25th Anniversary Adventure: Every park in the world in 15(ish) days!

[The Expert]

UPDATE: Added Days 1-4 and my Disneyland Paris report! Post #10 or see link below.

I never do trip reports. So I've debated whether to do this but ultimately, I want to document it for myself in detail and share what I've learned with others who may decide to take on this challenge or are just curious. Everybody neat and pretty? On with the show!

(TL/DR Check out my instagram story highlights: Disney RTW and Disney RTW2. Did you know highlights could only include 100 story slides? Me either!)

With our 25th anniversary approaching, last summer (2018) we began to consider what we wanted to do. We travel a lot and have been lucky tick most things off our bucket list. The few remaining experiences -- African Safari, Antarctica, The Galapagos -- simply weren't right to visit near our actual anniversary date (May 28, 2019). Then my husband said, "What if we went to every Disney park in the world?" But before I could interrupt and say "Sweetie, that's great, but we've already been to them all at least twice," he continued... "all in one trip!"
My reaction went something like this, in the span of about 12 seconds:

So where do you even begin planning something like this? Do the math! Thankfully DH is great at logistics and trip planning, so within an hour or two he had mapped out that it COULD be done in a reasonable time (we have a house full of pets and both have demanding jobs, so a month-long trip wasn't feasible). That's when the serious "Ok, we're really gonna do this" planning started, and where our trip report begins.

Pre-Trip: Planning! And what do you mean, we have to take everything in carry-on?!
Days 1-4: Paris and a rainy day off
Days 5-7: Tokyo RAIN
Day 8: Sweaty Shanghai and the dreaded flight delay
Days 9-11: Even sweatier Hong Kong and a much-needed day off
Days 11-12: Anaheim and the 48-hour day
Days 13-15: WDW and our actual 25th anniversary

 

[The Expert]

Pre-Trip: Planning! And what do you mean, we have to take everything in carry-on?!

The players: just me and DH, both 48. I grew up near Orlando and went to those parks from the time I was 2 or 3 years old. Introduced DH while we were dating in college and he was hooked. We're DVC members since 2001, long-time AP holders (and now Platinum AP holders thanks to WDW Club 33).

As I mentioned, we've been to every park in the world and are lucky enough to have been to them all more than once, but never in one fell swoop. The closest we'd ever come was doing them all in the span of a year when Shanghai opened, so even for us this was pretty epic.

Within a few hours of getting the idea, DH had a schedule mapped out:

May 15: Fly SLC to Paris (direct) in the afternoon/evening, landing late morning in Paris on the 16th.
May 16: Train to DLP, check into the Disneyland Hotel, do the Studios park.
May 17: Disneyland Paris park.
May 18: Return to any favorites for a few hours, then head into the city.
May 19: Time off in Paris.
May 20: Fly Paris to Tokyo (via Istanbul) and check into Hotel Miracosta.
May 21: Tokyo Disneyland
May 22: Tokyo DisneySea and fly Tokyo to Shanghai that evening and stay in the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel.
May 23: Shanghai park. Fly to Hong Kong that evening.
May 24: Day off in Hong Kong.
May 25: HKDL park, stay at the Disney Explorer's Lodge.
May 26: Fly Hong Kong to LAX (via Seoul).
May 26 (we cross the international dateline): Check in to the Grand Californian, dinner at Steakhouse 55, then Disneyland Park until we crash.
May 27: California Adventure and fly LAX to Orlando. Stay at the Hyatt in the airport.
May 28 - OUR ANNIVERSARY!: Animal Kingdom, then hop to Studios. Check in to Bay Lake Tower and dinner at Victoria & Albert's
May 29: Epcot.
May 30: MK. Maybe check in at the water parks just for bonus points.
May 31: Early flight home to SLC.

This schedule gave us a full day in almost every park, included extra "break" days in our favorite cities of Paris and Hong Kong, and scheduled flights so that we were either landing late enough to go directly to bed, or directly to a park to minimize jet lag.

Living in Salt Lake City, it may seem strange we didn't start with Orlando and end with Anaheim, but that was very much on purpose. Skipping past home for a few days put us in our "home" parks at WDW for our actual anniversary, allowing for dinner that night at Victoria and Albert's and a leisurely three and a half days to just hang out and enjoy/recover.

We also decided there were a few musts:
1. We had to travel at least all the long-haul flights in business so we could get actual rest.
2. We wanted to stay on-property at every park.
3. We had to stick to carry-on luggage only if we were going to clear customs and immigration quickly.
4. DH had to allow at least one check-in selfie at every park for social media.
5. We had to ride at least one attraction in each park to make it count.
6. We would take the DVC magazine and get a photo in front of every park to submit for their back page.

With all that in mind, we started looking at booking windows. Our DVC window was already open for WDW, so we booked that first. Then moved on to the foreign parks. I put the rest of the dates in my calendar to check back.

Paris opened up first, but I got on the e-mail list and waited for a package deal, and one came along in December. I ended up with a two-night, three day package with the room, half board (breakfast), and hopper tickets, and we added on a paid Fastpass option that gave us our must-do rides in case it was busy. We paid a deposit of one night's stay.

Tokyo was next, and we booked it in early fall. Again, they had a package deal for two nights, three days even though we were only going to use two of those days. It included the room at Miracosta, hopper tickets, a pass for free soft drinks at select locations, breakfast each morning, and we upgraded to premium FPs to insure we got our must-dos in. We paid this in full.

Anaheim opened up around the first of the year, so we booked Grand Californian, but then watched for deals to come out later. None ever did. But all we had to pay for was the hotel as we have our Premium Pass that covers DL. We pre-paid that one as well.

Shanghai and Hong Kong didn't allow us to book until about 60 days out, but we also knew people tend not to stay on-site at those locations, so it wasn't stressful. We pre-paid both reservations. For Shanghai, you can reserve a ticket in advance on their phone app, so I did, but you can't do the purchased FPs until you've checked into the park. Everything is via the app there. At Hong Kong, we had planned to purchase an FP package, but when we checked in they offered us an upgraded room that included the FPs for less than it would've cost us to buy them for just one of us, so we did it.

I knew I wanted to get some custom ears and t-shirts to wear on the trip in the parks, so I started asking around and looking on Etsy. I ended up with a really cute (and comfy) set of ears with world maps, and two t-shirts with "World Traveler" and our map and dates on the back. Our plan for hotel laundry insured I'd be able to wear at least one of these every park day (click for a larger image):


I packed all of this in a 21" roller and a wheeled computer bag, using packing cubes (two sparkle skirts, two custom t-shirts, two additional t-shirts, one dress, one dressier shirt, black ripstop pants, leggings, sandals, flats, socks, undies, PJs, bathing suit, hat, ears, small purse, bathroom bag) and I wore jeans, a t-shirt, jacket and my walking shoes.


I also had all of my confirmations printed out, my laptop, chargers and adapters. And yes, we had room for a few souvenirs! My mom and stepdad came into town to stay with our pets, and we were ready to roll.

Next installment:
Days 1-4: Paris and a rainy day off

 

[MinnieWebster]

Sounds like tons of fun!! DH and I did TDR and HKDL last month, we enjoyed them both.

 

[The Expert]

Sounds like tons of fun!! DH and I did TDR and HKDL last month, we enjoyed them both.

It was! Can't wait to share all the details with everyone. HKDL is just so darn charming, and Tokyo definitely is my favorite location outside the US, for the other guests alone. Thanks for following along!

 

[fallonkendra]

Joining in!

 

[The Expert]

Joining in!

Welcome! I just updated and finished out the planning entry.

 

[JKMastalski]

Amazing! Joining in.

 

[TNGirlwCamera]

This trip sounds amazing! I have yet to experience any other parks but Disney World. I have every intention of seeing them all though!

Absolutely love the shirts!!

 

[The Expert]

Thanks and welcome @TNGirlwCamera and @JKMastalski -- sorry I'm slacking a bit on the updates. Life has gotten in the way as I've tried to catch up, but I promise more soon!

 

[The Expert]

Days 1-4: Paris and a rainy day off

Itinerary:
May 15: Fly SLC to Paris (direct) in the afternoon/evening, landing late morning in Paris on the 16th.
May 16: Train to DLP, check into the Disneyland Hotel, do the Studios park.
May 17: Disneyland Paris park.
May 18: Return to any favorites for a few hours, then head into the city.
May 19: Time off in Paris.
May 20: Fly Paris to Tokyo (via Istanbul) and check into Hotel Miracosta.

My husband and I are both frequent travelers and we both have high status on Delta, which offers several direct international flights from our home in Salt Lake. That helped when booking all these long hauls and getting into business class! But for some reason the SLC-Paris flight is always tough to upgrade. That Air France partnership is tricky, so for months we were on a flight going through Heathrow and connecting, but calling every few weeks to see if we could move to the direct. Finally, about three days before the trip, it came through! And it’s a good thing, too. We found out later on that the original flight through Heathrow was cancelled after a significant delay! Had we not been able to move, THAT would have been how we kicked things off, so thank the travel gods for sparing us from that!

As it turned out, the direct flight was early, and we grabbed the high speed TVG train from CDG to the Marne la Valee station right outside Downtown Disney. We walked over to the Disneyland Hotel and checked in, where our room was ready (it was early afternoon). Cute little room on the ground floor with a terrace that faced a cute garden and hedgerow blocking our view and noise from the crowds. The weather was perfect — even a little cool. We had purchased a package with three days of tickets and added on a paid FP option, so we quickly showered and changed clothes and headed out to our first park: Disney Studios.





After taking my husband on his first spin on Ratatouille, we shopped a little and then grabbed a drink and dinner in the hotel bar (Fantasia themed) before heading to bed a little early.

We got up early for our breakfast reservation — “half board” was included in our package, but we did have to book breakfast times when we booked the package. Thankfully because of the way we scheduled things, jet lag wasn’t really an issue for any of the trip! We were either getting in late and going to bed, or going directly to a park, so it worked out wonderfully. Breakfast was a huge buffet and the food was great! We took advantage of the early entry for hotel guests to visit Disneyland at opening, checking off our second park.



I can’t recall the order we did things in, but we had a “must do” and “want to do” list for each park on the trip. We did them all easily with the early entry and paid FP here. The weather was cool and it was a weekday, so the park didn’t get very crowded until the afternoon. We hopped over to Studios and back to DL for most of the day as we felt like it. I even got a character pic in with Phantom Manor Mickey! (PM is my favorite ride in Paris and the best HM in the world, imho.)



We’d seen the day before that the hotel bar did a tea service in their back salon, so we booked it for mid afternoon. That as a lovely break, and because of the unknown nature of the tea and the fact you must book it in person at the desk, we were the only ones there! One odd thing -- they made a whole pot of tea each but only poured us one cup, unlike the GF tea where you drink through the whole pot.



We went back to the parks for a few more rides, then hit the bar again for a drink and light dinner. Weekend crowds were beginning to arrive (Friday night). We got up early again Saturday for our included breakfast and popped over to DL for one last spin on Phantom Manor, then headed to the hotel to pack and go into Paris. We used an Uber to make the trek to the Holiday Inn near Notre Dame, where we’ve stayed a few times. They have a fabulous rooftop bar with views of the whole city!



We spent the next day and a half walking over near the cathedral — this was just a few weeks after the fire, so you couldn’t get much closer than a few blocks — strolling Isle Saint Louis and having amazing food. It was drizzly rain off and on and really nice for just relaxing and watching people. In hind sight, this was probably too early in the trip for this break day, but we love Paris and couldn’t pass it up!



On Sunday evening we headed to the airport and checked in for our flights on Turkish Air to Tokyo (via Istanbul)! Stay tuned for the next installment…