Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The Disney Princess Half Marathon

Wow. What a weekend. I often return from vacations feeling as if I need a "vacation from my vacation" and this is no exception. We were on Disney property for just two days and we crammed in as much as we could in our short time there. Here's a quick recap of the weekend in general.

Friday Night:

Arrive at our hotel, eat dinner at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in Downtown Disney. The food was amazing, and even though I was exhausted after traveling all day, I still managed to muster up some excitement at getting a copy of Puck's butternut squash soup recipe and seeing Bruce Willis. Oh, yeah, we totally saw Bruce Willis.

Saturday:

How much can we possibly do in one day? We started off going to Disney Hollywood Studios (The theme park formerly known as MGM Studios) where Manda and Tess rode Rockin' Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror. We got some cute pictures as we boarded the Great Movie Adventure Ride. We ate lunch at Hollywood Studios and then headed for the expo.

This is an accurate photo. The Movie Adventure ride is actually fuzzy.


I rode some amazing and famous rides this weekend. I stood in long lines for Thunder Mountain Railroad and Space Mountain. I stood in line for bathrooms and restaurants. But the longest most miserable line I stood in all weekend was at the expo. I stood shoulder to shoulder with thousands of other people while trying desperately to get my bib. Disney does some amazingly organized things, but this expo was NOT one of them. For those of you who know how much I like order, and how much I dislike being thisclose to strangers, you can imagine how this was the low point of the weekend. Eventually I got my bib and looked around a little bit. I didn't buy anything, but I did get a free t-shirt and I registered for the San Diego Half Marathon.

This is why I stood in line.


Expo over... what's next? MAGIC KINGDOM! The heart of Disney, if you ask me. We walked around, shopped and rode rides. It was crazy-crowded but we were troopers. I was getting nervous about the race, and got a little stressed out over how tired I was, but that didn't put a damper on the joy of Disney. My only disappointment is that Splash Mountain (my favorite ride of all) was out of commission and I didn't get to ride it. Around 9, after the fireworks were over, we headed back to the hotel.

We had to kill some time while waiting for the bus to take us to Magic Kingdom.


The wee hours of Sunday morning:

Our alarms went off at 2:30am. For those of you counting along at home, that is 1:30 in the morning central time. Four short hours of sleep was all we could handle before getting ready for the race. I really think the race deserves its own entry, so you'll have to wait for all the detail.

Sunday Morning:

After the race was over, Manda, Tess, and I headed back to the hotel to shower, catch a cat nap, and get ready for another day in the parks. I think only the magic of Disney could make us want to wake up at 2:30am, run 13 miles, and STILL want to go walk around a theme park all day.

Sunday Afternoon:

EPCOT! We ate lunch at the Coral Reef restaurant and then headed to the world showcase. We had a blast strolling through different countries. Epcot was much less crowded than Magic Kingdom had been, and I think we were all grateful for the slower pace. One thing I had not remembered about Epcot was how many "impromptu" performances took place on the streets. There was a percussion group that played on trashcans, and an Italian street show that were both really fun to watch. At our post-race walking speed, we didn't get to see much of Epcot other than the world showcase, but by the time the park closed at 9pm, we were ready to sleep.

With Mary Poppins at Epcot.



Monday:

Back in the car. It seemed like we had just arrived.

View from the backseat. Did I mention that the element's backseat is enormous?

No comments:

Post a Comment