“I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.” Jan 2015 - Rebel Challenge - Complete

You crossed that finish line. And that is awesome! Good job! :cheer2:

I think the mental is the worst part of running.... you overcame and you conquered.

Now we both can conquer the Princess!!! :thumbsup2
 
You did it!!! Congrats!! :yoda:

I did! Thank you :) Only 2.5 more weeks until we all get to do the Glass Slipper!

You crossed that finish line. And that is awesome! Good job! :cheer2:

I think the mental is the worst part of running.... you overcame and you conquered.

Now we both can conquer the Princess!!! :thumbsup2

Thank you :) :snail:

I'm not sure I overcame the mental part as even after the run I haven't felt super excited about it and I also haven't been super excited for Glass Slipper but I know its because I feel so judged by others by being slow, mainly comments from certain coworkers of mine or from certain posts on this boards that deflated me.

We will finish the Princess! I think I'm done with half marathons after Princess though if I don't feel better about myself after it all as then I'll be 0 for 3 on all my long Disney races.
 
Just Keep Moving, Just Keep Moving

I continued through the lines at the end, getting my water, another bad snack box and a banana. I ate the banana before I left the race area as I slowly walked back to the room as my body was hurting.

I was super noisy as I walked with having both medals & I got stopped a few times as I headed to Paradise Pier by people complimenting me.

Once back at the hotel, I took a nice long coldish shower using more of that muscle rehab scrub. That was the best shower of the trip!

After we ate some of the snack box and candy we had in the room, we knew we needed to get out of the room if we had any hope of our bodies not hating us for the next few days. Luckily, I had compression socks to put on. My husband was upset he didn’t have any & wished he would have bought some at the Expo. I put on one of my race shirts and we were off. I decided to not bring my DSLR as my back had hurt so much the day before that I didn’t want to carry anymore than I had to. I also wore another pair of running shoes rather than wearing flip flops. I had hoped this would help as the day went on.

We were slow as we walked to Disneyland slightly before 11AM. It was our goal to get a FP+ for Indy as my husband wanted to enjoy it one more time, go to the Tiki Room before heading over to California Adventure for lunch.

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Trying to sit down in the Tiki Room hurt a lot.

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Trying to standup from the Tiki Room hurt a lot too.

As it was now almost 11:40AM, so we walked over to California Adventure to check in at Wine Country Trattoria. We didn’t have to wait long to be seated and this is where my husband and I had our fight of the trip. He was upset as the menu had absolutely nothing he wanted & asked me why I made an ADR when obviously he wouldn’t like anything here and because the server was really slow coming over to even take a drink order. I pretty much responded with well the menu probably changed some (I proved it using online menus) & I can’t control how a waitress acts. I then pointed out three different things I know he would eat.

Eventually our server came and as it took so long, we ordered everything instead of just drinks.

I had a glass of champagne as well, I had accomplished my goals for the trip & I could now have how ever much alcohol I wanted. My husband skipped getting champagne as he was still mad to be eating lunch here.

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Fairy Tale Cuvee

My husband went with a chicken sandwich. I knew he would like it when I saw it on the menu. He did! He actually apologized at the end as he thought the food was a lot better than what he was expecting it to be.

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Chicken Sandwich

I went with the Shrimp Scampi. This was wonderful! There was enough garlic in the sauce to keep me happy and the pasta and shrimp were well cooked. I finished my plate! (I may also have been starving)

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Shrimp Scampi

As the server was so slow, we skipped dessert from this restaurant.

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We had FP+ for Indy to use at Disneyland! We headed back over to Disneyland (slowly) and went straight to the ride & we were actually about 10 minutes early for our return window so we went window shopping.

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I’m bad at following directions

After the ride (we love it!), we headed back down Main Street to go on the railroad around the entire park as our last ride of the trip.

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We headed back to the resort to relax for the afternoon until dinner. My husband had a football game he wanted to watch (Colts vs Pats) and I took the time to do laundry again (I had those $10 worth of tokens left), pack the luggage, and take another nice soak in the tub and read my Kindle.

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I'm just tired reading all about your running. Regardless of your self deprication, you did a fantastic job to finish before the pacers. I couldn't even complete a run like that. Kudos to you.

It sounds like you guys paced yourselves well both food and energy wise during the weekend. Good luck on the PHM. I seem to know a few folks running in that one as well.
 
Congrats! You pushed through and finished, that is awesome!

Your experience reminds me a lot of my first half marathon. I was very hard on myself during the race, so worried about others' perception of my finishing time, and hurt so much afterwards. It took me awhile after the race to get back into running, but I finally did and have enjoyed running a lot more since then.

Good luck on the Glass Slipper Challenge! I enjoy reading your TRs and am looking forward to the next.
 
I'm just tired reading all about your running. Regardless of your self deprication, you did a fantastic job to finish before the pacers. I couldn't even complete a run like that. Kudos to you.

It sounds like you guys paced yourselves well both food and energy wise during the weekend. Good luck on the PHM. I seem to know a few folks running in that one as well.

Thank you :) It was a very long journey to get to this point to even finish this. PHM should be a decent experience as some of the people I know from these boards going to it are super supportive and my coworker I"m going with is usually a good time, especially making me laugh.

We tried to not over do ourselves this trip at all but still felt like we got to see a lot of the parks. We still didn't get it all but I guess that is what next year is for, plus hopefully all of Critter Country won't be down next January.


Congrats! You pushed through and finished, that is awesome!

Your experience reminds me a lot of my first half marathon. I was very hard on myself during the race, so worried about others' perception of my finishing time, and hurt so much afterwards. It took me awhile after the race to get back into running, but I finally did and have enjoyed running a lot more since then.

Good luck on the Glass Slipper Challenge! I enjoy reading your TRs and am looking forward to the next.

That is really good to hear about how my experience was similar to yours on being hard on yourself and hurting emotionally afterwards. If it wasn't for already having paid so much for Glass Slipper, I probably wouldn't have gone for it. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue the long distance running after this depending on how Glass Slipper goes. For Wine & Dine, I'm doing the 5K in the morning while my husband will do the Half. My husband wants to do the Rebel Challenge again & I have until June to decide if I'm going to go for it or not again.

Thank you for enjoying my TRs :) I think I'm going to do a dining report for my 2 Feb Trips as I have too many others going on the trips to worry about posting their photos on the internet (Trip #1 is with my husband's coworkers & Trip #2 is with my coworker) along with the fact that I'm not going to carry around the DSLR either. I'll be back to Trip Reports for Star Wars Weekends & our long Food & Wine trip though!
 


Shouldn’t This Service Not Suck

At 6:30PM, my husband was fine to stop watching his football game, even though it wasn’t over with yet as his team was winning by enough of a margin. We walked across the street to the Grand Californian and found our way to Napa Rose. We didn’t have to wait long to be seated a four top in the center of the restaurant and begin to review the menu & wine list.

We had time to review that wine list in detail & even google some of them as we made our decision on wine. You see, originally, I figured this meal would be a nice long affair with at least 2 bottles of wine and probably 4 or 5 courses as this is the star of Disneyland (outside of Club 33 but going there isn’t in the cards for someone like me). When it took so long for our server to come to our table who then proceeded to sound exactly like a scripted robot with little personality as it was such a non-answer to our questions, I knew it wouldn’t be that. We had to stop him from leaving once we selected our wine as we knew the appetizer we wanted would take at least 20 minutes to prepare as it was one of the special hot rock ones.

Our bread came out while we were waiting on our wine. I like having all the different selections here!

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Bread

Our server eventually returned with our bottle of wine. My husband hasn’t grown into the red wines yet but we are starting to move into bolder whites at least. Each year it keeps getting better!

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Bottle of Wine

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Glass of Wine

After about 25 minutes from ordering, our appetizer was brought out by a food runner. This appetizer included 2 pieces of garlic shrimp, soy glaze spare ribs and lemongrass chicken. This was a perfect amount of food to split for an appetizer along with upping our protein intake for the day. We each liked our half of the dishes. The peanut noodles that came with the ribs are something I can still taste and slightly crave.

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Sizzling Beach Rock

Our server came by to refill our wine glasses and tell us the rock would stay hot all nights. I was trying to figure out why a hot rock would matter to us as we had already finished our appetizer at this point but the assistant server came by to pick it up.

I noticed that another table in our section had moved to a different table in the restaurant to have another server. We finished our bottle of wine while we were waiting on our entrees.

We were brought our entrees by a different food runner at this point. My entree was amazing! I love nicely cooked duck and this was exactly that. The gnocchi was well cooked as well.

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Maple Leaf Farms Duck w/ Gnocchi

My husband went with the filet. It was cooked to his perfect temperature and he stated it was better than Steakhouse 55 for quality.

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Filet

We became members of the clean plate club and waited. And waited. We actually flagged the server down when he was walking away so we could get the dessert menu (We did 19.3 miles, I’m getting dessert!)

My husband went with one of his standby choices, ice cream. These were great homemade choices that were creamy.

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Ice Cream Trio - Vanilla, Chocolate, Salted Caramel

I went with the peanut butter chocolate tart. This was like a fluffy reese’s peanut butter cup with bananas on top.

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Peanut Butter Chocolate Tart

We flagged down the server running away and just handed him the credit card without seeing the bill as we knew if we didn’t do that we would be waiting awhile again. Even getting the bill to sign for the tip was painful for a server with only 3 tables. This was the first time in a while that I left less than an 18% tip for a signature restaurant at a Disney Property. The food was so great here that it is a shame the server was so non existent and inattentive. With the service being so bad though, at least it saved me some money as we didn’t get extra drinks or such.

We walked back to the hotel and got settled for the evening. We ended up watching Worst Cooks in America then Cutthroat Kitchen on Food Network since Disney doesn’t have HBO or Showtime (no Shameless for us)
 
Going Home

We woke up naturally around 6:30AM, well before our alarm was set to go off. As our flight wasn’t until 11:30AM, we had some time to kill. We got everything left out still packed up & I went downstairs with the luggage to use their luggage scale. It weighed in at 48 pounds so we figured we would be safe at the airport for their scale.

I went back upstairs to drop the luggage off and we headed downstairs to the lounge to get breakfast. My breakfast was a cinnamon bun & a mocha. My husband had the egg croissant sandwich. These were decent enough for a quick breakfast. We also were able to get the wireless to work in the lobby for the first time in the trip. We headed back up to the room to wait until a more reasonable time to head to the airport.

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I read the newspaper for the first time in months

By 8:15AM, I was bored. I made us go downstairs to just head to the airport by taxi. It cost $42 with tip.

We checked in (luggage officially weighed in at 47.7 lbs!) and went through security with little issues other than the carry on bag with all our medals had to go through the machine twice.

As we had 2 hours to kill before boarding, I walked the airport to window shop and grab a drink before the flights.

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I want these glasses - too bad they are $425

We did end up eating lunch right after 10:30AM by having our first McDonalds in a long time. I remembered why I don’t eat there anymore.

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Flight Gate

We boarded our first flight about 20 minutes late but we were able to make up our time in air & we landed in Houston 15 minutes early!

We had a 2 hour layover in Houston so we passed the time eating bad food court food and using the internet. We split some chinese food & nachos and hung out in the food court for like an hour, people watching. There were 2 other groups on our plane from Houston to Fort Myers that had ran in the races this weekend (we found out later that one of them is an employee at the running store we shop at & he had done the Dopey as well)

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And apparently my husband taking more bad photos of me

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Leaving Houston

We landed in Fort Myers right on time & were home right before 11PM.
 
Final Thoughts

As our first real trip to Disneyland, we overall had a blast. It definitely is a different experience than Walt Disney World in terms of size and parks but I liked the differences. I loved trying all new restaurants & overall had some pretty good meals this trip despite a few sour points. We'll totally try some more new places next time as well.

Parks
The cast members felt a lot different than Walt Disney World. It was a good difference though as I like both. The average age of the cast members was older. I felt they were long term employees rather than the younger college age students that rotate in and out you usually see at WDW. I liked how the attractions were a good combination of new, different and the same. Pirates at Disneyland definitely beats Pirates at the Magic Kingdom! Disneyland has three much better thrill attractions with California Screamin, Indiana Jones & Mickey’s Fun Wheel. I did not like Disneyland’s Version of Buzz Lightyear though.

Hotel
Paradise Pier didn’t feel outside of the Disneyland Bubble that some people state they feel staying there. Walking across one street isn’t a deal breaker for us. It was a great location for us for the races and with getting to the parks. The only walks that sucked were the ones right after the races but I think any hotel would have sucked for the walk, even if I was at the Disneyland Hotel. Our room was spacious and clean.

My two negatives about Paradise Pier are common complaints. The elevators are slow & I know if we had been on a lower floor we would have had lots of problems with filled elevators and having to wait for another one or two or three. The other is the dining options. The main restaurant there didn’t appeal to us and the lobby coffee shop wasn’t really a good quick meal option. The wireless didn’t work at all in the room but that made me read more of my kindle then I had originally planned.

The Races
The expo was really well organized for the runDisney merchandise. While getting in line over an hour early did feel like a time suck but they had excellent line control for it and we were able to get what we wanted for the official merchandise. I’m sure the wait only got worse as the day went on, at least that is what it seemed like from the facebook posts of others. Getting our bibs, having our photos taken for the challenge, picking up the pre-purchased Dooney, and getting our shirts went really quickly and smoothly! No complaints there.

I loved that the starting lines for the 10K and Half were right outside our hotel which made race mornings not bad at all. The course entertainment was great as well.

My husband had a really positive race experience. He’s been so excited to run since the race & he’s finally running outside rather than the treadmill since then, exploring new routes in our area of town. He can’t wait until I can sign him up for Wine & Dine. I’ve signed him up for a 10K that Gulf Coast Runners in Naples has set up in late March. He wants to make it to Corral A next year.

As you have read through my race experiences here, I didn’t really have the most positive experience personally while racing and talking with people outside the Disney bubble after the race trip. I’m going to see how Glass Slipper Challenge goes before I decide if I’m done with anything longer than a 5K again. I’m glad I was able to finish though.

Whats Coming Up? - Walt Disney World
  • Short Weekend Trip - Feb 14th to 15th - Staying at the Swan w/ my husband & 4 of his coworkers.

  • Glass Slipper Challenge Trip - February 19th to 22nd - Staying at the Pop Century w/ my coworker.

  • Star Wars Weekend Trip - May 14th to 17th - Currently Staying at SSR but hoping to move to Polynesian when that opens up for nonowner reservations w/ my husband & possibly more

  • Food & Wine Festival Long Trip - October 1st to 11th - Animal Kingdom Villas w/ my husband

  • Wine & Dine Weekend Trip - November 5th to 8th - Hotel TBD - I’m doing the 5K whereas my husband is doing the Half
Whats Coming Up? - Disneyland
  • Star Wars Half Marathon Weekend - January 12/13 to January 18/19th - Grand Californian - My husband will be running, I’m TBD)
 
That is really good to hear about how my experience was similar to yours on being hard on yourself and hurting emotionally afterwards. If it wasn't for already having paid so much for Glass Slipper, I probably wouldn't have gone for it. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue the long distance running after this depending on how Glass Slipper goes. For Wine & Dine, I'm doing the 5K in the morning while my husband will do the Half. My husband wants to do the Rebel Challenge again & I have until June to decide if I'm going to go for it or not again.

Thank you for enjoying my TRs :) I think I'm going to do a dining report for my 2 Feb Trips as I have too many others going on the trips to worry about posting their photos on the internet (Trip #1 is with my husband's coworkers & Trip #2 is with my coworker) along with the fact that I'm not going to carry around the DSLR either. I'll be back to Trip Reports for Star Wars Weekends & our long Food & Wine trip though!

I'm in the same boat, trying to figure out if I will do Star Wars next year. My husband and I did the Rebel Challenge, too. It was our first half marathon in 2 years and we had also said we weren't going to do more Disney races because of the cost. But, when Star Wars was announced there was no question that we would do it (I'm a big Star Wars fan). Now my sister wants to a do a Disney half and picked out Wine and Dine. But she can't do it until 2016, so I'm contemplating doing Star Wars again so I get a Coast to Coast medal. Run Disney is totally sucking me back in :)
 
I'm in the same boat, trying to figure out if I will do Star Wars next year. My husband and I did the Rebel Challenge, too. It was our first half marathon in 2 years and we had also said we weren't going to do more Disney races because of the cost. But, when Star Wars was announced there was no question that we would do it (I'm a big Star Wars fan). Now my sister wants to a do a Disney half and picked out Wine and Dine. But she can't do it until 2016, so I'm contemplating doing Star Wars again so I get a Coast to Coast medal. Run Disney is totally sucking me back in :)

Disney races are expensive, especially with the travel costs. The races at WDW aren't too bad for us as the travel costs are so low but the Disneyland side does take a good portion of our vacation budget for the year.

My husband is the bigger Star Wars fan in our household & I'm sure the crowds next year will be better especially with the release this December. The course entertainment and the amount of people cheering others on outside of the Disney bubble was awesome.

Get that Coast to Coast! Its the reason why my husband is doing Wine & Dine this year so he can get his Coast to Coast since that is the only race option left for him (he also is in a super excited to be running in general state & I've signed him up for the local 10K in March & am on the look out for more 10K + races that work with our schedule)
 
Well it's good to see this all wrapped up with a happy ending.

You have a lot of fun trips coming up! Will you be doing TRs for any of them?
 
Well it's good to see this all wrapped up with a happy ending.

You have a lot of fun trips coming up! Will you be doing TRs for any of them?

I will be doing a combined Dining Report for the Feb 2015 trips. I'm undecided about the May trip (it may end up cancelled anyway due to possible Bourbon Trail Labor Day Trip). I will do a Trip Report for the Food & Wine Event.

Link to new dining report is here:

http://disboards.com/threads/insanity-vol-7-reasons-why-im-glad-i-live-close-by.3378918/
 
Just joined in and read your whole update. We are thinking of making our first trip out west to DLR so trying to read up on trip reports like yours.

I am definitely not a runner (other than when chased) but if there was anything that could get me to try a race it is the prospect of one at a Disney park.

Big congratulations to you for completing both races! That is quite the accomplishment especially with the ankle injury you had to deal with.

Glad to hear you thought Paradise Pier was good and did feel in the "Disney Bubble" as if we do stay on site that will probably be the place.

Excited to read a lot of your dining takes - though disappointed your didn't enjoy Blue Bayou and that service at Napa Rose was so bad. Glad you enjoyed Carthay Circle and Steakhouse 55 though. Also your ravioli at Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta looked really good.

Biggest takeaway for me was that they have Brother Thelonious at Sonoma Terrace :)

Great job with the trip report and thank you for sharing!
 
Just joined in and read your whole update. We are thinking of making our first trip out west to DLR so trying to read up on trip reports like yours.

I am definitely not a runner (other than when chased) but if there was anything that could get me to try a race it is the prospect of one at a Disney park.

Big congratulations to you for completing both races! That is quite the accomplishment especially with the ankle injury you had to deal with.

Glad to hear you thought Paradise Pier was good and did feel in the "Disney Bubble" as if we do stay on site that will probably be the place.

Excited to read a lot of your dining takes - though disappointed your didn't enjoy Blue Bayou and that service at Napa Rose was so bad. Glad you enjoyed Carthay Circle and Steakhouse 55 though. Also your ravioli at Boardwalk Pizza & Pasta looked really good.

Biggest takeaway for me was that they have Brother Thelonious at Sonoma Terrace :)

Great job with the trip report and thank you for sharing!

Thanks for joining in & reading the whole thing in one shot! Hope you end up deciding on going out west so its fun! I see your pre trip & how you are planning on doing San Diego & Disneyland. We did San Diego last May & enjoyed it. La Jolla & the Zoo were great!

Disney Races are mostly very welcoming to new runners and have the most entertainment I've seen on a race course (although I did a Run For The Paws 5K & the dogs sure were cute!) My ankle and I have been falling out since I was in middle school & first hurt it. I'm glad I was able to finish without it being in to much pain at least with the ankle.

Having 2 negative experiences food wise isn't too bad for having to pick the restaurants on other people's experiences rather than my own knowledge. I will try Napa Rose again though as the food was amazing! Blue Bayou was totally 1 & Done.

I never had Brother Thelonious before but it was enjoyable! I liked how they had so many California beers around the parks that I had never had before rather than the basics they have around WDW.

Have fun planning your next adventure!
 
Congratulations on doing such a challenge! I have barely managed 2 5k's and have signed up for a 10K this Labor Day weekend for the Half Marathon Weekend but I am super nervous about it. MAYBE I'll work up to a half some day... but probably not!!
 
Congratulations on doing such a challenge! I have barely managed 2 5k's and have signed up for a 10K this Labor Day weekend for the Half Marathon Weekend but I am super nervous about it. MAYBE I'll work up to a half some day... but probably not!!

Thank you :) Completing 2 5Ks is awesome! Congrats on signing up for your first Disney 10K for the Disneyland Half Weekend! You should have so much fun! The 10K through all the parks is awesome. You have 6 months to train so I'm sure you will get there and have the confidence to do it! I bet if you signed up for the half you could do it as well. Disney races are definately welcoming to new runners as they have a nice minimum pace requirement compared to others.
 
Congratulations! Saw your post on the SWW thread (which I'm over 30 pages behind, eek!). I also was in California for SWHMW, but I only ran the half. Really enjoyed your recap, especially since I thought I must have missed some character stops, but evidently not. Seems like the 10K had more, but I suppose they wanted to keep everyone moving since the parks were within the first 5 miles. The OC crowds were fantastic, especially in Garden Grove area. Just phenomenal.

And funnily enough, I also ran PHM for my C2C, both were so much fun! I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post my blog links here, otherwise I would.

Totally wish I could do SWHMW again in January, but I'm doing Dopey and not sure my pocketbook and legs could take it.

Great job, really enjoyable read, too.
 
Congratulations! Saw your post on the SWW thread (which I'm over 30 pages behind, eek!). I also was in California for SWHMW, but I only ran the half. Really enjoyed your recap, especially since I thought I must have missed some character stops, but evidently not. Seems like the 10K had more, but I suppose they wanted to keep everyone moving since the parks were within the first 5 miles. The OC crowds were fantastic, especially in Garden Grove area. Just phenomenal.

And funnily enough, I also ran PHM for my C2C, both were so much fun! I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post my blog links here, otherwise I would.

Totally wish I could do SWHMW again in January, but I'm doing Dopey and not sure my pocketbook and legs could take it.

Great job, really enjoyable read, too.

I'm so behind on the SWW thread, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up, plus we are going for Weekend I so I'll just enjoy whatever we do. No Premium Package for us this year - my husband wants to do that every other year or so. There wasn't a lot of character stops it seems in comparison to what I saw at Princess but I guess after you left the parks and got on the streets of Anaheim, you really couldn't have them for the safety of the friends of the characters.

Congrats on signing up for Dopey! That is an amazing! There was a decent amount of people doing the Rebel Challenge that did the Dopey as well which I thought was crazy! So much vacation time + cash to do a back to back Disney World + Disneyland trip but more power to those that can physically and monetarily go for it!

Glad you enjoyed my report :)
 

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