Trip Report for my Day of Many Rides
If you’re pressed for time or are easily distracted (squirrel!), here’s the TL/DR version of my trip:
- Timing: Thursday, April 11th, 2024
- Lodging: All Star Sports Resort
- Original Goal: My dream list of rides included: FoP, NRJ, GotG, ROTR, SDD, MMRR, Remy, Tron, and I rode everything on the list except SDD. Darn you, Slinky!
- Why? I was on a business trip and suddenly found that I had a free day between speaking engagements
- Specifics: I hit all 4 parks and was in the parks from 6:40am-9:40pm.
- I rode 22 rides! Giddy up, little doggie!
- Stay tuned ‘til the end to see how many steps I took and how many miles I walked (er, ran)
Okay, now on to the full trip report:
My ride ratings are on a scale of 1-10 and “NR” indicates a
New
Ride for me (or
Never
Ridden before, your choice) - and please forgive me if I don't use all the proper abbreviations
5:25am Alarm goes off – normally this would be a shock to my system, but not on this glorious Day of Many Rides
6:26am I’m first in line at ASSR for the bus to DAK; at first it was eerily lonely, but then about 6 other people queued up, too
6:40am The bus arrives at DAK and from what I can tell, we’re one of the first buses to arrive; not gonna lie, I kinda sorta ran-walked to security
6:48am I’m the 6th person in line to enter the park at my entry point; super helpful folks in front of me waiting in line; an English bloke and his kids from London and a couple of dudes from Nashville
When the sun comes up, it’s a delightful 74 degrees with cloudy skies; perfect park weather; my weather app says it’s going to be windy all morning with a chance of rain between 3:00-5:00pm (foreshadowing…cue the ominous music)
7:00am I get in the VQ for GotG and get BG 16; jackpot! Although, I admit, I wasn’t expecting to get a BG that early in the morning
This forces my hand to use my first G+ on a ride at Epcot which wasn’t my initial plan; but hey, fixed path, flexible goal, right?
I go for Remy on G+ and get 12:35pm; not too shabby
Next, I secure ROTR for 2:05pm on ILL$
My 2nd ILL$ is Tron at 8:05pm because I’m ending my day at MK and I heard it’s cool to ride Tron at night
7:14am Rope drop; I keep telling myself, “Be cool. Be cool. Stay frosty.”
7:40am – I walk into the covered part of the queue at FoP; AMAZING theming! the only downside of scurrying to get on the ride is that I don’t have a chance to appreciate the intricate detail of Pandora; feels like I’m actually on another word
7:55am I finish FoP
(NR) – easily one of the best rides I’ve ever been on; rating? 11/10 (“It goes up to 11.”)
7:58am I walk on NRJ
(NR)
8:08pm Finish NR – 7/10 rating and I would have rated it a 6, but the unbelievably realistic animatronics of the Nav’i shaman at the end gives it a boost; I simply couldn’t stop staring at it
8:20am I walk on to EE (7/10); really enjoy the theming esp. the artifacts in the museum-like queue; could’ve ridden it twice, but wanted to keep checking more rides off my list;
8:27am D’oh! (to be said in your best Homer Simpson voice); I leave my baseball hat in the little pouch of my EE coaster; as a bald fella in the Florida sun without a hat, my head will turn red and I will melt; as everyone knows, melted bald man on the sidewalk is hard to clean up; I have to wait for the 5 coasters on the ride to cycle through; then a lovely CM fetches it for me; I try to tip her; she refuses; this hat mishap costs me valuable time; undeterred, I press on
[EE coasters going off half empty. Woot woot!]
8:36am I walk on Dinosaur!
(NR) 3/10; kind of a meh ride; maybe if I were a paleontologist or actor Sam Neill I would appreciate it more
8:40am BG #16 for GotG is called and I need to book it there by 9:40am; frankly, DAK is my favorite park for just wandering around; wish I could have done it more, but duty calls; so I head towards the park entrance
Note: as l leave DAK, I notice I’ve already walked 7,566 steps or 3.5 miles
9:06am I catch an Uber to Epcot $12.98; not bad
9:17am I arrive at Epcot and hightail it to GotG
9:18am I do a leprechaun-like jump-up-and-click-your-heels-move for no reason in front of the giant Epcot ball; just felt right
9:35am I check into GotG; phew just under the wire; I like the humor of Star-Lord and his buddies in the queue
10:03am I exit GotG
(NR) – 10/10; I liken this ride to a cooler, hipper, smoother, updated, SM with better music; but I have to say, this ride took forever; felt like the queue was 25+ minutes; maybe that’s normal and maybe I just got lulled into an unrealistic view of wait times given every ride at DAK was a walk-on
10:20am I jump in the single rider line at TT (8/10) and walk right on
I then wander the World Showcase for about 2 hours; my favorite lands are England, Germany, Japan, Norway, and Mexico
11:01am I get MMRR G+LL for 12:40pm; and here’s where I think I messed up; SDD was available at 6pm – I couldn’t figure out to how to play the G+ “slots” and try for a better time so I stick with MMRR
11:15am I dine al fresco at Magnolia Terrace at the American Experience; I wasn’t planning to eat there or this early, but STOP THE PRESSES! DO NOT PASS ‘GO!’ DO NOT COLLECT $200! Did I just see that they sell gumbo and Bananas Foster bread pudding? Come to papa! Those are two of my favorite things in the world; had to stop
11:39am I mosey over to Mexico. Yes, you heard that right. I moseyed. I walk on to Gran Fiesta Tour
(NR); 4/10 ride; kind of corny, but I love the beginning of the ride when you float past the restaurant tables à la PoC and Blue Bayou restaurant at
Disneyland;
12:03pm I look at the app and it says Soarin’ is only a 20-minute wait in stand by; I casually walk over and by the time I get here, it’s 45 minutes. What the? Big stinking bummer; don’t feel like waiting; I bail
12:08pm I “stroll” through Journey of Water with Moana and try to enjoy it, but it’s overrun with families; not complaining; I love kids, have two of my own, but couldn’t really settle into the vibe of the garden; so I head back to France
12:25pm I arrive at Remy
(NR) G+LL line 10 mins early; they let me in; I speak a little French with one of the CMs; I was a French literature major in college; I knew it would come in handy one day
12:40pm I exit Remy; fun ride; 8/10; loved “being small,” riding in a mouse vehicle, and how all the cars would scatter at times throughout the ride like real mice would do;
I hit 20,000 steps while leaving EPCOT – that’s 10 miles
12:45pm I hop on Skyliner (never been on it) to HS;
Alert! Alert! I get kicked off at the transfer point in Jamaica / Caribbean Beach Resort due to high winds; I now have to take a bus the rest of the way; it’s okay; my middle name is flexible; that’s not true, but it should be.
While on the bus, the sky turns dark and angry; I’m getting “Perfect Storm” vibes; very windy, drops of rain start hitting the windshield; remember the forecast? Well, the rain is making an appearance about 3 hours early
1:30pm I arrive at HS due to the Skyliner curve ball; probably cost me 45 minutes
1:45pm I ride MMRR
(NR) as a G+LL; I give it a 6.5/10; fun ride; loved walking into the cartoon through the hole in the movie screen; great graphics and I enjoyed how the train cars scatter in different directions à la Remy
2:03pm I stop for a cronut from Joffrey’s, what do I think of these mouthwatering pillowy fried creations from the heavens above? They’re un-buh-stinkin-lievable! (Perhaps God’s perfect food.)
2:15pm I “drop” in to ToT on a G+LL; I’ve ridden ToT many times and it’s in my Top 5 all time for theming; the costumes of the CMs, the music, the creepy electrified ghostlike hotel guests, it all works so well; ToT gets a 9/10 on my never-to-be-questioned scale
2:28pm Alert! Alert! When I exit ToT, I can’t even make my way through the gift shop because it’s packed with people. Why? There’s a monsoon outside. And we’re talking a deluge of giant-sized water drops pounding the park from the sky. I start to panic. Not because I’m afraid water will mess up my hair, but because if I wait out storm, I run the risk of missing my 2:05-3:05pm RoR window. Yikes!
2:30pm I invest $12.99 in a clear Disney poncho. I don that fabulous garment and race through the elements to RoR. It’s like I’m trying to make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs. As I run, I step in several 1-2” deep mini-rivers and my shoes are soaked. Happens.
2:40pm I finally get to ROTR
(NR) using my first ILL$ of the day; ROTR is 8/10; I LOVE the length of the ride and the feeling that you’re literally inside a First Order Star Destroyer, but the time it takes to get from each stage of the ride causes the storytelling/vignette to lose it’s continuity IMHO; still so glad I had a chance to ride it
3:12pm I walk on to MFSR via the single riders lane; 9/10; can’t beat pretending to be Han Solo for a few minutes, “Even I get boarded sometimes. Did you think I had a choice, Greedo?”
3:34pm I walk on to Toy Story Mania
(NR); 7/10; I crush the targets with my sharpshooting skills and I figure I’m atop the leader board for my ride, but noooooooo! I had 59,790 points and our ride is won by 257,088 points. Gotta spend more time at the TSMM range.
3:55pm I decide to get in the standby line for SDD which currently posts a wait time of 45 mins; I figure I need to suck it up and do a longer standby line just to get through my list; five minutes into the wait an CM comes on the loud speaker and says that the wait time is now going to be longer than expected; I’m out! I would’ve hung in there, but the queue is SO basic
; reminded of the non-themed queues at Six Flags; I bolt and head over to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular
430pm I sit in the third row center of IJSS - last show of the day; the performance is abbreviated due to the weather; 7/10 rating
5:12pm I walk on to Star Tours; 9/10; one of my favorites
5:32pm I can no longer tolerate my soaking wet socks and shoes; I buy the only pair of socks that the park sells at Sid Cahuenga’s One-of-a-Kind; check out the picture; all it needed was a pair Bermuda shorts, a straw hat, zinc on my nose and I would’ve been the spitting image of a tacky American tourist in the 50’s-60’s (besides, staying in those waterlogged socks is a scary proposition; I’ve read too much history to know that I did not want to get trench foot akin to soldiers in WWI;
5:50pm I hop a bus for MK
6:30pm Space Mountain (8/10 and falling fast) G+LL for the first time this ride reminds me of Matterhorn (aka the chiropractor’s patent maker); super rickety and jarring; haven’t ridden SM in 5+ years, maybe I’m just getting older
7:00pm I slide into the Haunted Mansion (9/10) G+LL line; great ride that stands the test of time
7:34pm I ride BTM on G+LL (10/10); a great combination of incredible theming and a thrilling ride that’s longer than I remember
7:57pm The posted wait on PoC (8/10) is only 5 mins; I bite; walked right on
8:14pm I really want a peanut butter Nutella banana sandwich from Tortuga Tavern, but it’s closed; D’oh!
8:15pm I decide to get a Mickey-shaped pretzel and churro at MK Churro Wagon (fun fact: MK Churro Wagon was the original name of REO Speedwagon; good call on the name change)
8:21pm I ride Peter Pan's Flight on G+LL; 9/10 for the creative execution of the ride
8:35pm Walking from Peter Pan to Tron through the circus-y part of Fantasyland causes me to walk past Barnstormer; I ride it; (3/10); because why not?
8:53pm And finally we get to the piece de resistance…the ride that is Tron, ILL$; (10/10); oh baby! The unique motorcycle rider position and the speed of the initial launch almost made my head explode; sooooooo cool! (And I heard that if your head explodes on a Disney ride, they charge you a $250 clean-up fee to get rid of all those gushy brain parts. Perhaps that’s a rumor.)
9:17pm Pooped, exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and physically drained, I leave MK via the 32 bus headed to ASSR; what a day
Epilogue:
Want to know how far I walked? Check out this pic. 18.88 miles (or 41,219 steps). Whoa!
Lessons learned: Overall, I was very happy with my Day of Many Rides™ (It’s not really trademarked, but doesn’t it look more official that way?).
I need to get better at the G+ slots/refresh thing. I think I settled too easily for whatever time came up on the app.
Oh, and I would try to pick a day that is monsoon-free. If Disney could add that feature to app, sign me up!
Finally, I truly want to thank all of you who posted in this thread for your help, direction, and insights. Couldn’t have done it without you!
Hope your next trip to Disney is magical!