to a third/country or region…. Shanghai Pudong International Airport”
As you can see above there is a clear discordance on their own website. It says “You are not cleared to board this flight.” But the area I highlighted in yellow states “Transit visa is not required …” if certain conditions were met. We met those conditions perfectly.

I continue to persistently argue with the staff that my itinerary is legitimate and I can show them a number of government sources that clearly state it is legitimate. The staff then rehuddle and bring in the manager. They talk in French, but thankfully I know enough French to where I can pick out some occasional words, and it does not sound promising. They then call a someone in France who had the final say on this situation. As they discussed our situation over the phone, Lucy noticed I was shaking due to my apprehension.

I was so nervous as sooo much of our trip was riding on us making this flight as our plans were meticulously timed to make all 12 parks and have some rest in doing so. I’ve been traumatized at airline counters before, the most severe when we were nearly denied leaving Johannesburg after Kendall was run over by a car. I have never written about that, but the day we made it out of Johannesburg was right out of a thriller movie, and honestly, the second most traumatic day of my life, second only to Kendall being run over by a car.

I had spent the last 5 years mulling over how Covid shot down our Disney trip down in 2020. I have now spent the last year planning every detail to try and make this upcoming trip as smooth and feasible as possible. Without the layover in Paris we’d miss Disneyland Paris so bypassing Paris to get to Shanghai was NOT an option. We really needed this particular itinerary to make this trip work and there was no way to replace it.

My heart was beating fast but my mind was racing even faster at this point. If we don’t make this flight what are we going to do?? How can we possibly fix this problem? They then get off the phone with the person in France and come back to the desk. I hope and pray for good news.

Denied! Our hearts were broken. I just about died inside as while I am mentally prepped for a lot of travel situations, denial of boarding was just not on my radar. I had read about occasionally some smaller airports being unfamiliar with the 240 hour TWOV rule, but a large international airport like MIA on a carrier like Air France… I just did not think that was in the cards. Lucy was in tears. I then proceed to beg and plead with the duty manager explaining my case. As he heard more and more of our story and how we don’t live in Miami and how we were doing all the Disney Parks in one trip, and that this trip was 5 years in the making he felt awful and at one point starting tearing up at the desk.

There were so many problems being denied this flight. One is that unlike overbooking, or weather caused issues, they are blaming me and as such it is on me to fix the issue. All they can do, and this was as a courtesy as a business class passenger the manager said, was rebook us on the 24th which is 48 hours later as the 23rd was fully booked and oversold. Because there was not any other issue with the flight like weather or mechanical issues there was no way they could use an interline agreement to get me on another carrier anywhere. We were 100 percent committed to Air France. We had a contract with them to get from MIA to PVG and that was it.

The other issue is that this was a Business Class ticket booked via miles. If I cancelled all I would get were my Air France miles back and the taxes and fees. I wouldn’t be able to get cash back to use for other airlines and all the reasonably priced award redemptions to Paris were long gone. They even refused letting us just take the plane to Paris and not continue to Shanghai as the flights are married in the computer and cannot be separated and as such they refused to let us board so we could at least get to Paris.

Even IF we took the later flight on the 24th that only buys us time to get a visa, as that is all Air France in Miami would accept. So we’d have 48 hours to get a visa. You can only get a visa in that time frame at an embassy and the closest Chinese embassy is Washington DC. In theory we could fly to DC to see if they can get us a visa, and fly back in time but that is crazy hectic and in no way guaranteed especially being the holiday season. I asked if they could just get us to anywhere is Southwest Asia, and that was a no as well. They were contractually obligated to get us to Shanghai and that is all they could do. We were basically stuck trying to find a visa if we planned on using AF out of MIA.

Normally, a couple day delay is a big deal no matter what vacation, for this extremely fast paced itinerary it was EVERYTHING, as every minute mattered. This was a literal make or break moment for our vacation, and flying Air France with a 10 hour layover so we could hit the two Disney Parks in Paris was integral to that plan. If they were willing to fly us to Hong Kong we could still make our original plan work as the HKG flight had the same length of layover, and we could then fly to Shanghai from HKG after visiting the park there. When the guy in France said “no” we were black listed in the system and he said we’d get flagged if we flew that flight.

The on duty manager had to deal with several other passengers during this time and would come back and check on us as we continued to discuss our next move. It was getting late and I pleaded our case one last time to get us approved and the flag removed, and he said he could try to call one more person. He got on his phone and walked away talking for a while, and I was thinking maybe this was it. Maybe this was our Christmas miracle. I had seen it happen in the Christmas movies so many times where the main character has someone be it Santa , random stranger, or a power from above come through for them in the final hour. I was thinking that maybe for once we would get that happy ending, that Christmas miracle and Ariel, the duty manager, was going to be our angel coming back telling me he performed a miracle. I then see him hang up the phone and walk back to us. My heart is beating out of my chest, and I hope and pray he says he got us approved. He then tells us that there is just nothing more he can do. I lay my head on the counter totally defeated and a part of me dies at this point.

So much was riding on going this flight and making it to Paris and then onward to Shanghai. We eventually accepted reality that our only option was to move our flight to the 24th to buy us some time to think about our next move. We felt completely and utterly deflated. My biggest fear was a major delay, causing us to not have enough time in Paris to visit Disneyland Paris, or delay getting back to the airport in Paris and missing our plane to Hong Kong. I never thought the airline itself would be the direct cause of the destruction of our vacation.

At this point we picked ourselves off the mat and I booked the Fairfield Inn by the airport.

We called the shuttle and we left completely and totally dejected. To add further salt to the wound my flight notification app just informed me our flight just took off and was on time. I immediately deleted the flight and subsequent flight to Shanghai from my notifications to prevent any further taunting by my phone.

This is definitely the lowest we’ve felt in a while. I was thinking on the shuttle to the hotel about whether I’d continue the blog at this point I was so down, and how this would not exactly make for much of a “Disney Around the World Trip” if we stopped after one city. We’d just rename it to a “Disney World Trip” I guess. Four out of twelve parks isn’t bad right?? Thirty three percent is abject failure except in the most extreme grading curves, so no matter how you sliced it this was now a failure.

The shuttle dropped us off at about 11:00PM and we order some comfort food as we hadn’t eaten since Orlando. For Kendall and Lucy that means some Papa John’s pizza. I wasn’t very hungry as all the stress and nervousness killed my appetite, but now that I was slowly calming down I could feel my appetite returning.

In the meantime, I breakout the laptop and immediately start doing flight searches, for both award flights and cash flights.

The Tokyo part of our vacation was set in stone. The logistics of planning a Tokyo Disney Vacation is monstrous and if you read the planning portion of this vacation on the blog you will understand why.

I was absolutely desperate so I even crowdsourced some ideas as to what to do from the 10x Travel group I am a part of on Facebook. The issue is there were so many limitations. For one, we had to get from Miami to Paris. This could be on any airline. Number two, we needed to get from Paris to Shanghai or Miami. If we went to Shanghai it couldn’t be on Air France as I had lost faith in them to get me to China. We also needed to do the long hauls in business class.

I know the business class requirement likely sounds snobbish to a lot of people, but due to the break neck pace of this vacation, a lot of our rest, sleep, and relaxation was totally predicated on getting it on a plane. One long haul flight is enough to wreck a body, and doing it back to back while also doing some Disney Parks is just brutal. We have done many long hauls in economy, but never when we are traveling around the world to ALL the Disney parks in a little over two weeks. Buying business class flights in cash with such short notice would be insanely cost prohibitive easily dwarfing the total cost of the vacation.

Our budget for this trip is obviously very high, but we kept the costs down by using our points and miles for the flights. As I started looking at business class flights that got us to Paris and then onward to Shanghai or Hong Kong, we were looking in the 30,000+ USD range minimum and those were often not even direct flights with very long layovers. I was really not looking to spend an extra 30,000 USD right now, so that was a no go.

Unfortunately, AIRLINE STUPIDITY is not covered under travel insurance policies so it was now on me to rebuild an itinerary that eventually ends us up in Tokyo on December 31st. I spent till 4:30AM looking for flight options via points and miles, racing against the clock to find something that would work. After over 5 hours of searching innumerable airlines and redemption programs and airport combinations I FINALLY found something that MAY work without bankrupting us and then went to sleep so I could discuss the options with Kendall and Lucy in the morning.

Day 3, December 22nd, 2024 Step Count – 9,876 Steps

Total Step Count – 73,847

 

[Skywatcher1206]

Wow, I would lose my mind if that happened to me. I hope that the new plan works out and someone trains those airline employees so it does not happen to anyone else.

 

[Rimmit]

Wow, I would lose my mind if that happened to me. I hope that the new plan works out and someone trains those airline employees so it does not happen to anyone else.

We can only hope. To have our vacation blown to pieces 3 days before Christmas was devastating. My daughter was crushed and crying. I currently have a claim with Air France waiting to be reviewed. I am owed 600 Euro per person by law, but this mistake cost waaaaay more than that to fix, and It will be a fight to get more.

 

[Rimmit]

Day 5 - Lemonade
“When life gives you lemons…”

Despite going to bed at 4:30AM I still woke up at 7:00AM for a whopping 2.5 hours of sleep. Not sure why I was up so early but it was likely due to the tornado of anxiety that just hit our plans. The issue is that unlike an overbooking, bad weather, or other mechanically related reasons that one may miss a flight this was a refusal due to their system flagging us as requiring a visa. Due to this the airline was no help at all and it lied on us and our resources to fix the problem they caused.

So the only option Air France gave me was to either cancel the flight and get our points, taxes and fees back, or try and fly on the 24th which we can easily run into the same issue unless we cough up a visa. I eventually came up with a variety of viable options that didn’t totally break the bank but it wasn’t easy given it was a last second booking DURING the holiday travel season. The options we had on the table were as such:

• Wait till the 24th and hope we can find a way to get a Chinese Visa. We could fly to DC today and back on the 24th in time for our flight to France. We have to hope the Chinese embassy can grant us a visa in time for us to get back to MIA for our flight. We will lose 2 days in Shanghai, but still do all 12 parks. This is moderately risky as there is zero guarantee the embassy will grant a visa in time.
• Do nothing and wait till the 24th in hopes there is a Christmas miracle and Air France gets their act together and actually realize that what we are doing is totally allowed. We would arrive in Shanghai 2 days late, but still have two more days in Shanghai. Issue is if we get the same supervisor in France when they call we are totally screwed. This is basically the highest risk, highest reward option.
• Fly business class to London on Virgin Atlantic for 270,000 miles and $606 in fees and then buy a flight on Vueling for $504 to Paris. We would spend 3 nights in Paris staying on Disney property, essentially swapping Shanghai for Paris. We’d visit Disneyland Paris for 3 days and then book Air France for 309,000 miles plus $908 in fees on the 27th, landing the night of the 28th in Hong Kong. This was the original date of our arrival to Hong Kong, and thus would meet up with our original itinerary. We unfortunately would cut Shanghai out in this scenario only going to 11 out of 12 parks, falling short of our dream of doing all 12 parks in one trip. It also unfortunately leaves us with only 7 nights in Asia instead of the original 11 nights making for a very fast stint on the opposite side of the world. Only doing 11/12 parks would be somewhat devastating, but this is by far the safest option and gives us the most control of our future.
• Kill the vacation altogether and go home with our head tucked between our legs. Unfortunately, travel insurance does not cover airline stupidity so if we did this any thing nonrefundable at this point would just be a loss. The ONLY upside to this option is I would likely go to the Sugar Bowl to watch Notre Dame play Georgia. GO IRISH!

Ultimately, we decided to kill the dream of doing all 12 parks and taking Shanghai of the table. We chose to fly to London to Paris to Hong Kong. It was really tough to accept, but we all decided we should at least do the rest of the trip and cut the gangrenous limb off. We were just too anxious to see if Air France could get their act together as I had lost all faith in them. It just goes to show you, you can play the game perfectly, follow all the rules and still lose. These are entirely first world problems, but it still doesn’t take the sting out. Something is better than nothing, and I felt totally confident that there should be ZERO visa issues for the remaining parts of our itinerary.

This would have cost us as significant amount out of pocket but thankfully we’ve stashed up a large amount of miles over the years so we can afford to burn some. The Virgin Atlantic segment alone would have been well over $25,000 for three passengers.

And the Paris to Hong Kong on Air France would have cost $14,070 for three passengers. I definitely did not have an extra $39,000 dollars just sitting around so thank goodness for our points and miles to help bail us out.

I then proceed to start to rebuild an itinerary from now, December 23rd till Dec 28th for when we get to Hong Kong. I try and book the Disneyland Hotel in Paris for the 24th till the 27th, but apparently there is a rule there that for security reasons you can’t book a room unless it’s more than 30 hours from check in. So unfortunately our first night in Paris we will have to stay off property, as we aren’t allowed to book the 24th. I start looking at other hotel and Airbnb options. I find a pretty nice apartment on Booking.com just 10 minutes away from Disneyland Paris for just $134 dollars and book it. It was brand new with ZERO reviews when we booked it, so a small risk but it looked really nice and was in a great location so we thought we’d give it a shot.

We just chilled in the hotel for the day as long as we could. At 4:00 PM we left our room on the dot as we had used up all the time on our late checkout. One of my favorite benefits of being a Titanium Bonvoy member and it definitely came in real handy today given our flight wasn’t till 9:25PM. We checkout, head to the lobby and catch the airport shuttle.

I checked in online, and we already had a boarding pass which was a huge wave of relieve after yesterday.

Look ma! A Boarding Pass!!!!
While we already had a boarding pass, we still needed to check in with Virgin Atlantic for a passport check. On the way to the check in desk we stopped by the Air France check in desk as they were next to each other to see if they’d at least give me a free seat assignment on our newly booked Air France flight I had for my troubles. Nope. They said they could not waive the seat assignment fee which in business class for CDG-HKG flight would be nearly $500 dollars. I don’t need to pick my seats that bad, but if you get the bulkhead row on the aircraft we are on, there is a larger footwell. We go to security and this time they DO have our TSA precheck on our boarding pass. Not much of a decision of which line to pick today as they both have no line unlike yesterday where the TSA precheck was LONGER than the regular line.

The security line was soooo slow moving today. Not sure what exactly was going on as there did not seem to be any issues, but it took 15 minutes to get through security and it didn’t even have a line.

We finally finish up at security and head to the Delta Sky Club which is the main Skyteam lounge in MIA and since we were flying international business class with Virgin it gives us access. We were supposed to have been relaxing here last night, so there was a little bitter taste in my mouth about being here 24 hours later.

This lounge had recently been expanded in the last couple months. Overall, this lounge was pretty nice, and definitely a step up in comparison to the previous lounge we went to yesterday in MCO. It’s no flagship lounge, but it’s definitely a decent outlying lounge for Delta. We chose some seats and settled in for the next couple of hours.

I walk around and look at the food options. They are pretty plentiful, but I’m still not very hungry due to stress of last 24 hours. In theory there should be no issues tonight and I’m slowly getting my appetite back so I decide to get some food.

I ended up picking up some honey bourbon chicken, plantains, and tofu jambalaya, and Kendall and I sit at the bar for a bit reflecting on the death of our quest to do all 12 parks on one vacation.

We all leave the lounge about an hour before our flight to get to the gate in time for boarding. Lucy always gets excited when we fly business so she always wants to be the first on the plane which in turn makes us make sure make sure we are at the gate early. We very rarely fly business class so it’s a real treat for her, as otherwise I am too cheap to pay for priority boarding, seat selection, or any of those other added paid perks so we are always some high numbered zone that is last to board.

We board on time onto our plane, an A330-900.

This is one of Virgin Atlantic’s newest planes and it has the new Upper Class suites, Virgin’s lates business class product. I’ve always wanted to fly Virgin Upper Class but typically it’s ungodly cost prohibitive, and even when using miles the taxes and fees are crazy high that it makes it using miles not that much better. We really lucked out on this last second booking.

Lucy get’s even more excited when the business class pod has a door on it and these do. Given this was a last second booking we didn’t exactly have much choice of seats as we took the last 3 seats in business class. We were assigned seats 8A, 8D, 8G at the rear of the cabin. The cabin is bathed in a magenta glow to give it almost a night club kinda vibe. It was very soothing.

Once we boarded we were served sparkling wine, orange juice or a gin cocktail. I personally am not a gin fan but it wasn’t actually half bad.

I’ve tried business class on a number of carriers and I’d probably have to say this was my second favorite seat out of all of them, second only to Qatar. They handed out PJs which isn’t super common in business class these days, but we’re sadly out of my size so I took the next size up.

Unfortunately they were not reused as we just did not have space in our carryons for a set of PJs.
Any business class seat is spacious, but they are definitely not all created equal. This felt pretty spacious to me but I’m not exactly the biggest person so it’s tough for me to evaluate a seat based on size, but it was definitely comfy enough. It came with the standard amenities you’d expect like headphones, amenity kit, screen, adjustable seat and a menu.

At 9:20PM we push off from the gate and take off on time. Shortly after take off they come around with some “crisps”, a British term for chips and shortly after brought a round of drinks.

Of note they had some higher end liquors like Grey Goose and Woodford Reserve which was a nice touch as some carriers pay less attention to the quality of alcohol served. I will say they definitely had a very attentive drink service.

A lot of people like business class for the improved food service. I personally could care less. As you continue to read through this blog, you’ll fast discover my family are not fancy eaters.

They start the dinner service and I order the duck prosciutto, if that’s how you spell it, for an appetizer. I was not a fan.

I then chose the roast chicken for dinner. A nice and easily pronounceable item, which was also much more to my taste.

It was good and I ate most of it. Kendall chose the porcini mushroom ravioli and was not a fan and barely had any bites. Typically the more complex the name, the less likely we are to eat it. Why can’t they just serve chicken nuggets? Lucy just ate bread. I remember being a kid on an airplane and struggling to find food worth eating, so I can totally understand that and in no way fault her.

The dessert was also easily pronounceable. It was a nice and simple chocolate and salted caramel tower. It also tasted nice and simple and I enjoyed it as well.

Lucy tuckers out shortly after dinner as she is totally dead.

But Kendall and I decide to go and have a drink in the lounge on the plane. We were exhausted, but we’ve never been on a plane with a lounge before so we felt obligated to go try it out.

It’s been a looong last 24 hours, filled with anxiety, stress, and disappointments so after dinner I put down my seat, put the mattress pad on my seat, change into the provided PJs, and fall fast asleep.

Day 5, December 23nd, 2024 Step Count – 4,017 Steps

Total Step Count – 77,864

 

[alohamom]

Most prefer MCO because it’s closer to WDW, but I find it the time it takes to get to WDW somewhat equivalent as the time it takes to get your car rental and the added time to get out of MCO somewhat neutralizes the shorter distance to travel.

Thanks for this perspective! I will now consider Sanford as an option because of this post.
I totally understand this idea as we live in the Greater Toronto Area but we are about 45 minutes from the major Toronto airport (Pearson) so many times we will drive the 1.5 hours to Buffalo to fly from there because with the ridiculous Toronto traffic it usually takes us almost as long to get to Pearson and it is such a busy airport you really need to factor in that extra time.
Plus flying out of Buffalo usually means much lower taxes on the flight.
Depending on the CND to USD exchange, we usually save quite a bit for what is really not much more of a drive and flight through a much less chaotic airport.

The number one most glorious thing about having a room at the Polynesian is not having to deal with the mass chaos of trying to take the ferry or monorail back to the Transportation and Ticket Center and then make your way home via car or deal with the painfully long bus lines back to your resort. We just took the monorail to the resort. That was it. Doesn’t get much simpler. This was a real milestone moment for us after years of trekking home exhausted, hot and sweaty after waiting in the crazy long lines for the monorail or ferry at the end of a Magic Kingdom day. We had waited our whole lives for this convenience. It was absolutely glorious.

I hear you! The new tower is on my bucket list for sure and this perk makes it all the better!

Needless to say as I approach Air France’s desk I ask myself what could possibly go wrong? Well, buckle up boys and girls because you’re about to find out and it’s a doozy.

Ohhhh nooooo! I read this section with my eyes glued to the screen!
C'mon Air France, that is ridiculous! You would think they would try to accomodate you in some manner.

I spent till 4:30AM looking for flight options via points and miles, racing against the clock to find something that would work. After over 5 hours of searching innumerable airlines and redemption programs and airport combinations I FINALLY found something that MAY work without bankrupting us and then went to sleep so I could discuss the options with Kendall and Lucy in the morning.

PHEW!

It was really tough to accept, but we all decided we should at least do the rest of the trip and cut the gangrenous limb off.

Good choice! Sad, but I think was a smart pivot.

I then proceed to start to rebuild an itinerary

I can almost hear the relief in your story, what a disaster but also, good for you being so dilligent and resiliant!

I cannot wait to read more, I love the great quotes you have included as well.

 

[Rimmit]

Thanks for this perspective! I will now consider Sanford as an option because of this post.
I totally understand this idea as we live in the Greater Toronto Area but we are about 45 minutes from the major Toronto airport (Pearson) so many times we will drive the 1.5 hours to Buffalo to fly from there because with the ridiculous Toronto traffic it usually takes us almost as long to get to Pearson and it is such a busy airport you really need to factor in that extra time.
Plus flying out of Buffalo usually means much lower taxes on the flight.
Depending on the CND to USD exchange, we usually save quite a bit for what is really not much more of a drive and flight through a much less chaotic airport.



I hear you! The new tower is on my bucket list for sure and this perk makes it all the better!



Ohhhh nooooo! I read this section with my eyes glued to the screen!
C'mon Air France, that is ridiculous! You would think they would try to accomodate you in some manner.



PHEW!



Good choice! Sad, but I think was a smart pivot.



I can almost hear the relief in your story, what a disaster but also, good for you being so dilligent and resiliant!

I cannot wait to read more, I love the great quotes you have included as well.

I really like Sanford TBH, just because it's sooo much smaller. Since my parents live there flying to MCO really doesn't save time because it just takes soo long to get out of the airport. Sanford I can easily be from plane to curbside in 5-7 minutes, even less. If you rent a car there, the car rental line can be long sometimes, but if you get a Turo, you can totally negate the car rental line, and if you get a taxi you just get one that's waiting.

At one point Allegiant starting flying to MCO, and initially I was super excited about that as it was closer to WDW, but I didn't find I was saving a ton of time flying to MCO. Most really like MCO because of DME, but without DME, many people I know started flying to sanford as it's cheaper.

I'm sure crossing the border saves a ton of cash, as there are lots of cheap flights to Orlando, and often they are direct flights.

YYZ is a massive airport. I'll be honest it's not my favorite as it is sooo big. I am a huge fan of small airports and will fly to the smaller ones anytime I can.

Thanks for following along!

 

[Rimmit]

Day 6 - Just Keep Swimming
“Just keep swimming.”

I woke up on the plane at 9:30AM London time which was 4:30AM at home. This meant I got a solid 5 hours of sleep which is more than double what I had gotten the previous night. The moment I woke up the flight attendants pounced on me to give me my preordered breakfast which was the “Cooked Breakfast”. It came with sausage, bacon, scrambled egg, herbed potato rosti, blistered cherry tomatoes, button mushrooms, and baked beans with a seasonal fruit plate. That’s a lot of words to describe a breakfast.

I wasn’t that hungry, and just took a couple bites as I knew we had access to the Virgin Atlantic Revivals arrivals lounge in Heathrow. Given we had a 4.5 hour layover we would have ample time to go to the lounge, shower, change clothes, have breakfast, and change terminals prior to our next flight.

I changed out of the PJs and prepped for landing. We landed a little early at 10:24 AM which is just 5:24 AM at home. I’m normally up then anyway so I’m wide awake and not really jet lagged. Despite the size of the plane the gate didn’t have a jetway, so we ended up deplaning via stairs.

We were the first off plane as we were the last row in business class which was closest to the doors and typically that normally saves you a ton of time at immigration, but not today as that head start was mitigated by the need to take a shuttle from the airplane to the terminal. Thankfully, the immigration line was not that long, and since we are team carry on we just bypassed the luggage carousel.

One of the lesser known benefits of flying business class is that for some of the larger airports that have a lot of red eye flights there is an arrivals lounge. These lounges serve as a gap between when you land and when you can check into your hotel and allow you to freshen up for your day. Heathrow is one such airport, so we headed to the arrivals lounge and got there at 11:30 AM which was one hour prior to closing.

The showers were nice and modern. Nothing feels better than a shower after a day of traveling.

The breakfast options consisted of small continental breakfast area, and some warm food that could be ordered via the phone. It was more than enough for us, and we ordered a variety of things such as smoothies and eggs.

We stayed at the lounge till it closed at 12:30 PM and started to make the trek to terminal 4 which is not exactly close to terminal 3 where we were. For those not used to transiting in larger international airports, it can be a pretty significant distance from one terminal to the next and not just a brief 5-10 minute walk. In this case, in order to get to terminal 4, you had to take the train. Thankfully the train for transfers to terminal 4 and 5 were free. You just needed to get a free train ticket and you could use the train.

So we got a ticket and then we headed to Terminal 4.

Please mind the gap!
We went through security again and we obviously have no TSA PreCheck in the UK so we had to do the full gamut of security measures. They are particularly strict on liquids and even had a station so you could pull your liquids and stick them in a quart size bag which made use of.

After security we headed to the Blush Premium Plaza Lounge that we have access to via our Priority Lass from either our Capital One Venture X card or our Amex Business Platinum card.

The lounge was nicer than average for a Priority Pass lounge. It had a self service bar, some food and some soft drinks and furniture in decent condition.

I was pretty full from breakfast so I didn’t eat or drink anything. One of the things about flying business class and having lounge access in airports is you have an onslaught of food and drinks thrown at you so you are rarely hungry.

We waited for the gate to be assigned for our flight and at 2:30 PM we finally had a gate assignment for our flight that was scheduled to leave at 3:25 PM so we started walking to our gate. This next flight wasn’t anything exciting. It was on Vueling, a low cost Spanish carrier.

We were also now flying to Paris Orly instead of Charles De Gaulle. This is great as CDG is absolutely massive and a pain to navigate. Orly is the smaller of the two and much faster to get through customs and out of the airport. By the time we got to the gate they were already boarding our group so we hopped in right in line. We felt so bad for the person in front of us, as she was at the wrong gate, as she was on an Air France flight to Charles de Gaulle that left 5 minutes ago and she was instead in line for a Vueling flight to Orly. We have had many mishaps while traveling so can totally empathize with that tragedy.

Boarding was swift with no issues. Vueling much like any low cost carrier flies primarily A320s and only has economy class seats so nothing really to write home on the seat front. It’s a standard low cost carrier experience. Again, being 5’3” legroom is never an issue for me.

Pushed off on time at 3:25PM, but didn’t get into the air for another 15 minutes. The flight was swift and we landed at 5:55 PM Paris time which is 1 hour ahead of London. Unlike our last flight, we had a jetway that we thought would simplify things. Nope. That jetway led to a staircase that led to a bus that shuttled us to a terminal. Yes, that was just as convoluted as it sounded. We’ve definitely done the full gamut of planes, trains and automobiles over the last 24 hours so convoluted is definitely becoming the norm.

We proceeded through customs without much difficulty and followed the signs to the ride share pickup and called an Uber…. or so we thought. There were no less than 10 signs we followed to lead us to the ride share pickup, which ended up not being a ride share pickup. There was no ride share pick up anywhere near where the signs lead us and we spent the next 20 minutes wandering around texting our Uber driver trying to figure out where it was. I felt so bad as he only spoke french, so I was trying to google translate on the fly where we were and he was doing the same to try and direct us where the ride share pickup actually was. It was an absolute comedy of errors.

This is not ride share pickup.
We finally found him in the real ride share pick up area and our driver was impressively not aggravated with us.

Got to the apartment at close to 8:00PM and we met Alexandra, the host outside. He was super nice, and spoke a little English. With my rudimentary French I was able to understand enough of what he was saying. We really wanted to stay on Disney property tonight but sadly due to the security restrictions you had to book a room 30 hours prior to arrival and this change to go to Paris was last second.

The apartment was impeccably clean and very nice, and an absolute bargain for a last second accommodation. It smelled and looked completely new. There were zero reviews when I booked it and there was clearly a dishwasher still to be installed and some other small fixtures and things that needed to be finished or mounted on walls so I suspect we were his first guests and retrospectively, we were also his first reviewers so my guess was likely right.

Lucy was excited for the bunk bed. The whole apartment had a Disney/Marvel theme to it which was nice touch.

There were no restaurants around as this was a residential area so we ordered some pizza from Vapiano, a local italian restaurant, via Door Dash. Vapiano wasn’t bad although the pepperoni was kinda weird like all foreign pepperoni tends to be. Of note, this was our first non airplane or lounge food in 24 hours which was a very nice change of pace. I love free food and all, but sometimes you just need comfort food. It was good enough and we were hungry enough to finish the whole pizza. We also Door Dashed some snack foods and croissants to eat tomorrow morning for Christmas breakfast. We would have preferred donuts, but given it was Christmas Eve the selection of places open was pretty lacking.

Afterwards, we just crashed out from sheer exhaustion. Tomorrow, two days late, we finally make it to Disneyland Paris.

Day 6, December 24nd, 2024 Step Count – 12,445 Steps

Total Step Count – 90,309

 

[Rimmit]

Day 7 - A Disneyland Paris Christmas
“At Christmas, all roads lead home.”

Merry Christmas!! Today I woke up at 4:30AM, which I thought was kinda odd since normally due to jet lag the first night in Europe I tend to sleep in. I just watch for a bit on my iPad until Lucy comes in asking why I slept so long. I was like it’s just 5:30AM. She then tells me it’s 11:30AM.

CRAP! At this point I realized that my iPad never changed time and was still on Eastern time. I normally would figure this out immediately based on the sun, but all the windows in the apartment have black out shutters so it’s like sleeping in a basement. Once I realize this I go into a panic as checkout is at noon and we only have 30 minutes to pack up. I then wake up Kendall who was also still sleeping and text Alexandra, our host, to ask for late checkout at 1:00PM and he graciously agrees for no charge.

We ordered a DoorDash last night for a couple basic items including some croissants so we eat those those for breakfast. Not exactly the most elaborate Christmas breakfast but it get’s the job done. We shower quickly and hurriedly pack and are out the door right at 1:00PM and call an Uber to take us to our next hotel, Disneyland Hotel Paris which is a short 10 minute drive away.

One of the only good things about our newly made itinerary was now we get to stay at the Disneyland Hotel in Paris which we had not originally scheduled, as Paris was initially a layover. We had essentially swapped Shanghai for Paris which was a bummer as we had never been to Shanghai, but on the bright side we get to celebrate Christmas in a Christian country.

It was an overcast cool day with constant mist just to keep things barely wet but no rain. To be honest our family prefers to go to the parks when it’s very cold versus when it’s super hot. We just find it more enjoyable compared to the extreme heat of Disney World in the summer. The heat really wears you down throughout the course of the day, while the cold keeps you energized and awake.

We arrived at the Disneyland Hotel at about about 1:15 PM and checked in.

The lobby was absolutely stunning, and was amazingly not that busy for Christmas Day. The check in line wasn’t long at all and only took a couple minutes to check in. There was a beautiful crystal Cinderella castle floating in the chandelier above the lobby.

Our park tickets are automatically included in a stay at the Disney Hotels in Paris and linked to your Magic Key, also known as your room keycard so we didn’t have to purchase any tickets.

Our room wouldn’t be ready till 3:00PM so they stored our luggage until then.

If you’ve come this far on the blog, I’m sure you are starting to wonder if we are EVER going to do any Disney, given this IS a Disney Around the World Trip. We are now on Day 7 and at this point and have spent ONLY 1 day in a park so far. Well, have no fear, today we are FINALLY doing another park day!

The walk to the park from the hotel door is no more than 30 seconds as the Disneyland Hotel Paris is literally right at the front of the park and is built over the entrance turnstiles. There was zero wait to get into the park and we were in by 1:30PM.

The Disneyland hotel is literally built over the entrance of the park. The entrance for Disneyland Hotel Visitors is to the left off screen.
We head on over to rent a wheelchair, but unlike Walt Disney World that has a nearly endless stream of wheelchairs, Disneyland Paris is sold out for the day. I about have a heart attack, but Kendall calmly tells me she’s got this. Today will be the first the first real test of how far she has come since the accident as she will be flying without a safety net today.

Up first is the traditional walk down Main Street. Here it seems to be just a little wider than in the US and also has covered side streets making it a total of three streets that lead into and out of the park. This was a genius addition to the park’s design when it was first constructed. It would be amazing if they could find a way to retroactively install these side streets in Walt Disney World and Disneyland as they have a massive amount of congestion after fireworks. They do occasionally open up the backstage area to help alleviate the pressure but they are not themed and have no retail shops.

We then take the obligatory pic in front of the castle.

Afterwards, we proceeded to Discoveryland which is France’s version of Tomorrowland. Discoveryland has a steampunk feel rather than the futuristic them of Tomorrowland. This is a brilliant decision as any Tomorrowland eventually becomes Todayland, and Todayland always looks dated.

Like any Tomorrowland, Hyperspace Mountain is one of the main attractions and had an hour wait so we decided to buy the Premier Access, but our return time wasn’t for about 40 minutes so we decided to queue for another ride while we waited. Lucy really wanted to do Autopia which is basically the French version of Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland Speedway. The wait on the sign says 30 minutes but it actually ended up being just about an hour.

The Autopia here is hillier and has more greenery.

In general it feels more like a relaxing country drive than a speedway like the one in WDW.

Of note, the cars here seem to by hybrids as at times they are dead quiet when they move. Lucy really enjoyed it which was the most important part. I’d say any Tomorrowland Speedway or Autopia style ride is a right of passage for most kids and parents.

Afterwards, it’s time for our Premier Pass so we go to Hyperspace Mountain.

In France it is Star Wars themed. We went on this in 2018 and it seems to have been updated since then as it now has video screens rather than static lit up TIE fighters. Unlike the US versions, this involves a launch similar to Rock n’ Roller coaster. It is also the only Space Mountain in the world with a loop. We all really enjoy it as it is definitely more thrilling then the US versions and of the Space Mountains I have been on thus far it’s definitely my favorite. I also really like Star Wars so that helps.

We then go to Cafe Hyperion for lunch which is the huge quick service restaurant in Discoveryland. It’s a very long line but in actuality it moved rather quickly and it only takes about 10 minutes to order. They have video screens here that you can order on which is helpful as it reduces the errors that can occur in translation. We are a huge fan of these when we travel.

I do remember eating here in 2018 and Lucy took a nap here in a stroller as there is a lot of indoor seating. There is a stage here and at the time there was nothing going at the time as it was the off season, but today there is a show, “Chantons Noël!”, which translates to “Let’s Sing Christmas!”

It was very fortuitous as we just happened to time our lunch stop during the show. It was cute and fun to see on Christmas.

Thankfully they interspersed English among the French regularly enough to know the general plot of what’s going on. This was a theme throughout most attractions and shows but not all of them. It was a little jarring at first having only certain characters speak English and some only French, but we were very appreciative to have some English interspersed. It was just enough to understand the plot of the show. We fully expected to just hear French, given we were in France, but based on the park demographic during this time of year, in all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of visitors are English speaking. I heard way more English than French as we walked around the park and stood in lines.

We finished up our meal, and Lucy had some fund dividing up our trash into their appropriate receptacles.

Afterwards we headed on over to The Lion King show in Frontierland of all places.

I guess it’s an African frontier? It did feel odd seeing a Lion King show in the Frontierland theater which is an American West Barnstyle building.

Definitely giving off Africa vibes.
We arrived 12 mIn before the show and made it just in time before the cutoff.

The show was very impressive with top notch production value. The stage was huge and very dynamic.

There were a variety of different aerial moments and acrobatics further enhancing the show. The lighting and dance routines were on point and entertaining and fit with the theme. The show unsurprisingly followed the plot of the movie and went through all the songs.

We all really enjoyed it, and were in debate if this or the Festival of the Lion Kong in Animal Kingdom was better. Ultimately, we felt the show in Animal Kingdom was still superior as it just has more fun to it, and this is more of a traditional stage production. They are both excellent though and well worth seeing.

Afterwards, we did Phantom Manor which is the equivalent of Haunted Mansion.

It starts out very similar with the traditional stretching room, in French, so not sure if there were any initial differences.

We all agreed that the WDW version is significantly better. At one point during the ride, out of nowhere we ended up in a haunted western town. We were completely not expecting that and were somewhat confused. The sheriff of the town also was the one to say “Welcome foolish mortals.” and having that at the end just felt out of place. He did speak English which was nice.

We go and stake out a spot about 30 minutes before the parade, Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade. At this point it’s starting to get dark which makes sense as this is a night parade.

The parade was a typical mix of floats and walking dancers and characters.

The parade was beautiful and Christmas themed so really felt like Christmas, and put you in the Christmas spirit.

Of course there is appearance by Santa!
Afterwards we were getting hungry, so we headed to dinner at Casa de Coco, a Coco themed restaurant.

We each ordered a kids meal chicken strips so nothing fancy here. The chicken is no Chick-Fil-A but it was good enough for us to eat.

Then we walked to the corner of the park for the Indiana Jones et Le Temple Du Péril attraction.

Unlike the ones in Tokyo and Anaheim this is actually a roller coaster. Everyone says it’s terrible, but we still wanted to ride it, and we didn’t do it in 2018 as our kids were too small. Unfortunately you needed to be 54’’ inches to ride and Lucy was still too short so we bailed on that plan.

Pirates of the Caribbean is right next to it so we decided to see the Paris version.

It was very similar to the Magic Kingdom version with the main difference being that there are some swashbuckling animatronics which was impressive. Aside from that it was pretty similar, with no other major changes other than that it was in French.

We had then planned to do some rides in Fantasyland but it was totally closed due to the fireworks preparation so we had to walk to Discoveryland if we wanted to get out of the park.

On the way we passed Star Tours which had a 10 minute wait so we decided to go ahead and do it. C-3PO was speaking in French so I just found it amusing after years of hearing Anthony Daniel’s British voice.

The queue was identical to any other Star Tours we had been on with random droids scattered throughout.

The ride was also identical aside from speaking French rather than English. It’s a fun ride and as a Star Wars fan I always enjoy going on it when I can.

We debated staying for The Electrical Sky Parade, which is the drone show and Illuminations, the nighttime spectacular, but I had read online the drones don’t fly if there is even a hint or prediction of rain. It had been misty all day so I made the assumption there would be no chance of drones. Tomorrow was supposed to be perfectly clear with minimal wind so we figured we’d for sure catch it then. We then left the park, although on the way out we saw the drones fly which kinda shocked us given the current weather.