Barca33Runner
Please excuse the crudity of this model
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2014
Changed the title to reflect that at long last I am posting my DS Weekend Trip Report. It also reflected my thoughts upon seeing the Finish Line for the Half Marathon.
Thursday
Even though I was not running the 5K I wanted to get to WDW and have a bit of a vacation. This was the first weekend where I didn't have the specter of a Full Marathon looming over things somewhat (2012 Half was my first race of any distance ever, so I wasn't exactly relaxing that weekend). My flight arrived on schedule and DME went perfectly (although I lamented POR being the last stop, as always). POR is a very comfortable resort for me and I was happy to be staying there for a racecation again after staying offsite in January for Marathon Weekend. I made a rookie mistake, however, during the plane ride and DME and arrived at my room with no battery on my phone. I decided to plug it in and head to the food court for dinner while it charged instead of heading directly to MK. It actually worked out really well; the food was good (I had a Muffuletta), I got a decent charge on my phone, and I still made it to MK by 6:30 which was well before my first FP+ on Splash Mountain.
Since I was there a little earlier than expected and no longer had to worry about dinner, I decided to ride an attraction I had not been on since I was a kid, Haunted Mansion. I had no affinity for this attraction, but I had heard good things about it from others and decided I needed to give it another chance. The stand-by queue was only 20 minutes and I really enjoyed all of the special touches while waiting in line. The ride itself? I liked the pre-show, but it just felt like the same thing I experienced as a kid: poor effect definition, bad line of sight, poor audio, and just generally a meh experience. I don't like criticizing things, but I'll leave that one for people who enjoy it. I did find the photos in Memento Mori to be quite cool though.
From there it was over to Splash Mountain. I love that ride and because I was solo, ended up in the front of a boat by myself. I got a little more wet than usual, but it was great as always. I headed over and picked up a citrus swirl on the way to 7DMT for my first time on that ride. I must say, I don't understand in the slightest how they arrived at the late stage queue procedure they did for that ride; sorting people into multiple more lines and passing them off to a different CM to figure out what to do with all those lines. It seemed like part of the reason the wait is always so long for that ride. They just didn;t seem to be moving people through very quickly. Anyway, it was pretty good. I won't feel too bad if I miss out in future trips, but it has some charm.
My biggest plan for the night was to see Wishes. It became clear when I was walking around after 7DMT that this wasn't likely to happen. The lawns and all of the viewing areas were completely full over 1.5 hours from when the show was starting. I have no patience for waiting that long for something and I didn't want to bother others by forcing my way in at the last moment. Anyway, I went over to my last FP+ at Space Ranger Spin and then decided to head home. I was going to the buses about 20 minutes before Wishes started and was shocked that there were more people arriving than there were leaving. I'm disappointed that I missed the show, but that was going to be a giant cluster-bleep afterward and I was completely OK with my decision to leave. YouTube exists for a reason.
Friday
My sister was getting in at Noon and I was determined to hit Epcot before she arrived. It was a beautiful morning and I was really impressed with the Flower and Garden Festival. Here are a couple early morning pics:
I had FP+ for later in the day with my sister at AK, so I was happy that the early queues were not bad at all. My plan was similar to the night before and I was opening with an attraction that wasn't my favorite, Soarin'. I haven't been on Soarin' since they updated the ride. We would rather use FP+ on other things and aren't keen on waiting more than about 15 minutes for it, so it never happens. Anyway, it was a walk-on for me on this particular morning and I have to say: exact opposite experience to Haunted Mansion. I really enjoyed the ride and could appreciate its appeal. It will be my goal that when I go to Epcot in the future to try and get there early to ride Soarin' before the wait gets past my threshhold.
Next, I headed to TT and rode in the single rider line. I got a little upset seeing some kids who chose the single rider line decide that they were going to ride together and cause delays as the CM's tried to figure out how a couple got booted out of their seats and where things got messed up. It wasn't worth saying anything, but I'm not a fan of people who take advantage of the good nature of others and/or blatantly disregard rules. After that, I hit the main purpose of my visit Les Halles. I love Les Halles so much. I'm pretty sure I could get absolutely anything they serve and be happy. My target today was the Palmier. It feels funny to have a go to at Les Halles, because I want to try everything, but the Palmier it my go to. Light, chocolaty and delicious.
From there I headed back to POR in plenty of time to meet my sister. We had lunch at the food court and headed to the expo. The expo was a much more relaxed experience than Marathon Weekend. There was actually room to walk around and look at things without feeling rushed or like we just wanted to escape the throngs of people. I was even able to pick up a pair of the NB Toy Story shoes for my Dad as a Thank You for watching McFly during the trip and helping me build a new deck this summer. He had seen them during Marathon Weekend and made a comment and it's pretty rare for him to express interest in anything so I made a mental note and figured if I had the chance I'd get them for him.
We had our first FP+ at AK for EE at 4:45 and made it in plenty of time. We walked around for a while beforehand, when we were here in January the park was absolutely packed and that wasn't really an option, and figured out where Yak & Yeti was located since we had only been to AK once before. EE is always fun and our dinner reservation was at 5:15 so we did our FP+ and headed over for dinner. We both had the Malaysian Seafood Curry and it was fantastic. Our remaining FP+ were for Kilimanjaro Safari and Rivers of Light. Both of our times on KS we've had pretty cool experiences. First time in January we passed within touching distance of a rhino and this time it was within touching distance of a few giraffes. I think we've had pretty good luck with the animals we've seen and their proximity. We went back over to EE and saw the wait was only 20 minutes so we jumped on again before RoL. It was the first time I've seen my name during the queue on any ride:
RoL was next and we picked up some soft serve waffle cones before heading in (mmm... soft serve). We waited for about 45 minutes for the show to start. I guess I didn't mind it this time because there was slightly more organized seating than for Wishes. The show was a bit underwhelming. It was fine, but I guess I expected a little better than fine. It seems like there is still some room for improvement. We exited right next to the queue for EE and decided to go once more before leaving for the night. It was a really cool experience at night, particularly seeing the other parks and surrounding area while heading up the hill. After that we headed back to POR, knowing full well we were only going to get aobut 5 hours of sleep before waking up for the 10K.
Saturday
It really felt too early to wake up, but we knew the drill and headed over to the bus at about 4 AM. Made it to the race in plenty of time. We didn't wait in line for any of the picture opportunities. The lines were very long and we were ready to get running. My sister was in A for the 10K and I was in B. The race went well for me, I finished in a little over an hour and made a couple picture stops:
I wasn't in the shape I had hoped to be for these races, but the 10K was a good time and I wasn't disappointed in my run. We didn't stick around for long afterward, we had plans at MK.
After a quick stop at POR to shower and shed some gear we headed over to MK for a few hours. We had FP+ for 7DMT, Splash Mountain, and Thunder Mountain but weren't all that worried with what we did. We went to Gaston's Tavern for a cinnamon roll when we got there. It was really excellent. We hit a few rides, including our first couple FP+ before having lunch at Peco's Bills. The nachos were an excellent tasting choice, but a very, very not so smart choice for someone running a Half Marathon the next day. I paid the price for having them for sure, but I had pretty much given up on anything approximating a good time in the Half by then anyway because of the heat. We went on a couple more rides, but skipped out before out our FP+ on Thunder Mountain. It was Hot, and we wanted to relax at POR before heading to Paddlefish at DS for dinner with our grandparents.
Paddlefish was pretty disappointing to me. The food was perfectly fine. We all enjoyed what we had (I had the conch chowder and shared the crab fries while trying to avoid eating too much), but it just felt pricey for what it was (even by Disney standards). I think we have other places we'd choose to eat before going back, but we wouldn't avoid it on purpose during future trips. We made it a much earlier night and headed back to POR by 7.
Sunday
It just seems impossible to feel awake for these challenge races. I think I got about as much sleep as I ever have before a race, but it still felt like too little. I knew straight away that I was going to have GI issues during the race, but it ended up being worse than I expected. I spent much of the time before the race in line for facilities and trying to get feeling better, so I didn't really take much note of the festivities. Despite this I only made it a mile running before I had to switch to self-preservation mode. This involves switching to imperfect intervals where I count quickly to 60 in English while walking and slowly to 100 in German while running. I don't know how I came up with this strategy, but I have used it in basically every Marathon I've run. I usually don't have to use it during Half Marathons, but this was going to be a bad day. I ended up stopping four times for restrooms on course and going a full 2-mile stretch after exiting AK walking because I had to go so badly that I didn't think I could risk running. Anyway, all those issues combined with the heat combined for a much different look on my face during most of my pictures:
I was happy to be done, but skipped past pictures so we could get back and head to Epcot as soon as possible. We made a pretty quick turn around, but our only goals for the day were to ride Frozen Ever After for the first time and to try a lot of Flower and Garden Kiosks. We hit Test Track first before heading back to Les Halles. I got a nice pic with my pal Eeyore on the way:
We hit Les Halles for a pastry and then a couple of the pop-up kiosks as they were opening and made our way back to FEA. FEA was basically the last major attraction we'd never been on, so it was cool to finally get to experience it. It was nice, although I think my experience was skewed more heavily to the positive side because of how nice it was to get out of the sun and heat. We decided to make a lunch ADR at Marrakesh to get out of the heat. We weren't super hungry because of the eating we'd already done and, have I mentioned, it was hot. The Jasmina salad was perfect in the heat and wasn't too filling. We walked around a little while longer afterward, but we were just tired and the weather really didn't make an eat and drink around the world appetizing. We headed back to POR early and rested while waiting for our evening dinner at Boatwright's. We moved our reservation from 9 to 7, had a nice dinner and headed to bed early.
Monday
My sister was headed home and had DME for 8:00-ish. I headed out at the same time to head to Hollywood Studios. It was a fun few hours before I headed back for a rest. Did Midway Mania, RnRR (x3), ToT, Star Tours, saw the Beauty and the Beast show, and had a Carrot Cake Cookie in about 4 hours before heading back to POR. My DME was scheduled for 5:50 the next morning so that kind of held me back the whole day. I packed so that I could head out once more before calling it a trip. My choice was to head to DS to walk around and grab dinner or to head to Epcot, grab dinner and head to HS for Fantasmic! I chose DS and regretted it from the moment I got there. I didn't have a bad time, per se, I just was regretting not heading back to the parks.
Wrap-up
All in all it was a great trip. I learned experiencing the parks solo wasn't ideal, but did give me a chance to get a lot of things done. The races reminded me that I have a long way to go in my running adventure and that even distances that had seemed comfortable in the past could be very unpleasant if I'm not in the proper condition. Now it's a long wait until next January for another Disney adventure. I've got plenty of work to do to prepare for Dopey #5 though and plan on posting weekly with my progress.
Thanks for reading along and hope you enjoyed the Trip Report.
Thursday
Even though I was not running the 5K I wanted to get to WDW and have a bit of a vacation. This was the first weekend where I didn't have the specter of a Full Marathon looming over things somewhat (2012 Half was my first race of any distance ever, so I wasn't exactly relaxing that weekend). My flight arrived on schedule and DME went perfectly (although I lamented POR being the last stop, as always). POR is a very comfortable resort for me and I was happy to be staying there for a racecation again after staying offsite in January for Marathon Weekend. I made a rookie mistake, however, during the plane ride and DME and arrived at my room with no battery on my phone. I decided to plug it in and head to the food court for dinner while it charged instead of heading directly to MK. It actually worked out really well; the food was good (I had a Muffuletta), I got a decent charge on my phone, and I still made it to MK by 6:30 which was well before my first FP+ on Splash Mountain.
Since I was there a little earlier than expected and no longer had to worry about dinner, I decided to ride an attraction I had not been on since I was a kid, Haunted Mansion. I had no affinity for this attraction, but I had heard good things about it from others and decided I needed to give it another chance. The stand-by queue was only 20 minutes and I really enjoyed all of the special touches while waiting in line. The ride itself? I liked the pre-show, but it just felt like the same thing I experienced as a kid: poor effect definition, bad line of sight, poor audio, and just generally a meh experience. I don't like criticizing things, but I'll leave that one for people who enjoy it. I did find the photos in Memento Mori to be quite cool though.
From there it was over to Splash Mountain. I love that ride and because I was solo, ended up in the front of a boat by myself. I got a little more wet than usual, but it was great as always. I headed over and picked up a citrus swirl on the way to 7DMT for my first time on that ride. I must say, I don't understand in the slightest how they arrived at the late stage queue procedure they did for that ride; sorting people into multiple more lines and passing them off to a different CM to figure out what to do with all those lines. It seemed like part of the reason the wait is always so long for that ride. They just didn;t seem to be moving people through very quickly. Anyway, it was pretty good. I won't feel too bad if I miss out in future trips, but it has some charm.
My biggest plan for the night was to see Wishes. It became clear when I was walking around after 7DMT that this wasn't likely to happen. The lawns and all of the viewing areas were completely full over 1.5 hours from when the show was starting. I have no patience for waiting that long for something and I didn't want to bother others by forcing my way in at the last moment. Anyway, I went over to my last FP+ at Space Ranger Spin and then decided to head home. I was going to the buses about 20 minutes before Wishes started and was shocked that there were more people arriving than there were leaving. I'm disappointed that I missed the show, but that was going to be a giant cluster-bleep afterward and I was completely OK with my decision to leave. YouTube exists for a reason.
Friday
My sister was getting in at Noon and I was determined to hit Epcot before she arrived. It was a beautiful morning and I was really impressed with the Flower and Garden Festival. Here are a couple early morning pics:
I had FP+ for later in the day with my sister at AK, so I was happy that the early queues were not bad at all. My plan was similar to the night before and I was opening with an attraction that wasn't my favorite, Soarin'. I haven't been on Soarin' since they updated the ride. We would rather use FP+ on other things and aren't keen on waiting more than about 15 minutes for it, so it never happens. Anyway, it was a walk-on for me on this particular morning and I have to say: exact opposite experience to Haunted Mansion. I really enjoyed the ride and could appreciate its appeal. It will be my goal that when I go to Epcot in the future to try and get there early to ride Soarin' before the wait gets past my threshhold.
Next, I headed to TT and rode in the single rider line. I got a little upset seeing some kids who chose the single rider line decide that they were going to ride together and cause delays as the CM's tried to figure out how a couple got booted out of their seats and where things got messed up. It wasn't worth saying anything, but I'm not a fan of people who take advantage of the good nature of others and/or blatantly disregard rules. After that, I hit the main purpose of my visit Les Halles. I love Les Halles so much. I'm pretty sure I could get absolutely anything they serve and be happy. My target today was the Palmier. It feels funny to have a go to at Les Halles, because I want to try everything, but the Palmier it my go to. Light, chocolaty and delicious.
From there I headed back to POR in plenty of time to meet my sister. We had lunch at the food court and headed to the expo. The expo was a much more relaxed experience than Marathon Weekend. There was actually room to walk around and look at things without feeling rushed or like we just wanted to escape the throngs of people. I was even able to pick up a pair of the NB Toy Story shoes for my Dad as a Thank You for watching McFly during the trip and helping me build a new deck this summer. He had seen them during Marathon Weekend and made a comment and it's pretty rare for him to express interest in anything so I made a mental note and figured if I had the chance I'd get them for him.
We had our first FP+ at AK for EE at 4:45 and made it in plenty of time. We walked around for a while beforehand, when we were here in January the park was absolutely packed and that wasn't really an option, and figured out where Yak & Yeti was located since we had only been to AK once before. EE is always fun and our dinner reservation was at 5:15 so we did our FP+ and headed over for dinner. We both had the Malaysian Seafood Curry and it was fantastic. Our remaining FP+ were for Kilimanjaro Safari and Rivers of Light. Both of our times on KS we've had pretty cool experiences. First time in January we passed within touching distance of a rhino and this time it was within touching distance of a few giraffes. I think we've had pretty good luck with the animals we've seen and their proximity. We went back over to EE and saw the wait was only 20 minutes so we jumped on again before RoL. It was the first time I've seen my name during the queue on any ride:
RoL was next and we picked up some soft serve waffle cones before heading in (mmm... soft serve). We waited for about 45 minutes for the show to start. I guess I didn't mind it this time because there was slightly more organized seating than for Wishes. The show was a bit underwhelming. It was fine, but I guess I expected a little better than fine. It seems like there is still some room for improvement. We exited right next to the queue for EE and decided to go once more before leaving for the night. It was a really cool experience at night, particularly seeing the other parks and surrounding area while heading up the hill. After that we headed back to POR, knowing full well we were only going to get aobut 5 hours of sleep before waking up for the 10K.
Saturday
It really felt too early to wake up, but we knew the drill and headed over to the bus at about 4 AM. Made it to the race in plenty of time. We didn't wait in line for any of the picture opportunities. The lines were very long and we were ready to get running. My sister was in A for the 10K and I was in B. The race went well for me, I finished in a little over an hour and made a couple picture stops:
I wasn't in the shape I had hoped to be for these races, but the 10K was a good time and I wasn't disappointed in my run. We didn't stick around for long afterward, we had plans at MK.
After a quick stop at POR to shower and shed some gear we headed over to MK for a few hours. We had FP+ for 7DMT, Splash Mountain, and Thunder Mountain but weren't all that worried with what we did. We went to Gaston's Tavern for a cinnamon roll when we got there. It was really excellent. We hit a few rides, including our first couple FP+ before having lunch at Peco's Bills. The nachos were an excellent tasting choice, but a very, very not so smart choice for someone running a Half Marathon the next day. I paid the price for having them for sure, but I had pretty much given up on anything approximating a good time in the Half by then anyway because of the heat. We went on a couple more rides, but skipped out before out our FP+ on Thunder Mountain. It was Hot, and we wanted to relax at POR before heading to Paddlefish at DS for dinner with our grandparents.
Paddlefish was pretty disappointing to me. The food was perfectly fine. We all enjoyed what we had (I had the conch chowder and shared the crab fries while trying to avoid eating too much), but it just felt pricey for what it was (even by Disney standards). I think we have other places we'd choose to eat before going back, but we wouldn't avoid it on purpose during future trips. We made it a much earlier night and headed back to POR by 7.
Sunday
It just seems impossible to feel awake for these challenge races. I think I got about as much sleep as I ever have before a race, but it still felt like too little. I knew straight away that I was going to have GI issues during the race, but it ended up being worse than I expected. I spent much of the time before the race in line for facilities and trying to get feeling better, so I didn't really take much note of the festivities. Despite this I only made it a mile running before I had to switch to self-preservation mode. This involves switching to imperfect intervals where I count quickly to 60 in English while walking and slowly to 100 in German while running. I don't know how I came up with this strategy, but I have used it in basically every Marathon I've run. I usually don't have to use it during Half Marathons, but this was going to be a bad day. I ended up stopping four times for restrooms on course and going a full 2-mile stretch after exiting AK walking because I had to go so badly that I didn't think I could risk running. Anyway, all those issues combined with the heat combined for a much different look on my face during most of my pictures:
I was happy to be done, but skipped past pictures so we could get back and head to Epcot as soon as possible. We made a pretty quick turn around, but our only goals for the day were to ride Frozen Ever After for the first time and to try a lot of Flower and Garden Kiosks. We hit Test Track first before heading back to Les Halles. I got a nice pic with my pal Eeyore on the way:
We hit Les Halles for a pastry and then a couple of the pop-up kiosks as they were opening and made our way back to FEA. FEA was basically the last major attraction we'd never been on, so it was cool to finally get to experience it. It was nice, although I think my experience was skewed more heavily to the positive side because of how nice it was to get out of the sun and heat. We decided to make a lunch ADR at Marrakesh to get out of the heat. We weren't super hungry because of the eating we'd already done and, have I mentioned, it was hot. The Jasmina salad was perfect in the heat and wasn't too filling. We walked around a little while longer afterward, but we were just tired and the weather really didn't make an eat and drink around the world appetizing. We headed back to POR early and rested while waiting for our evening dinner at Boatwright's. We moved our reservation from 9 to 7, had a nice dinner and headed to bed early.
Monday
My sister was headed home and had DME for 8:00-ish. I headed out at the same time to head to Hollywood Studios. It was a fun few hours before I headed back for a rest. Did Midway Mania, RnRR (x3), ToT, Star Tours, saw the Beauty and the Beast show, and had a Carrot Cake Cookie in about 4 hours before heading back to POR. My DME was scheduled for 5:50 the next morning so that kind of held me back the whole day. I packed so that I could head out once more before calling it a trip. My choice was to head to DS to walk around and grab dinner or to head to Epcot, grab dinner and head to HS for Fantasmic! I chose DS and regretted it from the moment I got there. I didn't have a bad time, per se, I just was regretting not heading back to the parks.
Wrap-up
All in all it was a great trip. I learned experiencing the parks solo wasn't ideal, but did give me a chance to get a lot of things done. The races reminded me that I have a long way to go in my running adventure and that even distances that had seemed comfortable in the past could be very unpleasant if I'm not in the proper condition. Now it's a long wait until next January for another Disney adventure. I've got plenty of work to do to prepare for Dopey #5 though and plan on posting weekly with my progress.
Thanks for reading along and hope you enjoyed the Trip Report.
