A Photo Heavy, Pixie Dust Infused Reunion-NEW TR LINK IN LAST POST 6/14!!!!

[Grumpy's Wife]

Love all the updates!

Oh my goodness how cute was the little trolley girl? She had to make their day.

 

[katt789]

April 10, 2017

12:46 PM

Well guys, I think you can assume what's coming next….Kara had wanted to make sure we get a viewing of the parade in the hub, with the castle in the background. She'd shot there before and really liked it, and we'd shot in similar areas in Tokyo and loved it, so that was the goal. Struggle is it gets SUPER hot waiting for the parade in that sun, especially when you're getting there early enough to get a curbside seat! Whoo! Tasha did take a break to go get a drink, or be in the shade for a while, but made it back in time for the parade. Now, to give you a bit more interactive of an update, click this link and hit play before you continue reading:

You can't NOT get excited when those trumpets start playing! So FUN!

IMG_0873 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

We were super excited to see some beautiful swans that we hadn't been expecting to see at all, though, with us sitting, it made us a lot harder to notice lol.

IMG_0884 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
IMG_0920 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_0925 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
We were VERY excited to see Ariel, but she was definitely way too high up to see us frantically waving when she came past lol!

IMG_0948 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
IMG_0992 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_1007 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

Festival of Fantasy cruised its way down Main Street and through our hearts, and we didn't race to watch it again (partially because that would NOT work from where we were sitting) and also because we had another race on our minds! The Princess 1/2 Marathon!! We needed to head over to the Expo to pick up all of our packages! There are shuttle busses that run from all the resorts, and we knew where the stop was at the Contemporary, plus it was the closest resorts, so we were walking over there and on a bus before we knew it.

The Expo takes place as the ESPN Wide World Of Sports. In previous years, friends have gone first thing in the morning, and the line to get in has been HORRENDOUS, none of us had the NEED for any specific merch, so we chose to go after FoF like we did the previous year and the crowds were MUCH more manageable.

We had to go to a booth to pick up our race bibs, and sign some waivers, and then over to another one that we would pick up our t-shirts, and a clear plastic bag with some safety pins and a little granola bar in it. We'd use the bag the next day to keep our stuff in while we ran (and them being clear plastic helped with the bag check process at the races! Kara had to go through 2 separate buildings to pick up her 5k stuff and then her 1/2 Marathon stuff. We also noticed there were Princesses out doing meet and greets (Rapunzel was out for sure, and I saw pictures of Belle obviously), but the lines were long, and I'm sure we'd met them that day, so we passed.

In the second building was all the RunDisney merch, and all the sponsors? Partners? Merchandise booths that weren't specifically Disney, like Rawthreads and all that such! We browsed through the clothes & pins & the like, but opted not to get anything as it was super expensive. (though it all popped up at Cast Connections a few weeks ago, and Amanda bought me a hoodie for 1/3 of the price lol!)

Race packets in hand, we decided we would rather get out of the crowds than continue to look at all the things we couldn’t afford, and headed back to the busses.

Clearly though, there is ALWAYS time for photos. A lovely couple took our group picture too, and Kara got a picture with the 1/2 Marathon banner!

Despite leaving the Expo, and knowing we had ONE HECK OF AN EARLY MORNING, we weren't headed back to Pop Century quite yet! Tonight was the only night we had available to see Fantasmic, so we took a shuttle over to the Boardwalk and enjoyed the walk over to Hollywood Studios!

Becky was meeting us somewhere around this point, and since we'd only had ice cream for lunch (along with some of our walmart bought snacks) it was DEFINITELY time for dinner.

We stopped along the street outside of Tower of Terror and each of us got a burger with friends, I got a beer which I ended up sharing with Tasha, and we headed into the amphitheater. MUCH to our disappointment, it was the FULLEST WE'D EVER SEEN IT! Our plan had been to watch from NEAR the back/exit so we could sneak out to watch the Star Wars nighttime show, but we ended up on the complete opposite side, and in the little EXTRA back part of the bleachers.

The show was alright, it started to sprinkle here & there and I was surprised when it didn't stop halfway through! We could legitimately barely see anything of the show, the highlight for all of us was waiting until the end, when Ariel gets covered by a sack to protect from firework debri cause she can't move lol!

We tried out best to get out of there quickly, but it was a hot mess (as always) and when we finally emerged, they had SHUTTLED US OUTSIDE THE PARK! Like, EXCUSE ME?! THERE WERE STILL FIREWORKS ON THE TIMES GUIDE?! Kara, Tasha & I were wiped, and with the race in the morning, didn't want to bother, so we started to head to the bus, while Becky tried to figure out what was going on. She soon found us at the bus stop and said that they'd cancelled the Star Wars show for the night, though they clearly hadn't made any recent announcements about it. Ugh. It was back home, and early to bed for us! We had a very big day tomorrow!!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

joining in late but such a fun report so far - so cool that you got so many people together there and just converging from different areas PLUS meeting up with people there.

This is a pretty neat pictures:

IMG_9989 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

Pretty good start with the character meets, FoF, and FotLK (didn't realize there was special VIP spots - that's cool they brought you back to the performer area). While I don't wind up watching it very often, I do love Country Bears - especially the history of the attraction (one of the last things Walt worked on personally, was originally for the ski resort he was going to build, etc.)


seems like another good morning as well. I love how much you love Snow White - definitely she holds a special place to me as a) she is Walt's Little Princess and ii) she is the first princess my oldest daughter really got into - so lots of pictures of my girls at various ages in various sized Snow dresses meeting with her

As you know FoF didn't blow me away when I finally saw it (though may have been due to expectations being raised to unrealistic expectations) but i did love all the dancers and performers and the energy they always have - so I very much enjoyed a lot of the pictures you got of them

Seems like your next morning was good to - and nice you got to spend some time with the Trolly girls a bit - especially realizing it was your last time

That's a cute photo with the dew on the monks and the Castle in the back

Aw, that's a super cute story of that little girl - love this phone especially:

Ok, before this whole #basic thing came out I had no idea the purple wall thing was even a thing

Ah, but the "peace sign" pose I knew - and my oldest daughter has starting doing it and I have no idea where she got the idea from

And thus I present you with the 3rd classic pose for pictures…especially coming from the 2 girls who spent 6 weeks in Asia in the fall… and I have no idea how else to pose for photos..

Gotta love the hub grass pics though - and a dole whip of course

Interesting about the crowds at the race registration a bit later - guess like you said if there isn't some limited edition merchandise you wanted might as well skip the worst of the crowds

Glad you got in a viewing of Fantasmic! but bummer about the crowds and then the rain. bummer they cancelled the Star Wars fireworks as well, but I guess at least you didn't miss anything by being in that crowd/not able to exit quickly like you wanted

 

[katt789]

Love all the updates!

Oh my goodness how cute was the little trolley girl? She had to make their day.

Thank you!!
Right?! She was so adorable!!

joining in late but such a fun report so far - so cool that you got so many people together there and just converging from different areas PLUS meeting up with people there.
This is a pretty neat pictures:
Pretty good start with the character meets, FoF, and FotLK (didn't realize there was special VIP spots - that's cool they brought you back to the performer area). While I don't wind up watching it very often, I do love Country Bears - especially the history of the attraction (one of the last things Walt worked on personally, was originally for the ski resort he was going to build, etc.)

seems like another good morning as well. I love how much you love Snow White - definitely she holds a special place to me as a) she is Walt's Little Princess and ii) she is the first princess my oldest daughter really got into - so lots of pictures of my girls at various ages in various sized Snow dresses meeting with her
As you know FoF didn't blow me away when I finally saw it (though may have been due to expectations being raised to unrealistic expectations) but i did love all the dancers and performers and the energy they always have - so I very much enjoyed a lot of the pictures you got of them
Seems like your next morning was good to - and nice you got to spend some time with the Trolly girls a bit - especially realizing it was your last time

That's a cute photo with the dew on the monks and the Castle in the back

Aw, that's a super cute story of that little girl - love this phone especially:
Ok, before this whole #basic thing came out I had no idea the purple wall thing was even a thing

Ah, but the "peace sign" pose I knew - and my oldest daughter has starting doing it and I have no idea where she got the idea from

Gotta love the hub grass pics though - and a dole whip of course

Interesting about the crowds at the race registration a bit later - guess like you said if there isn't some limited edition merchandise you wanted might as well skip the worst of the crowds

Glad you got in a viewing of Fantasmic! but bummer about the crowds and then the rain. bummer they cancelled the Star Wars fireworks as well, but I guess at least you didn't miss anything by being in that crowd/not able to exit quickly like you wanted

Thank you!! I always love to play around with train station pictures!
Hahaha yeah!! The very first bench is usually vip, sometimes friends or family, sometimes make a wish, sometimes random people who get chosen. It usually extends to the second row too! Country Bears is just so ridiculous I LOVE it.
HAHAHAHA! Funnily enough, I'm not the biggest Snow fan, she's honestly like, my least favorite princess, but there are certain days that going to see her makes me smile more than others, so it's always nice to stop in and say hi
Awe, thank you!!
I'm 99% sure the Munk photo was Kara's! lol
She's so cute!!
Yeah, I had no idea, it blew up over last year when we weren't at Disney at all because of Asia, we even had to google where to find it lol

 

[missangelalexis]

Great FoF pictures!

Sounds like a chaotic end to the night!

 

[Disneyhayes]

Joining in!

 

[katt789]

Great FoF pictures!

Sounds like a chaotic end to the night!

Thank you!!!
Hahaha it definitely was!

Joining in!

Yay!! Welcome! Hope you're enjoying it so far!!

 

[Hiitsme]

Looks like a super fun time. Awesome photos! I always end up taking Red Queen pics. You know, "off with their heads" .

 

[katt789]

Good morning!! Or should I say, good MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT!?!?! Because that's what time it was!
Today was the day of the 5k portion of the Princess Half Marathon, Tasha, Kara & I were all running it, and had to be on a bus a 4am, so we were up at 3:30AM, doing our best to not wake up Becky while we got ready. It didn't take long, I did put a bit of mascara on, I knew there would be pictures, and I get red and sweaty enough while running I needed a little bit of confidence, bahahahah! The bus trip over to Epcot was pretty simple, we were all excited, Tasha & I perhaps a bit nervous about the whole thing. The busses drop you off in the Epcot parking lot, and they had a TON of stuff set up, including a DJ and some princess meet and greets! Both the lines were HORRIBLY long, but we jumped in one anyways to kill some time before we had to head to the corrals. We danced along to the cha cha slide and some other things while we waited and had a good time checking out some of the awesome costumes around us.

Unfortunately, we made it NOWHERE near the front of the line by the time we had to leave, bahaha! We had each brought with us the clear see through bags they'd given us at the Expo the day earlier, and they had a bag check provided, it was organized by last name, so we were all separate. Now, I hadn't really trained for this 5k, heck, none of us had done a ton of training. Despite being in Vancouver, where it's supposed to be semi nice all year around, it had snowed…A LOT…prior to this trip, and Vancouver people don't know HOW TO DEAL WITH IT, which, as an Albertan, drives me insane. Thus, everything was icy, snowy, and not cleared, so I couldn't run outside. I semi trained on a treadmill, but the week leading up to the trip hadn't been as heavily training as I'd wanted to. I was rather worried about it, since I do have some minor asthma. I'd gotten a puffer before we went to China for obvious reasons, so right before I checked my bag, I took it just to make sure. The volunteer checking the bags was a bit concerned, asking if I should maybe be taking it with me, lol. I explained it wasn't too serious, and I should be fine. I did keep my phone and my Ipod with me though (thinking back, I probably should've loaded a running playlist on my phone, that would've made more sense…).
Kara, Tasha, and I met up on the other side, and headed over to the corrals, with a quick pit stop at the bathroom, it was time to split up. Kara had registered the two of us, so she'd put my time as the same as hers (which was pretty accurate) though Tasha had put a slower time, so we were in corral B, while she was in D(?). They had a big TV screen and entertainment going along to keep us occupied, including a promo for the new Beauty and the Beast. We however, occupied ourselves with taking some pictures, including a selfie to describe how we felt about running

And one for my Mom. She'd made my costume a couple years back for a MNSSHP, I had to have her ship it out to me for the race, so she wanted a picture of me running in it lol.

It's from the Move it Shake It parade at MK, (it's also seen better days lol). Kara had a Swan Court (from Fof) inspired costume that she'd worn the previous year, while Tasha was wearing the shirt she'd gotten from the expo.

The way the races work, is each corral is let up to the starting line one at a time, and then they split the corrals up into smaller groups so there's more space for the runners. We waited a little bit, and then it was our time to head up to the starting line, it was SUPER cool and motivating as everyone was just super pumped up, and they shot off fireworks for each group of runners which was awesome!

THEN WE WERE RUNNING!!

The route takes you from the front parking lot, over to the cast member parking lot, through backstage, then you come out in Mexico. You run around World Showcase, down through the International Gateway, out of Epcot, BACK through backstage UK, almost to Canada, then through Canada, over to the Seas, loop back to SSE, then out the front of the park to the finish line. Seems pretty simple. The plan was to run as much as I could (Kara was being the best and running at my pace the entire time, the 5k isn't timed, so she wasn't worried about it) and stop for any rare characters with lines that weren't that long, or FoF people lol.

Running through backstage Epcot definitely brought back a lot of feels for all of us, like, that was our daily life for a year, lol, and this was our first time at Epcot this trip! EEK! We saw Meeko first off, but his line was LONG, and we didn't care much anyways. We kept running, I joked that I was going to take the "lazy bus" that drives CM's backstage through WS and I'd meet Kara in Canada lol.

Running wasn't too bad, we kept a good pace, admired the New Norway, and ran all the way into America, where we walked a bit, and picked up the running in Morocco.

They had photopass out during the race, who were sitting in green tents, so you knew when they were coming up, Kara and I jokingly threw up the typical Japanese peace signs while we were talking about them, and were caught by one actually looking like we were enjoying life running through WS lol.

My next push was to get to Canada, where we saw our coordinator from our program cheering on the runners, we did some run-by hugs and hellos, and kept going. I knew the next push was to get over to the seas, where they had some of the dancers from FoF (and friendly faces) out, the line wasn't too bad, but it was a nice time to stop running briefly.

I'm pretty sure we sped walked a bit after this, I was really feeling it by now, but Kara urged me on, saying that the next push was the FINISH LINE. We rounded through Epcot, past space ship earth, where I thought that it would be less entertaining for a bit while we ran backstage/through parking lots, so my mind was a bit BLOWN when we rounded a corner and THAT WAS THE FINISH LINE, WHAT EVEN?! Like, it snuck up on me (Tasha said the same too). It was SUPER AWESOME and emotional and happy and jut a lot of things to cross that finish line and get a REAL medal for running. Doing a Disney race has been one of my goals/motivation/rewards for my years of my weight loss journey, so even if this was just a 5k, it was still super rewarding.
Right after we got our medals, we had stopped running after a really big push, and having only eaten a banana that morning, and not having much to drink, my body was definitely confused. I said to Kara "I think I need to sit down…." luckily nothing happened, just some dizziness. We picked up our snack boxes, bananas, waters, and powerades (all included with the race package) retrieved our bags (where the same lady who checked mine asked about how the race was for me without the puffer lol) and headed to our meeting spot to wait for Tasha.

Kara had been paying attention to the time when we crossed the finish line, but since it starts when the first section of corral A starts, we had to adjust/guess a little bit, but she said we finished in around 30-35 minutes, so that IS AWESOME, considering I trained outside ONCE, MONTHS before the race, and did 3k in 20 minutes and had to stop lol. We devoured our snack boxes, stretched, and discussed the race a bit, wondering how much longer Tasha would be, when she SUDDENLY POPPED UP, a huge smile on her face saying "That was fun! When's the next one!" Like, this girl didn't train at all, and almost considered not racing in the prior couple of days, so that's awesome!!

We sat for a little bit more, and debated getting some finish line beers/mimosas, but figured we'd rather get going to the PARKS, so we took a quick congratulatory selfie;

And headed back to the bus! We made it back to the resort pretty quickly, updated Becky with how things went, and showered and got ready as fast as we could!

Sorry this update was super wordy and low on pictures. I wish I'd had more time to take pics while we ran, WS was gorgeous all lit up and with the sun rising, but obvs you just want to keep running.

I also would do another update but need to get some shopping done for our UPCOMING trip, so perhaps later today!

Hope you've all enjoyed! Happy Tuesday!

 

[missangelalexis]

Congrats on doing the 5K, that's an awesome accomplishment! It sounds like it was fun for all 3 of you!

 

[Disneyhayes]

Congratulations on the race! It's my weight loss goal to be healthy enough to do a Disney race. Down 20 pounds so far.

 

[Grumpy's Wife]

Congratulations on running the race. Seems like a really fun time except I don't run.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Congrats on doing the race - seems like you did great, especially considering the low level of training.

I am horribly out of shape but trying to get into running a bit and the thought of doing a runDisney event is definitely part of the motivation (I actually signed up to do the virtual series this summer - figure that will be a bit of a "gateway drug" into doing an event actually at Disney (actually, I might to the June virtual 5k the morning of June 1st when I will be at Disney and no plans until lunch at Disney springs that day).

That's cool that even with the 5k you got to see some neat parts of EPCOT and backstage and stuff. Super cool people from FoF were out for photo ops - I hadn't seen that in any other runDisney related trip reports

 

[katt789]

Congrats on doing the 5K, that's an awesome accomplishment! It sounds like it was fun for all 3 of you!

Thank you!!! It was super fun! All of us can't wait to do it again, we're debating whether or not to sign up again for next year!!

Congratulations on the race! It's my weight loss goal to be healthy enough to do a Disney race. Down 20 pounds so far.

Thank you!!! It was one of my motivators/rewards/goals along my weight loss journey too! I'd love to see if I could ever to a 10k! Lol. Congratulations!! That's a big number!

Congratulations on running the race. Seems like a really fun time except I don't run.

Thank you! It was awesome!! The 5k's not too bad, even for non runners, it's not timed so I'm pretty sure there are people who walk the entire thing too!

Congrats on doing the race - seems like you did great, especially considering the low level of training.

I am horribly out of shape but trying to get into running a bit and the thought of doing a runDisney event is definitely part of the motivation (I actually signed up to do the virtual series this summer - figure that will be a bit of a "gateway drug" into doing an event actually at Disney (actually, I might to the June virtual 5k the morning of June 1st when I will be at Disney and no plans until lunch at Disney springs that day).

That's cool that even with the 5k you got to see some neat parts of EPCOT and backstage and stuff. Super cool people from FoF were out for photo ops - I hadn't seen that in any other runDisney related trip reports

Thank you!!
RunDisney was definitely a motivating thing for my workouts long before I'd even met Kara, so I was super happy to actually have someone to do this with lol!! Yeah! It was super fun! Lol, I feel like most people don't even know who the FoF people are, especially outside of the parade, their line was the shortest out of everyone!

 

[katt789]

Kara, Tasha, Becky & I were ready relatively quickly, and managed to get down to the busses and over to the park faster than we'd expected, but not at the rope drop time we'd wished for lol! We were doing 2 parks today, knocking out the one that we didn't really care about first bahahah.

Kara & Becky took off to Rock n Rollercoaster while Tasha & I opted to get some Starbucks, and wander down slowly to meet them. They'd planned on doing one of the rides, but ended up doing both, so we had a while to wait for them. We browsed through the shops, laughing that we'd both spent so much time in the RnR gift shop waiting for people to ride since we both won't go on it lol!

We got bored, and were still wishing that we had that post race beer, so we attempted to get margaritas down the street, but apparently no one else has that idea that early in the day as the cart wasn't even opened yet, waaaaaah! Tasha declared that she wanted a churro, so we started our adventure to try and find somewhere selling those, and sent a text to the other 2 that we'd meet them over at the Moana meet & greet.

Tasha & I had no luck with the churro hunt, but luckily the other 2 weren't far behind us, and we were into One Man's Dream pretty quickly, marveling at the Beauty & the Beast stuff on our way through.

Personally, still not the biggest fan of the dress, but hey, whatever. We chatted about what to do after this, we'd sacrificed our Beauty & the Beast fast pass to make it to Moana as soon as we could, and didn't really have an interest in a lot of the other stuff at DHS, it wasn't do or die for us, so we figured we'd do the one MUST DO for Becky & Tasha after this, and then head on over to Epcot!

The wait wasn't too long, and right before we were to meet Moana, the most adorable thing happened. This little girl toddled on up to Kara, just staring at her, Kara was bounding as Moana, and this little girl just seemed super confused/intrigued. She stared Kara down, pointed to the toys Kara was holding and they had the cutest little exchange, the girl took the toys, looked them over, then handed them back, but it was clear she thought Kara was Moana, bahahaha.

I have no idea what they talked about, lol, I was busy videoing. After they'd taken their picture, we popped up to say Hi to Moana and chat a little bit.

We thanked the islanders and exited out of the meet and greet. Becky commented that the BatB preview was SUPER good, but Tasha has been avoiding EVERYTHING about the movie to fully be surprised, so we skipped it. We walked back out through the exhibit, where ANOTHER girl, being carried by her dad, saw Kara, shrieked, pointed and was all "MOANA MOANA MOANA!!!!" Kara was super flattered yet super awkward by all of this. Obviously, Disney's super strict on impersonating characters, and we like to play by the rules, lol. Kara had even made sure to get shorts instead of a skirt, and use a curling iron instead of her natural curls to differentiate, lol, but it was still funny.

We had a bit of time to kill before we headed to our last stop of the day at Hollywood, and it was finally time we could get a drink! 50'S PT was our quick stop, I got an electric lemonade, while Kara got a pb&j milkshake. It took a while to get the milkshake, as it always does, we paid, and made our way to the other side of echo lake, where we got in line for the Frozen Sing a long! Tasha & Becky absolutely LOVE it, I enjoy it, I always forget how much I enjoy it until I'm there. There isnt' much to it, and it kinda all depends on which historians you get, but it's still pretty funny. While we were in line we discussed the possibility of leaving right after vs doing another few attractions, at this point, I think we were all just ready for some Epcot, and wanted to have a while to enjoy everything over there, so Epcot won out!

IMG_1044 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_1058 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_1063 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

The sing a long was great, as per usual, I love taking pictures of it to try and get some awesome shots, but the lighting's so difficult to work with lol!

And just like that, it was goodbye hollywood, hello Epcot!

 

[katt789]

Epcot! Our hoooooome! It was super exciting to finally be back, especially after running through the park that morning! We obviously came in through International Gateway, and started our trek over to Spaceship Earth! We had the goal of catching the 12:30 (?i THINK that was the time) show of American Music Machine. We arrived a bit early and explored through Mouse Gears, searching for those sprit jerseys again, with no luck.

The show used to be over in America, I'm not sure why they moved it, perhaps for more publicity? Either way, it's an incredible accappella show with amazingly talented singers. I spent most of the time videoing, so have some pictures from last year! Lol

Untitled by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
Untitled by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

When the show ended, we started on our trek BACK across World Showcase, we weren't picking up any drinks since we had a lunch resso in a bit, but we did stop into Le Cellier to see if we knew anyone, and had a nice chat with some old friends who were back on another program!

Italy was our final destination, where we checked into Via Napoli for lunch! Tasha absolutely LOVES it, and had asked if we could do it, and it's fairly cheap when you share things, so we all agreed! We were seated off to the back, ordered some drinks and decided what we wanted. I got the espresso martini, and shared the caprese salad with Tasha, and we all shared a large truffle cheese pizza! We didn't get the giant square one, but this pizza was still HUGE!

We all really enjoyed lunch, and it was super nice to be sitting inside for a bit! When we finished lunch, it was time to go to Kara & I's favorite place, where we'd been DYING to get to all week!

We were LOST LITTLE CHANS in Japan! Seriously, we miss Japan so much, so this was a little taste of home while we were in Florida lol! We continued with drink #2 here, with some frozen beer!

IMG_1072 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

The four of us browsed through the store, surprised to find that the front entrance was COMPLETELY redone, there were a lot of changes in there!

We bid goodbye to our favorite country, and moved on through Morocco, which sadly, we didn't explore at all lol.
IMG_1083 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_1086 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

I'm not quite sure why we didn't venture back to see if Jasmine was around, we didn't really have much of a game plan for today. As we wandered through, I ended up giving the rest of my beer to Becky, I just wasn't feelin it, and it was making me SUPER full after the pizza for lunch.

We ended up back in Canada before we knew it!

We popped back down to the steakhouse to say Hi to a manager who wasn't in earlier when we'd dropped by, chatting with her for a bit, before we explored the merch store & the new (to us) bar area they have up there!

We highly considered buying these…and we picked up some pins for the 150th from the counter!

IMG_1103 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

We debating picking up a beer in Canada, but upon checking the menu, they'd gotten rid of the easier to drink bottled beer that I was considering. We were all still pretty full, so we opted to wait until Mexico! Kara & I headed into the line while Becky & Tasha explored a bit. The wait for margaritas is always so insane!! I got a cucumber and an avacado for Tasha & I to split, I can't remember what Kara got, but obviously, they were all delicious!

 

[katt789]

When we reached Norway in all it's Arendelle beauty, we KNEW we had to stop to see the sisters, and weren't sure if we could take drinks in the line up, so we grabbed a seat and hung out nearby while we finished our drinks. I'm usually all about the margaritas, but today was not feelin it, really the longer the day went on the less I wanted to really drink lol. I'm pretty sure Tasha & Becky ended up finishing the margaritas for us bahha! When we did finish, we jumped into a 20 minute line for Anna & Elsa!

The queue was BEAUTIFULLY detailed and just a huge step up from Fairytale Hall. We also found that other people had some drinks in the line, and there were garbage cans throughout the line, so we probably could've jumped in line earlier, but oh well!

Anna was first up, and Tasha went up to meet her solo first! She was super excited to see Tasha's bow, and asked if she got it at Oaken's! The whole interaction was absolutely adorable, and Tasha was just SO HAPPY.

You'll notice that the group had a couple costume changes today lol. Kara changed into Tokyo garb after DHS, and Tasha threw her skirt on over her shorts & took the t-shirt off for this meet to bound for Anna lol! Anna also had them turn around so Tasha could show off the bow!

The rest of us jumped in for a wonderful chat and pictures, but for the life of me I can't find them on anyone's facebook, so you're just going to have to trust me!

The whole interaction was just absolutely incredible, Anna was BEYOND amazing, so bubbly, cute, excited and just really into meeting us! It was just amazing.
IMG_1108 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

When we finished the meet & greet, Tasha ran to the bathroom to change back into her other outfit, and we headed over to the ride! Becky had been given a no strings earlier in the week, and we were wondering if we could use it over here, and….WE COULD! We barely waited, and were floating through Arendelle before we knew it! I really enjoyed the ride, and thought it was REALLY well done! I was never the biggest Maelstrom fan though, so that might have to do with it! I wouldn't wait too long for it though…I mean, it's a classic dark ride with really well done animatronics lol.

We’d all had some time to digest the margaritas, so it was time for some grapefruit beer in our next country's stop!

And.…this is the point where things kinda taper off. At some point during one of our circles in France I creeped past Aurora and decided it wasn't worth the wait, we maybe got some more drinks, I'm not really sure. We ended up inside the Rose & Crown, amazed that we’d gotten a table, and picked up some ciders to drink. It was while we were sitting there that we realized JUST HOW TIRED we were, like, seriously. Tasha & I ended up struggling through the last of our drinks (why we chose more carbonated ones I do not know) and decided to say our goodnight's to Epcot while Kara & Becky stayed for Illuminations. It's not my favorite nighttime show, and I was just so tired after such a long day, I didn't want to deal with the crowds on the way out, and we had so much beer back at the hotel, it just made more sense to go chill out there. Plus, the little bit of sickness I had been feeling was starting to hit me a bit harder.

Overall, it was a great day, but Kara & I have been talking about how we WISH we'd spent more time in the other parks on this trip, especially Epcot! I'd had so many photography ideas, and wanted to take so many pictures, but there just wasn't enough time, and we'd lost some motivation being race zombies that day lol!

 

[missangelalexis]

Love all the Epcot pictures! I'm sure it was a long day but it sounds like it was fun!

 

[katt789]

Our next morning, thankfully began a lot later than the previous one, and later than we'd planned, but oh well lol. We were waking up around 9/10, and literally took our SWEET time getting ready. There was lots of lying around and social media-ing. Becky wasn't feeling too well, so she opted to stay in bed longer while Kara Tasha & I headed out. We had the plan today to NOT do any parks, and do a photoshoot day covering a bunch of resorts & Disney Springs, and the most sensible route involved starting at Disney Springs.

We were AMAZED when we got off the bus, guys, I kid you not! The last time we'd been here, NONE of the things we were seeing were there, it was like a completely different place! The bus also conveniently dropped us off right where we wanted, as we were headed for the breakfast of champions!

IMG_1122 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

IMG_1133 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

I mean, just LOOK AT THEM!

We all took a while deciding which ones to get, I mean, they all looked and sounded absolutely amazing, we decided on one each and figured we could come back on our way out if we really wanted to try a second one!
IMG_1136 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

Kara & I both ended up choosing the red velvet ones;

IMG_1142 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

While Tasha got the one with the sprinkles on top!
IMG_1143 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr

Which she was clearly super excited about!
IMG_1144 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
IMG_1148 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
IMG_1149 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
IMG_1151 by Katt mccluskey, on Flickr
In case you couldn't tell, they were SUPER delicious!

Cupcakes aren't enough for breakfast though, so when we had polished off our delicious snacks, it was time to head across the bridge to one of our all time favorite spots! Ragland Road! Because, when cupcakes are the appetizers, truffle fries & beer flights are obviously the main course!

We had ordered a second app, but I cannot for the LIFE of me remember what it was? A cheese plate perhaps? If there's one on the menu there's a 99% chance that's what it was. While we were finishing up it did start to rain a bit, so we were quickly paying the bill and moving on. Luckily the rain didn't last long, so we didn't have to worry. We spent the next little bit exploring the new Disney Springs! Obviously World of Disney was on our list too, we just HAD to check for those spirit jersey's! After searching the entire store, we asked someone who said they were most definitely out of stock after she checked. Ugh. Too bad. We'd have to get friends to keep an eye out for us! After wandering through and ending up on the opposite end near the market place, we headed out to where we THOUGHT the busses were, only to find that they only run from the other end now. #whoops.

Luckily for us though, this meant we got to explore more of the newer stuff and stores!

Been to (almost) ALL OF THEM! We stumbled upon Sephora, and took a look through, and Kara ended up buying the Peach Pallet since it'd been out of stock back home! Finally, we got back over to the bus and it was time for our next stop on our adventure!

 

[missangelalexis]

Adorable pics with your Sprinkles cupcakes!!