Running Through Walt's Original Magic Kingdom **COMPLETE 10/9** - Page 5 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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Sorry I haven't updated lately. I started a new job this week, so I wasn't home as often as I used to be, and when I was home, I was wiped out! I've got lots of time this weekend, though!
So, we finished up with our less-than-stellar tour and headed out to Downtown Disney via the monorail. It was a very long walk through DTD to get to the Disneyland Hotel, and I will confess to getting a wee bit cranky with DH on the way there.
I believe these are in the floor at the monorail station.
There was a little show going on in DTD, kind of like the ones they do at AK.
There are a ton of construction walls surrounding the hotel, and since we didn't know where we were going anyway, it was very confusing.
Hidden Mickey in the carpet at DLH
We eventually made our way into the madhouse that was the race expo. Fortunately, even though the place was swarming with people, there were volunteers at the entrance who directed us to the correct line for Coast-to-Coast runners. There was literally no one in line at our booth (they're arranged by bib number), so we were able to walk right up. I heard from other people that they had to wait in really long lines, so we were lucky.
We got our bibs, they put our C2C wristbands on us and we were on our way. We had to walk over a mat in order to check that our bibs had been activated. Mine didn't work at first, but then my name popped up on the screen, so I knew I was good to go! Next, we went over to get our goody bags, which included our shirts, and to see if we wanted to do a little shopping. I was excited to see the Running Skirts booth, because I'd purchased my first running skirt before I left, just for this race, but I hadn't gotten a shirt. I picked one to match and we were on our way. The place was a madhouse, and I was getting really tired, so we took one look at the seriously long line (probably about 150 people!) and decided to head out. I did see a cute Disneyland half marathon bumper sticker, but since I hadn't seen anything else I wanted, I was not about to stand in that long line for a little sticker!
We saw Mike Scopa (from WDW Today podcast) in line. We met him in 2010 during marathon weekend, and I follow his training on dailymile, so we could have said hello, but the line was moving too fast. I was hoping to meet Len Testa, also from the podcast, because he was running this weekend, but we never saw him. We did, however, see Jeff Galloway, who is the official RunDisney training consultant. He was giving a talk at the expo.
We were fading fast at this point, so we didn't stick around to hear what he had to say. We wanted to get back to the hotel for a bit of a rest so we'd be ready for a nice, long evening in the park.
I took a few more pictures in the hotel before we headed out.
This Hidden Mickey is in the floor pictured above.
We went by Goofy's Kitchen to see if we could make an ADR for dinner the next day, but they weren't open. We peeked in a little room on the side and saw a couple of great pictures.
We had to walk through DTD again to get to the hotel.
I found a few Hidden Mickeys on the way.
This one's not in the book, but I think it should count!
There are a couple here; can you spot them?
Upper right hand corner
Upside down, upper right hand "corner" of the pizza
World of Disney store, under one of the Tweedles
I loved the Halloween decorations inside the WoD store:
There are little red Mickeys to mark the Disney parks
(continued in next post)
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Last edited by mom to 3 princesses and 1 prince; 09-24-2011 at 12:02 PM..
I keep hearing about how confusing the construction walls are. Hope they're finished with it all soon. Can't wait to hear how the race experience compares with WDW. Will you be there in January again?
We took a break back at the hotel for a couple of hours. DH slept, and I organized my notes and read a little bit. I'm not a napper, but it was good to get off my feet. On the way back to the parks, we had a stop to make: Cheesecake Factory!
Kahlua Cocoa Coffee cheesecake (DH got Key Lime)
I had the following plans for our evening: FP Space Mountain, ride Star Tours, it's a small world, pirates, Pooh and Splash Mountain. However, I took ZERO notes, but the pictures give me a pretty good timeline. See how we did!
First, we popped in the Emporium, but I don't remember what we were looking for. We may have been trying to trade one of the Vinylmations we brought from home.
Up next: Tomorrowland!
Josh had told us that this was from an original DL attraction
We grabbed FPs for Space Mountain, but skipped Star Tours for now and headed to the train station in Tomorrowland. We knew we'd have to come back for SM, so we didn't want to take the time to ride ST now. It was so weird to catch the train in Tomorrowland!
A peek into California Adventure
You can actually hear the telegraph!
We got off the train in New Orleans Square with one thing in mind:
The setup is really different here. You can see the beginning of the queue, because it starts outside, and it makes you think that it's a really long wait. Plus, you can see the queue but not the entrance. We wandered around a bit before finding it. The waittime was supposed to be 10 minutes, and even though looked longer, I think that was about right.
These are just inside the building. There's also Barbosa, and Gibbs, among others.
Blackbeard replaces Davy Jones for now
This little area is right outside the exit of POTC and I think it's beautiful!
Haunted Mansion
We wandered off to find Critter Country next.
We skipped Splash for now; it was too late and too chilly
We promised our DD that we'd ride her favorite:
How cute are these?
The ride is pretty good, but I like the one at WDW better.
I wanted to check out the snacks in Pooh Corner, because I'd seen some unique ones online before the trip:
Too pretty to eat!
The sight of these put us in the mood for some food, since we hadn't eaten since our yummy cheesecake. We stopped in the Hungry Bear to see if we could find something to eat. Nothing on the menu appealed, so we moved on.
We wandered back into New Orleans Square.
Darn...we just missed it!
Next we took the train from NOS to ToonTown. We hadn't ridden it's a small world yet! We took the train a lot on this trip to try to save our feet a bit of walking.
We saw something really funny from the train: Disneyland man! We ran to get a photo of him. Apparently, this is the costume of the CMs in the Princess Faire area, but it just cracked us up the firsr time we saw it!
Unfortunately, they had just closed iasw in preparation for the evening fireworks.
We weren't planning to see the fireworks, so we headed for Tomorrowland.
Duffy with the famous R2D2!
Ready for a ride!
Boy, did we love Star Tours! I can't say that we're the biggest Star Wars fans in the world, but it was fun and clever and exciting. We definitely wanted a second ride on this baby! But not tonight. We were pretty much done. But we had one more FP to use, so our last ride of the night was Space Mountain. They told us at the entrance that it would probably be a 30-45 minute wait, even with the FP. We were tired, but figured we might not get back to it tomorrow, so we stayed put.
This was another attraction where I like WDW's version better. (Maybe it was the wait...)
I can't remember where we stopped on our way out, but I wish we hadn't been sweet-ed out. I totally would have bought one of these:
We stopped in DTD and had a bowl of red beans & rice at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Express. It was extremely crowded, so we ended up sitting outside the restaurant area. There were musicians all over the place. It was a real festive atmosphere. I wish we'd had the energy to enjoy it, but we were pooped!
Up next: a full day at Disneyland. Would we overdo it, or take it easy on the day before our big race?
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Last edited by mom to 3 princesses and 1 prince; 09-24-2011 at 02:19 PM..
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I keep hearing about how confusing the construction walls are. Hope they're finished with it all soon. Can't wait to hear how the race experience compares with WDW. Will you be there in January again?
Yep, doing the Goofy this year. Yeah, I know I'm crazy!
I had a great plan for this morning. I had made an ADR for Minnie's character breakfast at the Plaza Inn for as early as I could get it: 8:40 a.m. The 5K was on Saturday morning, and I knew this when I called. In fact, I specifically asked about whether the 5K would affect our getting in for breakfast, and was told it would be no problem.
Unfortunately, the person who told me that was wrong, wrong, WRONG! We got a bit of a later start than I had wanted, and there were lots of people waiting outside the gates when we arrived. I asked a CM where to go if we had a breakfast reservation, and we were directed to a line with probably 75 people in it. There was another CM there who looked official, since she was carrying a clipboard, so I went up to her and told her that we had a reservation. She pointed to the line of people and said that all of those people did, too, and directed us to the back of the line.
Well, this was not what I had in mind. The only reason I booked this early reservation was to see an empty Town Square and to walk down a deserted Main Street, USA. We went to the back of the line, but I stood there and stewed. When it became apparent that they were going to let us all in at the same time, including the people who did NOT have early breakfast reservations, I told DH we were not going to that breakfast. It would have cost us $50, and it was not going to get me the pictures that I wanted. We'd been told that the CMs would "walk us down" to the restaurant, but as the mass of people moved forward under the train station, we knew that this would not happen, anyway.
I did manage to get a few shots of the displays on Main Street, USA.
Since neither of us had had breakfast, DH ducked into the Bakery while my job was to go through the shops on the right side to get as far down Main Street as I could, get FPs for Star Tours and meet DH at the Partners Statue. While I was making my way across the street, I saw a woman with a child in a wheelchair. They were both wearing 5K shirts, so I spoke with her briefly about my son, who is in a wheelchair, as well. We've been wanting to do some races with him, but haven't done it yet. She told me that they were doing the half-marathon the next day! She asked why all the people were in the street, and asked if she had time to catch some breakfast. I told her that she did, and we parted ways.
Here's the view from the spot where I waited for the rope to drop:
DH met me as instructed with milk and a "seasonal" muffin. I'd thought it was pumpkin, but it turned out to be carrot cake and it was so good! It had raisins in it, though, and DH didn't like it so I ate mine and saved his for later! We made our way to Fantasyland again to check out a few attractions we'd missed the day before.
I didn't take any notes, so I don't know what we rode first, but here's the exit sign:
Then we rode something else...
Again, no idea.
I do know that we went on a scary adventure after those first two memorable attractions.
See the Evil Queen? I think this was my third attempt to catch a photo of her. You can see her when the curtains are open, but then they close and she's gone! Glad I finally got the photo.
The queue is different at DL.
See the squirrels?
I was happy to have ridden Snow White's Scary Adventure, because there are always rumors that they're going to get rid of it.
Duffy tried with all his might, but he could not pull the sword out of the stone!
Up next:
Storybookland Canal Boats
We'd tried to ride it the day before, but every time we checked, it wasn't running or the line was too long. We were happy to see it up and running this morning. It's a neat little ride, with a real live tour guide. The miniatures remind me of the train setup in Germany at Epcot. I've identified the ones I can remember.
This is the house of the third little pig
This is from the movie "The Old Mill"
Alice in Wonderland
This looks like it should be Aurora's place, although it looks a bit taller than the one at DL
Jasmine's Palace
The theme continues, even though it is on a little shed that isn't even part of the ride
The sign says "Snow White - Seven Dwarf's Cottage" (which is grammatically incorrect)
I think this is Cindy's
Toad Hall, the home of Mr. Toad
Pinocchio's Village
Prince Eric's ship?
The only one I'm missing is the Beast's castle; maybe this is it?
And last but not least, our guide:
If you think I took a lot of pictures of the Storybookland Canal Boats, wait until you see how many I took on it's a small world...
I am so with you about the construction walls - they are a nightmare. I'm so sorry you didn't do the character breakfast at Minnie - we had such a blast at that, I don't think I've ever laughed so much at a character meal before. :
Too bad about the breakfast. Bad planning on DLR's part for sure. I just love the canal boat ride-- one of my favorite things about DL's Fantasyland. I hate to see all the peaceful little rides disappear and hope this one stays around for a long time. Thanks for all the photos!
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Great updates!!! I'm loving all the pictures and making mental notes of things to catch when I'm there. Can't wait to see Haunted Mansion all decked out for Halloween. And the Storybook Canals is another one I'm looking forward too!
Bummer about the breakfast. I bet it was all messed up that morning due to the race. Well, there's always reasons to return, right? I also loved the Storybook Canal ride! Especially the lanscaping all within it. Do you think they have miniature landscapers that come and maintain it? Just kidding. (Actually, I already know the answer because our guide explained just how they maintain it, as I'm sure all the guides do.)
BTW, I'm totally inspired by your photography. I too have the same shots over and over and over. I've been trying to take different angles and whatnot, but it still appears to be repetitive. I'm now inspired to look for one detail and take pictures of that one detail throughout the parks. (your lamps or exit signs, for example) Clever idea! Now.... which detail shall I pick??!!!!
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(DH got Key Lime)
We may have been trying to trade one of the Vinylmations we brought from home.
We got a bit of a later start than I had wanted, and there were lots of people waiting outside the gates when we arrived. I asked a CM where to go if we had a breakfast reservation, and we were directed to a line with probably 75 people in it. There was another CM there who looked official, since she was carrying a clipboard, so I went up to her and told her that we had a reservation. She pointed to the line of people and said that all of those people did, too, and directed us to the back of the line.
She asked why all the people were in the street, and asked if she had time to catch some breakfast. I told her that she did, and we parted ways.
It had raisins in it, though, and DH didn't like it so I ate mine and saved his for later! 
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I'm so sorry you didn't do the character breakfast at Minnie - we had such a blast at that, I don't think I've ever laughed so much at a character meal before. 
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