There's a Great Big MARATHON Tomorrow: Goofy Challenge/Marathon Weekend '15 FINALLY COMPLETE!

[disneyhorselover]

All caught up! I'm loving your tr so far. You two must have been so proud of yourselves! Congratulations! can't wait to hear how the rest of the trip went.

Thank you! Definitely a very proud moment...plus now every time I have a bad run, I get to tell myself "I can get through this, after all I ran a marathon!"

 

[courtneybelle]

CONGRATS on finishing the marathon and getting those beautiful medals! You guys rock!!

 

[ZellyB]

Woohoo! You did it!! Congratulations, marathoners!!!

Way to go in maximizing those character opportunities in Epcot. Well done! And the line about taking food from strangers only being acceptable during a race made me LOL. So true!!!

 

[disneyhorselover]

CONGRATS on finishing the marathon and getting those beautiful medals! You guys rock!!

Thank you!

Woohoo! You did it!! Congratulations, marathoners!!!

Way to go in maximizing those character opportunities in Epcot. Well done! And the line about taking food from strangers only being acceptable during a race made me LOL. So true!!!

Thanks! Yup, we got our money's worth of pictures in that last mile, haha! It is true...on a normal day I'd be horrified by the idea but that is definitely not the first time I've taken food during a race....

 

[livsmom04]

Congrats on finishing the Marathon! I just completed my first half for the PHM and now have signed up for the W&D and am considering doing the Dopey Challenge in January on top of doing the PHM again in February. And the Runger is real! I had it bad that Sunday of race day and felt I could eat everything in site!

 

[disneyhorselover]

Congrats on finishing the Marathon! I just completed my first half for the PHM and now have signed up for the W&D and am considering doing the Dopey Challenge in January on top of doing the PHM again in February. And the Runger is real! I had it bad that Sunday of race day and felt I could eat everything in site!

Thank you! Congrats on your PHM finish!

My favorite part about runger is I don't feel at all guilty about indulging in all those wdw treats, haha

 

[emilyindisney]

Checking a Disney classic off the bucket list!! (Chef Mickey’s Dinner Review)

Our original plan had been to celebrate our first marathon with dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table. I mean, what better place to dine in celebration than in the castle?! Unfortunately, Cindy is doing some remodeling and that restaurant was closed We decided instead that it was time to celebrate in the company of five, fabulous friends at a Disney dining staple- Chef Mickey’s!

We checked in a couple minutes early and got in a short line to have our family picture taken with the chef:

We sat in the lobby for a few minutes, but were called to our table after just a few more minutes.

Thank goodness we were seated fast because all the morning’s running caught up to me and I was hungry! We ordered our drinks, got ourselves situated and took in the theme park view we were privy to from our table! With that settled it was time to hit the buffet!

This buffet has got to have some of the best variety on property. I love that they shamelessly invite the adults to eat from the kid’s selections too! Those mini corn dogs were awesome!

As we’ve said before, we aren’t particularly picky eaters, but I found the food here to be quite good. I think I ate mostly mini corn dogs (don’t judge!) but also remember thinking the butternut squash soup was delicious. The kielbasa and the gnocchi was a little plain, but not bad.

While we started to digest we were paid a visit by Minnie:

Donald:

Goofy:

Goofy was particularly pleased that we’d completed his challenge and he said that though he hadn’t done any running this weekend himself he’d done plenty of cheering for us!

And finally Pluto:

After Pluto we decided we had just enough room to squeeze in some dessert. I wish I had more room because the bite size desserts were adorable and it would have been fun to sample even more! Choosing just a few was hard, haha!

We were pretty full by the time we got to desserts. Lesson learned-hit the dessert table first! The variety was amazing and all of them were delicious.

Somewhere along the way we missed Mickey (or he missed us- we’re not sure what happened) but our waitress was kind enough to point out where we could wait on our way out (instead of having to wait for him to make all this rounds again.) It probably took about 5-10 minutes but we were appreciative that they were able to accommodate us.

Overall, I am really glad we went to Chef Mickey’s-it was the great post race experience. Plenty of food, not too fancy, and pictures with the fab five, which was a huge part of why we picked it. I feel like it pretty much lives up to its reviews. Decent food, kind of loud and I could see it being chaotic, but you get those character autographs and pictures...and pay dearly for them! I enjoyed it but probably won’t return for a while, at least until we experience the rest of the on property options.​

 

[emilyindisney]

TR INTERMISSION: I DRANK THE DISNEYLAND KOOLAID!​

Last week I visited California for spring break and I'll admit it- this WDW girl drank the Disneyland koolaid and now I'm hooked! If making my first trip to Walt's park wasn't exciting enough, I got to go on my birthday with one of my best friends from college! Here's a couple snapshots from our adventure:

I'm most definitely already planning a return visit when I can bring Caitlin (even if it won't be very soon!)​

 

[princess_jamie]

I have been following this thread and your last PHM one since I started researching for my WDW trip for GSC this past Feb. Now that my withdrawal has turned into a C2C dream, I've found myself back reading here and was so happy to finish reading about your Goofy accomplishment!! I finally have made an account so I can stop being a huge creep!! Congrats on the Goofy! You two are definitely inspiring, especially for a girl who said "I will never run a marathon", that may now be dreaming of a Goofy or Dopey challenge. Glad to see your Disneyland pics too, as that's where I am headed next! Keep up the adventures! I will definitely follow along

 

[rteetz]

Love Chef Mickeys although it's been a while since I've been there. That's also nice that they accommodated you with Mickey.

I have yet to go to Disneyland myself and I really want to. Something about walking in the park that Walt built is just fascinating. I also want to run an event in Disneyland some day preferably Star Wars.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Welcome Back Emily. I hope your trip was great!!

I think after having run a Disney Marathon, having dinner with the Fab 5 is the perfect way to celebrate. There's a chance I might try this place next trip, so nice to hear the food was good.

Ha, I don't know why, but I get a chuckle out of the fact that Goofy has a name tag. He's so anonymous obviously.

Phew, thank goodness you didn't miss seeing the Mouse at his own restaurant. Tragedy averted.

YAY for a TR intermission. I was hoping for a little bit of your Disneyland visit. I didn't realize it was your first time. I've only been once, but even though it's a journey to get there, I do hope to return again some day.

 

[emilyindisney]

I have been following this thread and your last PHM one since I started researching for my WDW trip for GSC this past Feb. Now that my withdrawal has turned into a C2C dream, I've found myself back reading here and was so happy to finish reading about your Goofy accomplishment!! I finally have made an account so I can stop being a huge creep!! Congrats on the Goofy! You two are definitely inspiring, especially for a girl who said "I will never run a marathon", that may now be dreaming of a Goofy or Dopey challenge. Glad to see your Disneyland pics too, as that's where I am headed next! Keep up the adventures! I will definitely follow along

Welcome! Thank you for your kind compliments! I hope your GSC experience was great! I'm definitely dreaming of a C2C medal too but I don't think a two coast year is coming down the pipe any time soon. Oh well- one day!

Love Chef Mickeys although it's been a while since I've been there. That's also nice that they accommodated you with Mickey.

I have yet to go to Disneyland myself and I really want to. Something about walking in the park that Walt built is just fascinating. I also want to run an event in Disneyland some day preferably Star Wars.

I loved thinking about the fact that Walt had once walked in the same places I was walking! A very cool historical tie that unfortunately Florida cannot boast!

Welcome Back Emily. I hope your trip was great!!

I think after having run a Disney Marathon, having dinner with the Fab 5 is the perfect way to celebrate. There's a chance I might try this place next trip, so nice to hear the food was good.

Ha, I don't know why, but I get a chuckle out of the fact that Goofy has a name tag. He's so anonymous obviously.

Phew, thank goodness you didn't miss seeing the Mouse at his own restaurant. Tragedy averted.

YAY for a TR intermission. I was hoping for a little bit of your Disneyland visit. I didn't realize it was your first time. I've only been once, but even though it's a journey to get there, I do hope to return again some day.

That's funny that Goofy appears to be the only one with a name tag, haha!I'm not sure what happened with Mickey- I thought maybe he took a break and then started in a new location? Either way it was super nice of them to let us jump in and not have to wait for him to make the whole round again.

 

[emilyindisney]

There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow!

We took the monorail to MK because we had a FP to meet some pretty popular sisters! On our way down Mainstreet USA we stopped for a couple castle pics.

Next stop: Arendelle!

Elsa was very sweet-she oohhed and ahhed over our medals, and did explain to us that contrary to popular belief, she does not control the weather. (I can only assume this is because she was sick of getting hate mail from us northerners! Haha….)

Next, we headed over to see Anna. She was very enthusiastic and funny, just like the movie. When she heard there was a chocolate stop on the marathon course, she said she would probably run it some time...She also told us Kristoff was out harvesting ice, even though she had a sister who could make ice whenever...men, right?

Even though I am a little “Frozen-ed out” in general, I was very glad we got to meet Anna and Elsa-they were sweet and lots of fun!

After that, we took a ride on one of my favorites-The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh! I think this ride is just the cutest, and Pooh and the gang are very near and dear to my heart.

After that, we decided on another character meet, because who doesn’t want pics of the characters and the race medals?! We stopped by Pete’s Silly Slideshow to see two ladies we had skipped the other day. As we got in line, we were informed that Daisy had gotten a mysterious phone call from Madame Leota and would not be returning for another few minutes, so we had a look into her crystal ball without her!

After that, we stopped for a pic with Minnie Magnifique-I’m telling you, that girl has got it made when it comes to outfits and photo backgrounds-most supermodels are jealous, I’m sure!

On our way out we watched a group of foreign tourists pretty much barge back stage even though a cast member was yelling at them to stop. I guess they didn’t speak English or were just so sure they knew where they were going that they just ignored the poor CM (I’m honestly not sure which one it was.) We were sure they were going to run into a -ahem- friend of Donald, or Goofy so we kept moving to avoid that sideshow and browsed Storybook Treats briefly.

Earlier in the day, we had a FP for BTMR, but at dinner we decided there was no way to we were walking all the way to that end of the park, so we swapped for another fun little coaster-Barnstormer! We rode this for the first time in October, but it was just as zippy and fun (and short!) as I remembered!

Our next and almost final stop of the night was Carousel of Progress- another ride off the bucket list! As you might of guessed from our trip report, I really liked it! The seats were comfy, it was warm (the night was chilly), and the song was catchy!

Caitlin, on the other hand, fell asleep but I guess you could say she appreciated it all the same, hahaha! I feel like napping during CoP is a disney right of passage! It was a very enjoyable nap...and in my defense, we had been awake since 3am! I also enjoyed the parts of the snow that I was awake for…

We wrapped up our night by planting ourselves on the middle of Main Street, USA, eating some rainbow popcorn and watching Wishes! A perfect trio!

I didn’t take many pictures at this viewing. Instead I sat back and enjoyed the magic! I thought about this moment a lot while I was doing my training runs and let me tell ya- watching Wishes with my marathon medal around my neck was absolutely as great as I imagined it would be!

We caught a bus back to ASMovies and went to bed fairly quick. After all, we had another sort of marathon to take on tomorrow!​

 

[rteetz]

I have not met Anna and Elsa yet but my sisters have and they enjoyed it. Tourist groups always seem to be doing something odd. I'm sure that not all of them are like that but a relative of mine had tourists in the room above her and they flooded their room and her room.

Wishes is always great!

 

[emilyindisney]

I have not met Anna and Elsa yet but my sisters have and they enjoyed it. Tourist groups always seem to be doing something odd. I'm sure that not all of them are like that but a relative of mine had tourists in the room above her and they flooded their room and her room.

Wishes is always great!

Ack- oh no! Was that in Disney?

 

[rteetz]

Ack- oh no! Was that in Disney?

Yep marathon weekend at one of the all stars I don't remeber which one.

 

[DisneyKid4Life]

Haha, that's so true. I bet poor Elsa is just constantly getting hammered from angry northerners this year. But oh Anna. I have become a big fan of her. Such a fun character.

I am convinced that many of the tourist groups have selective English. Don't like what you're telling me, sorry, no English.

So glad you stayed for Wishes which is obviously the best thing in all of Disney.

 

[disneyhorselover]

Haha, that's so true. I bet poor Elsa is just constantly getting hammered from angry northerners this year. But oh Anna. I have become a big fan of her. Such a fun character.

I am convinced that many of the tourist groups have selective English. Don't like what you're telling me, sorry, no English.

So glad you stayed for Wishes which is obviously the best thing in all of Disney.

Yes Anna was so cute and funny! And Elsa was very sweet too...considering that I think they are kind of over rated (which I guess isn't their fault), I ended up being pretty impressed with this meet.

Ha, selective english is sooooo true!

 

[emilyindisney]

Haha, that's so true. I bet poor Elsa is just constantly getting hammered from angry northerners this year. But oh Anna. I have become a big fan of her. Such a fun character.

I am convinced that many of the tourist groups have selective English. Don't like what you're telling me, sorry, no English.

So glad you stayed for Wishes which is obviously the best thing in all of Disney.

I definitely wonder...perhaps I would do the same if the languages were reversed

 

[emilyindisney]

That time we had an Epcot photo shoot

On Monday we woke up and found that we finally had a taste of the warm weather we’d been hoping for all week! We grabbed a quick breakfast:

and hoped on a bus to Epcot where we planned to marathon our way around the world, eating and drinking as much as we could get our hands on while we went!

When we arrived at the park, we headed straight for our first (and only) ride of the day-Spaceship Earth!

This one is a classic!

We browsed in the Art of Disney store before heading over to mouse gears to look at a few souvenirs. I had been looking for a new sweatshirt all week and finally found a cute one here, so I decided to purchase it and carry it around, which *weather spoiler alert* turned out to be one of my best decisions of the week. We stopped in club cool for a quick refresher, and were tempted by Starbucks, but we had a different type of morning beverage in mind!

On our way to world showcase, we stopped for a some medal pictures!

As we left this PP photographer, another one flagged us down and he was great-he had tons of suggestions for fun poses:

Wooo Epcot photo shoot! We walked a little further and stopped for two more cute pictures. This one was for Caitlin to send to her physical therapist as a thank you for getting her through marathon training:

And this one is one of my favorites from the trip:

It's my computer background! ​