The Good, The Awesome, & the Painful ~~COMPLETED~~

[autoracepr989]

 

[autoracepr989]

After dinner DM & I headed back towards the International Gateway to catch a Friendship Boat to Hollywood Studios for the night. On the way into the park I had no problems with my finger scan. I’m thankful to this day to the CM that reset my finger scan. After getting into the park DM offered to stop along the way so I could get more Photopass pictures taken. I had three different sets taken that night. First up was the one with the magician’s hat.

A little further into the park we came across the next photo spot. DM & I had a nice chat with the photographer before taking the pictures about my shirt and where I had gotten it at, the Disney Store.

After this DM & I decided to wander over and see how long of a wait there was for Toy Story Mania. On the way to Pixar Place though we came across the third place for pictures. It was in front of the Hollywood Studios Arch.

The wait time was posted at 10 minutes I believe, but I think that we really only had a 7-8 minute wait with it being on the stairs. We took and opened the gates throughout the queue to save ourselves some steps. I don’t remember the scores, but it was a lot of fun to ride this a second time & without the extremely long wait times that are normal for this ride. This leads me to a tip for those reading my TR that are going to DW on a night with 2 showings of Fantasmic, for a short wait time for TSM ride it at that time.

After we got off the ride DM pointed out to me that Buzz & Woody were still meeting people across the street, so I got into line in the building. I think there were only 2 or 3 families in front of me. When the family in front of me went in to meet them, the handler asked me to step to the other side of the line. After the family in front of me left, Buzz started walking toward me, standing right next to the door to the backstage area, so I thought that the character was going on a break so I didn’t start walking in right away. The character handler then told me to go on in. Buzz was coming to great me, not going on break like I thought. There were some pictures taken and poses done, Woody didn’t really interact with me, but Buzz definitely made up for it.

After this we headed over to the Fantasmic theater. While DM went to the restroom, I stood in lines for a pink lemonade and apple crisp a la mode. I finished the apple crisp before we ever even sat down for the show, it was sooo good. We sat in the center section, but not right in the front like Dsis would’ve wanted us to if she were there. We sat several rows up, but still close enough for me to get many good pictures.

After the show, they didn’t send us out the exit, but let us out the entrance area by TOT with CMs lining the street waving us out of the park. Before we left though DM & I both made stops her for a restroom and me to give information for a survey.

I slept that night with a bag of ice on my shoulder after taking Ibuprofen and a muscle relaxer.



Up Next: Last Day in the Parks & the painful part of the trip.

 

[autoracepr989]

Real Life Update first: I’ve been busy between getting ready for a 2.2 mile run for Diabetes on September 15, getting things sorted for school, having a friend called up to the major leagues in baseball in my hometown, and having had the state fair going for 12 days. I’m sorry for neglecting this TR during this time. I’m going to be typing this installment up while I watch aforementioned friend play a game on TV.

Onto the TR:

Final Park Day

We started off on Monday with an early morning as DM & I had reservations for 1900 Park Fare. I want to say that we had reservations for at 900 but even after having caught a bus from ASSp to EPCOT then the monorail from EPCOT to the TTC followed by the resort monorail from TTC to the Grand Floridian, we were there early. We did get seated early; we took the picture, and then were seated right away. Now if you’ve ever been in 1900 Park Fare, you might’ve noticed that there are two dining areas. The main room and then the smaller room just off to the side with a wonderful view out the windows onto the beach area outside. We even had the room to ourselves for a few minutes.

The first characters came before we even had food. We were graced by both Pooh & Tiger just after getting our beverages.

Now DM didn’t want to take any pictures with characters, but I was able to get her to have one with Pooh Bear.

Then DM & I took turns going to the buffet. I got a mickey waffle, scrambled eggs, ham, a muffin, hashbrowns, & some fruit. I don’t remember if I had anything else or what DM had. I do remember that the rest of the characters came while we were eating. So here are those pictures.

DM’s camera wasn’t using it’s flash but we didn’t realize it until after Alice & Mary Poppins came, yet mine was so we just used my camera from that point on. This explains why I have a better picture with Belle than the other two face characters.
Tiger took and came by a second time, “kissing” me on the head from behind. Pooh also came by a second time allowing us to redo the picture with him with a flash this time.

Now at some point after the characters made their first round through and getting our check I was given a surprise. I don’t remember putting my birthday on the reservation, but they had a cupcake as well as a placemat signed by all the characters that normally are at 1900 Park Fare for me. DM & the waitress sang Happy Birthday to me.

Here is a pic of the cupcake before I boxed it up as I was full right then.

We paid the bill and then headed back to ASSp before going to MK for the day, since we were going to test the X-PASS.

That’s coming up next

 

[autoracepr989]

Ok so after finishing breakfast, DM & I headed back to ASSp before heading off to MK, as I didn’t want to take my cupcake into the park with me. This was the day that we were all supposed to test the xpass as well. DM & I headed over with time to get to our first time for Splash Mountain. Now my shoulder had been bothering me the day before, but it got a lot worse on this ride. After we got off of Splash, DM & I headed to get water from Columbia Harbor House; I ended up getting an order of fries as well since I took ibuprofen. I won’t say the dosage, as I’ll likely get flamed for the dosage. I literally broke down and was crying from the pain at that point.

We only had 20 minutes before our window for the Haunted Mansion came up so I was going back & forth over it all to say if we should head back to the hotel or stay & ride then leave. Ultimately we decided that we would ride then leave if the ibuprofen hadn’t helped. Needless to say we went back to ASSp where I took a muscle relaxant, put ice on my shoulder, and slept for 2 hours. That’s why I don’t like taking my prescription relief for my shoulder, it knocks me out for hours.

I got up from my nap and felt better, so I changed from a bag to just a small wallet. By this point it was looking like rain so I took my jacket with me to hold my camera. I had a private bus back to MK, as everyone seemed to be leaving the parks as I was going because of the weather. The ones who didn’t leave all seemed to be looking for shelter in stores or just in the lobby of Hall of Presidents. I was able to in my afternoon get into IASW, HOP, and several different shops. I had wanted some photopass pics done in front of the castle, but because of the rain none were out.

I called DM to let her know I was on my way back, so that she wouldn’t head over to MK. At that point it was almost 2000 & neither of us had eaten a real lunch and no dinner. We decided to head to DTD for dinner. We wandered and ended up at Plant Hollywood. We both got the Turkey burger. I had it with the cheese & bbq sauce, but DM had it san cheese and the bbq sauce on the side. When we got our food, we both thought that they forgot to put the bbq sauce on my burger so I used some of DM’s. The restaurant hadn’t forgotten but put it on the burger under the cheese that they had melted onto it.

We headed back after we ate to make sure we were all packed up for check out the next morning. We had plans to put DSis on the plane, got to Walmart for some supplies for the next 4-5 days, & drive to Safety Harbor. That day up next...

 

[autoracepr989]

Well not exactly on topic but feel like I need to share this. I did a training walk for my 3.5k on sept 15 and managed an average time of 17.5 min/mile. While this was up from a longer training run I had done earlier in the week I was still well under time since it was at or above 90 when I did the walk at 8 pm. I'll post a real update once I'm on a computer and not my phone.

 

[autoracepr989]

Ok so I promised this update a while ago and so I apologize for this delay.

We left off on the day that we left Disney, yet I still had a few more days on the trip. I’ll be summarizing most of these days briefly as several of them were travel days home.

Ok we woke up in the morning and got ready to check out, making sure that we had everything out of the room. We headed over to the Poly for one time as a family so that Dsis could get some Tonga Toast and a sandwich & poly chips for on the plane ride home. We headed off to Orlando International Airport to drop off Dsis for her flight. After dropping her off DM & I headed off to a grocery store to take and stock up on goodies for the drive and the next few days.

While there we got sandwich stuff for DM & I headed to the Subway in the same strip mall to get a flatbread ham sandwich. After eating in the car and repacking it so that it was packed for our ease over the next few days, we headed over to the one Disney outlet store. There we both saw some things that looked nice but I was the only one to buy anything, a pin.

We headed to Downtown Disney after another quick stop at Wal-Mart to get some freeon for the AC in the car as well as other miscellaneous items. We wandered around, got our free chocolate from Gharadelli, and headed to Goofy’s Candy Co. for some gifts for the family we were staying with. We bought two things of assorted popcorn for the family and then DM & I each got a slushie since it was so warm out.

We then headed off to the next phase of our trip….Clearwater, FL.

Our family had dinner waiting for us when we got there, beef stroganoff was on the menu for the night. Then after visiting for a while we headed to bed since we had an early morning. I had my dolphin meet & greet in the morning.

Next update is from the Clearwater Marine Rescue and Aquarium.

 

[autoracepr989]

OK so I left off when we went to bed leading up to my dolphin meet & greet. We got up and got ready Daunt asked if we wanted any breakfast, but I didn’t want any and DM just had a piece of toast. See we had doughnuts in the car for the drive and figured we could eat those if we got hungry.


We got to Clearwater Marine Rescue & Aquarium and I checked in for the meet & greet. DM & I headed up to the area since it was almost time when I checked in for it. DM used my camera to get the pictures she took. The Aquarium also took one that was included in the package, but I still haven’t scanned it into the computer. I didn’t do my meet and greet with Winter the dolphin that had a movie made about her. I actually had Hope, Winter’s little sister in the aquarium world for it.

Here’s a zoomed in picture of someone else with Hope, so you can see the dolphin a little better.

Next DM & I went to see Nicholas perform his exhibition. Here are some of the pictures from that.

Next DM & I wandered around looking at the other animals and getting a few pictures of Winter.

Hope

Next we headed over to the Dolphin Tale Adventure, a warehouse type showroom with exhibits of items from the movie and providing the education as well. I got some good shots here as well as feeling what is known as “Winter’s Gel.”

Some are shots of the costuming and some are shots of other things in the building. This is also where I bought two t-shirts and a hat from the aquarium. After this we headed back to the family home. We all went out to dinner at a local BBQ place in Safety Harbor.

DM & I once again headed to bed fairly early as we were heading back to WI the next day.

 

[autoracepr989]

I’ll summarize the drive home into one post so that this TR is complete and I can feel not bad about school and work taking over my life along with my running programs.

Ok so DM & I were to leave Safety Harbor this day and head back north towards home in Wisconsin. We hit up Wal-Mart to see if they had some cups that we could use as well as see if there were any other snack items that DM & I wanted for the trip. We also bought some ice there to make a cooler with in an insulated bag that we had with us. We headed north and got as far as the north side of Atlanta before calling it a night due to incoming weather. We checked into a hotel not far from a military base and ate at Cracker Barrel. Then after watching a little TV we fell asleep ready for more driving the next morning.

The following morning we got up and I raided the continental breakfast for some packaged muffins and sweet rolls for the ride. We headed off and did two stops this day. The first was at Southern Plantation for some pumpkin butter, hot sauce, and a few other things for family in WI. The second was at the Jack Daniels Distillery Tour.

Here are the only two pictures from the days of driving so far.

We made it to a cousin’s lake house latter that night. This was also the day of DM;s birthday. We ended up with a balloon to make the ride home with us. We all went out to eat at Patty’s Plantation that evening. The next morning we took and went to brunch before heading onward towards home.

Here are a picture of the room I stayed in as well as a the face towards the lake.

We made it home about 2000 that night. That was the end of our trip.

 

[autoracepr989]

On a different topic, I finished my first race on Saturday. I actually ran the course twice since as I finished there were still people starting the course. It was held at our zoo in support of JDRF. I finished the two circuits totaling 5 miles in 1 hour 20 minutes 33 seconds. The first 10 minutes were just from where I started in the parking lot to the starting line. I felt great afterwards and walked around enjoying the zoo for a couple hours before calling it a day.

I’m also back in school for becoming a pharmacy technician.

On top of all of this Dsis is moving to FL to work for Disney full time soon and I am getting ready to move as well to a new place.

I also am trying to start planning for a trip to run the Disney Half Marathon in 2014. I’m hoping that I am able to do it. I have a rough plan for races I want to run before then. A warrior run in honor of fallen soldiers in the spring and then there is a half marathon in September 2013 that I want to run as well. I probably shouldn’t say run but I do them as walk/runs.