Kara and Kori's 4-Park Disney Challenge!

On Monday, Kara's class had a field trip to Islands of Adventure. Kara wanted me to go as a chaperone, which I was willing to do, but it was $75 for Kara and $85 for me, so $155 for the day. I suggested that instead we have a day at Disney. When our Disney passes expire, we are likely going to do a year of Universal, so I wasn't super excited to spend so much money on those tickets. Fortunately, Kara thought Disney was a great idea. We decided to turn it into a four park challenge. We wanted to visit all 4 parks, riding at least one major ride, seeing one show, and eating one snack at each.

We decided to start at Hollywood Studios so that we could attempt to get boarding passes for Rise of the Resistance. In order to that, we left our house at 7, to make sure were were parked and in when they opened at 8.

The line to park, this was about halfway through

We made it by 7:45 and as soon as they opened the passes, I clicked furiously, but we got back-up boarding group 103. We rode Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, watched the new Mickey shorts film, and then had our snack. Kara got a root beer float and I got the french toast s'more sandwich from Woody's Toy Box. Then, it was time for the main event, the newest ride--Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Rail Train! We thought it was super fun! I had magically gotten a fast pass, which was nice, because the line was (of course) crazy long (it opened just a few days before our visit).

Photo op outside the Mickey and Minnie cartoon

Our terribly unhealthy breakfast. It was all delicious! 

I was skeptical, but the ride was really cute.

From there, we took the Skyliner to Epcot. On the way, I got a fastpass for Spaceship Earth.

Epcot was having their Arts Festival and we got some sort of smoothie from a festival stand, watched the movie in China (now, I want to visit), and then rode Spaceship Earth. Kara also wanted to ride Test Track, so we did the single rider for that.

Snack? Check!

Show? Check!

Bonus lunch in China? Check!

Major ride? Check!

From there, it was off to Magic Kingdom via monorail. I snagged a fastpass for Haunted Mansion. But, first we got our snack--a Mickey shaped rice krispy treat. Next, we did our show--Country Bear Jamboree. Then we noticed they were running empty cars on Splash Mountain. We headed over to check it out and hedged bets that the ride would reopen soon. And, it did! We walked on with just about a 5 minute wait. The park was crazy crowded, so we considered ourselves very lucky. We did Haunted Mansion and got our other snack--a Mickey shaped pretzel. By now, they were on boarding group 85, so we figured we needed to head back to Hollywood Studios. We took the bus.

Main street snack? Check!

Show? Check!

Snack #2? Sure, why not!

But, beware the hitchhiking ghosts!

When we got there, they were still stalled on group 85. We asked a guest services Castmember who told us that we were still on track to ride. The Indiana Jones Stunt Show was about to start, so we headed in. While there, we got notice that they were shutting down ROTR. It was frustrating because it was only 5:30 and the park didn't close until 8. They called up to group 98, so we missed it by 5. It was sad, but we enjoyed our great seats for the Stunt Show (they opened up a reserved section in the front, because the stadium was full, so we got lucky with second row seats). We hadn't seen the stunt show and it was fun to try another new thing. We both liked it.

After the stunt show, we drove to our final park, Animal Kingdom. I got lucky with fastpasses again and was able to get one for the Safari. There were no big shows left, so we grabbed our snack (a Mickey cookie) and did the Safari. It was a cool night and the animals were active, so that was really fun. Then, we did the only show available to us--It's Tough to be a Bug, I hadn't seen it since I was a teenager and all I remembered was I hated it! It wasn't as bad as my recollection, but definitely not a favorite. Kara thought it was okay.

Last snack of the day!

Bug glasses for our final show.

By now it was almost 9. I was t.i.r.e.d. But, Kara didn't want our day to end, she really wanted to ride Flight of Passage. So, of course, we did. We got in line around 8:45 and made friends with the people behind (two college students from Furman) and the people in front of us (a man and his college-aged son). We chatted and it made the 50 minute wait pass quickly. The sign had said 90, but we figured once they cut off the fastpass line, it wouldn't be too bad and it wasn't.

Last, but not least, in line for the final ride. 

We ended up walking around 15 miles and didn't get home until 10pm. We were there before opening and stayed past closing. What a day!

For our favorites:
Ride: We agree--Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Rail
Show: Kara said Indiana Jones Stunt Show; I have to go with my old favorite The Country Bear Jamboree
Snack: We agree again--the French Toast S'more sandwich