The trip of many changes August 2017 - Day 10 planned 4 park day

[jothp]

Index here

Today we were planning to attempt all 4 parks in one day. At each park we wanted to ride a couple of rides, meet a character, eat some food and have a photo.

We were starting at AK as it had EMH so it was another early start. We managed to arrive in time to be only a couple of families back in the queue for bag check and thought we were in good shape. Unfortunately we were held at bag check for a long time so by the time they started letting people through there were hundreds of people who arrived after us who had no bags and got to the turnstiles first. We ended up about 15-20 people back in a mass of humanity so not terrible but not what we deserved given the time we had arrived

Warning - rant coming up! I must admit that this made me quite angry. On our non EMH morning bag check was open by 90 minutes before the park opened so you could go through and line up at the turnstiles - the people who arrived earliest were first in the queue. This morning the system just didn't work well and what made it worse was that there seemed to be no reason to hold everyone at bag check as there were plenty of security staff just standing around chatting. I did nearly visit guest services to complain but decided I didn't want to use any more of my holiday thinking about it. I've since read elsewhere that bag check opens just before 7.30 everyday regardless of opening time which seems a bit mad. Rant over

Despite the setback we decided to continue with our plan of heading to FOP first up. We had all loved the ride on Sunday and were keen to try it again - we figured that even from our position now we would end up waiting less than we would at any other time. Somehow we managed to get ourselves in a fast moving queue and we walked as fast as my knee (and lack of fitness!) allowed to the holding point by Tiffins. We were still further back than we would have liked but I'd marched out a bit of my anger and was feeling somewhat calmer!

After all that worrying and stressing we were still on and off FOP by 8.20 and decided to stop off for a photo before heading on to dinoland.

We soon made it to dinoland which was very quiet. We rode dinosaur first with no queue and then Evie and I did Triceratop Spin (or dino dumbo as we like to call it!) whilst the others did primeval whirl.

It was now a little before 9 and we were doing well- just a character meet and some food to do before we could move to park 2. We settled on Pocahontas as she was nearby. The queue was moving quite slowly and it was close to 9.30 before we were done but she did spend a good amount of time chatting with each family.

We picked up some ice creams to eat on our way out of the park.

[jothp]

Next came our worst bus wait of the entire trip. 50 minutes we waited for a single bus to take us to the MK. Several buses came and went for almost every destination apart from ours. By the time a bus did come there must have been enough people in the queue to fill at least 3 buses. They crammed as many on as possible and it was a rather uncomfortable journey feeling like sardines. I had made our FPs here in the hope that I might be able to pick up some lucky subsequent FPs at the other two parks for later.

We just about made it to POTC about 10 minutes late for our first FP. I have to say that we enjoyed the version in Paris much better than this one. By the time we'd finished here we wandered over to the HM to use our second FP of the day with some photos afterwards. Today's ride was on the slow side with lots of stop-start.

By now it was about 11.30 and we were all feeling hungry after the early start but decided to wait for our 11.45 Mine Train FP first. We took advantage of being able to arrive 5 minutes early and were soon looking for somewhere to grab lunch.

Until yesterday at POR, Evie had ordered nothing but nuggets for our entire trip even though she never ate them. Yesterday we had managed to persuade her to try a burger and now she didn't want anything else! We soon came to the conclusion that the nearest burger was Cosmic Rays so we headed there.

We chatted and regrouped over our meal - only a character meet left and we could move on to Epcot. We decided to try the storybook circus as it wasn't too far away. The queue didn't seem too long but it definitely took longer than the posted 25 minutes.

By now we were all feeling rather weary and weren't sure we would be up to the challenge. The decision was made to take the monorail to Epcot and see how we felt when we got there. We arrived at the monorail station at 1.15. We were a little bit ahead of schedule despite the wait for the characters. None of us felt refreshed by the short sit down and the sky was looking suspiciously like a magnificent storm was on the way so we caught the bus back to Kidani. It turns out that was a great decision as it was raining heavily by the time we got back.

We all slept for most of the afternoon before heading back to POR for another meal.

I would still like to try the challenge again on another trip but maybe not have pushed ourselves so much in the run up to it! The first part of our plan worked out in good time even with a couple of longer than expected waits so it definitely would have been doable.

[Goldia]

A shame you didn't make the challenge, but it's important to listen to each other and if you were all feeling tired then it seems you made the right decision for you in the end.

Your plan seemed to work out well at AK as you got loads done in EMH, in spite of the bag check hiccup. Seems like you had a good strategy.

[jothp]

Originally Posted by Goldia

A shame you didn't make the challenge, but it's important to listen to each other and if you were all feeling tired then it seems you made the right decision for you in the end.

Your plan seemed to work out well at AK as you got loads done in EMH, in spite of the bag check hiccup. Seems like you had a good strategy.

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Thanks, I was kind of sad we didn't manage the challenge but it was definitely the right decision. I'm looking forward to having another go next time.

[Waltdisnae]

After reading about your BB day I was very interested to see how today went. Sounds like you made the right decision to head back. Thanks for the info about AK security opening times. That doesn't make sense and I'd have been so frustrated to see the queue build up. Great you still managed FOP though.

[Elsa42]

Its a shame you didnt manage to finish it as you started so well and got so much done in the first two parks! We did 5 parks challenge, which you can now read in my trip report and it is tiring you have to push through! we plan to do it again and think i like the idea of meeting a character in each park this time! Hopefully you can retry it again next trip great read

[jothp]

Originally Posted by Waltdisnae

After reading about your BB day I was very interested to see how today went. Sounds like you made the right decision to head back. Thanks for the info about AK security opening times. That doesn't make sense and I'd have been so frustrated to see the queue build up. Great you still managed FOP though.

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Yes, I think we'd only try and do FOP at rope drop again if it was a regular opening morning or we went without bags. It was very frustrating at the time but it all worked out well in the end.

Originally Posted by Elsa42

Its a shame you didnt manage to finish it as you started so well and got so much done in the first two parks! We did 5 parks challenge, which you can now read in my trip report and it is tiring you have to push through! we plan to do it again and think i like the idea of meeting a character in each park this time! Hopefully you can retry it again next trip great read

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I think we would have done it if we hadn't already pushed ourselves to get so much done on our earlier days. We will definitely try it again next time but will either do it a bit earlier in the trip or make sure we are well rested for the couple of days before. The plan I had made was working out really well and we were on time to be able to get everything completed. I'd also planned the order of the parks so we could use the bus, monorail and boat to get between them. I've just bookmarked your trip report so I can go and read that later.

[Excitedx4]

I don't think I could manage the 4 park challenge either!

[jothp]

Originally Posted by Excitedx4

I don't think I could manage the 4 park challenge either!

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I think we're going to try again on our next trip!