"Your focus determines your reality" - Fall 2025 Travel Adventures - Update 11/10

[Dis_Yoda]

Thursday
October 23rd
RunDisney Arrival

Oh look – we’re finally at the Disney portion of the trip report! Well, kinda. Thursday is a split day!

After feeding the dogs, we loaded up the truck with what my husband would be taking to Disney (aka most of our luggage and shoes). We stopped by the World Equestrian Center so I could get streaming up for all the female dog classes that were showing this morning and by 7:10AM – we were on our way to Animal Kingdom – Jambo House!

I would be dropping him off at the hotel with our luggage and he was going to be off to doing all his RunDisney tasks before the races.

At 8AM, he logged into the MyDisneyExperience App, which he had finally downloaded and set up for the first time in all our Disney travels so he could try to get a group for the RunDisney Official Merchandise and Brooks Shoes. He got a group that would probably be entering around 11AM so it’s not terrible! We arrived at Animal Kingdom around 8:45AM and got our stuff to Bell Services. I said goodbye to my husband, and I headed back to Ocala.

On my way back to Ocala, I stopped by Krispy Kreme for a very healthy breakfast of multiple Halloween Donuts.



I made it back to the World Equestrian Center before 11AM to catch up on the posting of the winners for females before they had a break for lunch. During the lunch break, I broke down my crates and loaded them up to the truck as after Junior Showmanship & Winners “Female” was completed – I was going to run off to take our ridgebacks to my handler’s house that was about 15 minutes away as they would be staying there during our time at Disney. I was thrilled to watch Winner’s and see that my friend, Jenna, was in there with her 9- to 12-month-old puppy as she had won her class of 7 females.

Once this was done, I headed back to the Airbnb to load up our three dogs and take them to my handler’s house. We got their crates set up (which I was glad she wanted them so I didn’t have to leave them in the back of the truck at Disney as the Impact Crate isn’t exactly cheap) and got them settled. Qi’ra was like – I know this place as she spent a lot of time there when she was actively showing. Gantu and Belo were like oh it’s a yard – once they were settled, I headed back to the show site for the start of Best of Breed & Brood Female and Brace to make sure streaming was up and to finally catch a breath.

When those events were over around 4PM, I headed back to the Airbnb to finish packing everything up. I needed to break down the wire crate we had in the living room for when we left Belo there as he’s not able to be trusted free roaming yet. I also needed to make sure I cleaned up all the dog poop in the yard so I got my poop bags and walked it and I made sure to fill in the hole my dogs dug. I then took a shower and got ready for the Top 25 Event where I was the announcer for the Triathlon Parade as well as one of the two official scorekeepers for the judging of the Top 25 so I needed to make sure I was dressed up as well.

I returned to the show site a little before 6PM to get my stuff set up for the evening. I needed to get my computer set in an area where I was close to the ring but also in a place where we could avoid people as no one other than the scorekeepers are allowed to see the judges’ sheets. (The Top 25 Event has 3 judges – a breeder judge, a handler judge, and an all-breed judge score each of the dogs and these are tabulated to determine the winner)

Once I was settled, I grabbed some food and a cocktail until it was time for me to announce. I did well and only mispronounce one kennel of the 19 dogs I had to introduce. Not Bad!

The overall Top 25 went off well. I was able to keep people away from us seeing the results. I had a couple glasses of wine. When it was over, I headed back to the Airbnb and had some of the deepest sleep in a long time.

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During this time, my husband made it to the RunDisney Wine & Dine Expo and he was a good trip reporter and sent me his photo updates.



For his lunch, he enjoyed water and pretzels.



I asked for him to get me one shirt with a cocker spaniel on it and he surprised me and got me multiple! He also got my pair of RunDisney Stitch shoes!





When I got the room notification around 2:30PM, I sent it his way and he got all settled in the room. He went for a 7-mile run at the gym after that and then relaxed until it was time for him to have dinner.

His dinner was right next door at Kidani Village – going to Sanaa!

He started with a glass of sparkling rose and water.



He then got the Bread Service, and we noted that they changed the presentation from the last time.



For his entrée, he did the Potjie-Inspired with Butter Chicken & the Lentil Daal. He did make mention that he gets why we usually split this exact meal as with the bread service – its way too much food but he did his best!



As he sent me his food pictures – I sent him mine and we can tell who definitely had the better dinner. \

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[Dis_Yoda]

Friday
October 24th
Magic Kingdom

I was up a little after 6AM and made sure I did all the Airbnb check out tasks (take trash out, load the dishwasher, send the hosts a message when I was out) and headed to the World Equestrian Center for the last time. As I wasn’t going to be on site all day, I made sure there was streaming set up using other people’s iPads and tried to make multiple backup plans. I stayed to watch the first group of male dogs as my friend Jenna was in that group. She made that first cut so I was very happy for her!

Afterwards, I got on the road and headed to Walt Disney World finally!



I made it to Animal Kingdom Lodge a little before 9AM and headed to our room to drop my stuff off, use the restroom and then I headed to the bus depot to get to the Magic Kingdom where my husband already was.



While I was doing my morning actions in Ocala and driving, my husband headed to Magic Kingdom to enjoy some things on his own. His main goal was Tron! He said it was walk on upon arrival for the early opening crowd.



He then was able to go on Space Mountain, Winnie the Pooh, Haunted Mansion, and Pirates while I was on my way. This was his first time being solo at a Disney Park and he was like I get it when I used to go solo a lot when we lived in Florida.







When I entered the park around 9:45AM – I was greeted by my husband by a planter between the Candy Store & Tony’s with the Halloween Stitch Popcorn Bucket! Isn’t it adorable?



We headed to the Jungle Cruise for our first ride – the wait was listed at about 30 minutes which was fine. What ended up not being fine was as we were at the last section of the line – the ride shut down and they didn’t have a clue when it was going to reopen. Oh well! I had popcorn to keep me happy but we decided to abandon the line and then we headed to Pirates. Luckily, it was still pretty much walk on as the masses leaving Jungle Cruise hadn’t made it that way yet.



It was then time for lunch so we headed to Columbia Harbor House where I had the Fried Shrimp Platter with the Truffle Fries upcharge and my husband had the chicken fingers with normal fries. I forgot a photo but I promise you it was good!

When lunch was over, I looked over the wait times of everything I wanted to do and it was all over 45 minutes and I just didn’t have it in me to wait for that. I also had it in my brain that tonight was the night we would be heading to Animal Kingdom for dinner so I told my husband – lets look through the shops, get some special popcorn and head back to relax – especially as he had already been at the park for almost 5 hours at this point. I got the special Halloween popcorn, which was butter popcorn topped with sprinkles, m&ms, oreos, milk chocolate and orange white chocolate from the Candy store so I could have that to snack on the next few days.



Back at the resort, my husband went to the gym to take a short run and I dealt with some ridgeback issues as the streaming wasn’t working and my phone was blowing up. Trying to figure out who else had equipment and knowledge on how to use Twitch. Once that was dealt with, I took a short nap.​