Where in the World?
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Trip Report Runnin’ Down a Dream
- Thread starter AKemily
- Start date
DisneyBaba
Member
Yayyy!!! Way to go! Can’t wait to read all the details! 
Some more details on our trip:
(By the way, I’m the one in the colourful Disneyland spirit jersey in the prior pictures.) Kaely and I arrived at the airport in Winnipeg, Canada at 6:15 this morning. We had a layover in Montreal and made it to MCO at around 4:45 today, making it to All-Star Movies around 6pm. We dropped our bags and immediately left for the expo, making it there shortly before 7pm.
We knew the expo would be huge but it was HUGE. It closed at 8pm so we only had about an hour to do everything we needed to. We had to pick up our race bibs, race t-shirts and pre-purchased merch, all 3 of which were in different massive buildings. Because we arrived so late in the day the place was pretty empty (though that’s not to say there weren’t still thousands of people). Anyways, we made it with 10 or so minutes to spare!
We took the bus back to ASMovies where we grabbed some supper and are now resting. We are spending our first few days here before moving to Pop Century and we leave on the 28th. There is much fun ahead of us!
(By the way, I’m the one in the colourful Disneyland spirit jersey in the prior pictures.) Kaely and I arrived at the airport in Winnipeg, Canada at 6:15 this morning. We had a layover in Montreal and made it to MCO at around 4:45 today, making it to All-Star Movies around 6pm. We dropped our bags and immediately left for the expo, making it there shortly before 7pm.
We knew the expo would be huge but it was HUGE. It closed at 8pm so we only had about an hour to do everything we needed to. We had to pick up our race bibs, race t-shirts and pre-purchased merch, all 3 of which were in different massive buildings. Because we arrived so late in the day the place was pretty empty (though that’s not to say there weren’t still thousands of people). Anyways, we made it with 10 or so minutes to spare!
We took the bus back to ASMovies where we grabbed some supper and are now resting. We are spending our first few days here before moving to Pop Century and we leave on the 28th. There is much fun ahead of us!
Yayyy!!! Way to go! Can’t wait to read all the details!
Thank you for reading along!!
ajrwdwgirl
Premium Member
Good luck on the Princess! Go running 
Wicked Sisters
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Good luck and have fun doing the races. I felt worn out just reading what races you both were doing.
I bailed when they said I would have to PAY to go for a RUN. Hard pass 
Swissmiss
Premium Member
Tiki Traveler
Well-Known Member
Neither of you even look tired!
Looking forward to the rest of the trip too!
Hey everyone!
Let’s get this thing started. Thanks to everyone for putting up with my sorry updates during the trip. We’ve been back a few days and honestly, I still feel like I’m recovering. We put on a lot of miles, and I think my body was operating off adrenaline, because I am still wiped!
As I’m sure you read, the point of this trip was to fulfill my sister, Kaely’s, bucket list item – doing a Disney race weekend. Like our other sister, @krause, I was hesitant to spend a lot of money just to run haha, but I figured if it got me to Disney World, why not? That being said, I decided I would not do anything longer than a 10K. Kaely wanted to do more than that, so she decided to do the Princess Challenge, which is the 10K (6.2 miles) and the Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Keep in mind, we were not runners previous to this decision.
Kaely had run a 5K a number of years ago, and I had never done a run event. So, since the time we signed up for this in summer we have been training for these runs. If nothing else, knowing this weekend was coming was a big motivator, and had both of us running 3x a week for months!
We arrived at MCO on Thursday, February 22 around 4:45pm. Our goal was to get to the expo in time to pick up our bibs, race t-shirts and pre-purchased merchandise before it closed at 8pm. As previously mentioned, we ended up making it there at about 7pm and despite crowds being low, it still took almost the full hour to collect everything we needed, as all pickups were in separate buildings. I am sure this is to disperse crowds during busy times. As you would when you enter an empty ride queue, we had to walk far distances when entering the buildings, bypassing the empty queue space. Between the buildings, there was very little signage to know where to go next. We figured that during busy times there are a lot more cast members guiding traffic.
We took my first “Where in the World?” photo at the bib pick up building. As you can see, it was pretty dead there. For those who are reading one of my reports for the first time, our family likes to send each other “Where in the World?” pictures in the family group chat so they can guess where we are in Disney World. The pictures Kaely and I took became more and more obscure as the week went on haha.
(Note: For reference, Rapunzel was the “theme” of the 10K, Tiana the Half, and Anna and Elsa the Challenge)
We both look like we've been on an airplane all day haha.
None of the expo experience made me want to be there when it was busy haha! We were both glad we could get in and out with relatively little trouble. That being said, there were characters and experiences that we definitely missed out on because of our short timeframe to accomplish things and because of the time we arrived. There were a couple characters still meeting when we arrived – Olaf and Sebastian – but we wouldn’t have had time to line up for them. We snapped a photo at the Tangled backdrop (I imagine there had been characters meeting here at some point).
We did think there would be a magic shot with something in the well
!
We wrapped things up and were glad to get back to our hotel room at All-Star Movies at a reasonable hour. We ordered some burgers from the food court and got to bed early. The next day (Friday) would be a park day, with the 10K taking place on Saturday and the Half on Sunday.
Coming up: Day 2 - Epcot/MK
Let’s get this thing started. Thanks to everyone for putting up with my sorry updates during the trip. We’ve been back a few days and honestly, I still feel like I’m recovering. We put on a lot of miles, and I think my body was operating off adrenaline, because I am still wiped!As I’m sure you read, the point of this trip was to fulfill my sister, Kaely’s, bucket list item – doing a Disney race weekend. Like our other sister, @krause, I was hesitant to spend a lot of money just to run haha, but I figured if it got me to Disney World, why not?
That being said, I decided I would not do anything longer than a 10K. Kaely wanted to do more than that, so she decided to do the Princess Challenge, which is the 10K (6.2 miles) and the Half Marathon (13.1 miles). Keep in mind, we were not runners previous to this decision. Kaely had run a 5K a number of years ago, and I had never done a run event. So, since the time we signed up for this in summer we have been training for these runs. If nothing else, knowing this weekend was coming was a big motivator, and had both of us running 3x a week for months!
We arrived at MCO on Thursday, February 22 around 4:45pm. Our goal was to get to the expo in time to pick up our bibs, race t-shirts and pre-purchased merchandise before it closed at 8pm. As previously mentioned, we ended up making it there at about 7pm and despite crowds being low, it still took almost the full hour to collect everything we needed, as all pickups were in separate buildings. I am sure this is to disperse crowds during busy times. As you would when you enter an empty ride queue, we had to walk far distances when entering the buildings, bypassing the empty queue space. Between the buildings, there was very little signage to know where to go next. We figured that during busy times there are a lot more cast members guiding traffic.
We took my first “Where in the World?” photo at the bib pick up building. As you can see, it was pretty dead there. For those who are reading one of my reports for the first time, our family likes to send each other “Where in the World?” pictures in the family group chat so they can guess where we are in Disney World. The pictures Kaely and I took became more and more obscure as the week went on haha.
(Note: For reference, Rapunzel was the “theme” of the 10K, Tiana the Half, and Anna and Elsa the Challenge)
We both look like we've been on an airplane all day haha.
None of the expo experience made me want to be there when it was busy haha! We were both glad we could get in and out with relatively little trouble. That being said, there were characters and experiences that we definitely missed out on because of our short timeframe to accomplish things and because of the time we arrived. There were a couple characters still meeting when we arrived – Olaf and Sebastian – but we wouldn’t have had time to line up for them. We snapped a photo at the Tangled backdrop (I imagine there had been characters meeting here at some point).
We did think there would be a magic shot with something in the well
!We wrapped things up and were glad to get back to our hotel room at All-Star Movies at a reasonable hour. We ordered some burgers from the food court and got to bed early. The next day (Friday) would be a park day, with the 10K taking place on Saturday and the Half on Sunday.
Coming up: Day 2 - Epcot/MK
Day 2
Going into this trip, I wanted to go on GotG: Cosmic Rewind as much as possible. I love that ride so much, it is the perfect thrill level for me. So, of course, the goal this morning was to get a BG at 7am.
And we (I) succeeded! BG 35 here we come!
We arrived at Epcot for rope drop with time to spare. We took the opportunity to look around the new hub and say hello to Walt the Dreamer, and the Figment topiary!
We decided to head to FEA first and get that done with little wait.
Then we decided school bread was in order. This was a great decision for our first park morning!
We headed to the Land, jumping on Soarin’ (over California) before the non-resort guests were allowed in the parks, then heading on to Living with the Land. Then we went to experience the Moana attraction for the first time.
I think this is a beautiful attraction and a wonderful addition to Epcot, using IP in a way that is true to the original spirit of Epcot. My biggest beef with Epcot used to be that it was a concrete jungle. I am so glad to see it becoming so green! I think it so stunning and feels like a breath of fresh air for the park.
Then it was time for Guardians! I wanted Conga for the song, as I hadn’t had that one yet and thought it would be the most fun. Kaely had heard September was the best so that was what she wanted.
I was the winner this time and was so psyched to hear Conga come on! Ah, I love this ride so much!
Coming up: More Day 2
Going into this trip, I wanted to go on GotG: Cosmic Rewind as much as possible. I love that ride so much, it is the perfect thrill level for me. So, of course, the goal this morning was to get a BG at 7am.
And we (I) succeeded! BG 35 here we come!
We arrived at Epcot for rope drop with time to spare. We took the opportunity to look around the new hub and say hello to Walt the Dreamer, and the Figment topiary!
We decided to head to FEA first and get that done with little wait.
Then we decided school bread was in order. This was a great decision for our first park morning!
We headed to the Land, jumping on Soarin’ (over California) before the non-resort guests were allowed in the parks, then heading on to Living with the Land. Then we went to experience the Moana attraction for the first time.
I think this is a beautiful attraction and a wonderful addition to Epcot, using IP in a way that is true to the original spirit of Epcot. My biggest beef with Epcot used to be that it was a concrete jungle. I am so glad to see it becoming so green! I think it so stunning and feels like a breath of fresh air for the park.
Then it was time for Guardians! I wanted Conga for the song, as I hadn’t had that one yet and thought it would be the most fun. Kaely had heard September was the best so that was what she wanted.
I was the winner this time and was so psyched to hear Conga come on! Ah, I love this ride so much!
Coming up: More Day 2
Day 2 cont’d
We decided that after completing Guardians we would head over to MK. But before we left, we stopped by Club Cool for Kaely’s first taste of Beverley. Like me, she didn’t hate it. What we did hate was the cola from China, which tasted like barbecue sauce.
We stopped by Connections Eatery before heading out. I had the General Tso’s Chicken Salad and it was delicious – would definitely get it again!
(picture from BlogMickey)
We hopped on the monorail for MK!
We arrived at the Park shortly before 1:00, with a goal to get our second VQ of the day. And again, we had sweet success!
We had bought Genie+ in the morning and stacked our LLs for MK. Thanks to that, we headed to BTMRR.
Kaely had had a kid’s meal at Connections which turned out to not fill her up, so we stopped at Pecos, before jumping into the Pirates LL.
I look fake scared, Kaely looks legitimately scared
Then we went across the park to ride Space.
Just the worst picture haha.
After Space, we decided to catch the 3:00 parade. I had planned to get a certain souvenir on this trip, and went to wait for that on Main Street.
Tada! I got a silhouette of my pup, Koda. What do you think?
The artist was very pleased with me that I had brought a good side picture. I’m sure some people just pull up the best picture they can find on their phone of their pup – whereas I came prepared!
I joined Kaely for the parade.
It was finally time for our Tron VQ!
We decided that after completing Guardians we would head over to MK. But before we left, we stopped by Club Cool for Kaely’s first taste of Beverley. Like me, she didn’t hate it. What we did hate was the cola from China, which tasted like barbecue sauce.
We stopped by Connections Eatery before heading out. I had the General Tso’s Chicken Salad and it was delicious – would definitely get it again!
(picture from BlogMickey)
We hopped on the monorail for MK!
We arrived at the Park shortly before 1:00, with a goal to get our second VQ of the day. And again, we had sweet success!
We had bought Genie+ in the morning and stacked our LLs for MK. Thanks to that, we headed to BTMRR.
Kaely had had a kid’s meal at Connections which turned out to not fill her up, so we stopped at Pecos, before jumping into the Pirates LL.
I look fake scared, Kaely looks legitimately scared
Then we went across the park to ride Space.
Just the worst picture haha.
After Space, we decided to catch the 3:00 parade. I had planned to get a certain souvenir on this trip, and went to wait for that on Main Street.
Tada! I got a silhouette of my pup, Koda. What do you think?
The artist was very pleased with me that I had brought a good side picture. I’m sure some people just pull up the best picture they can find on their phone of their pup – whereas I came prepared!
I joined Kaely for the parade.
It was finally time for our Tron VQ!
