4 Park A-Z Challenge

[eileen2664]

THE IDEA:

Back in January dh says “I have a conference in Orlando in May, do you want to come with?”. I resisted the urge to respond with “what kind of stupid question is that?” and instead just start thinking if we can make it work.

The problem is that ds13 doesn’t really want to go (older ds is an adult now and can’t come this time nor can he stay with younger ds). He’s a homebody and simply hates going anywhere, he also says he’s tired of Disney (but doesn’t want to do Universal or anything else new either). DS loves to be challenged and last time he went with us, he & I did a 4 park challenge and really seemed to enjoy it. So I offered up that idea again and started looking at ways to expand on it.

I searched and googled and asked here and got lots of great ideas. One of which was an alphabet or A-Z challenge. I considered what was actually feasible for a young teen and his middle aged mom and went back to ds with some options. He chose the A-Z challenge. I got nervous. It was a LOT of things (26 to be exact).

From there we started making a list. We wanted a variety of things, not just rides. I also didn’t want to make food part of this challenge. This kid is super picky, food brings him anxiety and I didn’t want that. I also am not a heavy eater so I was fine just having a few snacks.

 

[eileen2664]

THE PLAN:

Wednesday May 15th would be the date. Dh had work stuff all day (he would never do a 4 park challenge), we were staying at the Yacht Club so we’d have extended evening hours at MK that day.

Hours ended up being 7:30 (AK) to midnight (MK) but I was under no illusion that we’d be at rope drop. I was not starting the day off with a tired, crabby teen.

After giving it some thought this was the initial list I presented to ds:


A-Z
A: Avatar AK
B: Big Thunder Mt MK
C: Club Cool (pop tasting) EP
D: Dinosaur AK
E: Eeyore (Pooh ride) MK OR Edna Mode (character) OR Emporium (shop)
F: Frozen EP or Figment EP
G: Grand Fiesta tour EP
H: Haunted Mansion MK
I: It’s tough to be a bug AK
J: Jungle Cruise MK OR Journey of Water (Moana) EP
K: Kilimanjaro Safari AK
L: Living with the Land EP
M: Minnie & Mickey Railroad DHS
N: Nemo EP
O: One Man’s Dream DHS or Olaf
P: Pirates MK
Q: Fab 50 Quest (statues) all parks
R: Rise DHS or Remy or Rapunzel (character)
S: Slinky Dog DHS OR Soarin EP
T: Test Track EP OR Toy Story OR Tower of Terror
U:Under the Sea MK
V: Vacation Fun short video DHS
W: Walt Disney Railroad MK
X: Star Tours (x-wing fighters) DHS
Y: Yeti @ Expedition Everest AK
Z: Zurg @ Buzz Lightyear MK

He came back with this which we mostly stuck with:


A: Avatar AK
B: Big Thunder Mt MK
C: Club Cool (pop tasting) EP
D: Dinosaur AK
E: Emporium (shop)
F: Frozen EP or Figment EP (depending on line)
G: Grand Fiesta tour EP
H: Haunted Mansion MK
I: It’s tough to be a bug AK
J: Jungle Cruise MK
K: Kilimanjaro Safari AK
L: Living with the Land EP
M: Minnie & Mickey Railroad DHS
N: Nemo EP
O: Olaf (character) DHS
P: Pirates MK
Q: Fab 50 Quest (statues) all parks
R: Rise DHS
S: Slinky Dog DHS
T: Test Track EP
U:Under the Sea MK
V: Vacation Fun short video DHS
W: Walt Disney Railroad MK
X: Star Tours (x-wing fighters) DHS
Y: Yeti @ Expedition Everest AK
Z: Zurg @ Buzz Lightyear MK

We did have to change out the Vacation Fun Short due to it being down. Ended up visiting Darth Vader.
Also changed Walt Disney Railroad to visiting Woody due to the RR closing early, I didn’t think we’d be to MK in time.

 

[DLo]

Following along. Looking forward to reading more

 

[eileen2664]

A few last minute notes:

This was not going to be a budget day, we were buying Genie+ and ILLs. Even when we don’t have a trip planned I watch some popular Disney YouTubers so I understood how “fiddle-faddling”/“playing the slots”/refreshing worked along with how to stack and which rides would run out of Lightening Lanes first.

I had downloaded the Uber app and made sure I had a credit card on file just in case we needed to move quickly.

We had a rough plan of 3hours per park, with extra time available for MK.

Wednesday would be the mid-point of our weeklong trip so if we missed something or failed we had time to circle back. That said, when ds was asked what he was most looking forward to before we left he said this challenge…..talk about pressure!

 

[eileen2664]

HOW IT ALL WENT DOWN:

(you’ll notice the later it gets the lousier my notes are, sorry, it was a long day. I was trying to take pics/screenshots to help keep track but apparently missed some)

6:03 Purchase Genie+
6:09 weather check - tornado watch, 90deg, 90% chance of thunderstorms. Yippee!
7:00 LL Slinky for 12:50
7:01 ILL Rise for 12:30
7:02 ILL FoP for 8:35
7:55 @ bus stop for AK
Watched the sky darken and rain begin to fall as we’re driving to AK
8:30 put on raincoats and entered AK
8:34 pics of statues near tree of life
8:36 really bad selfie in front of tree of life
8:45 enter queue for Avatar FoP (wait was 90min, we had ILL so walk on)
9:08 off FoP
9:20 enter Kiliminjaro Safari queue standby (listed as 10min wait, was basically walk on)
10:06 entered Dinosaur queue standby (listed as 5min wait, was walk on)
10:27 entered Its Tough to be a Bug queue standby (listed as 10min, was about right, just had to wait for next show)
10:46 stopped to watch CMs to try to figure out how to convince a runaway bird to come down off the wires and back into the Feathered Friends show (the bird looked pretty proud of himself )
10:49 entered the Expedition Everest standby queue (listed as 25 minutes, it was about that)
11:04 booked Minnie & Mickeys Runaway Railway for 12:40
11:25 photo of Simba statue because I thought we forgot it in the morning….we did not
11:28 left Animal Kingdom after almost exactly 3hrs, right on time!
Bus to DHS
11:59 entered DHS, notice that both Slinky & MMRR are down
12:03 a couple of status photos on the way to see Darth Vader
12:12 in line for Darth Vader, I think the wait was listed for around 25min, it was nowhere near that.
12:19 met Darth Vader
12:22 more statue pics
12:28 MMRR is back up, 35 min standby but we have LL, walk on
Book Test Track LL for 4:55
Got message that Slinky is still down, experience redemption pass was granted
12:51 Rise ILL
1:30ish Slinky is back up! Took a few minutes to get through lightening lane.
1:37 order snack at Woody’s lunchbox. We missed Woody! He just left on an hour long break . We regroup over lunchbox tarts and decide we’re not waiting for him, we’ll do Walt’s Tiki Room instead
1:59 Star Tours standby (I think it was 15 or 20min but not too long)
2:27 meet Olaf
2:39 left DHS, a little less than 3hrs!
2:49 Skyliner to Epcot
3:07 enter Epcot at International Gateway, walk to front
3:14 statue pics
3:23 soda tasting at ClubCool
3:36 modified Test Track LL to 4:05, booked LL for Big Thunder Mountain for 5:00 (not an ideal time but we wanted to book something)
3:45 enter Living with the Land queue standby 10min wait
3:49 modified BTMRR LL to 5:25 Jungle Cruise LL
4:01 enter Seas w Nemo standby queue 5min wait
4:30Test Track
4:33 booked LL for Figment because it had a 30min standby
4:45 grabbed a snack at the stand in the odyssey building
4:58 Gran Fiesta Tour
5:20 Figment with LL
5:43 left Epcot, Monorail to TCC & MK, selfie in front of the “ball” on our way out, less than 3hrs in Epcot! We’re making great time!
6:00 joined VQ for TRON (extended hours) got group 192, the internet’s best guess for return time was after 11pm
6:11 Main Street USA, we cut through/“shopped” the Emporium
6:15 selfie in front of the castle
6:18 pics is statues in the hub
6:29 BTMRR only has 10min standby so we head there first
6:58 POTC I’ve lost track. I think we modified our BTMRR LL for this
7:25 grab Dole Whips and go watch Walt’s Enchanted Tiki Room
7:45 LL for Jungle Cruise
8:05 pics of Orange Bird & Abu statues….we’re done with Adventure Land!
8:35 Haunted Mansion, there was a 35 min wait but honestly I don’t even remember if we waited or had a LL, either way we weren’t in line long.
8:47 fantasy land statues
8:51 Under the Sea, standby with 5min wait
9:06 more statue pics
9:07 booked immediate LL for Buzz Lightyear
9:15 defeated Zurg
9:16 pic of Stitch statue from afar bc the walkway is closed for fireworks
Only thing left to do is a pic of the Lady & the Tramp statue on Main Street…Can’t believe we missed that one! Fireworks are about to start so there’s no way we’re getting up there now.
9:29 we had stopped to watch some fireworks near Tomorrowland but notice we can get an immediate LL for Space so decide to grab it. Also decide to avoid the exiting crowd and ride BTMRR once more for fun. Decided we were too tired to wait for TRON.
10:33 take pic of Lady & the Tramp and head to the bus
10:34 left MK, our 4th & final park of the day! We were at MK for about 4.5hrs.
Arrive back at Yacht Club at 10:55pm, exactly 15hrs after leaving.
10:57pm, got message that our TRON group was called

We did it! In 15 hours we did 26 things, plus rode Space Mt and did an extra ride on BTMRR!

Only had to make a couple minor modifications and we had a couple hours to spare.

 

[DLo]

That’s awesome.

 

[PoppyJ]

Already trying to convince DH to do this on our next trip!

 

[Counting Stars]

Pretty amazing Eileen2664! It sounds like you had a really fun and really long day- but a really special day too. That's one the both of you will remember, a special memory

 

[CML's mom]

What a magical day!