What shoes did you wear?
There is nothing fancy here. I was wearing either Under Armour size 6 kids running shoes or on colder days I would wear my Columbia hiking boots .
Is this some type of Guiness Book of World Record?
Not even close.
The fastest is 75 hours and 6 minutes by a Canadian named Lindsey Nameth in 2017.
There was also a guy named
Nathan Firesheets who did all 12 parks in 12 days and did ALL the operating rides at the time in that time span as well.
For comparison we only did 96 rides in 16 days. Our goal was not to do as many rides as possible, as we sprinkled in shows, parades, dining, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, character greets, and nighttime spectaculars. We were not remotely trying to do every single ride. We wanted to experience a variety of what the parks had to offer and rides are only a part of the entire park experience. Also, traveling as a family of 3 with a 9 year old is just going to slow you down compared to an adult couple or a solo traveler.
In terms of records set though, I am willing to bet Lucy at the age of 9 is the youngest person to have done all 12 parks in a single trip though. The
Adventures by Disney 115,000 USD private jet tour had a minimum age of 12 years old. I have scoured Facebook groups and forums extensively searching for tips and trip reports for a trip like this and there were only a handful of people I could find that have done this that were not on the Adventures by Disney trip. Most either visited all 12 parks over a multi year time span, or in the rare situation where they did it all in one trip, were at minimum a family with older teenagers. I could not find a single child that had done it. This is not an easy trip for a child, but Lucy was an absolute trooper and aside from some occasional jet lag did amazing on this trip.
I would also bet we were the first family to do this and stay at all the Disneyland Hotels. So if you’re looking for some kind of world record, I’d say we were the fastest to ever stay at all the Disneyland Hotels clocking in at around 10 days. No other trip I found did this, and even the Adventures By Disney Private jet tour did not stay at the Disneyland Hotels each time, opting for the Explorer Lodge in Hong Kong, and Grand Californian in Disneyland, and in the 2023 trip they stayed at Disney’s Hotel New York instead of Disneyland Hotel Paris as it was undergoing renovations at the time.
Did you feel like it was too rushed?
The way it ended up, absolutely. For the Asia portion we initially had 4 nights in Shanghai, 3 nights in Hong Kong and 4 nights in Tokyo for a total of 11 nights in Asia. In order to keep the vacation together after Air France denied us boarding we ended up with 2 nights in Hong Kong, 1 night in Shanghai, and 4 nights in Tokyo for a total of 7 nights. That is a long way to go and a lot of flights for just 7 nights in Asia. We only had 19 hours in Shanghai total, and that is obviously not enough time.
Our hotel hopping situation was amped up due to the changes as well. Originally the number of nights per hotel was 3 nights in the Polynesian, 4 nights in Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, 3 nights in Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau, 1 night in Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, 2 nights in Hotel Miracosta, and 2 nights in Disneyland Hotel. So our hotel situation looked like this: 3-4-3-1-1-2-2.
The way it ended up was 3 nights in the Polynesian, 1 night in Fairfield Inn in Miami, 1 night in an Airbnb in Paris, 2 nights in Disneyland Paris Hotel, 2 nights in Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Shanghai Disneyland Hotel, 1 night in Fantasy Springs Grand Chateau, 1 night in Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, 2 nights in Hotel Miracosta, 2 nights in Disneyland Hotel, and the 1 night in the Residence Inn in Charlotte due to our overnight delay. So ultimately our hotel situation was: 3-1-1-2-2-1-1-1-2-2-1. That is a lot of hotel hopping. If this was a road trip, that would be marginally feasible as you aren’t going through air port security and you’re just hopping into and out of a car. Given this was combined with 11 flights, 14 airports, jet lag, and a variety of other forms of transportation it definitely got pretty hectic at times.
We had always planned on hopping in Tokyo as it is a very complex resort to book. If you get a Vacation Package, you will assuredly need to move hotel rooms at least once because of the how hotel bookings work in Tokyo Disney. Hotel hopping in Tokyo is a VERY common thing and practically a necessity for many.
Initially, we only had 7 hotels booked, and didn’t really hotel hop until we got to Tokyo. Unfortunately, we ended up with 11 hotels, and never stayed in one hotel for longer than 2 night after our stay at the Polynesian Village Resort in Orlando, which made for a lot of packing and unpacking. Thankfully, we are team carryon which helped keep the insanity down some.
What was the hardest part?
The jet lag for sure. I am Filipino so I know what the jet lag is like going to Southeast Asia, and that’s why we had more time scheduled in Asia initially to help our bodies adjust. Sadly, due to circumstances beyond our control that is just not how it turned out, and our bodies adjusted to the schedule right as we were leaving Asia.
What souvenirs did you buy?
To be honest we bought very few. I personally only bought a hat, which I subsequently lost the same day I bought it. I was looking for a zip up sweatshirt or fleece the whole vacation but never found one I liked. We did buy a magnet at every hotel and park that had them, but not all hotels had a souvenir magnet. Lucy bought some pins to trade, a lanyard, two sweatshirts, a signature book, a Stitch purse, a Stitch water bottle, a hat and some pens. Kendall also bought a lanyard and pins along with a Disney World VIP Tour Spirit Jersey, VIP Tour
Loungefly, a hat, and a sweatshirt from Disneyland. We also bought a couple very small souvenirs for some friends at home. Amazingly, we bought zero t-shirts on this trip.
I did keep some of the documentation from the hotels and all the hotel keys for every Disney Hotel we stayed at.
I also kept any physical park tickets we had, but the only park that had physical park tickets was Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland. The Tokyo Disney Hotels each gave us several souvenir tote bags so we brought home one tote bag from each hotel. Fantasy Springs also gave us a small memory book that we could put our room keys, and other trinkets and souvenirs from our stay and we brought it home. Believe it or not, but that was all we took home despite going to all 12 Disney Parks in the world.
Which is your favorite castle?
Tokyo’s Cinderella Castle. Tokyo is a clone of the Cinderella’s Castle in Magic Kingdom except it still has the original color scheme which I prefer compared to the pink color scheme Magic Kingdom has now.
What was your favorite nighttime spectacular?
After seeing all the nighttime spectaculars around the globe, my favorite is ironically the one we didn’t get to see. Happily Ever After was sadly replaced at Magic Kingdom by the holiday fireworks show, Minnie’s Wonderful Christmastime Fireworks, while we were there. Happily Ever After is exactly what you look for in a nighttime spectacular in that it does an amazing job of evoking emotions via the use of music, projections and fireworks. It’s just absolutely magical.
Of the ones we saw, even though we didn’t see it up close with the projections, Illuminate in Shanghai Disney holds a special place in my heart. They had great music, and the effort it took to get to Shanghai really just amped up getting to see it as we really didn’t think we were gonna make it to Shanghai after
Day 4. The fact we watched it from the terrace at our hotel as we had a late night snack also just capped off our short stay in Shanghai in the most perfect way.
How was the weather?
The weather was actually great! God threw us a bone and it only rained 15 minutes the whole vacation and we even happened to be indoors when it happened. In regard to the cold, it actually wasn’t that cold except our last day in Tokyo. We prefer to go to the parks in cold weather rather than hot weather, as the heat just wears you down and people in the parks tend to be grumpier in the hot weather. You can only strip off so many clothes, but you can always layer up more to stay warm.
If we were to do this again, we’d without a doubt do it the same time of year well before we’d try to survive the parks in the summer in Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Orlando. The heat and humidity in those three cities would absolutely kill us.
What was the best thing you ate?
McDonald’s obviously!
Aside from that though, the gumbo in Blue Bayou was pretty good and probably my favorite food the whole vacation. The beef chuck in peanut sauce on the Air France flight was pretty good as well.
… hopefully it won’t be an issue
