Trip Report Runnin’ Down a Dream

Where in the World?
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AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 cont’d
We finished the race at about 7:20am, (we had a finish time of 1h 33m – though I came in one second before Kaely!😂). After picking up our medal, snack box, water and Gatorade, we headed back to the hotel on the bus and napped for a couple of hours.
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Here's what our snack boxes consisted of:
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Oh and there were some Skittles I must have devoured before I took the picture:oops:

We decided to head to HS for lunch. I had a craving for pizza made by a rat (and not the cute, French rat either). But Kaely wanted something healthy so we split up – her to ABC Commissary and me to PizzeRizzo. I went to collect my food and meet her back at ABCC because we thought she may get lost (she has a terrible sense of direction🤷‍♀️ - at least she knows her weaknesses). My rat pizza hit the spot.

We got a Slinky LL so headed there next.
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Then we did TSM, MMRR, Muppets 3D and ToT.
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Kaely admitted to me that this was the first time she ever kept her eyes open during the part where the elevator moves forward.😧 She had never even seen what's in that room before? She said, "that was a lot less scary than I thought it would be.":hilarious: I guess the little girl always freaked her out.
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They told us to look like we're running in the above photo but I'm not sure we nailed it lol.

At about 6pm Kaely wanted to call it a night, as she had another early morning the next day. I decided to go a little longer and made my way over to Epcot.

On our way out of the Park we saw a lonely Photopass Photographer and decided to go get a picture. I said hi to her and asked, “Where do we stand?”. “Stand for what?”, she asked sweetly. “Oh, I thought you were taking pictures.” “Oh yeah!” 😂 This was the best picture we got from her:
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:hilarious: Honestly, I knew they were going to be bad when I realized the sun was directly behind us but by then I felt bad enough for her that we just took them haha. I think she probably stood there all afternoon and just got asked random questions and hadn’t taken a photo all day, so it was understandable.

Coming up: Last of Day 3
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 3 cont'd
I forgot to share that before we left our resort to go to HS, I had to rub in my 1-second win:
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:hilarious:

Oh and we saw Daisy on our way out of the park!
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Kaely and I went separate ways as we left HS and I had the pleasure of a very awkward Skyliner ride over to Epcot, where I was placed with three groups of 2, none of whom talked the entire way. :bored:

I had no plans for my evening and decided to take the long way around the World Showcase and find something for dinner. I liked this topiary at China that was already out for F&G:
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It was a cool evening and I wanted to find a glass of red wine to warm me up. I ended up going to Mexico and got the cheese empanadas and a sangria. The sangria was iced, though, so I decided to head into the pavilion to warm up and take a spin on 3Cs.
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I stopped at the First Aid on the way back to see if they would have anything to help my knee (they didn’t) and something for clearing the sinuses for Kaely, who was having trouble breathing through her nose (not helpful for running). They gave me a sinus decongestant. It’s great that Disney offers this free service, and I’ve always found them super helpful and friendly. This was the first time I’ve used them where the person inside was impolite. He didn’t say anything rude, per say, but I just felt a little condescended to. I hope I just walked in at the wrong moment.

I made my way back to the front of the park and to the bus stop around 8:30pm.

While I could get on the runner buses to the start line at 4 in the morning and spectate at the TTC and Magic Kingdom, I also knew that spectator buses would start running later in the morning for those wanting to go to the finish line (however there was a lot of mixed messaging throughout the weekend on when exactly the spectator buses began running). I stopped in the lobby to check with them, and they said they would start running at 7am.

7am it is!

Coming up: Kaely's Half/Day 4
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Sorry everyone for the delay. I have a million excuses but none of them are good enough! I'm challenging myself to finish this thing this week!

Day 4/Kaely's Half

I barely noticed when Hei Hei crowed at Kaely at 1:30am to get up (her first bus was at 2:30am!), but I was wide awake when my alarm went off at 6am. She started her run at a similar time as we had the day before (around 5:45am), so was already on her way along the 13.1 mile route:
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A dark Mile 1:
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I went down at quarter to 7 to make sure I was on the first bus and there was one waiting when I arrived. I maintained a small (very small) shred of hope that I could still meet her at MK when I got on the bus, but that shred disappeared bit by bit as I rode the bus for 40 minutes. It had arrived to the finish line with already too many buses in front of it so ended up turning around going all the way back around the park and then dropping us off at the regular bus stop in front of Epcot. As a result, I got to Epcot at around the time Kaely was headed out of MK. While this was a bit frustrating, it was for the best as I ended up being able to meet Kaely at the 12-mile marker where the runners would head into Epcot for their lap around the park.

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First glimpse of the castle!
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Coming up: More Half
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4/Kaely's Half cont'd

Once in Magic Kingdom, there were many Photopass Photographers on the course, and Kaely took full advantage:
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The princesses greeted from the floats backstage:
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Kaely was excited to meet one of her favourite runDisney TikTokers on the course (Magically AyJay):
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Coming up: More Half
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4/Kaely's Half cont'd

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At the mile 10 on-ramp, Kaely was able to see how many people were behind her:
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One mile until we meet!
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We had our little moment and then I rushed to meet Kaely at the finish line.
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🥳🥳🥳
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She did it!
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And absolutely crushed it!

After walking the looooooong barricaded exit, we reunited. We headed back to All-Star Movies. It was time to transfer to Pop! Kaely freshened up while I started packing up and we got our stuff together before calling the front desk to transfer our bags.

Meanwhile, we had a lunch date to get to!

Coming up: Day 4 continued
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4 cont'd

Who was our lunch date with?
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The Main Mouse himself, of course! I couldn't get Topolino's out of my head since my last visit, so Kaely agreed that we could have our celebratory lunch here. When we sat down, Kaely said, “I had no idea this was a character meal” :hilarious::facepalm:. I guess I’d left that part out.

I always make a point to remind Donald that he's #1, but this time he made sure that I knew Kaely was also #1 on this day.🥇:D
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Daisy's so cute :inlove: A woman at a table across from us had Disney-bounded Daisy's ballerina costume that she wears at Topolino's and it was adorable but her boyfriend seemed less than enthusiastic about taking a picture of them together🤨😒
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Another fantastic meal and experience at Topolino’s!
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4 cont'd

We wanted to get some princess pictures with our medals so we headed to MK. Kaely got her medal pictures on Main Street.
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We had been stacking LLs all day for the afternoon/evening and had a good line up, including both princess meets, as we mainly wanted to meet Rapunzel and Tiana since those were the race princesses, and we didn’t know which line at Princess Fairytale Hall would have them on that day.

Lucky for us, Tiana and Rapunzel were in the same room, so we changed our other LL to a ride in the evening.

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I do not care for how they got rid of the human photographers and now want you to look at a post that takes pictures every second.😕 I imagine this is harder for kids as well!

We did Little Mermaid and then took a ride on the train.
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At this point, we were simply waiting for our new room at Pop to be ready. As we sat at the Main Street stop we finally got a room number, so Kaely hopped off and headed back to the room. I stayed in the Park and did a little wandering around, riding Pirates and getting myself a Dole Whip. And because I know you're all eagerly awaiting my ride photo:
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(That's me in the back left):hilarious:

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I took a spin on the Peoplemover and explored the Main Street gift shops for a while before heading back out of the Park to meet up with Kaely.
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Coming up: More Day 4
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 4 cont'd

After Kaely had a couple hours of catching up on sleep, we met at Hollywood Studios.

We arrived at the most scenic time of day for HS (in my opinion). Such a perfect Hollywood sky.:inlove:
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We had a bit of time before our first LL so decided to hit Baseline Taphouse. This was my first visit here, and it was great! I expected it to be crazy but it was pretty dead there. We walked right up to the counter and ordered our pretzel and drinks. It completely hit the spot.
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We hit our LLs for Slinky, TSM and MMRR and then had a ILL for Rise! At least I think we went on Slinky Dog... I can't find a ride photo:confused:

Still winning:cool:
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As we left Rise, the park was already closed and we had a quiet walk over to Fantasmic. We grabbed some popcorn and settled down at the back of the stadium nearest to the exit so we could get a quick escape.
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The show was great as always and I loved all the updates they made to it! It was the perfect ending to a magical day.:inlove:

Coming up: Day 5
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Congratulations to you both!! What a wonderful accomplishment!!
As for Baseline, ❤️❤️❤️!! I hope you return!! BTW-the charcuterie board is excellent!!
Thank you so much!

Haha I thought of you at Baseline for sure! I get why you love it so much! Definitely putting the charcuterie board on the list for next time!
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 5

You know where we had to go this day.
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It was finally time for Animal Kingdom!

We roped drop Flight of Passage and then headed over to Kilimanjaro where there was already about a 40 minute wait.
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Baby Corra was so cute!!!

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I think this was the first time I ever saw more than like one sleeping cheetah way in the back. There were 4 or 5 walking around!

We decided to head over to Expedition Everest, and as we walked over we saw the wait time climb from 15 minutes to 50. We decided to do single rider and got on in about 5 minutes.
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The girl in the row ahead of me looks like she's going to throw up haha but she was a trooper. It was her first time on the ride (her sister is beside me). Meanwhile, there's my sister...
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:hilarious::hilarious::hilarious:

Then I made Kaely do Dinosaur :D. I love this ride, but my sisters hate it. This was another ride where she kept her eyes open for the whole thing for the first time! She said, “I’ve never seen those projected dinosaurs on the wall before.”
Oh No Smh GIF by The Voice


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Another stellar image! You can tell how much she loved it 😂

Coming up: Day 5 cont'd
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 5 cont'd

We went to Flame Tree as it opened at 11 and had a peaceful early lunch by the water.
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I wanted to see ITTBAB as we don’t know when it will change to Zootopia and I love this show. Mostly I finding the ensuing panic that fills the theatre to be funny 😆
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Obligatory bug eyes photo.
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We browsed the gift shops a bit and around the Discovery Trails before heading to Festival of the Lion King.
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Kaely really went with the bit on that one lol. Unfortunately this magic shot was the best of the bunch from this photo shoot :facepalm:

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Fabulous as always!

We walked Gorilla Jungle Trek before heading to the front of the park.
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Same, meerkat, same.

We wanted to get a pic by the Tree of Life before leaving so we went to find a Photopass photographer.
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Apparently I was the bird whisperer on this trip:hilarious:

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As we were finishing up, the Birds of Flight (?) show was just starting, and I always wanted to watch it. I didn’t realize it’s only like a minute long, but it was enjoyable all the same. It got this shot as the macaws flew over!
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I just love macaws!

Though it was a short visit to Animal Kingdom, we accomplished all we wanted to and more!

Coming up: More Day 5
 

AKemily

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 5 cont'd

As we left Animal Kingdom, we noticed the Photopass Photographer looking pretty lonely at the Encanto photo opp, so stopped by to keep him company.
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The photographer told us to look off in the distance like we were explorers. When Kaely saw the photo, she was like "Oh, they forgot to put the magic shot in." I said, "No, I think he just wanted us to look like explorers." We had a good laugh about that. Thank goodness we have such a photo though, how else would anyone know we were exploring? :hilarious: 🤭

We headed over to Epcot for our second rip on Guardians of the trip.

But first, Spaceship Earth, I guess?
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Thank you, Phoenicians🫡

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Kaely was feeling creative, I guess 😂

I think we still had time to kill so we did Nemo and then it was time for Guardians!
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This was the first time I ever really felt ill on this ride, probably because I had only ever ridden it in the morning up until this point. But it was obviously still a great time!
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Coming up: Day 5 cont'd
 

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