Around the World in 40 Days (or so) - ALL Parks in the World in ONE Trip - Dec. 18

[mgentry210]

Yes - we are crazy! I'm putting together an itinerary for an epic round the world trip in December 2018. We are planning to visit all 12 parks plus the water parks for extra credit. All in one Trip!

Here's the story. Hubby and I were married at Disney World wedding pavilion in 2013 and he also proposed after Wishes (RIP) the year before. Did you know that when you have a Disney wedding they give you an annual pass? Once you have it, it only makes sense to renew it right? Of course we had to use it so we have been to the world too many times to count, but our other parks travel is practically none. I've been reading trip reports and slowly planning trips to each park over the last several years. So 2018 seems like the right time to put it all together.

Why 2018? Several reasons: #1 its our 5 year anniversary and we were planning on Disney anyway. #2 I turn the big 4-0. #3 After a long health battle the last 3 years I am healthy enough to consider giving it a try. So 2018 is a year of celebrations! We plan on ending the trip in Florida for New Years.

This is the rough itinerary that I've got planned so far. I've been using ITA search and I have flights tentatively picked. My current plan includes dates/places/and possible hotels. I'm looking for your feedback please! Over the next few days I will post for each leg and ask any relevant questions and feedback. Please start by looking over the basic schedule and let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance!

Travel FL to CA Nov. 23 Best Western Park Place 11/23– 11/26
CA Disney Nov. 24 to 26 Best Western Park Place
Nov. 26 Hotwire near airport 11/26 - 11/27
Travel CA to Shanghai Nov. 27 to 28 Airplane 11/27
Shanghai Disney Nov. 29 to 30 Disneyland Hotel 11/28 - 12/2
Shanghai Dec. 1 Disneyland Hotel
Travel to Tokyo from Shanghai Dec. 2 Hilton Tokyo Bay 12/2 to 12/5
Tokyo Disney Dec. 3 to 6 Miracosta 12/5 to 12/7
Tokyo Dec. 7 to 8 Hotwire Shinjuku area 12/7 to 12/8
Tokyo to Hong Kong Dec. 9 Royal Park Hotel THE Haneda 12/8 to 12/9
Hong Kong Disney Dec. 10 to 11 Onsite - unsure 12/9 to 12/12
Macau Dec. 12 Cotai Strip 12/12 to 12/13
Hong Kong Dec. 13 to 14 Hotwire Hong Kong Island 12/13 to 12/15
Travel from Hong Kong to Tokyo Dec. 15 Royal Park Hotel THE Haneda 12/15 to 12/16
Travel from Tokyo (HND) to Paris Dec. 16 Onsite - unsure 12/16 to 12/19
Paris Disney Dec. 17 to 18 Onsite - unsure
Paris Sightseeing Dec. 19 to 20 Hotwire - Area 1 12/19 to 12/21
London Sightseeing Dec. 21 to 22 Hotwire Kensington 12/21 to 12/23
Travel London to JP Dec.23 to 24 Airplane 12/23
Tokyo Dec. 24 Royal Park Hotel THE Haneda 12/24 to 12/25
Travel to CA from JP Dec. 25 Airplane 12/25
Travel to FL from CA Dec. 25 to 26 Airplane 12/25 to 12/26
Florida Dec. 27 to Jan. 3

 

[wanderlust7]

WOW...that is epic!!!

Wonder why for your return from London you're retracing your steps (Tokyo, CA) to Florida?

 

[mgentry210]

WOW...that is epic!!!

Wonder why for your return from London you're retracing your steps (Tokyo, CA) to Florida?

Airline tickets. To keep prices low. All of the travel is actually only 3 round trip tickets and one one way. The round trips include stopovers and one open jaw. It’s lax that’s one round trip and Orlando to lax. In the middle there’s a Tokyo to Paris, then open jaw London to Tokyo to pick up the last leg of the first round trip to los angelos. Confusing but it works! And saves a ton of money. Unless someone can think of a better way. I can post the flights I’m using for planning if anyone wants to see.

 

[wanderlust7]

Airline tickets. To keep prices low. All of the travel is actually only 3 round trip tickets and one one way. The round trips include stopovers and one open jaw. It’s lax that’s one round trip and Orlando to lax. In the middle there’s a Tokyo to Paris, then open jaw London to Tokyo to pick up the last leg of the first round trip to los angelos. Confusing but it works! And saves a ton of money. Unless someone can think of a better way. I can post the flights I’m using for planning if anyone wants to see.

I would probably try to do:

MCO-LAX one-way ticket
LAX-HKG-Shanghai-Tokyo-LAX this comes out to about $1000 when I tried it with random dates near your dates
LAX-Paris on Norwegian (non-stop and doesn't require round-trip for better prices)
London-MCO on Norwegian

Not sure if that's better than what you have time and/or cost wise. If you do go the Norwegian route, you can save a little money if you select Norge language and pay in Norwegian krone.

Have fun planning your adventure!

 

[nickcirc]

We did this in 2016 over 3 weeks Worked out well actually.

https://www.disboards.com/threads/call-us-crazy-but-we-booked-it-rtw-disneymoon.3480119/
https://www.disboards.com/threads/w...6-disney-parks-in-one-continues-trip.3552231/

Our flights were booked as an RTW award on Qantas with FF points (in Business when available) Once you hit the OneWorld Points cap for an RTW, adding more segments didn't increase the fare so that's nice. You can also book it creatively to not require you to return to your departure point (Not a true RTW, just the points cap for one)

In the end our routing was

SFO -> HKG -> PER (Our Wedding) -> HKG (Disney) -> Shanghai (Disney) -> Tokyo (Disney) -> LHR (Transit) -> Paris (Disney) -> JFK (Transit) -> Orlando (Disney) -> LAX (Disney) -> SFO

Our routing was very strict, as was our time so it was designed that we only ever flew in the early mornings to maximize travel days for parks in the evenings. We also just "HAD" to park hop from MK (WDW) to DL (DLR) (Yes, Hop) on the same day because why not

It looks like your routing is designed to allow for TWOV in Shanghai? If you were ok getting a Chinese visa, you could play around a little more with your routing and likely avoid backtracking..Your routing is fine, and im sure it's designed to take advantage of your time and preferences.


If anybody is curious, you can do the following without *much* backtracking (HND -> HKG is a backtrack) ...(These are really rough cuts on a quick search across Matrix and the airlines directly in Economy, One of hundreds of potential routings)

MCO -> JFK -> HKG // Stopover for 1 week // HND -> HKG -> CDG on Cathay for 1600 per person as a 1 way ticket.

In HKG you do HKDL, then book a one way to Shanghai and then a one way from Shanghai to Tokyo.

HGK -> PVG one way ~ $200USD on China Eastern
PVG -> HND one way is ~ $400 USD on ANA.

then from CDG -> LAX is dirt cheap on Norwegian (~ $300 USD if your OK flying LCC.

and then LAX -> MCO is about 150-200 depending on who you book.

So for anybody Florida based who wants to fly to every Disney theme park in November/December you can get away with


*MCO -> JFK -> HKG
**HKG -> PVG
*** PVG -> HND
* HND -> HKG -> CDG
**** CDG -> LAX
***** LAX -> MCO

Where
* Ticket 1 -> $1,600 USD
** Ticket 2 $200USD
*** Ticket 3 $400 USD
**** Ticket 4 $300USD
***** Ticket 5 $200USD

Total is ~$2700 USD, say an even 3K to account for fluctuations and variances. Sure you can likely get a traditional RTW for less, but that also limits you to the stops and transit points that the alliance operates. Not a bad thing, just depends how strict you wanna be with your travel.


As wanderlust7 says, if you're OK with back tracking and taking advantage of LCC deals (even mainline carrier deals!!) and with daisy changing ticket, there are so many options available.

 

[mgentry210]

Total is ~$2700 USD, say an even 3K to account for fluctuations and variances. Sure you can likely get a traditional RTW for less, but that also limits you to the stops and transit points that the alliance operates. Not a bad thing, just depends how strict you wanna be with your travel.


As wanderlust7 says, if you're OK with back tracking and taking advantage of LCC deals (even mainline carrier deals!!) and with daisy changing ticket, there are so many options available.[/QUOTE]

Right now I'm at about $2000 - however I am really interested in the Norwegian deal that wanderlust7 mentioned. I'm about to play around!

So were you happy with your trip? What worked well and what did you wish you did differently? Thanks so much. I am going to pick you brain if you don't mind.

 

[nickcirc]

I understand you want to get it on the cheap (2K is a great deal, and you've built in fine buffers for missed and late connections) and with good sales you can likely get it even less, and totally respect that. But I do want to point out the much back and forth your doing to keep the costs that low. Don't get me wrong (My wife and I are insane mileage runners) so I love flying as much as anybody, but travel is a lot of energy, and if you can pay a little more to have a more streamlined experience and minimize the back and forth and transits you're brain may thank you later.

The fact that you refer to it as ITA means you totally know what you're doing (and we speak the same language) So please don't take my comments the wrong way. I totally respect another flight guru

So were you happy with your trip? What worked well and what did you wish you did differently? Thanks so much. I am going to pick you brain if you don't mind.

Please do!!!! It's always kinda weird to me how little of a deal people seem to make of such a heroic achievement!! Like when we tell folks who talk nothing but Disney we did it, most of them go "Oh cool, I would love to visit Tokyo some day" or "You can't pay me enough to go to China" and then go right back to talking about their 5th WDW trip this year :/ Don't get me wrong. Everybody is entitled to their opinion and I certainly doing go around "parading" that we did the trip all over, and sure, it's not everybody's goal, but it's certainly something that should be celebrated a little more than it seems to be

Doing all 6 Parks alone is a HUGE Accomplishment, Like Seriously, ignore the "Main Bloggers" who have done it, and focus on individuals who have. There really is only a handful!!! and then to do it all in 1 continues trip!!! THAT right there is what makes an insane achievement even more heroic!!!

You'll be joining a very select club that has less members than Club 33

I did get a call from Somebody at Disney Parks and Resorts congratulating me on the trip, which was nice ... how they got my phone number... that's part of the Disney Magic right

Yes, we were extremely happy with our trip. All the intense planing paid off majorly and it was pretty smooth from start to finish

What Worked The best?
-> Picking the right flights to maximize our park time
-> Putting a 1 full non Disney day in the middle of the trip to rest
-> Packing light, 1 Medium to large suitcase each. One small roller each, One Backpack each. Thats it. Washing was scheduled every 2 parks.
-> A good technology plan (We had 10's of thousands of photos, each was backed up nightly)
-> A simple souvenir plan (Only 1 T-shirt and 1 souvenir per person per park)
-> Not getting hung up on the little things and just going with it
-> Not getting hung up on social media (We originally were going to try and go viral, but realized, this was our trip, and we didn't care about creating a fan base)
-> Not loosing sight that for us, this was a "Disney" trip. We would return to these cities again, so it wasn't important to "See Everything" or "Vacation" in the cities themselves for us. If all we did was Airport -> Disney -> Airport we would be OK.
-> We had a manila folder for each park. Inside it was a copy of the itinerary for flight into and out of that park, copies of any hotel reservations, etc. Receipts, boarding passes etc went into those folders each trip. Once a leg was completed, that folder was archived into the suitcase. Allowed us to keep documents neat and organized as well as safe for review later.

What did not work well?
-> Time, We only had 3 weeks total to visit all the parks, so we knew we had to cut things short and focus on very specific things at each park
-> ...More to Come

 

[mgentry210]

I would probably try to do:

MCO-LAX one-way ticket
LAX-HKG-Shanghai-Tokyo-LAX this comes out to about $1000 when I tried it with random dates near your dates
LAX-Paris on Norwegian (non-stop and doesn't require round-trip for better prices)
London-MCO on Norwegian

Not sure if that's better than what you have time and/or cost wise. If you do go the Norwegian route, you can save a little money if you select Norge language and pay in Norwegian krone.

Have fun planning your adventure!

Very interesting feedback. I've never priced Norweigan before and played around. It does save one day travel this plan however there are 2 marathon days in this plan and its pricing about $500 more than my current plan. I'll keep watching though. Thanks!

 

[mgentry210]

I understand you want to get it on the cheap (2K is a great deal, and you've built in fine buffers for missed and late connections) and with good sales you can likely get it even less, and totally respect that. But I do want to point out the much back and forth your doing to keep the costs that low. Don't get me wrong (My wife and I are insane mileage runners) so I love flying as much as anybody, but travel is a lot of energy, and if you can pay a little more to have a more streamlined experience and minimize the back and forth and transits you're brain may thank you later.

The fact that you refer to it as ITA means you totally know what you're doing (and we speak the same language) So please don't take my comments the wrong way. I totally respect another flight guru



Please do!!!! It's always kinda weird to me how little of a deal people seem to make of such a heroic achievement!! Like when we tell folks who talk nothing but Disney we did it, most of them go "Oh cool, I would love to visit Tokyo some day" or "You can't pay me enough to go to China" and then go right back to talking about their 5th WDW trip this year :/ Don't get me wrong. Everybody is entitled to their opinion and I certainly doing go around "parading" that we did the trip all over, and sure, it's not everybody's goal, but it's certainly something that should be celebrated a little more than it seems to be

Doing all 6 Parks alone is a HUGE Accomplishment, Like Seriously, ignore the "Main Bloggers" who have done it, and focus on individuals who have. There really is only a handful!!! and then to do it all in 1 continues trip!!! THAT right there is what makes an insane achievement even more heroic!!!

You'll be joining a very select club that has less members than Club 33

I did get a call from Somebody at Disney Parks and Resorts congratulating me on the trip, which was nice ... how they got my phone number... that's part of the Disney Magic right

Yes, we were extremely happy with our trip. All the intense planing paid off majorly and it was pretty smooth from start to finish

What Worked The best?
-> Picking the right flights to maximize our park time
-> Putting a 1 full non Disney day in the middle of the trip to rest
-> Packing light, 1 Medium to large suitcase each. One small roller each, One Backpack each. Thats it. Washing was scheduled every 2 parks.
-> A good technology plan (We had 10's of thousands of photos, each was backed up nightly)
-> A simple souvenir plan (Only 1 T-shirt and 1 souvenir per person per park)
-> Not getting hung up on the little things and just going with it
-> Not getting hung up on social media (We originally were going to try and go viral, but realized, this was our trip, and we didn't care about creating a fan base)
-> Not loosing sight that for us, this was a "Disney" trip. We would return to these cities again, so it wasn't important to "See Everything" or "Vacation" in the cities themselves for us. If all we did was Airport -> Disney -> Airport we would be OK.
-> We had a manila folder for each park. Inside it was a copy of the itinerary for flight into and out of that park, copies of any hotel reservations, etc. Receipts, boarding passes etc went into those folders each trip. Once a leg was completed, that folder was archived into the suitcase. Allowed us to keep documents neat and organized as well as safe for review later.

What did not work well?
-> Time, We only had 3 weeks total to visit all the parks, so we knew we had to cut things short and focus on very specific things at each park
-> ...More to Come

Oh you made me so happy with your reply!

I know there is quite a bit of travel, but so far this plan seems to work the best price and time wise. I want enough time in between parks to do some local sightseeing. I'm also trying to plan most of travel on weekends so we are hitting all park days and most local days during the week for crowds. I played around with the other flight suggestion using Norwegian and its going to work out about $800 more right now plus there are 2 marathon days in the schedule versus the one I have now. That's also part of the backtracking too. To avoid long, long travel days for health reasons. But... I'm probably 4-5 months from booking so who knows what will happen!

I love some of your suggestions. It sounds like we are similar planners. I always have a folder and file as I go. So you spreadsheet it too? This is going to be an epic one! Is it crazy that I love the planning almost as much as the travel?

So here's where I have some more questions. The packing. I've been researching an ebag that looks like a winner. Did you check bags? Since our trip does backtrack back to Tokyo in the middle I've been thinking about buying an extra suitcase once we got full and storing it at the hotel, then picking it back up for the trip back to the US. That way we would only have extra luggage fees for one leg. Other idea was to perhaps ship home? Any experience there? Maybe even consider having a box shipped to the resort with replacement clothes, and ship it back with dirty and souvenirs? I'm afraid I will love everything and be regretful for not getting some awesome things. Plus I kind of have a thing for ears and they aren't compression packable! I really haven't thought this part through yet.

What about laundry? Did you do them at the resort? Were your hotels mostly onsite?

I agree with you that the focus of this trip is the achievement of doing the parks with some sightseeing thrown in the relax and enjoy. We definitely aren't trying to do it all. Same with the parks. Our focus is going to be on the environment and rides that are unique. I've no desire to ride Soarin' again just because it's in Tokyo.

So how did you get the call from Disney? Did you tell them your plans? Very cool!

Last for now... Do we get a T-shirt for this club?

 

[nickcirc]

To avoid long, long travel days for health reasons. But... I'm probably 4-5 months from booking so who knows what will happen!

That is super important and certainly a point that you need to consider. I remember booking my mum with an overnight in Sydney on the way to SF :/ it seemed silly to me to overnight her after only 5 hours of flying, but it honestly was super important for her to rest even just after a small hop!!! Ultimately this is YOUR trip, so make it YOUR way, don't take compromises if you don't want to Travel advice is forever changing and honestly sales and prices change daily. I always stick by the "Never look up a flight again after it's been booked" since you don't wanna be in a world where your focusing or stressing about it!!

So you spreadsheet it too? This is going to be an epic one! Is it crazy that I love the planning almost as much as the travel?

Indeed we do We actually have a general template one for WDW that we share with others as well. We also made sure to transpose all flights, hotels, transfers etc into iCal to ensure that all our devices were in sync and had alerts set up for everything. I won't say we "Over" planned per say, more it was easy to ensure information was always readily available, Hotel Names always in local language etc, at the touch of a button.

The packing. I've been researching an ebag that looks like a winner.

To go on a slight rant, The thing with Bags is that it doesn't really matter how strong they are, or their brand in the end. My wife and I do a lot of long haul flying, so we travel with checked bags often (Usually with more gifts than clothes , I've had $500 Sampsonite break after 1 trip and $60 Target Swissgears last 5 years and 500k miles of travel. If you find a bag that works for you, is light enough, has a good set of wheels and sturdy handle then I say go for it. But don't set the expectation that it will last 20 years of travel, You just never know what's going to happen to it.

Did you check bags?

Yes, We each checked one bag. I checked a 29" Spinner and my wife a 27". However whats super important is that except for our jump from HND -(via LHR)> CDG. We saw our bag after EVERY leg, Which means it's chance of getting lost or delayed is minimal. We're a little lucky in that we both have Airline status so our bags were always tagged First Class, but that doesn't matter most times since it's the transit's that delay bags based on time. We're also lucky in that we never had to worry about bag fee's our allowance the whole trip was 4 bags at near 32Kg each... not that we did have that.

That way we would only have extra luggage fees for one leg. Other idea was to perhaps ship home? Any experience there? Maybe even consider having a box shipped to the resort with replacement clothes, and ship it back with dirty and souvenirs?

If that works for you and the hotel can store it for a week then sure. That's a fine idea.

We were lucky in that we never had to worry about shipping bags since as I said, we were strict with our purchases. When we left PER our bags were also quite light with only made 1/4 full anyway since we were traveling during Summer months.

We were also a little lucky in that when we got back to MCO, We had a friend who was at our wedding meet us there for that leg. So he brought across what we were needing (Mostly our costumes for MNSSHP)

Just to be super clear, I wouldn't get hung up on bag fees (Hence the don't let little things get you) if the worst you end up with is having to fork out an extra $200 USD across a month to pay for an overweight or extra bag.. it's not the end of the world for a trip like this!!!

At WDW we're huge on Garden Grocer, and there are plenty of other services like that around the world. For us it's all about the bottled water, Sports drinks (a MUST for summer months) and light snacks for breakfast, Having those shipping ahead is a godsend for any Disney trip and saves so much time and energy!!

What about laundry? Did you do them at the resort? Were your hotels mostly onsite?

We scheduled Laundry in Tokyo and Orlando

For the Hotels we stayed onsite for 4 and offsite for 2. My wife and I love our air travel experiences, but honestly we care a little less about our hotel experiences kinda weird I guess.

Hong Kong : Hollywood Hotel
Shanghai : Toy Story Hotel
Tokyo : Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay (Machines On Site)
Paris : Santa Fe
Orlando : Pop Century (Machines On Site)
Anaheim : Hitlon Anaheim

For our "6 Castle" trip shirts we actually only have 2 made each. So we wore 1 each park for a maximum of 2 days, so worked out well.

Our focus is going to be on the environment and rides that are unique. I've no desire to ride Soarin' again just because it's in Tokyo.

Super happy to read this (except maybe that Soarin' wont open in Tokyo till 2019), it was actually going to be my next point which is part of planning is to be correctly selective. but not "rob" yourself.

You're totally spot on though, If you did a ride in park X, and it's pretty similar (or some time identical) then skip it!! Tokyo you have to be a little careful, DisneySea is full of unique rides but Tokyo Disneyland isn't as much, Skipping the right rides at the right park can really help make sure you get to do the unique experiences without feeling like double backing.

For us, We still did a few things at every park. Space Ranger Spin (and it's variants) were still open at all parks in 2016 (not anymore ) so we did that at EVERY park.
We also did Dumbo at every park (and have a video of us on it and enjoying it at every one)

It's very easy to fall into the trap of "Ok, When we do move on to the next park" instead of focusing exclusively on the park you're at. It's a weird experience that I had never felt before, and it can be daunting, Like, Walking into HKDL and knowing that I still have 5 parks ahead of me!! So try to focus heavily on the present, the park and city you are in at that time!!!

Something I realized when planning was how much advice there was from folks on specific international parks (except Shanghai which we booked before it was open, and were there like 2 months after grand opening) but written as a single destination trip angle. You have to be careful!! Things can and are often VERY different when you're doing a continues trip. You're stories, ways of thinking, what to do are tailored to a very different type of trip. This is more so apparent when time constraints set in.

So how did you get the call from Disney? Did you tell them your plans? Very cool!

I actually emailed some general Disney marketing email about 6 months before the trip. Just stating "Hey, not asking for money or anything, just wanna let you know we're doing this"

and then later got the call :/ again... my email didn't have my cell number... so they must have looked it up based on my hotel bookings and names? who knows was fun.

Fun Fact though, When we were in WDW on an EMH morning we were taking a photo with a Disney Princess (Won't say which one!!), we were the only folks there with the PP photographer, and when the PP photographer said "Oh wow you're doing that!!!" after seeing our shirts, I kid you know the Princess broke character and went "Oh what, no way!!!" and came over to read the shirt"....

Do we get a T-shirt for this club?

Sure... you just have to make it yourself

I will tell you this though, Walking into DLR and that feeling of "OMG We've done it!!!" and I started crying. This type of trip was always a crazy idea I had had when I was younger. Years of dreaming about it (before Shanghai was even an option!!) and then adding that just made it extra special!!

It truly was, a dream come true in the most amazing way. To this day It's till blows my mind when my Wife and I talk about "Hey remember that time we visited every Disney park in the world in one trip" it's like, it's so crazy to even think thats possible!!!

 

[wanderlust7]

Very interesting feedback. I've never priced Norweigan before and played around. It does save one day travel this plan however there are 2 marathon days in this plan and its pricing about $500 more than my current plan. I'll keep watching though. Thanks!

Norwegian pricing usually starts out low and then goes up as the seats fill. The fares on the legacy carriers are hard to predict though.

Is it crazy that I love the planning almost as much as the travel?

Ha! Call me a crazy person too!

Tokyo : Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay (Machines On Site)

We stayed here too and a part of choosing it over the Hilton was the coin laundry on site. The dryers took forever though - but better than hand washing! If you do still decide to stay at the Hilton, you could walk over to the Sheraton to do laundry. The hotels are next to each other and there's nothing that would prevent a non-guest from using the machines.

There was complimentary luggage transfer over to the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. When moving hotels in Tokyo, you may want to use a delivery service (takuhaibin) - super reliable and fairly inexpensive (<$20 within Tokyo). It'll save a lot of schlepping on the trains.

 

[mgentry210]

Fun Fact though, When we were in WDW on an EMH morning we were taking a photo with a Disney Princess (Won't say which one!!), we were the only folks there with the PP photographer, and when the PP photographer said "Oh wow you're doing that!!!" after seeing our shirts, I kid you know the Princess broke character and went "Oh what, no way!!!" and came over to read the shirt"....

Very cool. I would love to see a pic of your shirts! I'm always having shirts made on etsy.

You have been awesome. Thanks so much for your feedback so far. I think I may have a few more over the upcoming months...

 

[nickcirc]

We stayed here too and a part of choosing it over the Hilton was the coin laundry on site. The dryers took forever though

They did take a while, but the parks were closed so it's not like we were missing much... and the Namco right across from the machines was....convenient... My poor wife "I sent you to get coins for the machines!!! what did you do with them!!!".....

Random point, We actually used the Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit here, knocked off the cost of one night, so that was good.

It'll save a lot of schlepping on the trains.

oooo This is a great point in general. If you're going to be traveling around with your checked bags across trains, be aware of the way you choose. a TGV from CDG to DLP is easy and quick and getting onto it at the CDG station is easy, but then you're on cobblestones rolling it can get annoying. and if you then take and transfer to the Metro. you'll be lifting it up stairs and all over random roads!!!

If this is a problem, plan ahead as wanderlust7 and have your transfers pre-arranged or use hire cars.

 

[wanderlust7]

They did take a while, but the parks were closed so it's not like we were missing much... and the Namco right across from the machines was....convenient... My poor wife "I sent you to get coins for the machines!!! what did you do with them!!!".....

My son had a lot of fun with those machines too. Maybe we had too much clothes, but eventually we gave up and put the still damp clothes out all over the room to air dry.

 

[MommaBerd]

Love this thread! I have a new bucket list item now. I am SO impressed with those who have done this, and @mgentry210, I hope you do a trip report!

My burning question is how did you all deal with jet lag? Wasn’t it brutal?

 

[nickcirc]

My burning question is how did you all deal with jet lag? Wasn’t it brutal?

It depends how you do the trip, for us there was no Jet Lag for 2 reasons.

The first, well we flew in lie flat seats...

But more importantly the time zones don't actually get you!!!

Perth is GMT + 8 and we were already adjusted to that since we were there for a week.
Leaving on a reasonable 7am flight from Perth we went to Hong Kong, which is also GMT + 8 so no time zone change, Since it was a day flight we didn't have to worry about getting sleep and slept a normal night

Flying from Hong Kong to Shanghai is a quick hop, again we did a simple morning 8am flight. and you guessed it!!! Shanghai is GMT + 8

Flying form Shanghai to Tokyo was a little later flight, did an 11am. Tokyo Time Zone is only GMT + 9 so an extra hour doesn't really mess with you to much. and it's also a short flight.


So the first 3 parks are easy since the time zones are pretty simple to move between, flying during the day means you don't have to worry about sleeping, and get normal nights rests at your hotels.

Then from Tokyo to London is obviously a longer flight, but at the same time, we planed to arrive in the afternoon. So the plan there was to get up nice and early to het to the Airport, and catch a morning flight to arrive and connect to Paris for an earlier afternoon, Sleeping on the plan as soon as we took off was key here.

Then from Paris to New York -> Orlando was also a day flight arriving in the evening, so that wasn't to big a deal either.

Orlando to LAX was also an afternoon flight arriving in the evening, so thats not a big deal since we went right to sleep (after visiting Disneyland once, to ensure that we did a "Park Hop" between WDW and DLR)


So in short, I guess it can be summarized in a few things

-> Do the 3 Asian parks in a good pattern
-> Travel Westward
-> Fly day flights that arrive in afternoon/evening
-> Fly the direct routes as much as you can with the times that make sense for connections if you have to do them.
-> Don't try to "maximize" your days by arriving early and leaving late,

 

[MommaBerd]

@nickcirc - Very nice! We live in Atlanta and will be traveling to Shanghai at the very beginning of April. Then we are going to hit DL on the way back. Knowing what I know now - really only learned in the past week - we should have done our trip in the opposite direction. LA first, then Shanghai, then ATL by way of Detroit or New York or direct to ATL. And it is DH, me and three of our boys who are traveling, so no way we could splurge for the lie-down seats. (Although DS10, who has champagne tastes and is obsessed with airplanes right now, virtually begged to sit in Business class!)

So, the six park trip will definitely be after we’re empty-nesters!!!

 

[nickcirc]

@nickcirc (Although DS10, who has champagne tastes and is obsessed with airplanes right now, virtually begged to sit in Business class!)

Honestly, Frequent Flyer Miles/Points, thats the secret to all of this. If you master the system, study the routes, book the right flights at the right time, you can do amazing vacations for great value