Barca33Runner's Journal: Thanks For Noticin' Me(Comments Welcome)

Just made a FP+ on Marathon Sunday from 10 AM-11 AM for Rock n Roller Coaster. I should be starting slightly before 6 AM, so that gives me 5 hours to make it to DHS. If I'm not there in 5 hours I would probably be too nervous to ride something anyway.
 
Short update from WDW. AK went very well yesterday even with our mistake of taking five kids under 8 to see "It's Tough to be a Bug" for our first attraction of the day. It was almost over before it began but we pulled it together. Here's a picture from the festivities:
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Full recap after the races.
 
Trip Report

Introduction

When the Marathon Weekend 2017 dates were announced I knew that I wanted to try to convince my family to build an extended vacation around the races. Partially because I love Disney and partially because I wanted to see if I could get a few of them to run some races with me. After months of planning and, frankly, being forced to work way too hard in some cases to convince people to go to WDW we had the basic outline for a family vacation. We knew the parks would be crowded and that the Holidays would be difficult to work around, but I tried to cobble together a plan that would work for everyone. As it all worked out we would head down to arrive on Wednesday, Dec. 28th and leave after the races on Monday, Jan. 9th. Our party consisted of the following groups (staying full duration unless otherwise noted):

Myself (Dopey)

Mom (5K, 10K)
Dad (Arriving Wed, Jan 4/ 5K, 10K)

Sister (Dopey)
Brother-in-Law
Nephew (7, Kids Races, Mickey Mile)
Niece (5, Kids Races)

Brother (Family staying Wed., Dec. 28th-Wed., Jan 4)
Sister-in-Law
Nephew (5)
Niece (3)
Nephew (1)

Aunt (Arriving Wed., Jan 4/ 5K, 10K)
Cousin (Arriving Thurs., Jan 5/ 10K)

As you can see, we had some changeover with my brother's family heading out before the races and my Dad, Aunt, and Cousin coming in for them.

We rented a house in Champion's Gate with a pool and hot tub that was large enough to accommodate our group. It was the first time I have made a trip over Marathon Weekend and stayed offsite. It went fantastic. The pool and hot tub gave us things to do when we weren't on property and were great for the kids. The commute into the races went really well and we were able to sit in the car each morning to stay comfortable until it made sense to head to our corrals. No complaints at all on that decision; well, other than it being awesome to stay on-site at Disney as well.:-)

Our itinerary was as follows:

Wed., Dec 28-Arrive
Thurs., Dec 29-House/Disney Springs
Fri., Dec. 30-Animal Kingdom
Sat., Dec 31-House
Sun., Jan. 1-House/Disney Springs
Mon., Jan. 2-Hollywood Studios
Tues., Jan 3-Magic Kingdom
Wed., Jan 4-Disney Springs/Expo
Thurs., Jan 5-5K/Magic Kingdom
Fri., Jan 6-10K/Epcot
Sat., Jan 7-Half:sad:/House
Sun. Jan 8-Full Pack:sad:

Overall the trip went great. Will be updating Park and Race days with their own posts and pictures in future posts. Hope to have them all up by Sunday.
 


Alright, so on to the parks. We did our first park on Friday, Dec. 30th and chose to go to AK. This was the first trip to AK for everyone in our group (my brother and I had been there for a half a day shortly after the park opened back in the late-90's but remembered virtually nothing about it). Because of the Holidays, the park opened at 8 AM and we arrived at about 8:30. First we had to stop at Will Call for my sister and I to activate our annual passes. No line, quick and painless as it turned out. I was able to get into the park a little quicker than everyone else (no bag/stroller and AP Passholder line FTW) and snapped this picture of the Christmas Tree:
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It was shaping up to be a nice day, but a little cold. As you can see from the attire, it was only about 50 degrees when we arrived. I wore shorts (because I'm an idiot), but it did get to 60 degrees later in the day and I wasn't too uncomfortable. The rest of the crew got in relatively quickly and we were off. We stopped first for a picture in front of the Tree of Life (it's tough to get five kids under 8 to all look in the right direction, this will be an ongoing theme):
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Then, we made our first poor decision of the trip. We knew we had a FP+ for Dinosaur at 9:55, and were headed to Dinoland, USA when we decided to make a quick stop at "It's Tough to be a Bug" since we were passing by the entrance and a new show was starting soon. Now, I don't want to be too negative. As an adult I understand what the show was going for (bugs aren't bad, they have a purpose, be nice to them and they'll be nice to you, don't kill bugs, etc.). However, the kids were all terrified afterward. Among the nice soundbites, "Can we go back to the house?", "Why were the bugs so mean?", "I didn't like those bugs", etc. I Needless to say, the message was lost on the kids and I'm guessing we aren't the only ones who have had this problem. I think a change of tone in that show cold be very helpful for the enjoyment of guests and in conveying the proper message about the importance of insects to children.

Anyway, we managed to talk the kids off the ledge and made our way to Dinoland, USA and hit the playground area. It proved to be very helpful in getting the kids back into the right frame of mind. Uncle Jared made the awesome decision to go down one of the slides and fell on his butt so the kids (and adults) all had some fun at my expense. We were there for a good 15-20 minutes before moving along to Triceratops Spin. This was a good ride for the littler ones (I had fun too:cool2:). Next, my sister, BiL, and I took my oldest nephew on Primeval Whirl (he was the only one tall enough). I thought it could have "whirled" more. After that we were on to our first FP+ and our first big test. Dinosaur had a height requirement of 40". This was a pretty big deal, as we knew the two youngest wouldn't be able to ride, but since so many rides have a 40" height requirement it was pretty vital that the two 5-year-olds, who are both in the bottom 5% for height at their age (my grandma is <5ft and my dad is 5'3", I'm not sure how I'm 5'10"), be able to ride. My niece was about 41" (yes!) but my nephew had to take a deep breath to touch the board (yes!). He continued to get measured on basically every ride but was never turned away:cool1:. Here is our ride pic:
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My nieces and nephews are pretty delicate souls when it comes to story and "bad guys" as you can see in the pic (but I still agree with their assessment of "It's Tough to be a Bug").

Next we headed back for our next FP+, our first ever Expedition Everest! Now, I have my first confession and I have a little guilt about this. I made all of our FP+ as a group because we were doing everything together and didn't want to separate. For a ride like EE, this left us with three kids too small (the youngest didn't have FP+) and my mom who doesn't like motion rides with unused FP+. Well, we decided that this seemed wasteful, so my brother, nephew, and I all went twice by borrowing Magicbands. I don't know if I should feel worse about this than I do, but I don't feel like we really affected the flow of traffic on the ride and we were only using existing FP+, so we felt OK about it. Anyway, here are our pics:
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I guess my BiL was more concerned with my nephew than I was. Those are the hands and hair of my sister in the second photo. I think we forgot, or missed, touching our MB's on her photo with my brother.

After EE, we had a Lunch ADR at Tusker House for 12:45. We had a little time to burn and took a train ride and looked around some of the shops. We took a couple of the nature walks as well throughout the day. Tusker House went really well. When I initially made our ADR I was unaware whether my Brother's family would be able to come and only made it for 6. When they decided to join us, I could only get another for in the same time period. Fortunately, the CM's in charge of reservations were incredibly helpful. They connected the dots and worked on getting all 11 of us together before I even asked. We were seated on time (which felt unlikely considering how crowded the park was) and the meal was fantastic. I know that you pay for the convenience of a sit down meal at the parks, but I feel like it has been worth it for me every time we've done it. The food was fantastic. The green curry shrimp getting special recognition. I am a big fan of Mediterranean and North African Cuisine so everything was great for me, but the kids and all of our adults loved it as well. Plus:
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It really was a great experience and my favorite character dining that we've done.

After lunch, we were off to our final FP+ of the day at Kilimanjaro Safari. I honestly didn't know what to expect, it's the only ride I remembered from my previous trip and very few animals were out when I went on it (the disappointment is what I remembered). I was very surprised when we saw basically every animal on the board including getting close enough to a few White Rhinos to touch them. The kids LOVED the Safari and, really, that's half the battle. It was also one of the few rides my youngest nephew could go on and he had a smile the whole time.

After that the realities of a crowded park with relatively few attractions hit us like a train. We attempted to add another FP+ with our allotment filled, but nothing in the entire park remained for the rest of the day. We tried getting in line for the Lion King and Nemo shows, but we were told at 3:00 that we were lining up for the 4:30 showing of Lion King and the kids decided they'd rather go home and get in some pool time rather than trying to wait for a show. I would have loved for the park to have been less crowded and seen what we could have accomplished under different circumstances, but it was an awesome day. As was posted earlier, we ended the day with a picture by the Christmas Tree. Jiminy Cricket is my dad's favorite character and that is the significance of getting him in the photo (He couldn't take the full time period off and joined us Wednesday of Marathon Weekend).

More to come...
 
Looking forward to reading more about your trip and races. We've stayed offsite most times we visited and this was our first time staying onsite in a Disney resort. I'm glad your enjoyed offsite. We've always had a great time. Definitely pros and cons to both off and onsite, but we found reasons to like both.

Great day at AK and I don't see a thing wrong with how you handled the FP+ for EE. I would have done the same thing. Sorry the kids didn't have a great appreciation for the bugs. WE always enjoy that show, but it does sort of make the bugs out to be not so great all the time.
 


We had predetermined that we would not be headed to parks on NYE and New Year's Day. Since it was also the weekend there was no mystery to what level of crowds we would have expected. We did head to Disney Springs early on Saturday and did some shopping (and eating). I've decided I'll do a Disney Springs round-up after finishing all of the park and race recaps. We always spend quite a bit of time over there during our trips and really enjoy the offerings so I figure it will be worth a recap.

On Monday, January 2 my brother's family was headed to meet up with some of my SiL's family and friends who live in the area, so we had a smaller group go over to HS. We were expecting (hoping) that the crowds were going to start thinning out after the Holidays...Nope. Nope nope nope. All of the nope. Hours were back to park opening at 9 AM and we arrived about 9:15 and already saw that it was going to be another rough crowd day. We still weren't prepared for how bad it would end up being. Our FP+ for the day were Star Tours in the morning followed by Toy Story Midway Mania in the early afternoon and ToT in the late afternoon. We got off to a bad start; we were hoping to hit the Frozen Sing-Along just as we entered, but we were a minute late to the first show gates closing so we move on. We were near Great American Movie Ride and decided to try that. We waited for 30 minutes at 9:30 AM, this was going to be a long day. Also, we kept up our streak of choosing convenient but not really ideal attractions for the kids to start the day. They didn't hate it, but it certainly wasn't a highlight for them. When we came back we were just in time for a showing of Frozen, so it turned out not to be too bad a thing that we missed the first showing. After that we headed back to our Star Tours FP+ (the kids loved it) and hit Muppets 3D while we were in the area.

We headed back up front and picked up some food at the Backlot Express. Navigating the park was difficult with such a large swath being closed for construction. It always felt like we were headed to a dead end and turning around to head back to the middle before picking another dead end. Anyways, I made a bad decision at the Backlot Express and got only a BB8 Cupcake. The cupcake was good, I just should have eaten something more substantantial (I paid for it later). After that we checked out Indy, but the show was standing room only so we decided to wait and went to have pictures taken with Olaf while waiting for the next show:
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It was really nice having Photopass with our AP's. First time ever with that luxury of not handing off our phones everywhere for any chance of getting the pictures. Also, I have no idea what ghost my sister saw in the first picture.

Headed back over to Indy. Raiders is my favorite movie, so I can't miss it. I think the park could sorely use an Indy-themed thrill ride of some sort. Good show, as it always is. I think we were done with everything on the "left side" of the park at that point and headed over to TSMM for our second FP+. It was my first time on this ride and while we had a lot of fun and some friendly competition, I couldn't help but feel the shooting mechanism was somewhat convoluted and aim was slightly off (the ruminations of a loosing video game player). I was starting to get a migraine at this point (nice job on the cupcake there buddy). We had some time before our 3:45 lunch/dinner at Mama Melrose's and my niece wanted to see Moana and my nephew didn't so we split off for a boys trip to meet Chewbacca:
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We headed for dinner and my headache took a turn for the worse and decided to bring his pal nausea to the party. I don't know whether I was having some sort of heatstroke/dehydration incident or a blood sugar issue or what, but this is the second time I have had only marginal sugary snacks all day and been feeling nauseous in the afternoon while at DIsney. Both times I've come out of it fine, but I've learned my lesson. Anyway, I was basically having cold sweats and the room was spinning for our entire dinner. I managed to eat a couple rolls, drink a lot of water, and eat a couple pieces of chicken from my dinner. I believe having some actual food in my stomach combined with the nausea medication I took (my Sister and BiL are both doctors, so they tend to have everything for every situation) and I was coming back around by the time we were leaving. I would never voluntarily not eat food so it was weird leaving with a to-go box, but it made for a good dinner when we returned home.

My nephew had psyched himself out about ToT during dinner (I don't think the theme would have suited him either) so we cancelled our final FP+ and headed to RnRR which was listed with a 70 minute wait. My mom and niece were going to watch the Beauty and the Beast show while we waited in line, but the final show for the day had already reached capacity when we got over there. We made a quick check and were able to get them scheduled for a Disney Jr. FP+ before hopping in the RnRR line. Fortunately the 70 minutes was accurate and both groups had a great time:
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My sister and I thought "jazz hands" were the way to go for the picture. You can make your own determination as to whether that was a good plan. This was my nephew's (and probably my) favorite ride of the trip.

My mom and niece were out of Disney Jr. before we were off RnRR and were given the task of going over to get seats for Fantasmic! We thought everything was going to plan when we got off RnRR at 6:10. We were wrong. Oh, we were so wrong. We headed straight over to meet them at their seats and were put into the second batch of "standing room only" patrons being forced to wait until 6:50 to be released to go find a spot to stand and watch the show. This was my biggest disappointment of the trip. My mom and niece were basically trapped at their seats (my niece badly had to use the restroom) as there were announcements being made that people who left their seats to use the restroom should not expect them to be there when they returned. Long story short, we were released at 6:55 and made our way to my mom and niece and had good seats for the show, my niece made it to the restroom, and Fantasmic! was awesome as always. It really was the ultimate display of how out-of-control the crowds were though. We arrived earlier than recommended and still nearly missed out altogether on seeing the show (they began turning people away after they had the standing room queues filled).

We were disappointed to miss Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, but we had a pretty full day considering how bad the crowds were. I think I would have had a very different take on the day if we had missed Fantasmic! but disaster was averted.

Next up Magic Kingdom...
 
And we were off to Magic Kingdom on Tuesday. This was to be the last day in Florida for my brother's family and I don't think there's a better place to spend it. It was also my birthday.

We knew going in that we would not be able to ride 7DMT. I set up all of the FP+ and because we were staying offsite we only had a 30-day window. When I signed on to set them up the only options were 8 PM and later. With a group of 5 kids under the age of 8, there was no logical reason to expect we would be in the park that late (and we weren't). So that was a bit of a disappointment, it is still the only attraction in MK I haven't been able to ride. Outside of that we were prepared for a great day. We had FP+ for Space Ranger Spin in the AM and in the PM we had Peter Pan and a Rapunzel/Tiana meet and greet. This was really my first misstep with our FP+. I tried to set them up to maximize opportunities for everyone in our party to go on all of the FP+ rides. As it turned out, my youngest niece and nephew were both sleeping or my SiL was uninterested in taking them on the rides when the FP+ times rolled around, so I guess I should have targeted slightly older rides for the other kids. Live and learn.

We arrived at the park around 9:15 (I'm always ready to go bright and early, but it's not easy to get this party of 11 moving in the same direction each morning) and after a monorail ride and navigating through the bag check and ticketing it was probably about 9:45 when we entered the park. Our first FP+ was at 10:15 so we had a chance to do something else first. We made our way to Tomorrowland and the kids weren't really interested in the Astro Orbiter so we headed back to Mad Tea Party. Oddly enough, my 5-year-old nephew remembers nothing of our trip two years ago other than the tea cups. This was an opportune time to do that ride before head back to our FP+. There was virtually no wait and we loaded up two cups, one with myself, BiL, and two nephews, the other with my sister, SiL and two nieces (mom, brother and youngest nephew abstained. It was fun and the kids love doing boys vs girls in certain situations, although I'm not sure how you go about scoring a round of Tea Cups. We headed back to Tomorrowland for our first FP+ after that:
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We managed to get everyone on a ride! I have to admit that I enjoy video games a little too much, so I enjoy this ride. My oldest nephew likes it too, but he really doesn't like losing (and is only 7, so still not great at video games) so it's a delicate balance to not have him get upset if he doesn't perceive his score as being good enough. Nephew (5), was the big winner. He was in a car with my BiL (his uncle) and, apparently, was working on a score of 600 until he hit something in the last room and added about 200,000 to his score.

We needed to hit a "girl ride" next, so we headed back to The Little Mermaid. This is my oldest niece's favorite ride and it was really fun seeing how excited she was to show everyone the different parts of the ride. Another 11 of 11 ride, so it was nice being able to do some rides where everyone was involved. After that we got in line for the Ariel meet and greet and got a nice picture of the group:
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For those of you who are concerned, SiL was just out of frame and rescued my youngest nephew before he managed to wiggle his way into a fall.

We were in a little bit of a conundrum at this point. It was about 11:00 and we had an ADR at Crystal Palace at 12:15. The crowds had caught up to the park by this time, so there wasn't much we could do in less than 1 hour. First, we were using apps to try to gauge ride times and headed to Laugh Floor, by the time we got there the kids were unenthusiastic about it, so we went back to the Barnstormer and Dumbo. My sister, BiL, and I took the three oldest kids on the Barnstormer while everyone else considered Dumbo, but ended up just walking around the area, using the restroom, and checking out some of the shops as they led the way over the Crystal Palace. We finished the Barnstormer at about 12:00 and headed over to meet them for our ADR. Fortunately, they were able to catch a bit of a parade and a couple mini-shows? (I don't know what else to call them) on Main Street while they were waiting. We've eaten at Crystal Palace before and the food's not really anything special, but it gets the job done and with a group as large as ours it's really nice to be able to do a table service meal rather than trying to wrangle everyone while trying to do quick service. Plus, Pooh and Friends:
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Eeyore is my favorite Disney character so I'm probably more enthusiastic about this selection of characters than a lot of people. I got a pic with him for my birthday but it's on someone else's phone and we are still working on combining our picture resources. Pictures of the kids are a lot cuter anyway. I did get two bowls of soft serve ice cream (Basically my favorite thing in the world. What can I say? I'm a simple man.) for dessert, so I was quite happy with how the meal went.

After lunch the group had decided to head back to It's a Small World. That ride is basically a waking fever dream for me, so I abstained and took the opportunity to walk around main street, check out some shops, stay in the air conditioning, etc. before heading back to Peter Pan. Peter Pan never ceases to confound me. On the one hand, I know how busy i is and that we need a FP+ if we are going to ride it. On the other hand, I can't figure out for the life of me why the line is perpetually long. It seems like a continuous track ride should clear out a little quicker, no? I like the ride itself and I'm a sucker for black light in any form, so I guess I can't complain. Once again, everyone could participate and that's a good thing.

Next, we deviated off course. My oldest niece and nephew loooooove Splash Mountain and had been somewhat crestfallen all day that it was not on the itinerary (it was on the docket for Thursday). They had been to WDW last September and had been to the Rapunzel/Tiana meet and greet, Nephew (5) has no interest in meeting Princesses, and Niece (3) has not really seen those two movies and has a singular obsession with Princess Jasmine. It was about 2:45 and Thunder Mountain was listed at 70 minutes and Splash Mountain was 150, so we decided to split up. My brother, BiL, Nephews (7 & 5), Niece (5), and I headed back to Frontierland to see what we could do about Splash Mountain knowing that it likely meant we couldn't make a FP+ that expired at 4:15. My mom, sister, SiL, and youngest niece and nephew stayed to shop and possibly hit the FP+ with Tiana and Rapunzel. Well, we didn't want to be split up for over 2 hours so we broke it to the kids that we were going to do Thunder Mountain. In a moment of shocking fortune, we ended up waiting only about 30 minutes for the ride.

To be continued (reached max pictures)...
 
Because of that luck the FP+ was back in play. We headed to Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride (they were listed at 10 minutes) and texted our other group about our fortune. As they were headed over, we noticed that there was an Aladdin and Jasmine meet and greet. When they arrived it was clear that we were going to cancel the FP+ and the group would split again. Mom, SiL, Neice (3), and Nephew (1) would be staying, getting a Dole Whip Float, and waiting for Aladdin and Jasmine (they ended up waiting over an hour). The rest of us were going to brave the now 120 minute Splash Mountain line. We headed back over to Splash Mountain and got in line. Another admission, it's my favorite MK ride and I didn't want to miss it either. We were hoping the wait time was listed wrong like with Thunder Mountain, it was not. We waited a little more than 2 hours to ride. Even though we didn't wait much longer than advertised, it was pretty maddening. I had noticed in the morning that the ride had been closed for about 2 hours at park opening and I think this created a massive backlog of FP+. The FP+ was continuously filled and it appeared they were filling about 10 cars with FP+ to every 1 they filled with stand-by riders. I think the ride shut down a couple times as well, but it was really hard to tell what was fully going on from our spot in line. Anyway, we finally made it and had an entire car to ourselves. Here are the pics from those two adventures:
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My niece got a kiss from Jasmine and didn't want to wash it off. It looked like she had fallen on her head and had a big red mark. Every adult member of our group asked "what happened to her?" upon seeing it. The one bonus to our long wait was that we hit the ride just as the sun was going down and lights on the Castle were turned on. That picture doesn't do it justice, but it was pretty cool riding at that time of night.

After we finished we met up and decided it was time to head home. The youngest ones in our group really can't make it a full day for the fireworks and we were ready to head out and find somewhere to sit down for dinner as well.

Up next, we finally get to Race Weekend! New characters, 5K and another day at MK.
 
Great job trying to keep such a large group happy in MK on a crowded day! As for missing out on the 7DMT, IMHO you didn't miss much by going on BTMR instead - much better and longer ride. 7DMT is way too short for the time/FP investment required. But then, I think BOG is wayyyy overrated too, so who am I to judge?

FWIW, my go-to stand-bys on crowded MK days are Wedway, Haunted Mansion, Tom Sawyer's Island, and Pirates.
 
Time to run! No more sleeping in (or so I thought...).

Wednesday brought a change in house guests. My Brother's family left early in the morning to drive home, but my Dad and Aunt flew in that morning and my mom picked them up and met the rest of us in Disney Springs before heading to the Expo. I'll cover Disney Springs later and I think you all know about the, um, madness of the first day of the Expo. We had planned to walk around and check out the vendors and merchandise, but we arrived at about 1:30 (which seemed like it was about as bad as it got) and decided we could come back if necessary.

Thursday featured the 5K and our second trip to MK. For the second straight year I decided to run the 5K in my Eeyore onesie. This year my sister was going to join me as Tigger, which was pretty awesome. The thing about running in a onesie: they are really nice and comfy while waiting in the corral, but they are like choosing to run in a portable sauna once the race begins. We took it easy, both by choice and out of necessity and finished the race in ~32:00. I had not remembered from last year that my stride is hindered by the onesie, but it was just as hot as I remembered:
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As you can see from the beautiful glimmer on our faces, we had a nice "glow" about us for a good period after finishing. I remembered where @DopeyBadger had planned to wait after the 5K and went over and said "Hi". Unfortunately, that was my one and only meet and greet from the boards all week. We ran without the hoods on for the majority of the race because the mouth on Eeyore has stuffing in it and is very hard to regulate it's position on my head. We threw them on for the finishing stretch and for pictures afterward. The race was a blast as always. We headed to the stands to watch for the rest of our group. They were mostly walking from Corral F, so we were there for a while. It's always fun watching them finish. We headed home after the race to get the rest of the crew and figure out our plan for MK.

We had a bit of a monkey wrench in our plans in the form of my cousin. She was flying in at 8:45, so we had to send a car to pick her up and one of our annual passes needed to be with them so they could park free at MK (we could have paid the $20, but it seemed silly since we had to pick her up anyway). My sister and BiL headed for the airport and my Aunt, Mom, Dad, and I took the kids to the park. We arrived a little after 10:30 after a much longer wait for the monorail and through bag check. Somehow my dad got separated from the group, so my mom and niece stayed back while my aunt, nephew and I headed for our first FP+ that was due to expire at 10:55. They found my dad and we had enough time to wait for him to ride Space Mountain. It was my nephews first time on Space Mountain and he loved it:
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Not really the best angle for a picture, but I guess they aren't changing it at this point.

We knew we had a good hour to wait before our other group joined us. We were in contact and although the airport went great, they accidentally drove toward AK, then ended up taking a ferry and by the time they got across to MK the bag check line was ~15 minutes long. So we stayed in Tomorrowland and hit Space Ranger Spin again. Pictures are pretty much the same as the other day, so I don;t really think I need to post more. It was the second lucky line we had for the week. Listed at 50 minutes and took less than 30. We had enough time for the kids to meet Buzz Lightyear before meeting our other group and having lunch:
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We had lunch at Tomorrowland Terrace. Nothing special this time around, just chicken fingers/sandwiches but it did the trick. The rest of the day was kind of a mad dash around MK. We went and waited in line for Splash Mountain (My niece (who didn't like BTMRR on Tuesday), sister, mom and dad went back to Little Mermaid) before hitting our second FP+ of the day at Big Thunder Mountain. My mom and niece sat it out. We then got in line for our FP+ at Splash Mountain (only my mom sat this one out) but when we were a couple cars from going they shut down the ride. We all got FP+ tickets to use on anything other than 7DMT and Peter Pan for later in the day.

My mom, dad, aunt, and cousin were pretty tired at this point. We headed to Main Street USA to do some shopping (and got waylaid by the Festival of Fantasy Parade, man is that thing slow when you just want to get somewhere). The ladies all needed Ears for the 10K, so they picked them out and the aforementioned group decided to leave. My sister, BiL, niece, nephew and I hung around. We still had 10 FP+ tickets and a rearranged FP+ for everyone except my nephew and I for Little Mermaid after cancelling the Space Mountain FP+ that some couldn't make it for. We tried to use the passes as judiciously as possible and got in rides on SSS, Space Mountain, Splash Mountain after it reopened and a couple others (not everyone went on every ride). My sister and niece went to meet Belle while we did our last ride on Splash Mountain:
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My BiL decided to ham it up with the kid's Gaston's Tavern mug.

That ended a very full and hectic day and we were ready to go home and sleep for the 10K.

Up next: 10K and Epcot
 
I LOVE the shots with you and your sister in those onesies. I'm a big Pooh and friends fan. Great job on the run. You really packed a lot into that day!! Your family seems great. Excited to read about your 10k.
 
Friday was our last day at the parks for this vacation:(. But first we had a 10K to run. My sister and I were starting in B and the rest of our crew was going to walk together out of F. My sister is faster than I am (particularly this time since I didn't get my act together to train correctly) and we weren't doing costumes so we separated for this run because we are both more comfortable running at different paces (she's a metronome and I'm, um, a little less consistent).

We were really happy with the weather for this run. Maybe a little warm, but it was comfortable waiting beforehand and afterward and wasn't too hot for the run. I guess that's all you can really hope for. I started off this run feeling like complete garbage. My legs shouldn't really have been tired (maybe covering MK three or four times and wracking up about 10 miles in the park on Thursday had a bigger effect than I thought it would?), but they were and my first three splits were in the 10:30 to 11:00 range. After those first three miles though, I felt great and was re-energized. This ended up being the longest race I have ever negative split (not something I'm proud of, but it's true) and my final full mile split was 9:18 so I was pretty happy with that. Finished in 1:03:03 about four or five minutes behind my sister. We were both really happy with the run and how our legs felt afterward. We settled in to wait for the rest of our group in the stands while we drank some water (she got coffee). We were there for about an hour when the rest of our group finished. My aunt had some restroom issues and finished 2-3 minutes behind the others, but a good time was had by all:
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We headed home after meeting up with everyone and got ready for the turnaround to Epcot. My Mom, Dad, Aunt, and Cousin all chose to take a little longer to recover, shower, etc. so I headed out with my Sister, BiL, Niece, and Nephew for the park. We arrived at about 10:00 and had a FP+ for Test Track that expired at 11:15, but we were going to wait for the rest of our group to see if they would make it in time. We headed back to Les Halles and I got my celebratory Palmier. I get one (or more) every time I'm in Epcot, it's basically become a tradition. Puff Pastry with cinnamon and sugar then dunked in chocolate for a nice Mickey effect? Yes, please. I'm always tempted to try other things, but I'm a creature of habit. Anyway, now that I've salivated all over the keyboard, my sister and niece stopped to see Mary Poppins in England on the way back (Epcot was the first park we arrived at that wasn't jam packed from the start) so we grabbed them a snack as well and headed back up to Test Track to see if we could meet the rest of our group.

Fortunately, they had not been delayed long and we were all set when we arrived up front. My mom sat out again. This is because she doesn't like motion rides. She would prefer not to go on any rides at all, which doesn't compute for me; just thought I'd make sure it didn't seem like she was volunteering to be the odd man out. This was the first "big kid" ride my nephew ever went on a few years ago so it is a favorite for all of us. Plus, it's really fun to see the kids design their cars and do the interactive things after the ride. Here is our primary car photo (it was the first time my niece had been on the ride):
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After the ride was over we split up. With fewer attractions at Epcot than the other parks, it wasn't as vital to stay together. My Parents went to explore World Showcase on their own, as did my Aunt and Cousin. I tagged along with my Sister's family and we hit The Seas and then stopped for some pictures with Baymax and Joy & Sadness:
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I feel compelled at this point to note the kids' complexion. In a lot of the photos from our adventures their (and my) hair is quite slick. Unfortunately, we all need sun tan lotion on our scalps to avoid sun damage whenever we are out for long periods. We don't like wearing hats, so it's just the way it's got to be.

At this point we were also ready to begin our drink/eat around the world. I don't drink (I know, I know) but the rest of our adults do so it was a good day for all of them and they took advantage of it. My mom and Dad held back so that they were both functional to drive one vehicle. I, however, was not planning to drive but was forced into action due to the consumption over the next few hours. My BiL definitely complete his DATW and my Sister, Aunt, and Cousin weren't far behind (if they were behind at all). We had an ADR for late lunch/early dinner at Teppan Edo for 3:45 so we started in Canada and they were a few countries in before we met with the rest of the group. I picked up a soft serve swirl waffle cone in France, so I was happy as well.

Dinner was great. My dad is a very meat and potatoes kind of guy and Teppanyaki is, literally, as adventurous as he will get. We had a joke going that I couldn't make an ADR for the Epcot Applebee's or Texas Roadhouse. It's also a pretty fun meal for the kids. I got the chicken and shrimp but ended up being really jealous of my Mom's scallops. Here's a group photo (note the sake flights):
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It was starting to get late after we finished and two of us still believed we were going to be running a Half Marathon in the AM so we continued to DATW with the recognition that we would head home about 6PM. It was a pretty tipsy, but ultimately uneventful remainder of the night as we worked back toward the exits. None of us were checking our phones or we would have seen the email about the delay and probably would have stayed long enough to get the update about the cancellation. At that point we would have stayed for Illuminations, but it was nice to get home and have a little time to relax as a group after we learned of the weather issue. More time in the hot tub.

I'm having a tough time cranking more than one of these out a day with all of the sorting and reformatting I'm doing on the pictures so I probably won't have another until tomorrow. Up next, Half disappointment and Disney Springs Round-Up.
 
Well done on your 10K and on your negative splits. The running shots you got look great and love seeing your family in your matching 10K shirts!
 
Well done on your 10K and on your negative splits. The running shots you got look great and love seeing your family in your matching 10K shirts!

I've gotten a little better over the years at identifying the location of the photographers. I never deviate course so that I don't interfere with anyone else's pictures and some photographers sneak up on me, but I usually get a few good ones every year.
 
That's one happy looking family! Inspires me to think that for my next RunDisney race I need to wear some sort of "DATW - It's Always 5pm in Epcot!" shirt.
 

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