Doing 2 parks in a day is easy peasy, especially at Universal Orlando Resort because Studios and Islands of Adventure are right next to each other and decently accessible by a short walk or train ride. And doing two or even three Disney World parks in a day is not super inconvenient when you have the Skyliner, Monorail, ferries, and buses as transportation options. But ever since I held active passes to both theme parks (a little over a year and a half now), it was a goal of mine to do the 6-Park Challenge someday. 😳 And it honestly wasn’t even that hard to convince Jen & Jackie to join in on the adventure with me. The guys wanted nothing to do with it… I’m pretty sure I heard one of them say, “Hard pass.” 🤣 Yeah, big surprise haha. So once we locked in a date, the planning could begin.
Parameters
Since there’s no official rules and regulations for this challenge, I decided to use the guidelines I had followed for the 4-Park Challenge at Disney World. As you may have read in a previous post, I’ve done that twice before… once with Ricky when we activated our passes August 2023 (which was a bit more complicated because we couldn’t park hop until 2 p.m.), and once by myself just earlier this year (which was way easier than expected, though FREEZING haha). Though others may do it differently, “proving” you “succeeded” required the following tasks per park:
- One ride
- One snack or drink
- One picture with the icon (Tree of Life, Tower of Terror, Spaceship Earth, Cinderella’s Castle)
There are multiple variations of this challenge, as it’s pretty subjective. Some count the Chinese Theater as a park icon for Hollywood Studios, since it’s at the end of the main thoroughfare, similar to how the castle is at MK. Another might require an alcoholic drink in addition to a snack rather than either/or. Others involve meeting characters and getting a souvenir, as well. But I preferred to keep it simple, to achieve the goal and not feel too overwhelmed doing it (especially since not everyone has my golden retriever energy haha).
When I sat down to start fleshing it out, as the over planner in me likes to do (why do you think I’m a decent teacher/librarian and travel agent duh haha)… I got the dumb/bright idea to include all modes of park-to-park transportation as well. And as we continued our conversations about challenge expectations, we also decided that we needed a picture on at least one ride in each park. I’m sure that doesn’t sound more complicated than the original plan, but it really was since some of our favorite rides don’t take in-ride photos… so we had to make some adjustments.
Finally, the final decision was made, and t-shirts were designed:
- At least one ride (in-ride photo required)
- One snack or drink
- One picture with the icon
- Tree of Life at Animal Kingdom
- Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios
- Spaceship Earth at EPCOT
- Cinderella’s Castle at Magic Kingdom
- Globe at Universal Studios Florida
- Lighthouse at Islands of Adventure
- A ride on all forms of P2P transportation
- Bus, Skyliner, Monorail, and Ferry at Disney World
- Hogwart’s Express at Universal Orlando Resort
The Adventure Begins…
My original plan was to start at Islands of Adventure first, because of the greeting that welcomes you into the Port of Entry. But we really wanted a night ride on Hagrid’s to finish things off, so that would ultimately make IOA the last park for us. And since we wanted the earliest possible access for our first park Monday, we decided to take advantage of the free water park day at Disney by staying the day/night before. After a 5 a.m. wake-up call, getting ready and “moving out” (since we were staying at the new Stella Nova Resort near Epic Universe that night!), we were out the door by 7!
Park #1 – Animal Kingdom 
We drove to our first location, since you can only take bus otherwise, and waiting on transportation can be a little dicey first thing in the morning. We were parked and taking a selfie at 7:18 and scanned in even before early hours typically begins, at 7:24 a.m.! 
- Drink/Snack: But first, coffee! A stop at Creature Comforts was essential (IYKYK… it’s a Starbucks haha) and iced beverages were procured.
- Ride(s): Typically we would run to Flight of Passage, but we tackled that the day before so we didn’t have to use up valuable time. Everest takes an in-ride photo, has a super short line first thing (since everyone else is running to FOP of course), and allowed us to walk by the new construction for Tropical Americas. Win, win!
- Icon: The photographer wasn’t in front of the Tree of Life when we first walked in, but by the time we walked back through there was, and NO LINE! We also snagged a few photos in front of the peak from a lady walking by…even though her significant other made some snarky comments, she understood the unspoken assignment and had great photography skills! 📸
Park #2 – Hollywood Studios 
It was still super early, so we decided to drive over to HS and leave the car parked there while we finished the rest of the Disney parks. Since we got through AK so quickly, this one hadn’t even opened either…so we were able to scan in around 8:45 a.m., before the park officially opened yet again. TWO ROPE DROPS…insanity haha. 😲
- Drink/Snack: While I had enjoyed the totchos from Woody’s Lunch Box during other visits, I didn’t realize until doing research for this adventure they also had a BREAKFAST option! Super delicious and a big enough portion to share with friends 🙂
- Ride(s):
- Is it even a trip to Hollywood Studios without dropping in at Tower?! (badum tss) AND we got an awesome sequence, riding near first-timers, which is always the best!!
- Since we were making such awesome time, we decided to pop into Toy Story Mania for a little pew pew, as well! I even got the best score in our set of cars, mainly cuz Ricky wasn’t with us 😝
- Icon: Not only did we get a picture in front of the Hollywood Tower Hotel but they were taken by THE Willie Jackson himself (talk about icon!!)! Go ahead, Google him…he’s literally the most complimented Cast Member at Disney World <3 (He also took my photo when I was there for my solo 4-Park challenge in January!)
- Transportation: After we were finished with this park, only a little over an hour later, we hopped on the Skyliner to EPCOT for our first Park-to-Park Transportation! 🚡
Park #3 – EPCOT 
Taking the Skyliner from HS, you enter EPCOT from the backside, which was convenient because of the ride we were planning on doing! It was a little early for Flower & Garden booths to open with snacks and drinks, since it was still only shortly after 10 a.m. when we scanned in.
- Drink/Snack: We would typically get the maple popcorn in Canada with our bucket, but we forgot it in the car and didn’t want to pay more than our $2.25 refill haha. So we settled on the Mickey Caramel Chocolate Cookie Sandwich from Karamell Küche. While it was pretty tasty, I don’t think we’d get it again. Super rich and a little dry. There’s obviously TONS of options at Epcot, no matter if you’re there during one of the 4 annual festivals or not!
- Ride(s): We stuck with a ride on Frozen, only, because we made Guardians a priority the day before. Though we do have lots of hilarious history with Soarin’ (HA), even if the wait time says 15 minutes, it’s a sssuuupppeeerrr long walk to ride it, and again we wanted to maximize our time. ❄️
- Icon: Lucked out again by finding a photographer without a line, and snagged some shots in front of Spaceship Earth on the way out!
- Transportation: Hopped on the Monorail to the Transportation & Ticket Center, which is the gateway to other locations… including Magic Kingdom!! 🚝
Park #4 – Magic Kingdom 
- Transportation #1: We took the Ferry across, and caught the parade almost as soon as we scanned in shortly after noon! 🚢
- Drink/Snack:
- Similar to my thoughts on ToT at HS, is it even a trip to MK without Cheeseburger Spring Rolls from the Adventureland Spring Roll Cart?! We definitely didn’t even share this one… we all got our own order haha. 😋
- We also made a second Starbucks stop at Main Street Bakery on our way to wait for the bus back to HS for our vehicle. I opted for the new Blackberry Sage Refresher and there were so many seeds I couldn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I expected haha. Should’ve just opted for my usual VCCB!
- Ride(s):
- Since we were already in Adventureland, we had to get on Pirates. Middle of the day AC and some decent splashes of water…perfect. 🏴☠️
- Still a bit ahead of schedule, we decided to hop on Haunted Mansion since it’s one of our favorites. Kept with true HM tradition and broke down multiple times (I have yet to make it through a full ride without stopping at least once to this day haha). Right in front of the Hatbox Ghost the first time and in the hallway of doors the second time. Got some amazing pictures since trying in the dark while you’re moving never turns out right haha.
- Icon: Chose one of the many photographers in front of the castle and loved how they turned out! Later on in the post I’ll share the “look at each other and laugh” photo that always cracks me up haha.
- Transportation #2: We missed the timed bus back to Hollywood Studios by mere minutes, so had to wait almost the full 20 for the next one. Thankfully I took a picture as the bus was FINALLY arriving, because once we loaded we forgot to get one! 🚍
Park #5 – Universal Studios Florida 🌎
Made it back to the car at Hollywood Studios around 2:30 p.m. Got our shirts checked off, then headed down the dreaded I4 to UOR!! 🚘 Scanned in about 3:30 after parking, getting a celebratory button at guest services, and taking a few pictures.
- Drink/Snack: Decided to try the new Butterbeer Cream Puff at The Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley. OMG amazeballs. Having tried every Butterbeer concoction so far (regular, iced, hot, potted cream, fudge, packed ice cream, soft ice cream, ice lolly, caramels, and now this)…it is currently tied with my favorite – HOT! I have a feeling this will change once I try the crepe at Epic Universe…but for now… 🪄
- Ride(s): Since we pew-pewed at MIB and biked with ET earlier in the trip, we opted for a Mummy ride! I definitely sympathized with Brendan at the end, because I was feeling the absence of my coffee as well hahaha
- Icon: There wasn’t a photographer stationed near the Globe, unfortunately, but we made do. At least it was spinning! 😎
Park #6 – Islands of Adventure 🧭
- Transportation: We took the Hogwart’s Express from King’s Cross Station to Hogsmeade, and had the most well behaved little boy on the ride that shared lots of facts with us! 🚂
- Drink/Snack: We had to round it all out with a shot of Blishen’s Firewhisky at Hog’s Head, where we sat out back of and watched the Velocicoaster make its rounds and heard lots of screams haha. We also had some fish ‘n chips but ate it too quickly for a picture 😛
- Ride(s): Even though it wasn’t the night ride we had wanted, since we got through everything earlier than expected, we did Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure of course. Since we can’t fit 3 to a bike, we had to separate, but it was still a great last ride of the day!! 🦄
- Icon: We checked our last location box at 6:19 p.m. and used rocks to get our own picture in front of the Lighthouse, since there wasn’t a photographer nearby AGAIN haha. Any other time, they’re EVERYWHERE!
How about a BONUS?!
Earlier in the day we had floated the idea that IF we were able to achieve our task early enough, we could head back to Magic Kingdom to catch the Happily Ever After fireworks show (because we’re all HUGE fans, and also because we were too tired to make it there the night before haha). So off we went, returning to the Mouse House for the perfect conclusion of a spectacular day. We drove back under The Most Magical Place on Earth sign right before 7, got in a bonus transportation option with a parking lot tram haha, and got some final pictures of our checked off shirts in front of the castle. After the fireworks concluded, on the way back to the parking lot, we even caught the SpaceX Fram2 launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center!! Talk about perfect timing!! 🚀
Six parks, eight rides, all forms of park to park transportation (five), four snacks, three beverages, and a photo with each park icon. Challenge SUCCESS! And another Bucket List 2025 item completed.
🌎🧭
Now to figure out when we attempt SEVEN with Epic opening… 🤔🫣🤣😆