I Can Go The Distance - A Princess Half Marathon Trip Report

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

After buying my annual pass, we decided to head straight to the Expo to check in for the half marathon. Wes went to drop off my carry-on luggage while I took just a couple pictures of the resort.

I was really bummed that they were doing construction at the resort since this was our first time staying there. I understand that they need to renovate resorts but it just stinks that they have to do that when we are staying there. Next time I should let them know that we are coming so they can clean things up before we get there. :lol:

I met up with Wes by the luggage area and we then waited for the bus to the Expo. We didn’t wait too long for a bus which was really nice.

Our bus made a quick stop at Port Orleans Riverside and then about 30 minutes after our original departure we were at the ESPN Wide World of Sports for the Expo.

I was pretty shocked by how many people were there for the Expo. Since we got in on Saturday, I kind of thought that it wouldn’t be too crowded. I figured most people would have checked in on Friday. Boy was I wrong. We followed the crowd to the registration check in area to pick up our bibs for the race and turn in our waivers. On the way in we passed by Cinderella’s carriage with some of her carriage guys (what are those guys called?). There was a pretty long line of people waiting to get their picture taken. I asked Wes if he wanted his picture taken with them and he said No. :lol: Darn. Maybe next time.

We walked through the registration building and it seemed completely empty in the front of the building. There was a huge stage with nothing going on. I guess that they have more excitement in this front room on the first day of the Expo. We passed by the tiny area with merchandise to find a jam-packed room with people trying to check in. Our line to check in was right by where you entered the room and it was almost all the way back by the entrance.

This is where we started in the line. Originally I had hoped to be in and out of the Expo but this line proved that we would not be moving as quickly as I would have liked. Wes stayed in the line while I checked out some of the merchandise they had at the tiny merchandise stand in the registration area. I thought that maybe I would want to buy something but then I realized that the shirt we got with registration would be souvenir enough for me. Also, if we finished we would get a medal which is like the best souvenir ever from a race so I convinced myself not to buy anything else. Way to go me. When I got back to the line I mentioned to Wes how I was surprised at how many guys I saw in the lines to check in. I was worried that Wes would feel super awkward being a guy running the Princess Half Marathon but there were a good amount of guys there. Wes then mentioned how the lady in front of us in line was just asking him about this. She then turned around and said “I thought this race was for women only”. I said that it’s a race geared towards women but men can run if they want. She then said “well, I guess I was misinformed” with a not so happy tone. Yikes.

She seemed really perturbed that there were guys running. I get that it’s a race for women but if guys want to come support their ladies by running with them, then who cares. Let the boys run. :lol:

Mrs.Skellington · Mar 6, 2012

Yeah trip reports! I have been trying to talk my hubby into this. I may have to get him to read your story when you are done. BTW, I loved your honeymoon report. You made such a beautiful bride!

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

After about 15 minutes of waiting, this was our place in line.

We had moved! Yay! It felt like our line was not moving as fast as every line around us. Why is that always the case?! At one point the girl behind us went to the front of the line to check it out and I heard her say that the woman at the front of the line wasn’t even registered for the race. No wonder our line hadn’t moved. As we waited, a guy came through the line to make sure that everyone had their waivers. I am so glad that I knew to print these out beforehand. That place was a complete mess. I can’t imagine having to fight through the crowds to print out our waivers. After another 10 minutes, we were almost there.

We finally reached the front of the line to turn in our waivers about 30 minutes after we got in line. Not as bad as I originally thought. We got our bibs for Team Daisy (in honor of our dog, not the duck. Although we like the duck too

), and then fought the crowds to get out of the registration area and go pick up our shirts from the actual Expo area. I was a little confused at what to do at this point. One of the people working there told us to go over to the left and make sure everything was correct in our information. I didn’t realize that we were supposed to walk through an area to make sure that our race tags were working. Luckily, the crowd kind of pushed us in that direction and we walked over the race mats. Once we realized what we just did, we stopped to check the screen to make sure we saw our names. They both showed up so we made our way out of the registration area and up to the Expo.

We got up to the Expo and the amount of people there was crazy. Again, I was shocked by all of the people. I didn’t even stop to take a picture of the chaos. I was on a mission to get in and get out of there. I hate crazy crowds of people. It is still surprising that I love Disney World so much considering that I hate crowds. We started our journey through the crowds of people at expo booths and tried to make our way to the back of the Expo to get our shirts. I managed to bob and weave better than Wes, as I got to the table first and picked up both of our bags with our shirts. Wes caught up to me after I had gotten the shirts and we then made our way to the exit.

I had bought Wes’ park ticket through the WWoS website with our Princess Half Marathon discount and was told that we could pick up his tickets at the parks or at the Expo. When we exited the Expo we saw a sign for Will Call and decided to try picking up his tickets there. After a little confusion, we found the Will Call booth outside the Expo building and were able to pick up his tickets. After spending an hour at the WWoS, we made our way back to the bus drop off area to make our way to the Animal Kingdom.

As we walked back to the bus drop off area, we decided that depending on which bus was there, we would either get a bus back to POFQ or we would get on a bus to Animal Kingdom Lodge. Since the Lodge is so much closer to AK, we figured that this might be the fastest way to get there. We saw a bus for AKL so we started to jog towards the bus. This would be our warm up for tomorrow’s race. :lol: The bus wasn’t in any hurry to leave so the jogging was unnecessary but I wanted to make sure we caught that bus. We made our way to AKL and then caught a bus to AK.

All in all, the trip from WWoS to AK took about 35 minutes. Not too bad. We arrived at AK around 12:40. We had finally made it to a park! By this time we were starving. We hadn’t eaten anything today except for some airplane peanuts so food was the first thing on our minds. We decided to try Yak & Yeti counter service since we had never eaten there before. We made a beeline for Asia with a couple quick stops for some pictures.

The parks seemed pretty crowded as we made our way to Asia. We got in line at Y&Y and I couldn’t decide what I wanted. I couldn’t decide between the Honey Chicken and the Sweet and Sour Chicken so we decided to get both and share them. While Wes waited in line, I went to find a table. The seating area was pretty crowded but I was able to find a two top table right by the water feature.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

Our table was right in the sun, which is why I think most people were avoiding it but since we had just gotten there I was ready for a little Florida sunshine. It felt so nice. Wes arrived with our food and we were ready to dig in.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Honey Chicken

The food was extremely hot and I was so hungry that I kept burning my mouth. Not too smart. We weren’t too thrilled by the food. At best, it was just okay. The honey chicken was overloaded with the honey taste. I know that may sound stupid that we didn’t like it because it tasted too much like honey but we have had the honey sesame chicken from Nine Dragons in Epcot and it doesn’t taste so much like honey. Also, we didn’t like how the rice was buried down in the container. I like to have a little bit of rice with each bite of my Chinese food but it was hard to get to the rice with the food on top. I don’t think we will eat at this quick service again but I am glad we tried it.

After our lackluster lunch, we decided to ride Expedition Everest.

The wait said 35 minutes and we figured that would give us plenty of time for our food to settle. While in line we met a really cute family from Mobile, Alabama that kept us entertained while waiting. They had twins, a girl and a boy, that were about 7. The family was very friendly and they were asking us about which attractions we had been on and the boy was telling us his favorites. The Mom of the family also started giving us a little too much information about trying to get pregnant with them for 14 years and then about breastfeeding twins and the daughter’s acid reflux, etc. :lol: I work for a non-profit that works with lactation consultants so the breastfeeding thing didn’t bother me but I just thought it was funny that this lady was sharing all of this information with complete strangers. They were all very sweet and we really enjoyed talking to them in line.

After 45 minutes in line, we finally explored the forbidden mountain. It was a great ride as usual. The Yeti wasn’t moving, but they had the strobe light going. No matter what shape the Yeti is in, I still enjoy this ride. It’s just fun. Next up we made our way to Dinoland to ride another one of my favorites, Dinosaur. While in line and almost to the attraction loading area, a cast member called for a party of 2 so we were able to bypass some of the wait and get on the next time rover.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

I love the intro video for this attraction. After just barely making it back to the present day, we decided to go check out what the wait was like in Africa for a trip on Kilimanjaro Safaris.

On the way to Africa, I saw this funny sign.

It almost seems like the sign is advertising that you can go pick up some lost children at this location. :lol: Hopefully, people are only picking up their lost children.

The wait for KS was about 50 minutes and we didn’t feel like waiting so we grabbed a fastpass. We had about 30 minutes to kill before our fastpass time so we decided to get some snacks. I went with a soft pretzel from the fruit market. It’s funny that a fruit market sells soft pretzels but I’m not complaining. Wes wanted to get some soft serve ice cream and he had remembered seeing a cart right before the Africa entrance that sold some. So we walked back and found the cart. We stood in line behind another family and the cast member asked the family in front of us what they wanted because they were closed. Ugh, bummer. It seemed really strange that this cart would be closed but oh well. It was back up to Africa so Wes could get a Mickey premium bar.

We ate our snacks and wandered through Africa and the shops. I never spend that much time in AK so it was nice to have some time to check out all of the wonderful details. I found this sign in the tower in Africa which I found very funny.

I would love to spend the night in the parks.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

We decided to go to the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail and then, as we started to enter I saw “No Food”. Oops. Good thing I saw that before we went in. We sat on a bench by the entrance and finished our snacks. It was a nice little moment where we got to just sit and relax instead of our usual go-go-go pace. We definitely moved a lot slower this trip than we have in the past (partly because of the half marathon aftermath, but more on that later). I think the more trips I go on, the slower I go. Since I know that I will be back soon I don’t have to run from attraction to attraction and I don’t have to make sure I do and see everything. It’s pretty nice to be able to slow down.

Once we finished our snacks, it was on to the Pangani Forest Exploration Trail.

After we made our way through the trail, we still had about 10 minutes to kill before we could use our fastpass for KS. We found some little picnic tables and had a little rest before our two week safari.

I decided that on this safari I wouldn’t take any pictures. I figured, how many pictures of the animals do I really need? So I tried to keep my camera away but that didn’t stop me from taking a picture of the photography tips sign.

We had a pretty nice safari. It was a little chilly that day but we saw a good amount of the animals. We actually saw 4 giraffes lying down. Our driver said that was pretty unusual. Since I had never seen them do that, I decided it was worth a picture.

Unfortunately, I was on the right side of the vehicle so I didn’t have the best views of the animals for picture taking. We also saw a whole bunch of elephants with two baby elephants! I had to take a picture of that.

Again, not the best spot for taking a picture but the babies were just so cute. See them? They are slightly blurry and on the left next to the rocks. So cute. My final picture on the safari was of Wes with a white rhino in the background.

And those were 4 of the 7 pictures I took on the safari! I was really proud of myself for not taking too many pictures on the safari. It’s so hard to contain myself but I think it’s important to put down the camera every once in a while to really enjoy an attraction without looking at a camera display screen.

Originally our plan was to leave the park around 4:30 so we could go to Downtown Disney to get dinner at Earl of Sandwich. Earlier in the day we decided that we would skip that and just grab some food in the AK. We had traveled so much that morning that we decided that we needed some more time spent in one place. Since 9am we had been to the airport, to POFQ, to the WWoS, to AKL, and to AK all in 3 and a half hours. That was a lot of travel for one day. So we decided we would give ourselves some more time in the park.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

Since we had some more time to spend in the park, we decided to go to Rafiki’s Planet Watch. Can you believe that I have actually never been to this part of the park? I never really spend a lot of time at the Animal Kingdom and whenever I am there I just hit up the main attractions and move on. So it was really nice that we had a little extra time to check out Rafiki’s Planet Watch.

Thanks for looking so happy, Westin. :lol:

The ride on the train was actually really enjoyable. I thought it was neat how you don’t sit facing the front of the train but you face the side. It was also really cool to see all of the holding areas for the animals and to find out that the animals sleep in the holding area. We saw more animals in the holding areas on the train ride than we did on the safari.

After a short ride on the train, we arrived at Rafiki’s Planet Watch. We took a nice little stroll down to the main area.

Once inside we wandered around and looked at all of the exhibits. This area reminds me a lot of the old Epcot because it is really educational.

Look, a hidden Mickey!

We went outside and saw all of the goats. I didn’t realize that they can move around that entire area. A bunch of goats started to come out of their little play area so we made our exit. :lol: We went back in the main building and I had a fun idea for taking pictures.

I thought it would be funny to take pictures of us just sticking our heads out from behind different objects. I don’t know what it is but I just thought this would be really funny. The giant gorilla gave me the idea. So look for more of these types of pictures throughout our trip.

Next up we went to hear the Song of the Rainforest. It is kind of creepy in that little room. In case you, like me before this trip, have never been to RPW, for the Song of the Rainforest you go in a little room that looks like a music recording booth that has a padded bench seat along the wall with headphones. You press this button for the show to start and you sit in the dark and listen to the sounds of the rainforest. Grandmother Willow is your narrator and I have to admit it is a little creepy. Sometimes the sounds are just so loud. Our commentary about the awkwardness of the narrator and the sounds were more enjoyable than the sounds but it would be a good place to take a nap.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

We took some more pictures and then took the train back to Africa.

:ROFLOL: This one is a-la Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls

Once we got back to Africa, we decided to spend some time checking out the Discovery Island trails. Again, these are something that I normally don’t get to do while I am in the AK so it was nice to take some extra time and see this area of the park.

This area was extremely quiet, aside from the birds, and I was a little worried that we were about to be attacked by them. :lol: Luckily, we escaped the area unharmed.

I really like the different angles you get to look at the Tree of Life on the Discovery Island trails.

Wes peeking out behind this gopher or beaver or whatever it is.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

We decided to go back to Dinoland to ride Dinosaur again.

As I mentioned, I love this ride and there was only a 10 minute wait, which really means walk on so we hopped in line. Once on the ride, it broke down. We were sitting there in the pitch black part of the ride when our car stopped. The car kept shaking for a little while and then it stopped. We just sat there in the dark. I kept worrying that we were at the part with the big dinosaur and he would be right next to me. :lol: I know they aren’t real but they are still pretty scary looking, especially in total darkness. So we sat there and then after probably a minute, they turned the lights on. It was pretty cool to see the ride with the lights on. And by pretty cool I mean that it is crazy how terrible the ride looks with the lights on. It is amazing what a black light and darkness can do to that ride. So we sat there for a few minutes and I thought that maybe we would get to evacuate the ride. I have never evacuated a ride before so I was kind of excited. After another couple minutes they announced that the ride was working again and we would be moving shortly. So they turned off the lights and we continued our ride.

We made it a little ways further and then the ride stopped again. This time they didn’t turn on the lights and we were moving again shortly after. We got to the part where they took our picture and by this point the magic of the ride had worn off. We had already stopped twice so everyone’s face in the picture was pretty funny. Most faces just showed a combination of frustration and boredom. So we moved on from the picture section and were right before the part of the ride where you see Aladar and the guy starts saying that we’re not going to make it when our ride stops again. Our ride vehicles’ soundtrack kept going so we heard him keep saying “they’re not going to make it, they’re not going to make it…they made it.” :lol: No, we didn’t make it. We were stuck. They turned on the lights and we could see Aladar in the distance and right next to me was a huge carnotaurus. Yikes!

Scary

There’s a car stuck in front of us right next to Aladar.

We noticed that to the left of us was a carnotaurus head. We aren’t sure what this was here for. We thought that maybe it is a replacement for the carnotaurus head you see right before you make it back to present day.

As we were sitting there they kept coming over the loud speaker telling us to remain seated and that a cast member would be with us shortly to pick us up. We were getting evacuated! I was actually excited. I had never evacuated a ride before. We saw a ride engineer guy walking around our area. The ride vehicle in front of us decided that they were done sitting down so they started standing up in their car. The engineer dude was not pleased. He told them to sit down and they listened but from what I could hear it sounded like a lady in that car was having a little freak out at being stuck there.

I am not sure how long we sat there but it seemed like awhile. Finally we saw a cast member coming with a line of people. What they do is they evacuate the first car and then everyone walks in a single file line to each car letting more people out. It felt like elementary school again with cast members telling people to stay to the right and stay in line.

Walking past the car in front of us.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

As we walked down the final hill towards the end of the ride a cast member was yelling not to take pictures so I put my camera away. As we walked up the stairs to exit the ride cast members were handing out fastpasses to come back and ride Dinosaur again between now and Wednesday. Unfortunately, this was our only day at AK so we wouldn’t be able to use them. Oh well. I’m happy to say that I have now evacuated a ride and now I hope I don’t have to do it again.

Until next time, Dinosaur.

After not actually getting to ride Dinosaur, I wanted to head back to Asia to ride EE one more time before we left.

Wes doesn’t like doing a whole lot of rollercoasters anymore because they really make him feel nauseous so I decided to use the single rider line. I have never utilized the single rider line on any of my previous trips. Wow, does it save you time. This was great. I think I waited a total of maybe 10 minutes to ride.

It was 6:15 and we needed to head back to the resort so we could get some dinner and get to bed early. Earlier in the day we decided that we would just eat dinner at our resort instead of eating anything in the park. We didn’t want to eat anything that might upset our stomach since we had to get up so early for the half marathon. So we made our way to the park exit and stopped for a quick photo from the Photopass photographer. We opted not to pre-order the Photopass CD this trip so we just gave our camera to the Photopass photographer.

I wish this one wasn’t blurry.

We got to the bus stop around 6:30 and were on our way to finally see our room at POFQ.

We got a text earlier in the day saying that our room was 4113. I was excited because I figured this meant that our room would be on the first floor. I knew that this would be important post-race. What I didn’t realize until we got to our room was that we were in one of the closest buildings to the bus stop and the main building. Amazing. Wes went and picked up my carry-on luggage from the luggage holding area and I went in to take some more pictures while I waited for him.

Still not sure how to pronounce this…:lol:

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

Wes got my luggage and we made our way to our room. It was really close to the main building. And we realized that we could get to the bus stop by cutting through the parking lot by our building. Even better!

I really like that shower curtain.

We checked out our room, saw that Wes’ checked luggage made it to the room and then made our way to Sassagoula Floatworks and Food Factory for some dinner. And shhh, but we brought our resort refillable mugs from our October trip. :lookaroun I know, I know…you aren’t supposed to do that but we just have so many of those mugs. And don’t get me wrong, I love them but my cabinets can only hold so many. So we cheated the system and brought back our mugs. Sorry, Disney.

At this point in the day I realized that I hadn’t had any water.

Yikes! I was running a half marathon tomorrow and I forgot to stay hydrated! Darn it. What was wrong with me?! So instead of refilling my mug with soda, I realized that I needed to drink some water.

WishIWasAtWDW · Mar 6, 2012

I wasn’t sure what to get for dinner because I didn’t want to get anything that might upset my stomach. I suddenly had a craving for a salad so I decided to get the make it your way salad with chicken because it was the same price with or without chicken. Who would pass up free chicken?! Wes so wisely mentioned vegetarians. Oh, yea…Wes decided to get the pizza and salad combo. I remembered reading about Port Orleans’ beignets so I knew that we had to get some.

Our dinner was really good. The salad was just what I wanted and the beignets did not disappoint. :slurp: I was pleasantly surprised by the food court. We didn’t eat there again during our trip but I thought it was good. Before we left the food court, Wes decided to get us some vitamin waters for tomorrow morning and I took some pictures of the food court.

Lots of frightening faces in this food court.

We got back to the room and I unpacked my bag (Wes just leaves his stuff in his suitcase as a jumbled, wrinkled mess), we showered and got our clothes ready for our early morning.

We had a really early morning so we were in bed around 8:40. Tomorrow we were running our first ever half marathon!

Up next: It’s time to run Disney’s Princess Half Marathon!

Mrs.Skellington · Mar 6, 2012

Still not sure how to pronounce this…:lol:[/QUOTE]

Sass ka go la. I'm from N'awlins. You can trust me on that one. :ROFLOL:

kebrown · Mar 6, 2012

Great trip report, love all the pics and commentary! Can't wait to hear how the race went for you both!

PartOfYourWorld · Mar 6, 2012

Yay!!! A Princess half report!!!! :sohappy: Lovin it so far!!

And your pictures of FQ are making me miss it so much

Just stayed there in the beginning of Feb. Beautiful resort!

Cant wait to read about the race!!!!!!

Ariel484 · Mar 7, 2012

I totally forgot that you ran this, Ashley! So exciting!

So I ran the Princess Half in 2011 and also went to the Expo on Saturday...and it was just a nuts as you described it then, too! When I was reading your description I actually shuddered...bad memories! :lol:

WishIWasAtWDW said:
When I got back to the line I mentioned to Wes how I was surprised at how many guys I saw in the lines to check in. I was worried that Wes would feel super awkward being a guy running the Princess Half Marathon but there were a good amount of guys there. Wes then mentioned how the lady in front of us in line was just asking him about this. She then turned around and said “I thought this race was for women only”. I said that it’s a race geared towards women but men can run if they want. She then said “well, I guess I was misinformed” with a not so happy tone. Yikes. She seemed really perturbed that there were guys running. I get that it’s a race for women but if guys want to come support their ladies by running with them, then who cares. Let the boys run.

Seriously, lady?! What a jerk (I wanted to say another word, but this is a family board). :lol: I think it's awesome that your husband ran this race with you! Last year I ran it with my brother and I don't remember anyone giving him any attitude. :shrug:

WishIWasAtWDW said:
While in line we met a really cute family from Mobile, Alabama that kept us entertained while waiting. They had twins, a girl and a boy, that were about 7. The family was very friendly and they were asking us about which attractions we had been on and the boy was telling us his favorites. The Mom of the family also started giving us a little too much information about trying to get pregnant with them for 14 years and then about breastfeeding twins and the daughter’s acid reflux, etc.

I legit LOL'd at this! :lol:

I think you're on to something about not taking pictures on the safari. I think I've done it every time I've gone on it, and I'm determined not to next time. It's hard to make yourself put down the camera and just experience the safari, you know?!

Cannot wait for your race re-cap! Yay! :sohappy:

enchanted_belle · Mar 7, 2012

Woo, a princess 1/2!!! I so wanted to run that this year, good thing I didn't though... I'm at about 2 miles that I can run at a time right now. :lol: Can't wait to read along with your race and hear how you and Wes did!

and... I love the sticking heads out thing, what a fun idea!

crystalight33 · Mar 7, 2012

Yay, I love race reports!! You and Wes make a super cute couple

. And OMG, all these Port Orleans trip reports are making me really REALLY want to stay there! I went to LSU for graduate school and New Orleans holds a special place in my heart. The picture that made me snort was the rhino Ace Ventura reference

. I can't wait to hear how the race went!

tiaragirl · Mar 7, 2012

Your peeking pictures are priceless! (Alliteration!)

What a great TR so far - easy to follow along and your pictures are great!

Can't wait to hear about the race (though slightly concerned based on "more on that later"). Eep!

I Can Go The Distance - A Princess Half Marathon Trip Report

WishIWasAtWDW

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