Yea, you read that right. All six parks in THREE days. We're nutso...
It was quite a memorable experience though as the both of us hadn't been to Orlando since we were in elementary/middle school. We planned these few days ahead of our Disney Fantasy cruise and figured it would be hectic and that jumping on the cruise after would be the better way to do it. Definitely the way to go with our aggressive touring plan and I have no regrets
I'm not about to go into detail on every single ride we rode but will just summarize the experience and our thoughts.
We ended up staying at the Hilton @ Lake Buena Vista and found it to be relatively convenient. Yea, they have a ridiculous $35-40 worth of resort/parking fees but I guess the Extra Magic Hour is worth it... at least, it was for us. But besides that and the free shuttle, not much else along the line of amenities.
Day 1 (Wed): Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot
I think we got roughly 3-4 hours of sleep after getting in all late to MCO and waiting a ridiculous long wait in the Budget rental car line (NEVER USE BUDGET AT MCO! NEVER!!!). Anyway, we took advantage of EMH, which happened to be at AK so we made that our first stop and got there at park opening. It was awesome! The EMH definitely helps get those rides you want to ride out of the way and make room for the rest of the day. We we're pretty much done with AK by 11am-12pm or so. I really like AK - I'll probably get railed for blasphemy here but it sort of reminded me of a cross between the SD Zoo and SD Zoo Safari Park. Of course, there's a lot more ride attractions (e.g. Expedition Everest)... we didn't really go to see all the animals as our focus was primarily on getting through the rides. We probably could have taken another hour or two though to explore the rest of the park. It was relatively uncrowded even by the time we left.
Hollywood Studios was fun. We're SoCal residents and have been to California Adventure, so it was familiar. It, of course, was busier here but we did get to all the rides we wanted. We also tried dinner at Prime Time Cafe - not sure what the big deal is about the place; we didn't really like it that much. Yes, the fried chicken is pretty good, but that's about it - a bit hyped IMHO.
BTW: the new FastPass+ system is interesting. I do like how it's relatively easier to schedule rides out but I don't like the 3-ride in 1-park limit. I guess it makes you apply a different strategy but it seems super-limiting.
We decided to head over to Epcot to try to take advantage of our Disney Visa Debit free photo op but found out we were a bit late for it. Would've been nice to get an extra couple of passes for photos but ah well... went on as many rides as we could stand (or that were open) before calling it a night. Oh yea, I should also mention that by the time we were on our way to Epcot, it was POURING. Apparently a storm passed right over and so it was raining for hours - it was super windy and we saw lightning while taking the ferry from HS to Epcot. We ended up getting off at the Dolphin/Swan resort area and catching a long-route shuttle to Epcot. And it was raining lightly at Epcot the entire time too, which was nice because lines were generally shorter. Good thing we had our ponchos and rain jackets! Except our shoes and pants were soaked by the time we got back to the hotel
I think we were standing in the rain for half an hour too, waiting for the shuttle back to the hotel because we just missed the prior one.
After washing up at the hotel a bit, we drove over to Downtown Disney and had Earl of Sandwich. And to top it all off, on a cold and rainy night, we shared an ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli.
Day 2 (Thurs): Magic Kingdom and Epcot
Woke up early again for EMH @ MK this time. And to start off the morning, we encountered our first double mommy-meltdown on the shuttle ride out! Basically, the first mom (and dad) were running late and it turned out their kids somehow got on the bus without them. As the driver started pulling away the parents ran after the bus frantically - fortunately the bus driver slowed down and let them on. But the wife and her husband both scolded and yelled at the driver - how the heck is he supposed to know those are your kids? Get real, people. I felt bad for the driver - poor guy. He probably has to put up with stuff like that all the time. Anyway, cut to the next scene: apparently this older woman is staring at this lady who just caused a scene getting on the bus, and I think several other people were staring at her too. But she decides to single out this older woman and ask her what she's looking at in extremely condescending tones (e.g. "you need to look the other way, young lady") and to continued reprimand her. Then the woman's daughter (the second mommy meltdown coming here) interjects with some choice words, in front of her son and the other mom's kids, essentially telling this lady that she needs to be quiet. Ultimately, it all escalated to the point that the woman's daughter gets up and starts rushing over to tackle and pound this jawing lady into submission. But both husbands quickly intervened to prevent this. All the while, the poor kids were just sitting there quietly, trying to pretend like they didn't just see all this. Then when we got to MK, I guess everyone got into "The happiest place on earth" mode.
Anyway, onto the rest of the day - we pretty much did all we wanted to (including eating lots of yummies) at MK. I really didn't like the Ranger Spin, compared to Astro Blasters. So outdated - they really need to upgrade - I don't understand why they can't with all the income they get. They need to seriously come up to par. Okay, maybe I'm just jealous that my wife laid a whooping down on me, but I swear - my blaster was broken or something!
Well, by the late afternoon we were done and headed over to Epcot. It was super-crowded at MK too, so I think we left at a good time.
At Epcot, we made it a point to get all of our photo op stuff outta the way, so we did and then enjoyed walking around the rest of the time. Had some fish and chips and got bothered by some seagulls, and checked out Maelstrom and Test Track since those were close the night before. I'm glad we got all the other rides outta the way the first night, so we could just kind of take it easy this day.
Got back to the hotel and were craving pizza, so ordered takeout from Giordanos to satisfy the craving. Unfortunately, my wife felt sick after eating probably the most cheese at once in her life haha. I liked it but it was pretty overwhelming. I guess that's Giordanos for ya?
Day 3 (Fri): Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure
Drove out to USO and IOA to cap things off. Did USO first and it was great in the morning - I was a bit surprised but we pretty much got through all we wanted to by lunch time and then headed over to IOA. This was just crazy because of WWHP though - I think the longest wait this whole trip, besides Toy Story Mania, was Forbidden Journey. We 'mistakenly' got in line for this too thinking it was Flight of the Hippogriff...LOL!!! It was all good though. We got some butter beer and my wife instantly liked it... man that stuff is good.
We stayed pretty much till closing and that was it. Yeah, it got pretty busy and also cause it was Valentine's day I suppose, but I am glad we were here and NOT at WDW - that would have just been total CHAOS. As you can tell, I really hate crowds.
I did appreciate the wifi coverage at almost all the parks - it was awesome being able to browse the web and check email while on some of the sleeper rides (e.g. The Great Movie Ride @ HS LOL!). As you can imagine, we were super-exhausted from all the walking/running around but did have a good time. I'm SO glad we had the cruise to relax on for the following week after. I think we're good on WDW/USO/IOA for a long long time.
It was quite a memorable experience though as the both of us hadn't been to Orlando since we were in elementary/middle school. We planned these few days ahead of our Disney Fantasy cruise and figured it would be hectic and that jumping on the cruise after would be the better way to do it. Definitely the way to go with our aggressive touring plan and I have no regrets
I'm not about to go into detail on every single ride we rode but will just summarize the experience and our thoughts.
We ended up staying at the Hilton @ Lake Buena Vista and found it to be relatively convenient. Yea, they have a ridiculous $35-40 worth of resort/parking fees but I guess the Extra Magic Hour is worth it... at least, it was for us. But besides that and the free shuttle, not much else along the line of amenities.
Day 1 (Wed): Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios and Epcot
I think we got roughly 3-4 hours of sleep after getting in all late to MCO and waiting a ridiculous long wait in the Budget rental car line (NEVER USE BUDGET AT MCO! NEVER!!!). Anyway, we took advantage of EMH, which happened to be at AK so we made that our first stop and got there at park opening. It was awesome! The EMH definitely helps get those rides you want to ride out of the way and make room for the rest of the day. We we're pretty much done with AK by 11am-12pm or so. I really like AK - I'll probably get railed for blasphemy here but it sort of reminded me of a cross between the SD Zoo and SD Zoo Safari Park. Of course, there's a lot more ride attractions (e.g. Expedition Everest)... we didn't really go to see all the animals as our focus was primarily on getting through the rides. We probably could have taken another hour or two though to explore the rest of the park. It was relatively uncrowded even by the time we left.
Hollywood Studios was fun. We're SoCal residents and have been to California Adventure, so it was familiar. It, of course, was busier here but we did get to all the rides we wanted. We also tried dinner at Prime Time Cafe - not sure what the big deal is about the place; we didn't really like it that much. Yes, the fried chicken is pretty good, but that's about it - a bit hyped IMHO.
BTW: the new FastPass+ system is interesting. I do like how it's relatively easier to schedule rides out but I don't like the 3-ride in 1-park limit. I guess it makes you apply a different strategy but it seems super-limiting.
We decided to head over to Epcot to try to take advantage of our Disney Visa Debit free photo op but found out we were a bit late for it. Would've been nice to get an extra couple of passes for photos but ah well... went on as many rides as we could stand (or that were open) before calling it a night. Oh yea, I should also mention that by the time we were on our way to Epcot, it was POURING. Apparently a storm passed right over and so it was raining for hours - it was super windy and we saw lightning while taking the ferry from HS to Epcot. We ended up getting off at the Dolphin/Swan resort area and catching a long-route shuttle to Epcot. And it was raining lightly at Epcot the entire time too, which was nice because lines were generally shorter. Good thing we had our ponchos and rain jackets! Except our shoes and pants were soaked by the time we got back to the hotel
I think we were standing in the rain for half an hour too, waiting for the shuttle back to the hotel because we just missed the prior one.After washing up at the hotel a bit, we drove over to Downtown Disney and had Earl of Sandwich. And to top it all off, on a cold and rainy night, we shared an ice cream sundae at Ghirardelli.
Day 2 (Thurs): Magic Kingdom and Epcot
Woke up early again for EMH @ MK this time. And to start off the morning, we encountered our first double mommy-meltdown on the shuttle ride out! Basically, the first mom (and dad) were running late and it turned out their kids somehow got on the bus without them. As the driver started pulling away the parents ran after the bus frantically - fortunately the bus driver slowed down and let them on. But the wife and her husband both scolded and yelled at the driver - how the heck is he supposed to know those are your kids? Get real, people. I felt bad for the driver - poor guy. He probably has to put up with stuff like that all the time. Anyway, cut to the next scene: apparently this older woman is staring at this lady who just caused a scene getting on the bus, and I think several other people were staring at her too. But she decides to single out this older woman and ask her what she's looking at in extremely condescending tones (e.g. "you need to look the other way, young lady") and to continued reprimand her. Then the woman's daughter (the second mommy meltdown coming here) interjects with some choice words, in front of her son and the other mom's kids, essentially telling this lady that she needs to be quiet. Ultimately, it all escalated to the point that the woman's daughter gets up and starts rushing over to tackle and pound this jawing lady into submission. But both husbands quickly intervened to prevent this. All the while, the poor kids were just sitting there quietly, trying to pretend like they didn't just see all this. Then when we got to MK, I guess everyone got into "The happiest place on earth" mode.
Anyway, onto the rest of the day - we pretty much did all we wanted to (including eating lots of yummies) at MK. I really didn't like the Ranger Spin, compared to Astro Blasters. So outdated - they really need to upgrade - I don't understand why they can't with all the income they get. They need to seriously come up to par. Okay, maybe I'm just jealous that my wife laid a whooping down on me, but I swear - my blaster was broken or something!
Well, by the late afternoon we were done and headed over to Epcot. It was super-crowded at MK too, so I think we left at a good time.At Epcot, we made it a point to get all of our photo op stuff outta the way, so we did and then enjoyed walking around the rest of the time. Had some fish and chips and got bothered by some seagulls, and checked out Maelstrom and Test Track since those were close the night before. I'm glad we got all the other rides outta the way the first night, so we could just kind of take it easy this day.
Got back to the hotel and were craving pizza, so ordered takeout from Giordanos to satisfy the craving. Unfortunately, my wife felt sick after eating probably the most cheese at once in her life haha. I liked it but it was pretty overwhelming. I guess that's Giordanos for ya?
Day 3 (Fri): Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure
Drove out to USO and IOA to cap things off. Did USO first and it was great in the morning - I was a bit surprised but we pretty much got through all we wanted to by lunch time and then headed over to IOA. This was just crazy because of WWHP though - I think the longest wait this whole trip, besides Toy Story Mania, was Forbidden Journey. We 'mistakenly' got in line for this too thinking it was Flight of the Hippogriff...LOL!!! It was all good though. We got some butter beer and my wife instantly liked it... man that stuff is good.
We stayed pretty much till closing and that was it. Yeah, it got pretty busy and also cause it was Valentine's day I suppose, but I am glad we were here and NOT at WDW - that would have just been total CHAOS. As you can tell, I really hate crowds.
I did appreciate the wifi coverage at almost all the parks - it was awesome being able to browse the web and check email while on some of the sleeper rides (e.g. The Great Movie Ride @ HS LOL!). As you can imagine, we were super-exhausted from all the walking/running around but did have a good time. I'm SO glad we had the cruise to relax on for the following week after. I think we're good on WDW/USO/IOA for a long long time.
