Trip Report * Completed* For the First Time In Forever We'll Have Magic, We'll Have Fun

Hello @Longers @Doc Disney @prfctlyximprct @Tuvalu and my fellow Disney fanatics. Welcome to my 2016 Princess 5K Trip Report!


Who: Me (Lisa) and my younger sister, Tina
When: February 17 -22, 2016
Where: The Poly!
Why: 2015 sucked and we were in desperate need of the magic and protection of the Disney Bubble. And oh yeah, my 50th Birthday!!

How this trip came about:
In December of 2014 my sister suggested that we do something, just the two of us, to celebrate my 50th birthday. Knowing that she loves Disney as much as I do, I suggested a Disney trip. I'd been reading lots of runDisney trip reports so we decided that it would be fun to run in the Princess 5K. Tina had run in a few 5Ks, but until we came up with this idea I had never run a 5K in my life.
Right away I went into planning mode and started researching resorts and planning our tentative itinerary.
Then, in April of 2015 our mom, who has dementia, became very ill and needed surgery followed by a lengthy stay in a skilled nursing facility. At the end of April our dad, who was our mom's primary caregiver, had a sudden loss of his short term memory. Tina and I began taking 24 hour shifts of staying with and caring for our dad. As our mom improved, our dad declined and he passed away at the end of June. The remainder of 2015 was a blur of finding an assisted living community for our mom, clearing out & selling our mom & dad's home and dealing with all the other details that go along with that.
Throughout all of this, the thought of our Disney trip lifted our spirits and kept us going. We decided that along with celebrating my birthday, our trip would also be a celebration of our dad and our wonderful family of four.

Here is a photograph of our family on our first trip to Walt Disney World in the early 1980's.

This is one of our favorite family photographs. Tina was not happy that they put her in that sailor suit, but she was a good sport and smiled anyway!

While we were cleaning out our mom & dad's house we found a box containing all of the maps, pamphlets, guide books, and our mom's notes for every family vacation we took.
We were super excited to find these:




Up next: Our trip begins!

 

[LisaBelle]

After a few quick photos in front of the Tree of Life we headed for Dinosaur. As we were walking we saw that Russell and Dug were out and their line was super short. This was a great meet and greet.







After our visit with Russel and Dug we were ready to travel back in time to meet some dinosaurs.



Tina had never ridden this ride so it was fun to see her reactions.



Then we headed for Asia. We showed the Photopass photographer that we were indeed ready for our Expedition to Everest!



The ride was a walk on, so we rode again! We had a short (5-10 minute) wait for our second expedition. While we were in the queue we talked to a teacher who was going to be bringing her class to AK for a field trip. Her principal had sent her to AK for the day so she could do research to prepare for the field trip. Wish I taught at that school!!
Some photos from the queue:



Oh no! Where will we go now?!!!!



For some reason I only have one of our EE photos.

 

[LisaBelle]

After a quick stop in the gift shop for Tina to buy a Yeti, we headed for Africa and the Kilimanjaro Safari.
Every time we visit AK I take a picture of my kids playing these drums. Since they weren't there this time I played the drums for them.



When we joined the Safari queue Tina was presented with this:

We were in the front row for our safari. I've never been up front before so I really enjoyed it.




We saw tons of animals! Here is a sampling of what we saw:








Since we'd skipped breakfast we were getting hungry. We were thinking about going to Starbucks until I came to my senses and realized we could have a spiked Dole Whip! My favorite snack of the trip! As we were walking along enjoying our Coconut Rum Dole Whips Tina said, "We skipped the caffeine and went straight to the alcohol!" Only at Disney !

My Dole Whip enjoyed it's own photo shoot in front of Everest and the Tree of Life:





We took the opportunity for one more photo in front of the tree of life.

 

[gobstoper27]

Your sissy is AMAZING, that basket was so sweet and super cute!! The lights in the lobby were beautiful. I hope to stay at the poly one day.

 

[LisaBelle]

While the spiked Dole Whips were delicious, we decided we needed something a bit more substantial, so we headed for Flame Tree Barbecue. Because we had a 3:50 Fantasmic Dining Package ADR at Mama Melrose's, we decided to share a meal and get an extra drink.



It was delicious and we enjoyed seeing the Rivers of Light construction. It looks like it will be a great venue for the new show.



Thought I had more photos of the Rivers of Light construction but I can't find them at the moment.

After lunch we headed out of AK because we needed to visit the Expo at Wide World of Sports to pick up our race bibs.
Because we had bad bus karma this morning and we had a lot on our itinerary for today, we decided to take a cab to the Expo. It was a bit pricey but we felt like it was worth because it saved us some time.

It was about this time that I realized I was seriously overdressed for the weather. I'd ditched my jacket hours ago, but I was dying in my long sleeve shirt and pants. I decided that I had to buy myself a shirt at the expo so I didn't collapse from heat stroke!



We took a photo in front of the banner even though we were only running the 5K





Here is the bib pick up area. It was gigantic, but when we were there it wasn't super busy. We were in the slowest bib pick up line. The other volunteers were way more efficient than the pair at our window.


My bib! I was very excited because I'd never been in a race before.


Commemorative Pin


Then we headed to the vendor area to do some shopping and pick up our race shirts. This area was very crowded but most people were maintaining their civility.


Race shirt


Tina and I enjoyed looking around at all the merchandise, but we had Fastpasses waiting for us at DHS so we kept our visit fairly short. We both bought a Princess Half Marathon weekend travel mug. We bought Sweaty Bands headbands for the race and I bought a short sleeved runDisney shirt.
With our expo tasks complete we grabbed a cab and headed for DHS.

 

[LisaBelle]

Your sissy is AMAZING, that basket was so sweet and super cute!! The lights in the lobby were beautiful. I hope to stay at the poly one day.

I have to agree! My sister is amazing and I loved the basket. The Poly is beautiful. Hope you get to stay there one day. Thanks for reading!

 

[LisaBelle]

A few minutes later we were waiting in the bag check line at DHS. We wanted to rent a locker so we didn't have to carry all of our race/expo stuff with us. As we moved away from the bag check area I started glancing around for the closest lockers. It was then that I noticed a security person approaching. I was sure that I'd been randomly selected for additional security screening, but he said, "You look like you have a question." Relieved I asked where the nearest locker rental was located. He told me and then he said, "And you've also been randomly selected for additional security screening." Tina said I must really fit the profile of a middle aged white woman because I was randomly selected again at MK later in the week.
Finally we entered DHS


No Hat! This was the first time since my honeymoon in 1989 that I'd seen DHS without the hat.


I LOVE this Magic Shot!


We were heading for our Toy Story Fastpass+ when we ran into these guys. A guest had insulted the First Order and the Storm Troopers arrested him! It was really fun to watch. My nephew loves all things Star Wars so Tina took lots of photos of the Storm Troopers for him.




Tina had never ridden Toy Story Midway Mania before. She loved it, but unfortunately for her I kicked her butt!




Just for the record, I know my score isn't great, but I NEVER win at these types of games so I was very pleased with myself!
Next we did something neither of us had ever done before. We toured One Man's Dream. I really enjoyed it. As a teacher I got a kick out of seeing Walt's desk.



It was getting close to time for our dinner reservation so we started walking to Mama Melrose's. We took a wrong turn and had a great interaction with a CM. As long as we were on the Streets of America we decided to take a selfie and the Photopass Photographer offered to take a photo for us. We joked around with him for a few minutes and he took some more photos of us. We asked him to take a selfie with us. I wish I'd written down his name, but I was sure I'd be able to see his name tag in the photo so I didn't. He was a lot of fun! As you can see, I am wearing the shirt I bought at the expo.







Our new friend directed us to Mama Melrose's and we were off!
Edit: I found my notes and his name was James!

 

[LisaBelle]

We arrived at Mama Melrose's a few minutes tardy, but they weren't ready for us. They gave us a pager and we looked around in the shop next door. After only a few minutes we were seated.
We both ordered peach Bellini's.




They were delicious as were the bread and Caesar salad.





I liked the decor of the restaurant.


Tina ordered the Chicken Campanelle.


I ordered the Strip Steak with Four-Cheese Macaroni. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD! Tina was seriously envying my meal choice. It was my favorite meal all week.


We each had the dessert sampler. They were all good, but nothing was outstanding.


We would definitely eat there again. Tina liked her pasta dish, but liked my steak even better. We had the Fantasmic Dining Package so we gathered our voucher for the show and headed for our next Fastpass+, Star Tours.

Neither of us had been on Star Tours since the update a few years ago. We enjoyed it. I liked it much better than I did the last time I rode it which I think was back in 2008.


Then we boarded our speeders and headed to one of my favorite DHS attractions!

 

[Doc Disney]

OMG I love that Every Mile is Magic shirt!!! How cute!!!! Also, that steak looks amazing! I never considered eating at Mama Melrose's but I might have to

 

[LisaBelle]

I LOVE THIS ATTRACTION!


I do not like rides with drops but for some reason I love ToT.


We tried to ride Rock n Roller Coaster single rider but the line was long and we had to get to Fantasmic.
Because we did the Fantasmic dining package we didn't worry about getting to the theater very early, but we made sure we were there before the time they had instructed us to be there. We were lucky we arrived when we did because there were very few seats left in the reserved area. We ended up sitting in the 5th row and I was worried that we'd get soaked. We definitely felt the mist, but didn't really get wet.
Here is our pre Fantasmic selfie. You can see that we were starting to get tired.


Tina had never seen Fantasmic. She liked it, but didn't love it. I love some of the unique aspects of the show and the boat full of characters at the end, but Wishes is still my favorite. Although what came next was a close second.

After Fantasmic we exited the theater as quickly as possible so that we could find a spot for the Star Wars fireworks. But had to stop for one last ToT photo:


We were still trying to find a spot to watch from when the fireworks began. We got scolded for stopping in a non- viewing area to watch. We moved over to where the CM told us to go and then hightailed it to a different spot we liked better. The Star Wars Fireworks were amazing. They were perfectly timed to the music, which of course is awesome by itself.






After the fireworks we gathered our race gear from our locker and got in line for our bus. We waited a long time. It seemed like most of the other resorts had at least one bus arrive before one came for the Poly.

When we got back to the room we got our things ready for race day. We decided to go with a Frozen/sisters theme for the race. Our shirts said "Sisterhood" on them. Since I am older I wore the more Elsa colored shirt with a white sparkly skirt and Tina wore a black shirt and blue/green sparkle skirt. (In case you are wondering we got the shirts from Raw Threads and the skirts are from Sparkle Athletic). We also wore Sweaty Bands headbands. Earlier, on our way out of DHS we did some last second shopping trying to find Frozen themed ears. We could only find the ones that were Elsa on one side and Anna on the other, but we did not care for the design on the Anna side so we decided to forget the ears and just wear the headbands.





Then we set our alarms for 3:15am and fell into bed.

Up Next: The Princess 5K!!!!!!

 

[LisaBelle]

OMG I love that Every Mile is Magic shirt!!! How cute!!!! Also, that steak looks amazing! I never considered eating at Mama Melrose's but I might have to

Thanks! I loved the color of the shirt. On race day I found out that the Every Mile is Magic slogan was true !
The combo of mac & cheese with the steak was delicious. The mac & cheese was super cheesy!. I saw that meal in someone else's TR and wanted to try it. So glad I did because it was love at first bite!

 

[PrincessFigment]

What a small world! My sister and I flew down for the 10k and just so happen to be in the background of your picture at the gate at the airport. We don't look very happy - but I promise we were!!

 

[LisaBelle]

I forgot to mention that on Thursday we had 20,168 step which was 7.9 miles. And we had accomplished all that we set out to do that day. We would have liked to ride RnRC, but it didn't ruin our day that we didn't ride it.

Friday, February 19, 2016
RACE DAY WAS FINALLY HERE!!

Our alarms woke us up at 3:15 am. I was excited but nervous because I had never run a 5K before. I didn't get to train as much as I'd wanted to. I knew that I could easily meet the time requirement even if I walked the entire race but I really wanted to be able to run as much as possible. Tina runs all the time so I was worried about holding her back, but she told me repeatedly that she knew she'd never win the race anyway so she just wanted to run together and have fun.
We got dressed and grabbed some water and a granola bar before we headed out of the room. My stomach wasn't really wanting food but I knew I should eat a little bit because breakfast was several hours and 3.1 miles away! I managed to eat half of the protein bar and decided that would have to do.
We boarded the bus at 4:30. It was fun to see how everyone was dressed. I loved the feeling of camaraderie.


I can't remember exactly what time the bus dropped us off in the Epcot parking lot, but as you can see, it was very dark. How awesome is this picture? I looked at that beautiful geosphere and knew that I was at the beginning of a once in a lifetime experience. Then and there I decided to relax, take in and enjoy every moment that the day would bring.


In this photo I was trying to imitate the face my daughter makes when she's taking selfies. She didn't think I was successful !


From there we went through a bag check (we didn't have bags) and headed in to a big holding area. There were port a potties and you could get your picture taken in front of the Princess Half Marathon banner.


We weren't really sure what to do from there, but saw that people were heading to another area and we could hear a DJ. After checking with a volunteer to be sure we weren't missing our only chance at the port a potty, we followed some other people and found ourselves near all the race corrals. There wasn't much to do so we walked around and then I decided that it might be a good idea to stretch a little bit.



It was pretty chilly and by the time corrals C and D were starting I was getting cold and just wanted to start running.



Finally they began walking corral E to the starting line. It was a great feeling when they counted us down and shot off the fireworks to signal our start to the race. Tina told me to set the pace. I remembered that my school nurse (who runs marathons) told me that the biggest mistake people make when running a 5K is starting out too fast, so I started us out at a leisurely jog. I was amazed to see that even though I didn't feel like we were running fast at all that we were actually passing people! Before I knew it, we had run for a mile!


One thing that I really liked was how willing everyone was to take photos for one another. Not long after we passed the first mile we ran into World Showcase. That was an amazing moment. The backstage areas of Epcot are very utilitarian so the transformation from backstage to onstage was dramatic. I was still feeling really good and running through an empty World Showcase brought me great joy!

Our dad was born in Germany and came to the USA when he was 16. We stopped for a photo in Germany in honor of him.


I can't remember when we saw the first character, Goofy's son, I think his name is Spike? But we weren't really interested in meeting him so we kept going. We also ran past Chip and Dale as we've met them. The first character that interested us was the Genie from Aladdin, but he had a huge line and we were still paranoid about being swept from the course, so we kept going.

When we were running through the second half of World showcase we noticed the sun was rising. It was beautiful! We had to stop for photos:

 

[LisaBelle]

What a small world! My sister and I flew down for the 10k and just so happen to be in the background of your picture at the gate at the airport. We don't look very happy - but I promise we were!!

WOW! That is so cool! I hope you had a great time!

 

[LisaBelle]

We wanted to get our picture taken with this puppet of Sebastian, but again the line was really long. We realized that we could take a selfie with him without waiting in line!



We did wait in line to meet people dressed up like tropical fish. I think they are in the Festival of Fantasy parade. We waited about 10 minutes and barely moved. We started to get stiff from standing and it seemed like lots of people were passing us by. We decided to bail and keep running. Soon we were running under the geosphere and heading out of the park. Suddenly we were at mile 3!



After we passed mile 3, Cast Members and volunteers were lining the route and telling us that the finish line was just ahead.



We crossed the finish line together and got in line for our medals. We did it!!!!!!


I was so proud of myself because I ran every step of that race! We stopped for pictures along the way which gave me a bit of rest but I couldn't believe that I was able to run the whole 5K.
We got mylar blankets (it was chilly once we stopped running), snack boxes, and Powerade. We took some post race photos (that we still need to purchase from the runDisney site, hopefully I will be able to post them later) and then got in line for the bus back to the Poly. Even though I was hungry, I didn't want to break open my snack box.

When I read a TR by @Rundisneyprincess27 I learned that there were characters including princesses that you could meet after the race. I was sooo sad that we missed this. We kept wondering why there weren't any princesses at the Princess 5K! Now we will know if we run the race again.

While we were on the bus we decided that when we got back to the hotel we would celebrate our accomplishment with Tonga Toast at Captain Cooks! But first we stopped for a photo with the Tiki.



We stopped in our room for our mugs and then headed to Captain Cooks. It was fun to see so many other runners gathered there. We shared our Tonga Toast and went back to the room to get changed. We had Fastpasses and an ADR at Biergarten waiting for us back at Epcot!

We left Captain Cooks and decided to take the monorail to Epcot. Here's where we made a rookie mistake. We asked a CM where to catch the monorail and she told us to go upstairs. We headed upstairs and boarded the monorail. We stopped at the Grand Floridian, the Contemporary and then the TTC where we had to get off and switch to the Epcot monorail. As we approached the TTC we could see the Poly. We were almost back to where we started ! Tina said she thought something was wrong because she was sure the monorail stop for the Poly was across the resort. Turns out we got on the resort loop and really needed to get on at the TTC to get to Epcot. The CM should have asked where we wanted to go before she told us where to board the monorail. Live and learn!
So we switched to the Epcot monorail and made it to Epcot!
We stopped for some photos with our medals




We had missed our Fatpass+ for Spaceship Earth so we headed to our next Fastpass+ Test Track.


Our car performed miserably, but we still had fun designing and testing it!
Love the face on the guy in the back with us!


Then we headed to Spaceship Earth. We had to wait about 15 minutes in the stand by line.


Then we headed to The Seas with Nemo and Friends.

Afterward we walked around the exhibits. My daughter always gets her picture taken with the shark, so we did, too.




Up Next: Lunch at Biergarten

 

[MerMom1981]

Yay! Your TR was the perfect thing to wake up to on a rainy Chicago morning! It goes nicely with my coffee

 

[Tuvalu]

What was the chocolate dessert you had at Flame Tree? It looks yummy!

Mama Melrose serves the best non-signature steak on property. And the mac and cheese is delish too!

Goofy's son is named Max.

The CM at the Poly should have told you to WALK to the TTC to get the Epcot monorail. But at least you got to rest your tired toesies a little longer!

Enjoying your TR!

 

[Rundisneyprincess27]

you will just have to run another disney 5k to get those princess pics!

 

[LisaBelle]

Yay! Your TR was the perfect thing to wake up to on a rainy Chicago morning! It goes nicely with my coffee

Awww! Thanks! Glad to brighten your rainy morning. More coming up soon.

What was the chocolate dessert you had at Flame Tree? It looks yummy!

Mama Melrose serves the best non-signature steak on property. And the mac and cheese is delish too!

Goofy's son is named Max.

The CM at the Poly should have told you to WALK to the TTC to get the Epcot monorail. But at least you got to rest your tired toesies a little longer!

Enjoying your TR!

Glad you are enjoying the TR.
The chocolate dessert from Flame Tree BBQ was chocolate mousse. It was yummy!
MMMM, that steak was so good. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Wish I could pop in there for dinner tonight!
Max! Tina knew his name at the race and I remembered it a few days ago and then forgot it again. Spike didn't sound quite right, but it was all I could come up with. Thanks.
When we were going to catch the monorail Tina swore that we needed to walk across the property to get to the monorail. She had stayed at the Poly 20 years ago when she went on a trip with her at the time boyfriend's family and remembered walking to get there. But then when we asked the CM we thought they must have updated. We learned from our mistake and walked to the TTC later in the day .

 

[LisaBelle]

you will just have to run another disney 5k to get those princess pics!

I loved it so much and I am by no means a serious runner! I definitely want to do another one. Just so I know for the future, where were the meet & greets? Since we were newbies, we just wandered around not really knowing where to go or what was available. If there were signs and such we obviously missed them. I am enjoying your TR.

 

[disneyfirstLJ]

You beat me to it! I haven't had time to start my report yet. My photos are still on the memory card in my camera. Loving it so far!