Teen and I decided to break from our family’s usual “pace yourself” approach and did the roller coaster challenge yesterday.
Setup: offsite hotel, got what lightning lanes I could (evening), planned mix of lyft/monorail, skyliner. Food ranging from water to BoG ADR at each park.
7:30ish: Arrived Animal Kingdom for 8am non-resort rope drop.
8:00: Rode Everest, buy water and head to exit and called lyft to hollywood studios.
(Some of the challenge lists I’ve seen included FoP but my daughter indignantly declared it is NOT a roller coaster and since I am not a fan we declared it disqualified)
8:45ish: Arrive Hollywood Studios in the midst of opening crush. First long line of the day.
9::20: Get in line for slinky with posted wait of 50 mins, finish right on time.
10:20: See unplanned single rider for RoR and jump in. Breeze through and finish, now ahead of schedule at 10:40 although Teen also now complaining RoR is also not a roller coaster.
10:50: Allowed in early for stop at Oga’s for first break of the day.
Before noon: Single rider RnRC. Do not breeze through. Finish at 12:40.
Decide on skyliner vs boat and relax on trip to Epcot and stop for lunch.
Now hit a slight problem being well ahead of schedule. I was able to get a lightning lane for Guardians but not until 5:05. We end up at Epcot fed and nothing planned before 3. Decide to spend the time exploring World Showcase and trying to stay out of the sun.
(I do try asking if we could lightning lane early and am shot down)
5:05: Guardians! First new ride for both of us and we both loved it. Finish at 5:40 and I start hustling to the exit because the rest of our list is stacked up at MK.
First setback of the day: Epcot Monorail is closed. Call lyft to TTC because concerned about time for bus. A further delay on MK monorail at Contemporary has me worried about our lightning lane time for space mountain…
Which is when I notice Space Mountain is closed.
Rejigger plan: Decide to head to Tron rather than saving for last in case SM reopens. This also means we won’t use the LL for Barnstormer which I figure will be easy later.
Realize extra charger is dead, phone battery low, and go analog for the rest of the night until time to call ride home.
6:40: Get in standby line at Tron which has grown from 50 to 70.
Teen gets cranky. I am unsympathetic. She plays on her still functioning phone for an hour while I Zen to the safety warnings.
Tron is second new ride for us and I loved the bike setup but we both felt a bit short compared to other rides. (Snarky Teen: “That’s it?”)
8:20ish : Dinner. We are very late for 7:45 ADR at BoG but after checking they bring us in. Great interlude and am told that if I run late for 8:05-9:05 7DMT LL they should let us on if I show the receipt (the “…since The Mouse wants you spending a gazillion dollars at dinner” is left unsaid)
Leave dinner after 9 and allowed in LL 10 mins late without showing dinner bill. Get right in and finish as fireworks start!
Teen no longer snarky but is ready to leave. I insist we ride barnstormer (as expected, lack of LL is not a problem as it is us and one mom with small son. We decline offer to stay in seats and ride again.)
Walk by Space which is still down.
Head to exit and just beat end of fireworks. Join early exiters in wait back to TTC where I turn back on my phone and head home.
Sad we didn’t get to really do them all but at least the miss wasn’t a new one. It was fun hitting all the parks in one day! If Test Track had been up we could have fit that in easily but BTMR might have been too much to fit in at MK after the guardian’s LL.
Squeezing in the ADRs was alot but the breaks were so nice and they were able to accommodate us outside our arrival time both places.
We’ve previously come on holidays when it was more packed and I wouldn’t try this then as we did need the room for error.
