A Vacation From Kuwait... The TR!

[Dsnygrl1205]

Congratulations on finishing the race! So you felt OK during the run?

I'm always impressed that people can run races at WDW - THEN go on to tour the parks after!

Surprisingly, I felt fantastic the whole race! I'm sure that had a lot to do with the excitement and adrenaline I was feeling. And all the stretching I had been doing for the past 72 hours may have helped too.
Originally I had planned to have my family meet me after the race with a change of clothes and we were going to start our touring right after I finished but boy am I glad I went back to the room to shower!

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Wow that is a nice medal for a 5K. I guess they need to give you something for those pricy race fees Sounds like a great race!

So true! $50 for a 5K is kind of ridiculous. It was so fun though. I love 5Ks so much. Mainly because there isn't a whole lot of training involved and it's not painful afterward! Granted, I'm not trying to win any of these races I run... Maybe it's painful for the guy that finished it in 16 minutes!

 

[lovegrumpy]

Jumping on board. Your title caught my eye. Can't wait to hear more.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Always happy to have new people following along! I take it you're a military family too?

 

[lovegrumpy]

Always happy to have new people following along! I take it you're a military family too?

Yes we are. My dh hits 23 years in October.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Yes we are. My dh hits 23 years in October.

Wow 23 years! Thanks to both of you for the service and sacrifice it takes to be a military family. I know only too well how difficult it can be sometimes.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

After I got the boys going and got showered myself we headed back to Hollywood Studios for the day. We got there around 10:30 which is very late by my standards. We went right over to RnRC for fast passes. ESPN Weekend was in full effect so it was packed! The wait for ToT was 60 minutes so we skipped it for the time being and went to Starring Rolls for a quick snack/breakfast. DM and DN shared a huge chocolate dipped rice crispie treat, DS only wanted a bag of BBQ chips and a coke and I had the Butterfinger cupcake... yummy.

This was so good but I could only get through half. DS ended up helping me finish it. After our snacks we made our way to Pixar Place to check out wait times on TSM. It was 120 minutes and FPs were gone so we missed that ride this trip. No biggie though, there's always next time! We had so much time to kill before our FP to RnRC so we got in line for the Back Lot Tour. Even this ride had a wait of about 30 minutes and considering I have never waited more than 10 it seemed long. We have all done this attraction multiple times so we head right through the "show" part of it and get on the tram with the folks that watched it before us. It was fun to ride along some f the route I had run that morning!
Next up was Muppets 3-D, a new one for DN but another one that's not a must do for us. It was almost time for our FPs so we made our way back to the other end of the park but once we got in line I realized we were going to be late for our ADR at Sci Fi so we jumped out and headed for the restaurant. We checked in 15 minutes early and were told it would be about 30 minutes until they could seat us. 10 minutes later they called our name! We got the first two rows of a car on the very left hand side of the restaurant. The boys took the front of course. We ordered some onion rings as an appetizer but none of us really enjoyed them that much. I prefer onion rings sliced thinner and these were super thick. The kids both got vanilla Cokes and the cheeseburger DM and I got iced tea. I had the beef and blue salad and DM had the reuben.
My salad

DM's sandwich

Some shots of the restaurant

Mom and I enjoying the cocktails we bought on our way over to the restaurant. I had a rum runner and she had a long island iced tea. Whew they were strong! But delicious!

I loved my meal here! I substituted ranch dressing since I don't really like blue cheese. The lettuce was cold and crisp the beef was cooked perfectly and I could but it with my fork. DM liked hers as well and you really can't screw up a cheeseburger so the kids were happy too! Overall a great meal and reasonably priced by Disney Standards.
After Lunch we finally used our FPs then rode ToT with only a 20 minute wait. DS and I decided we wanted to head back to the resort after but DM and DN stayed for a bit longer. I was exhausted from early morning and poor sleep the night before so we left and just had dinner at the resort. Sorry no pictures.

Up Next: The Magic Kingdom and Lunch a Liberty Tree Tavern

 

[dismagiclover]

Sounds like a fun day at the Studios! I've never gone on the Backlot tour. One of these days especially because I think I ran through some of it during the marathon. It sounds like your route through the park was close to the same one I ran. We enjoy Sci Fi too. It is one of the more reasonably priced restaraunts and those film clips crack me up! Great report so far!

 

[Queenofallthings]

Great pictures from the marathon...you look great!!

Sounds like you really enjoyed your day at DHS...I love Starring Rolls and the atmosphere at Sci Fi can't be beat! I know what I'm ordering there next time....

 

[lovegrumpy]

Food looks great. I have always wanted to it at sci-fi but never have. Maybe some time.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Sounds like a fun day at the Studios! I've never gone on the Backlot tour. One of these days especially because I think I ran through some of it during the marathon. It sounds like your route through the park was close to the same one I ran. We enjoy Sci Fi too. It is one of the more reasonably priced restaraunts and those film clips crack me up! Great report so far!

The Backlot tour is fun but not one we do every time. I wish I had taken video of the whole run because I'm a little fuzzy on the exact route but holding the camera out gets annoying after a few minutes. I'll try and get the video I did get up today though.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Great pictures from the marathon...you look great!!

Sounds like you really enjoyed your day at DHS...I love Starring Rolls and the atmosphere at Sci Fi can't be beat! I know what I'm ordering there next time....

Thanks! I can't say enough how much fun I had during the race!
And that salad at Sci Fi was so good. We're going back in September so I can get it again!

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Food looks great. I have always wanted to it at sci-fi but never have. Maybe some time.

Sci Fi has kind of a bad rap and I'm not sure why... we really liked it!

 

[20thingamabobs]

Looks like a fun day in the studios! My dad and I started in the 9-11 min group too for the 5k, we were over to the right side about half way back in that section. What did you end up running it in? My dad was so worried about being able to finish but he ran the whole thing without stopping and we finished in about 33 minutes! He was so proud of himself and so was I! I was glad I stayed with him instead of running ahead.

I can't believe there was that long of a wait at ToT in the early morning, I'm glad it died down later for you! I can't wait to hear the rest of you TR. Oh, did you eat at Mara when you went back to the hotel? How was it? DBF and I are staying at AKL in May and I've never ate there.

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Looks like a fun day in the studios! My dad and I started in the 9-11 min group too for the 5k, we were over to the right side about half way back in that section. What did you end up running it in? My dad was so worried about being able to finish but he ran the whole thing without stopping and we finished in about 33 minutes! He was so proud of himself and so was I! I was glad I stayed with him instead of running ahead.

I can't believe there was that long of a wait at ToT in the early morning, I'm glad it died down later for you! I can't wait to hear the rest of you TR. Oh, did you eat at Mara when you went back to the hotel? How was it? DBF and I are staying at AKL in May and I've never ate there.

Wow we must have been within 20 feet of each other towards the end because my time was 32:25! I was about half way back in the "corral" too but on the very left side waiting in the grass.
HS was packed that day.. I normally don't do that park on a weekend because it's so compact and tends to feel more crowded but since we didn't have park hoppers this trip it happened to work out that way.

 

[20thingamabobs]

Wow we must have been within 20 feet of each other towards the end because my time was 32:25! I was about half way back in the "corral" too but on the very left side waiting in the grass.
HS was packed that day.. I normally don't do that park on a weekend because it's so compact and tends to feel more crowded but since we didn't have park hoppers this trip it happened to work out that way.

OMG we must have been right behind you. Actually, we were probably really close to you for the whole race since we started and ended at the same times. That's too funny. I think I'm going to try uploading my pics tonight and get started on my report tomorrow. I think I may go back through my pics and see if you're in any of them . HS can feel compact when it's crowded.. but we headed to AK for the day and everyone looked at me like I was crazy with my medal on because I guess not very many people were aware the race was even taking place Or it could have been the OSU tattoo on my cheek that refused to come off....

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Sorry these are short. I wish I had taken video the whole time but holding the camera up gets annoying after a couple of minutes.


Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

Part five

Part six

In this one if you listen at 1:23 someone near me says "this sucks" I looked at her like she was nuts when I heard it. I mean why would pay that much to do a race and then complain about it? I found it strange. Also at one point I thought I had turned the camera off so I apologize for this portion being extra wobbly!
Part seven

Part eight

My battery died after this so that's all I got unfortunately.

 

[20thingamabobs]

I was on my way over to ask when you were going to post your videos and there they were! It was fun watching them and getting to relive parts of the race! Judging by some of the people in your videos that you passed, I'm pretty sure I was right behind you! I went back through my pics to see if you were in any of them but I didn't see you. I'm going to check my videos too!

 

[Dsnygrl1205]

We got up around 6:30 this morning and Aidan and I were ready to go well before Mom and Caleb so we grabbed our mugs and went down to the Mara for coffee and a coke zero. We were planning on meeting the others at the MK bus stop but as we sat down to wait a bus pulled up so we jumped on! I called Mom and told her we would meet them at the park. We were at MK waiting for the opening ceremony to start by 8:15. Mom and Caleb just made it before it started. I didn’t get any pictures of the show this time. Did anyone else notice that Mickey’s mouth moves now? Is that new? I don’t remember that from our trip last summer. I thought it was kind of cool though.

I really didn’t get many pictures at all during the trip. I’m not the greatest at remembering but this trip it seems like I took even fewer than usual so sorry about the lack of visual aids.



Once we were in the park we made a quick stop at the Main St Bakery for breakfast (no Pictures) all 4 of us got the croissant breakfast sandwich. From there we made our way through Adventureland and over to Frontierland grabbed some FPs for Splash then rode BTMRR. It was still a little too cold for Splash and Caleb wanted to hit Pirates so we went back that way. There was no line and we actually had a boat to ourselves! We did the Haunted Mansion after then did some shopping at the Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe. Up next was Winnie the Pooh so we could check out the new queue. It was really cool too! Even Aidan thought so and he’s not big on spending any time in Fantasyland at all. After our trip through the Hundred Acre Wood we headed over to Tomorrowland to get FPs for Space Mountain but the wait was only 10 minutes! We got the FPs anyway then got in line. By now it was just past 11 and Caleb wanted to go on Stitches Great Escape (Aidan and I skipped it) so he and Mom went to get in line. Aidan and I were ready for a snack so we grabbed a sweet cream cheese pretzel and a couple drinks and sat at the Lunching Pad to wait for them. I love these things! I could eat one every day for the rest of my life and never get sick of it, I swear!!

The others finished on Stitch so we all went on a spin on the TTA. I love this ride so much it’s such a relaxing way to get off your feet for 15 minutes. It was almost time for our ADR at LTT so we made our way back through the hub to Liberty Square. We only had to wait 10 minutes. I had the Colony salad and everyone else had the Tri Corner Sandwich. My salad was good. And no one had any complaints about their food so I guess it was good. Not sure if I’d do LTT again though. I didn’t love it. Come to think of it I don’t really love any of the TS places at MK. I’d rather take the Monorail to one of the resorts for lunch then go back to the park after.

Here's a shot for Queenofallthings and Jasmine!!

It was finally feeling warm enough to hit Splash so we went back to Frontierland to use the FPs. I love this ride but I have seen some folks get absolutely soaked by the water cannons so it always makes me nervous when we’re floating by the big drop! I was watching the ride from the bridge and the cannons definitely aren’t shooting water as far as they used to, though. Good news to me! The boys, however were disappointed. What is it with kids wanting to get wet? We did BTMRR one more time after Splash then went back out to Main Street to do some shopping. The kids decided they wanted to go swim after we finished spending a lot of money at the Emporium.



Up next Dinner at The Wave and back to MK.