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Hi, my name is Lori and I’m a Disney adult. My first ever vacation was at age 4 to Walt Disney World (back then it was just Magic Kingdom!) and for the past 19 years, I’ve lived in Orlando, Florida, and am an annual passholder.
My first Disney trip was when I was four years old. My mom took me to Walt Disney World and back then it was just the Magic Kingdom. My second trip was sometime around the age of eight, give or take, and I got to see not only the Magic Kingdom but also EPCOT, which had opened since my last trip. Several years passed and I was in high school then next time we went to Orlando. By then Disney MGM Studios (I’ll always call it that, sorry not sorry!) was open and that trip was the start of what truly cemented Disney in my heart.
We returned a year or two later, even taking a Disney Cruise on the now-defunct Big Red Boat. We visited at Easter, we visited at Christmas, we got rained on in the heat of June. Eventually, my career gave me a job opportunity that allowed me to move to Florida and I jumped on it, fully cementing my Disney Adult (and annual passholder) status.
Taking a step back for a second, during my college years I had an internship in Los Angeles, so you know I visited Disneyland while I was there! I’ve been three times since, two of those times to participate in RunDisney events (the Disneyland Half Marathon and the Star Wars Half Marathon).
At some point in my early thirties, work brought me to Tokyo and I was supremely sad that I didn’t have the opportunity to visit Tokyo Disneyland while I was there. I promised myself I’d get there someday and in 2023 at the ripe old age of 47, I took a personal trip to Tokyo and visited Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.
It was around that time that my castle-collecting obsession began and shortly after, I began planning my next trip—to Disneyland Paris! (Which my brain still likes to think of as Euro Disney). In January of 2025, I crossed Disneyland Paris off my Disney Bingo card. I also managed to stay at Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa name for a few nights in 2024, effectively checking that off the list as well.
The next challenge on the horizon is Hong Kong Disney and Shanghai Disney Resort. I am nothing if not a researcher and a planner, so I started reading. And watching YouTube videos. And everything I read led me to the conclusion that it made sense to visit both parks on the same trip. This is largely due to the expense of flights from Orlando to Asia and the challenges with the Chinese visa for Shanghai.
While that trip is still in the “someday” stages, I’ve got another Disney Bucket List Bingo item coming up in 2025 and that’s a Disney Cruise. Yes, I sailed on the Big Red Boat back in the day, but I feel like it doesn’t count. And yes, these are my arbitrary rules for me made up in my head but really it’s just an excuse to take a Disney Cruise.
I also want to visit Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort and Disney’s Vero Beach Resort to fill my bingo card, but those seem easy in comparison to Hong Kong and Shanghai! Vero Beach is less than two hours from my house, it’s just a matter of making the time to pop down there for a night or two.
Disney has 12 theme parks around the world.
So obviously I need to visit Hong Kong and Shanghai to complete my Disney bingo card!
But wait, there’s more! There are a few that I call Bonus Adventures on my Disney bingo card, some of which I’ve completed and some of which I still need to do.
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