Trip Report Brifraz's Vaguely Live Rated R Trip Report

OK, so that thread title is a bit misleading.

Why rated R? Well, this is my 17th trip report which means that my trip reports can now get into R movies without a parent (and get drafted as well). It's a little scary how fast they grow up, isn't it? I'm a little worried that 4 trip reports from now, I'll just post a single picture of the Rose and Crown and be done with it since at 21, I expect that is all my trip report will be doing.

Why vaguely live? I make a rather meager attempt to post updates to the TR from my phone throughout each day. Due to my limited ability to utilize modern technology, rather outdated iPhone (5, in case you were wondering), and failure to remember to post at times the live aspect becomes vague at best and often totally obscured.

If somehow you've missed out on the fun of a Brifraz trip report in the past, let me welcome you to our family. We are a family of three whose lives are pretty much totally dictated by the world of public education. I'm a high school music teacher, my wife (@MeffysMom) is an English and drama teacher, and our daughter is a high school sophomore. We are at three different high schools and all highly involved in after school activities (marching band, jazz band, pit orchestra, plays, musicals, academic team, cross country...the list goes on from there) so vacations during the school year are certainly a premium. However, we have made time thrice in the last four years to do the Half Marathon weekend - it's tough, but we make it happen (if you've followed our trip reports before, you know the vast majority of our trips are heat and crowds of summer or cool and crowds of Christmas). Here's me (the one on the left).
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Three years ago, my wife ran her first half marathon at Disney and then last year both girls ran the half marathon and it was our daughter's first. While I'd love to be running with them, I did quite a bit of running in my youth and have the knees to show for it - a 5K is pretty much my max. In fact, that year that my wife did her first marathon, I did the 5K with our daughter. In fact, that's me on the left again...I did hear from quite a few folks that I was the prettiest Anna that morning.
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And here are the two girls in the midst of the half marathon last year, posing with their twins.
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Yes, @MeffysMom does enjoy sewing some unique costumes. In the coming days, you can look forward to seeing Minnie Mouse, Megara from Hercules, and a couple of Mary Poppins (classic and modern).

What else can you expect in the coming days? Well, pretty commando touring. We've actually slowed down in the past few years, but you can still expect to see us hitting all the headliners in each park (generally before noon each day) and catching most of the night shows as well. On race days, we make sure to have the afternoon nap, but other than those few hours, we tend to be on the go pretty much all the time. I'll try to update on actual wait times (not what the app lists, but how long we actually wait) and of course, will post lots of food pictures. And, once the girls get done the big race a whole mess of character pictures.

We also are planners. Extensive planners. We have two major plans fully typed and printed out for this trip as well as quite a few plan B's in place for each day. In addition to planning our 25 trips together, @MeffysMom and I have planned trips for a number of other families. Which makes the beginning of this trip a real interesting prospect. The plan is already thrown out of wack.

This coming Wednesday, 2/20, I have a concert to conduct at 7pm. The plan was, to leave home in Maryland right after the concert and drive all night so we could arrive in the World right around lunchtime. Well, the forecast for Wednesday now has us getting 5+ inches of snow plus a quarter inch of ice. Not ideal driving conditions. But also, not ideal school conditions. So, we will be anxiously awaiting that 5am update from the school district on Wednesday morning.

Not that we want to be driving the first 4 hours south in heavy snow, but unless someone has the foresight to make a decision about school closing on Tuesday night, that is likely what will be happening. We don't want to get stuck home when it gets bad because our road almost NEVER gets plowed during storms and there are a couple more generally poor country roads before we get to something that even MIGHT get plowed. Right now, the snow is supposed to hit us right around 7am which means we could be somewhat in the clear until we get a little ways down the road. Granted, right now I'm looking at 4 different forecasts that have vastly different prospects for the area between our home and south of Richmond (where everyone seems to agree it will be pretty much a rain event).

So, with 2 plans, 4 costumes, and 3 hearts full of excitement (not to mention a pair of snow boots and a small shovel in case we get stuck somewhere) we will be heading out soon. See you then.
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
Good morning! Pretty sure I left you at the runners expo in the 45 minute line to get in. Well, once in there was about 10 minutes of shopping and then the 20 minute line to check out. Likely our longest lines of the weekend (yep, an hour to buy race swag).

So we headed to Old Key West to relax and eat and hopefully get into our room. Of course, that meant a visit to one of our favorite haunts The Gurgling Suitcase - drinks and pork nachos.
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While we ate and drank our room became ready, so we moved in and got settled. The girls took an hour of relax time at the pool while I made a run to the grocery store.

A little after 4pm we headed back to Studios for our evening touring. Saw gondolas in full speed testing.
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Armed with FP+, we hit Toy Story Midway Mania, then grabbed a quick dinner at Fairfax Fare, and the Rockin Roller Coaster. Maybe not the best choice right after food!
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Then we did Tower of Terror and made sure to mock some statues.
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Next we headed back to Toy Story Land and waited for a post-closing ride on Slinky Dog. About 45 minutes in line and we played Play Disney Parks app game the whole time. It's for little kids, but we sure have fun with it! And got a little silly afterward.
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We headed out just as fireworks were starting and back to OKW where @MeffysMom and I had a nightcap at the Suitcase and then to bed.

It's 7:20am and time to catch the bus to Magic Kingdom. See you soon!
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
Good afternoon! It's nap time for the runners (in preparation for 2:30am wake up to run) so here's the morning update!

We got to Magic Kingdom a minute or two after 8am and headed straight to Peter Pan. Since we weren't quite at rope drop, we waited about 15-20 minutes in line, but again had fun with Play Disney Parks to pass the time! After Pan we did Its a Small World, sine no trip is really complete without it!
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Rather than rush for another ride we made a quick visit to Rapunzel and then waited for rope drop to head to Big Thunder. Again, the crowd was big so even toward the front we were waiting 20 minutes. No worries and fun as always.
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Rather than wait half an hour for Splash we crossed the park for some Tomorrowland time. Oh, but had to get an artsy picture along the way.
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Once in Tomorrowland we did the Peoplemover first and got this sweet view of the Tron progress.
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Time for our Space Mountain FP+. I'm not a big roller coaster fan, but the girls love them and I like taking this picture.
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We had about 45 minutes to kill before our next FP+ and some hunger. Which meant a churro at the Lunching Pad followed by a visit to this old friend.
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I still hope they restore things to their original state as the 1960s vision of the future, but it is fun nonetheless.

Our last stop of the morning was FP+ at Buzz and a fun ride there. Oh, yeah we also stopped for a picture outside of Space Mtn and got photo bombed.
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Out of the park before noon and back at OKW for lunch before the current naps began. And I think it's about time I did the same!
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
Lové your artsy picture - very beautiful colors with the flowers in the foreground and the blue of the sky and light castle in the background

Thanks! Guess those photo classes years ago paid off. But I'm really bummed that I forgot to pack my nice digital SLR, especially with my last Illuminations coming up. Most of the pictures are from @MeffysMom, except a few of the odd artsy ones and long arm selfies!
 

DisSplash

Well-Known Member
Lové your artsy picture - very beautiful colors with the flowers in the foreground and the blue of the sky and light castle in the background

I totally agree! Very nice perspective and the colors really pop. It sounds like you all are having a blast, and making pretty good progress through the parks.

Nice preview of those icky Gondolas ... I am not a fan. I think that they are unsightly, and I can just smell liability. I can also imagine future scenarios where people are stuck swinging in their gondolas in the middle of a thunderstorm ... or due to some random operational malfunction. It's safe to say I won't ever get on one. |End vent here|.

But you guys have a blast tomorrow. Get some good rest and have fun in your family run!!
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
It's 9:30pm on Friday and that 2:30am wake-up call is coming too soon! But before sleep, it's time for a quick update.

After some good napping, we headed to the Poly a little after 4pm for our dinner at Ohana. It was the first time having dinner there and it was really excellent, but WAY too much food. Made us feel a little bad about the amount of waste. Here's the bread pudding.
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More than fully fed, walked around Poly for a while and the caught the boat to Magic Kingdom. We still had half an hour before our Mine Train FP+, so first we stopped off for a picture.
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Then we watched Mickey's Philharmagic before our Mine Train ride. The FP line for Mine Train was a little long, but those 15 minutes are sure better than the 120 on the standby side!

Next we headed to the front of the park to watch the fireworks from a quick exit location. Ended up on the deck of the train station which worked pretty well. I enjoyed Happily Ever After a little more this time than previously, so it is growing on me a bit. Soon as the show was over we monorailed out of there and are now all getting to some fast sleep.

Tomorrow morning, it's 10k for the girls and then straight to Animal Kingdom. See you then!
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
Nice preview of those icky Gondolas ... I am not a fan. I think that they are unsightly, and I can just smell liability. I can also imagine future scenarios where people are stuck swinging in their gondolas in the middle of a thunderstorm ... or due to some random operational malfunction. It's safe to say I won't ever get on one. |End vent here|.

But you guys have a blast tomorrow. Get some good rest and have fun in your family run!!

Not sure yet my opinion on the gondolas. I grew up living the ones over Magic Kingdom, so there's a bit of nostalgia there...and there are some very similar ones that are very successful around the world. So I'm hesitantly hopeful, I'd say.

The girls run, but not me. I did a lot of running when I was younger and now my knees can barely handle a 5k. So this weekend I am merely support.
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
First off, a couple pictures from this morning's race (more to come later!).
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And now, on to the morning' Animal Kingdom touring. We got in at about 8:30am and knowing that Pandora would be nuts, we headed to Everest first for a ride (and to watch some monkey hijinks along the way). Next was over to the Safari (with FP+). Good ride with a very informative guide (more than usual and different facts) - baby hippo was having fun, giraffes were heading for food, lots of elephants, and three rhinos cuddled up together. Maybe some of those pics another time, too. After our safari, we crossed back to Asia but stopped for a few minutes along the way.
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And back to Everest again with the FP+.
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A second yeti encounter under our belts, we went to watch our favorite show on site. We do love Finding Nemo, the musical! Our last AK stop was Primeval Whirl, one of our daughters favorites.

At this point it was past noon and time to back to our room to eat and rest. It's 4pm now, everyone is cleaned up and napped up, so off to Disney Springs we go!
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
Quick 6am update as I wait for the girls at Magic Kingdom. Last night was a brief Springs visit for a little shopping and dinner at Raglan. Pics later (promise).

This morning was another 2:30am wake up for the race. Here are my Marys (old and new version).
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And here's the castle at 5:45am!
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See you this afternoon with lots more.
 

brifraz

Marching along...
Premium Member
Original Poster
And now a few pictures from dinner last night at Raglan Road. We all tried things we hadn't had before, which was good, because everything was excellent.

The flight of beers (which was followed by the obligatory Kilkenny).
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Then @MeffysMom and my dinners - the Shepherd's Pie and the Gnocchi with scallops.
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And finally, our daughters braised beef with colcannon and veggies.
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In fact, we just had leftovers for lunch and they were still great!
 

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