Welcome, Cousins!
I think I got up from my nap at about 5PM and made a bee-line for that cupcake I'd gotten from Starring Rolls.
Red Velvet Cupcake:
Of the 3 cupcakes I had that weekend, this one was by far my favorite. The cake was super moist, and in my book you really can't go wrong with cream cheese icing. I had about 3/4 of it and Will had the rest.
After the cupcake I took a few more photos from our windows...
We had an awkward amount of time to kill before dinner, so just like after the 5K we popped into the Magic Kingdom for a bit!
And now for a mini-rant...I thought I'd finally picked the correct race shirt size this year (small instead of medium) but they seem to run larger now. I can definitely see that in the above picture. RUN DISNEY, IF YOU'RE READING THIS (psssshhhhh HAHA yeah right): Throughout the entire weekend - at the expo, at the races, even on your blog and Facebook page you kept mentioning how over half of the runners participating in the races were women...would it kill you to start producing women's-cut race shirts?? Men get men's-cut shirts for the Princess Half and Tinkerbell Half...where's the love for the ladies???
Also, runDisney, if youre reading this...HIRE ME!
/rant over.
Anyway, this was pretty much an exact repeat of what I did after the 5K - just a leisurely stroll along Main Street. Except the Magic Kingdom was SUPER crowded on this day, so it wasn't quite as relaxing as we would have liked.
No more Dreamlights:
We didn't stick around very long - just a little over an hour I think. It was time for dinner!
We left the Magic Kingdom and caught the resort monorail back to the Polynesian. Our reservations for 'Ohana were for 7:05 and we checked in at about 6:50. I'd been texting with my mom and they were making their way over from the Boardwalk. She said it would only take a "5 minutes" for them to drive over. Right...
This reservation was...challenging. Way back in July I woke up at the crack of dawn to get our ADRs set and this 'Ohana dinner was the first one I made. That was back when the trip was going to just be me, Will, Craig and my mom. On December 29 - exactly 2 weeks before our 'Ohana dinner - my mom texted me that her friend was coming on the trip, and could I add her to this reservation? This stressed me out more than it should have - at the time the only reservation available for 5 was at 9:40...not happening - but I knew all I could do was make a back-up reservation for them and keep hoping for a cancellation. It sounds callous, but I made a reservation for 2 at the Grand Floridian Café for mom and friend. I had been very deliberate about the restaurants I picked for the pre-race dinners - they had to be places both the bro and I had eaten at that had NOT made us sick, and they also had to be places I thought people would like. Via Napoli and 'Ohana fit the bill. I'd done the work to get the reservation and 'Ohana is awesome - I was NOT going to give it up. I checked the dining system a few times per day and on New Year's Eve there it was - a reservation for 5 at 7:05PM! I snatched it up, canceled GF Café, and all was well...and then my aunt decided to come on the trip 3 days before check-in day. Luckily I was able to just call Disney Reservations and make the switch (going from 5 to 6 is a lot easier than 4 to 5). My mom thanked me profusely - she knew everything I'd done to plan the trip and the dinners. I was happy to do it, of course, but I'd be lying if I said it hadn't stressed me out a bit.
So Will and I checked in at 'Ohana, got our pager and waited. We were called to be seated pretty quickly...but the rest of our party wasn't there yet. They wouldn't seat us until everyone had arrived, so we were put back into the queue. Meanwhile my brother is texting me that the GPS is steering them in the wrong direction AGAIN and they've already made 3-4 u-turns.
At this point Will was livid - I'd had to change the reservation so many times and now they were late?! I was mad too and was starting to get what Will and I call "panicky-hungry" - where you're so hungry you start to feel a little ill and, well, panicky - but eventually I decided (and told Will pretty firmly) that we would NOT be angry about this. They'd get there, we'd eat, and we'd just go about the day. Because the way the weekend was going I had already had the stressful arrival day, the full-of-complaints day at Epcot, and now this. This was not how I was going to remember this trip. We both calmed down pretty quickly, and I don't remember what time everyone else arrived, but I think we ended up getting seated at about 7:30.
We were seated at a table for 8 and ended up configured in such a way that Will and I were sitting together sort of facing everyone else. Oddly appropriate given how the weekend had been going up to that point
...anyway, this was the one instance where there were NO complaints at all. Shocking! Everyone was very impressed by the food (for the most part), but I'd like to think they also reigned it in a bit because they felt bad about being late. Who knows.
The one downside of eating at 'Ohana the night before the race was that I felt the need to eat less dessert than I normally do, thus I didn't gorge myself on the amazing bread pudding quite as much as I wanted to. So sad. I did get wild and order a Coke to go along with my water (hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!) though.
Despite the fact that I tried not to stuff too much food into my face the night before the marathon I still felt like my stomach looked like this guy's when I was done:
No food pictures - it was way too dark for anything to come out. But everything was great and the service was really good. Love that place.
We finished dinner at about 8:30 (I'd heard the soundtrack to Wishes! being piped in but we were too far away from the windows to see the fireworks) and Will and I were outta there in record time. We headed back to the Grand and took a stroll around the lobby before heading back to the room.
Once we were back in Conch Key I checked all of my stuff for the marathon again and was in bed between 9:30 and 10. My same 3 alarms were set: phone at 2:45, wake-up call at 2:55 and iHome at 3:00. Third and final race report coming up next!
Continued in Next Post
) but it's SO much fun...and I think they have men's cut tech shirts now!
). Princess C headed back to the CBR bus stop and I made my way back to the monorail station at the entrance to Epcot, weird little runDisney snack box in hand. They were making runners that wanted to get to the monorail go through security along with the park guests that were arriving just after Epcot had opened for the day. I'm sure they didn't appreciate having to share the security line with the sweaty runners.
) at Disney are so overhyped that by the time I get to try them I am disappointed (i.e. - and flame me all you want for saying this - Dole whips and Boma)...but OMG. This stuff totally lives up to the hype. It was soooooo good. I think it flirts with being a little too sweet (especially with the strawberry sauce) but wow, it was awesome. I think the key for my liking it is that the banana flavor isn't too over-powering, because I don't normally like bananas mixed with other things...but this was incredibly delicious. 
On a normal day I don't know that I would be able to finish the entire portion by myself, but after the half I wolfed it down, no problem. And this is a weird thing to say, but I was quite excited about the bacon. I feel like most bacon on Disney property is thin and, well, kind of crappy...but the Kona bacon was thick and quite good! 
Eventually the animator whispered the character to the girl and she was like, "Oh, thats a good one...I approve!" So obnoxious.
I needed a nap, pronto.
