I See a Line, I Wait In It ~ A January 2016 TR - Completed 12/29

[fallonkendra]

Those are some fantastic Illuminations pictures! I was so tired by that point of the night, I sat on the ground somewhere to watch it (and I wasn't super close to the water, so I did miss quite a bit...).

Great shots of you and Beth!

From your coming next, it sounds like we spent Monday in the same park as each other too!

 

[rteetz]

Illuminations is my absolute favorite nighttime show. The sound track and the Laser and the fireworks it's just awesome.

I have to agree that no fireworks Joe might not give the best viewing location advice but whatever lol. I usually like to watch in between Norway and Mexico. Where the now famed froway meet and greet is. I have also watched from Italy.

BC didn't have any RunDisney trivia, unfair!

 

[Saphire5742]

125 photos of just Illuminations? Wow! Lovely pics you shared
Glad for you that you got to see it this time around.
And what's this I see? Dining with Princesses part 2? Very nice. Can't wait to read all about it!

 

[SarahDisney]

Those are some fantastic Illuminations pictures! I was so tired by that point of the night, I sat on the ground somewhere to watch it (and I wasn't super close to the water, so I did miss quite a bit...).

Thanks! I'm usually totally tired by Illuminations, so I totally understand. I think having the dinner ADR right before really helped me regain my energy before the show.

Great shots of you and Beth!

Thanks!

From your coming next, it sounds like we spent Monday in the same park as each other too!

Ooh, more potential near misses ... with the amount of time we spent in the same parks, I'm kinda suprised (and sad) that we never ran into each other!

Illuminations is my absolute favorite nighttime show. The sound track and the Laser and the fireworks it's just awesome.

It really is so amazing ... the combination of lasers, fireworks, and nostalgia (for me at least) really makes it something special!

I have to agree that no fireworks Joe might not give the best viewing location advice but whatever lol. I usually like to watch in between Norway and Mexico. Where the now famed froway meet and greet is. I have also watched from Italy.

We usually watch from somewhere near where we eat dinner (which is usually America), but ... Norway was definitely a good spot. There are actually a lot of good spots to watch.

BC didn't have any RunDisney trivia, unfair!

They actually had it one other day, but I don't remember if we have a picture. There was one point where I had to recite all of the race weekends. I did it in order.
Pop Century always has trivia in the store area (Art of Animation does too), so we always try to stop in and see if we know the answers to the trivia questions.

125 photos of just Illuminations? Wow! Lovely pics you shared

Yeah, we take a lot of pictures. Thank you!

Glad for you that you got to see it this time around.

Thanks! We were definitely happy that we got to see it.

And what's this I see? Dining with Princesses part 2? Very nice. Can't wait to read all about it!

Yes! We kinda really love princesses. Hopefully I'll have the update posted soonish!

 

[fallonkendra]

Ooh, more potential near misses ... with the amount of time we spent in the same parks, I'm kinda suprised (and sad) that we never ran into each other!

I know! If we ever end up there at the same time again, we NEED to actually meet up! Marathon weekend 2018 maybe??

 

[SarahDisney]

I know! If we ever end up there at the same time again, we NEED to actually meet up! Marathon weekend 2018 maybe??

Maybe ... we'll see if I can make that weekend work! I'd love to go back for marathon weekend.

 

[SarahDisney]

Day 7, Chapter 1: Dining with Princesses, Take Two, Part 1
Monday, January 11th, 2016
​

As you may remember, Sunday night we had dinner with some princesses. We enjoyed it so much, that we spontaneously decided to have breakfast with princesses the next morning (that or we decided this months in advance … one of the two).

Of course, we couldn’t have a meal at the same restaurant two days in a row, so we had to head over to Magic Kingdom for today’s princess adventure!

Before I get too far ahead of myself … let’s start this story off at our resort, Pop Century. We got up early, got ourselves ready, and made our way out of our room a little after 7. As we were heading over to the buses, we saw something that we had seen “in progress” the day before, and Beth really wanted to take a picture of:

For those of you who are not (yet) all about the runDisney, Marathon Weekend (the race weekend in which we participated) consists of four races, a 5K (3.1 miles) on Thursday, a 10K (6.2 miles) on Friday, a half marathon (13.1 miles) on Saturday, and a marathon (26.2 miles) on Sunday. You can register for one or more individual races, or you can choose to register for one of the two challenges – Goofy’s “Race and a Half” challenge consists of the half marathon and marathon (for a total of 39.3 miles), and the Dopey Challenge includes all four race (for a total of 48.6 miles). If you run a challenge, you not only get the medals (and t-shirts) for the individual races, you also get a challenge medal and t-shirt (and the Dopey Challenge also includes the Goofy Challenge, so you get two challenge medals and shirts).
Two people staying in the room whose window is pictured above ran the Dopey Challenge, and they displayed all of their medals on hangers in the window. We had seen it on Sunday morning (minus the marathon and challenge medals) and really wanted to see it with everything there because we thought it was such a cool idea!

Once we had taken the cool medal picture, we made our way over to the buses, where we didn’t have to wait very long before we were on a bus headed to Magic Kingdom.

As you can see … still decorated for Christmas. On January 11th.

Because our reservation was for 8:15 (aka before the park opened), we got to go in before the regular people. There was a separate line on the side, and they scanned Beth’s MagicBand to confirm that we were supposed to be there before letting us into the park.

We were in the park before 7:45, which meant we had plenty of time to take pictures before we checked in for breakfast.

Sights on Main Street:

Castle Selfie:

PhotoPass Pictures:

Walking Through The Castle: (not the best pictures of the murals, but good enough)

I attempted to take a picture of Beth under the sign that said “Cinderella’s Royal Table,” but I failed. Pretty miserably. Miserably enough that I’m not showing you guys the attempts. I will, however, show you a picture of Jaq and Gus Gus:

After we checked in, we got our “invitation” and sat down to wait.
We had already had one minor hiccup in our day. Last time we had a breakfast ADR, we didn’t quite enjoy the Kosher food we were served. We knew that CRT was going to be more of an experience for us than a meal, so we were planning to bring waffles to eat if we didn’t have enough to eat at breakfast (more on that later). We forgot to bring the waffles. So, not the best start to the day, but hopefully we’d be able to survive on the breakfast we paid for.
As we were waiting to get into CRT, we had another uh-oh moment. My left eye hurt, and I couldn’t really see out of it very well. It kinda more than hurt (I have very dry eyes, so my eyes often hurt a little, especially if I don’t use my eyedrops) … it felt like my contact lens was either torn or folded in my eye. I didn’t have my glasses (or a lens case), I didn’t have my eyedrops (not that I can put them in when I’m wearing my lenses), I didn’t have spare lenses … crap.
Thankfully, with lots of help from Beth, I was able to get the lens out and back in with minimal problems (it was folded, not torn, so once I got it unfolded, I could still wear it). It hurt for a little bit while my eye remoistened the lens, but I was mostly able to see, and everything turned out okay. So … happy ending to an almost catastrophe. But I was not having a very eyewear-friendly vacation.

Anyway … eventually we were told to go into the castle and wait to meet our hostess, the lovely Cinderella. I thought the castle decorations were pretty cool … suits of armor, shields, crests, weapons, etc. Here are some pictures:

Yes, that is a Christmas tree in the corner. Seriously. January 11th.

Eventually we made it to the front of the line and got to pose for pictures with our hostess (who is also one of Beth’s favorite princesses):

(Continued in Next Post)

 

[SarahDisney]

(Continued From Previous Post)

Day 7, Chapter 1: Dining with Princesses, Take Two, Part 2
Monday, January 11th, 2016
​

After getting our picture taken with the lovely Cinderella, were then sent upstairs, where we were taken to our table (in the middle of the restaurant, but closer to the windows), and told that our server would be Denise.

In case anyone was wondering, the menus at CRT are beautiful:

Back to the story … Denise came over and spoke to us about the kosher food, plates, utensils, and other assorted things before heading back to the kitchen. We prefer not to drink the hot coffee out of ceramic mugs, so someone brought us out disposable cups of coffee (along with milk, which we had to specially request … do people really not put milk in their coffee? We don’t do creamer…), orange juice, and …

We got magic princess wands!!!! Which was basically the greatest thing that could ever possibly happen to us. Because everyone loves magic princess wands.

As we were waiting for the princesses (and food) to start arriving, we heard what sounded like thunder … which marked the appearance of a special guest:

Basically, every time a princess came into the room, there was some sort of noise. And I was terrible at getting pictures of the princesses coming in (the above picture is Beth’s), but I kept trying.

Anyway … I don’t remember which came first, the food or the princesses (that’s what happens when it takes me 7+ months to write the TR), so we’re just going to talk about the princesses.

While we were waiting for the princesses to come, I took some pictures of the windows:

First up was another one of Beth’s favorites …

Snow White noticed that I was a bit hesitant (it was the combination of morning and my usual shyness), and remarked that I’m a bit like Bashful. Beth, very helpfully, decided to point out that she is like Grumpy. At that point I shared a secret with Snow White … once Beth has her coffee, she becomes a bit more like Happy.
Apparently that doesn’t work for actual Grumpy, though. Or so Snow White says.

One of my plans for this trip was to Instagram quite a bit of it to share the Disney magic with some friends who were sitting at home. I kinda failed at that (which is fine, because I spent more time enjoying the moment than documenting it for the internets), but I did manage to post this pretty sight:

Our next princess visitor was one of my favorites …

I still don’t understand the dress, though. This dress does not exist in the movie. It makes me sad. But anyway … on to the next ...

Our last princess to visit was one we hadn’t seen yet this trip …

(Sorry about the dark on that picture … it’s because I was stupid and didn’t think about the lights from the windows when posing for the picture, and this was really the best-looking editing I could do. I really don’t like Photoshop…)

The princesses were great. We had some nice conversations (the Snow White one mentioned above was my favorite … or at least the only one I wrote down in my notes), and we enjoyed them all. The princesses loved my hair bow … I just wish someone had told me that the thing covered my entire head (I’m blaming my mother for that … I asked her about it when I made it and she didn’t tell me to make it smaller). But whatever.

At one point during the meal they gave all the little kiddos (but not us) these magic wishing stars and then they did a little show with instructions and stuff that I was only half paying attention to. But it was cute. Definitely looked like some of the kids enjoyed it.

Just a quick note about the food. When ordering Kosher breakfast meals, there are two options – cheese omelet and cheese blintzes (for those of you who aren’t familiar with blintzes, they’re kinda like filled crepes). Last time we did breakfast, we ordered one of each – Beth had the omelet, which she didn’t like (it actually made her a little sick), and I had the blintzes, which I thought were tasteless. So we didn’t have high hopes for the food (hence the waffles we had planned to bring). We got one of each again this time, but we split it – we each had half the omelet and one blintz (the package came with two). Beth requested jelly, and Denise brought us some grape jelly, which we put on the blintzes.
The verdict: The blintzes were okay with the jelly, but still not my favorite meal. The omelet was pretty close to inedible. So next time we do a breakfast at WDW, we’re just gonna get two orders of blintzes. Not trying the omelet again. The meal was sufficiently filling, though, and we were okay even without our forgotten waffles.
The coffee was decent, and I enjoyed the orange juice (Beth’s not a huge OJ person, so she didn’t really drink much of hers).

We finished our meal, and since we had prepaid, we were able to leave as soon as we were done. We were out of CRT around 9:15ish, which is way earlier than we had anticipated, so we had a decent amount of time to kill before our first FP+.

One last picture on our way out of the restaurant:

Beth took this one – can you tell that she likes Cinderella?

Time to ride some rides … stay tuned to find out where we started our adventure!

Coming Next: Yeah … I’m Not Feeling It

 

[rteetz]

That's an awesome medal display! I won't be hanging mine in the window next year I'll be wearing them proudly and may never take them off lol.

Christmas has really been lasting a long time at Disney. I understand leaving it for
Marathon weekend but after that?

I've never done Cinderellas royal table. The outfits are interesting and it seems Disney keeps changing the outfits for all the princesses with most recently jasmine.

 

[Saphire5742]

2 Princess meals in one trip! Lucky you!

Two people staying in the room whose window is pictured above ran the Dopey Challenge, and they displayed all of their medals on hangers in the window. We had seen it on Sunday morning (minus the marathon and challenge medals) and really wanted to see it with everything there because we thought it was such a cool idea!

That is a cool idea. What a great way to show off that accomplishment

I will, however, show you a picture of Jaq and Gus Gus:

I love Jaq and Gus Gus!

Eventually we made it to the front of the line and got to pose for pictures with our hostess (who is also one of Beth’s favorite princesses):

Winter Cinderella! Funny how the rest of the princesses are in their normal outfits though. Such a cute photo

We got magic princess wands!!!! Which was basically the greatest thing that could ever possibly happen to us. Because everyone loves magic princess wands.

Every princess NEEDS a magic princess wand. Have mine too.

Sounds like you had another great princess meal. And your report brings back good memories of my own meal there. My favorite interaction was Snow White too.

Glad you got the contact lense thing sorted.

 

[Elevationist]

Sarah, I am SO proud of you for embracing so many princess meets! I know we've talked at length about our shared shyness with face characters, so I think this is just AWESOME!!!

 

[SarahDisney]

That's an awesome medal display! I won't be hanging mine in the window next year I'll be wearing them proudly and may never take them off lol.

As cool as that medal display was ... I like your idea better!

Christmas has really been lasting a long time at Disney. I understand leaving it for
Marathon weekend but after that?

Yeah, I wasn't surprised that stuff was still up when we first got there, but I thought the decorations would have come down Sunday night.
I'm just waiting for the year when Christmas lasts until Easter...

I've never done Cinderellas royal table. The outfits are interesting and it seems Disney keeps changing the outfits for all the princesses with most recently jasmine.

CRT was really cool, and even though I have issues with Ariel's dress, I still liked it. I'm really interested to see what happens with Jasmine, if this ends up being a permanent change.

2 Princess meals in one trip! Lucky you!

We were definitely lucky to be able to do that!

That is a cool idea. What a great way to show off that accomplishment

It really was interesting to see - a great way to show off the medals!

I love Jaq and Gus Gus!

Me too! I loved that they were up there!

Winter Cinderella! Funny how the rest of the princesses are in their normal outfits though. Such a cute photo

It was definitely a little weird that Cinderella was the only one who was in winter dress ... I guess it's because she was closest to the Christmas tree.
Thanks!

Every princess NEEDS a magic princess wand. Have mine too.

Sounds like you had another great princess meal. And your report brings back good memories of my own meal there. My favorite interaction was Snow White too.

I'm glad to hear you also enjoyed the meal. Snow White really was great!

Glad you got the contact lense thing sorted.

It was definitely a relief that I was able to sort out the contacts issue!

Sarah, I am SO proud of you for embracing so many princess meets! I know we've talked at length about our shared shyness with face characters, so I think this is just AWESOME!!!

Thank you
Thinking back, I actually think I was pretty good with people on this trip - both face characters and other guests - which is a pretty big deal for me!

 

[NJlauren]

Princess overload! Love it!!!

Is this FP day???????

I love a good blintz.... Maybe I want one for dinner

 

[SarahDisney]

Princess overload! Love it!!!

We're all about the Princess overload

Is this FP day???????

That was the plan ... a little more on that in the next entry (which hopefully will go up next week)

I love a good blintz.... Maybe I want one for dinner

I like blitzes, but I don't love them. My favorite are potato, but I like cheese too sometimes.

 

[SarahDisney]

Day 7, Chapter 2: Yeah … I’m Not Feeling It
Monday, January 11th, 2016
​

When you last saw us, we had just left Cinderella Castle after eating breakfast with some lovely princess friends. Since we had some time before our first FP+, we decided to ride a favorite classic attraction:

There was a short wait (like one carousel cycle) to get on, and Beth and I were talking a bit. Today was a big day for us – we were on a quest to use 18 FP+, with the intention of topping the number we had been given last year by a CM for most FP+ in a day (for more on that, read the explanation on my PTR). As we were waiting for the carousel, I confessed something to Beth: I just wasn’t feeling the FP+ quest. So it kinda ended before it started.
I’m actually really okay with not doing the FP+ quest. When we had our 11 FP+ day last year (which was the inspiration for the quest), it was something completely spontaneous, and I think that’s what made it so special and fun. Planning it like that just wasn’t as exciting.
The good news is, we still love the FP+ system, and we did our best to take advantage of it … you’ll find out at the end of the day how many FP+ we ended up using. We may or may not have broken our personal FP+ record (which was 11 before this trip) – you’ll have to stay tuned to find out!

Anyway, back to the carousel…

One of the many things I love about the carousel is that you get some nice views of the castle and parts of Fantasyland:

I know that I normally post pictures of us outside of attractions, but … by day 2 at Magic Kingdom, we stopped taking those pictures. So there will be more words than pictures sometimes.

Back to the story … next stop was back to the always adorable Mickey’s PhilharMagic. We enjoyed, as we always do. Once we finished our delightful trip through Disney animated movies chasing after Mickey’s sorcerer hat, it was time for our first FP+ … Peter Pan’s Flight. Thanks to my newfound obsession with taking on-ride pictures, I have some photographic evidence:

If I remember correctly (and it’s been a while, so I might be wrong), we stopped for a short bit in London, which is when Beth took the above picture. Her phone did much better in the low light than my camera, and I really love how this picture came out!

Okay, now on to the not-as-good camera pictures:

Next on our agenda was another classic attraction … It’s a Small World. Being from Queens, and having a father who sometimes talks about going to the 1964-1965 World’s Fair as a child (I actually had the opportunity to walk around the World’s Fair site with him a few months back, which was pretty cool), IASW holds a special place in my heart (although the one in California is more special because that’s the original), so it’s a must-ride for me. I always love taking pictures on IASW, so here are some of those for you to enjoy:

Our traditional on-ride selfie:

Next up was our first non-princess character of the day:

The Mad Hatter actually asked me about my bow. I explained that it was meant to represent Dumbo (it was leftover fabric from the skirt I made for the 10K). He liked it and said that I should apply for a job at his hat factory! It was definitely a fun interaction.

Next up it was time for FP+ #2, our favorite attraction at Magic Kingdom …

Another picture, just for funsies:

It looks like I didn’t take any pictures on the ride, so I guess we’ll have to move on to our next activity. Thankfully, we don’t have far to go … just across the path to Pooh’s Thotful Spot, where we met our good friends Pooh and Tigger:

They were cute, as always, but nothing too memorable about this interaction. We did enjoy meeting them, though, and we decided that we should continue the fun and go meet another character:

Brave is not one of our favorite movies, but we’ve really enjoyed meeting Merida in the past, which is why we made a point to visit with her again.
I really love the detail and theming in Merida’s meet and greet area. One of my favorite touches is the tapestry that Merida has to fix during the movie:

We had a nice conversation (I can’t remember about what, though … that’s what I get for waiting 8 months to get to this part of the TR), and we definitely were not disappointed!

I probably shouldn’t post this, because it’s not the best picture of us, but I love Merida’s face in this picture:

Once we were done with Merida, we decided to cut across the hub to spend some time in Tomorrowland. In a very surprising move … we stopped for pictures on the way:

In which Sarah still doesn’t know how to do a running pose (I’m getting better … I think):

We finished two races! Yay!

Once we had gotten our pictures taken, it was time to hop over to Tomorrowland. We had a FP+ to use … but we also hadn’t been on our favorite Tomorrowland attraction yet (that day at least … we went on it earlier in the trip). What would we do first? Find out in my next installment!

Coming Next: Going For Galactic Hero

 

[rteetz]

The great quest of FP+! lol

I honestly have never done the carousel... I know bad Diser....

Love Peter pan and Small World though both are must dos. That is so cool your dad got to go to the World's fair. If time machines were a thing that is one place I would go to along with the opening of disneyland.

Great pictures with the Mad hatter!

Mine Train is always fun, I love the ride photos and video too!

I have never met Merida but it looks like you had a nice meet with her.

Nice pictures with the castle in the back. Its been a long time since I had photos taken over there. And I love the running pose photo those are always fun.

 

[Saphire5742]

Being from Queens, and having a father who sometimes talks about going to the 1964-1965 World’s Fair as a child (I actually had the opportunity to walk around the World’s Fair site with him a few months back, which was pretty cool), IASW holds a special place in my heart (although the one in California is more special because that’s the original), so it’s a must-ride for me.

That is really cool. And as you know I also LOVE Small World.

Next up was our first non-princess character of the day:

So jealous! Didn't get to meet him when I was there

We finished two races! Yay!

YAY indeed!

Fun day you've been having. As always enjoying your photos. Can't wait to hear how the rest of your day went

 

[NJlauren]

I'm sad I don't get to read about a FP+ quest day! But totally get how it could put a damper on a day. I've always wanted to do the 4 park challenge, but I kinda feel the same way about it, could put a damper on the day....

You got a ton done for this morning so far! Were the parks crowded? I always thought they would be a little busy marathon weekend. DD loves the carousel, we ride it an abnormal amount of times, so I have a new appreciation for that ride. I also love it's a small world! Great day so far!

 

[KathyM2]

Doing a drive by...trying to catch up with everyone since I've been MIA for a while!! I love reading your TR's though!! Now that I've finally done a 10K race elsewhere I'm even more eager to try one at Disney...one day!!!

 

[LadyGrimm]

I also grew up in NY, and my father and I used to walk around the fairgrounds all the time while he would reminisce. And whenever we would ride CoP at WDW he would tell me about how his foster father was always absolutely convinced that the animatronic dog was real. I make it a point to ride CoP every trip, just to remember my dad. :-D