Find Extra Special Things To Do When The Magic Kingdom Closes
Check out my recent guest blog post for The Mouse For Less blog.
Check out my recent guest blog post for The Mouse For Less blog.
We had a wonderful family day together today and this past weekend. Here are some of the highlights.
Yesterday was the St. Baldrick’s fundraiser to raise money for childhood cancer. We successfully raised past our goal of $25,000! Thank you everyone!
We lost our friend Lyla to rhabdomyosarcoma on Christmas Day. Our town has been healing since that day and last night was a beautiful way for us to all congregate together and support Lyla’s family as we honor her as a St. Baldrick’s hero. Throughout the year my goal is to raise awareness of this rare form of cancer that affects a small number of children each year. About 350 new cases of RMS occur each year in the United States. This cancer strikes most children under the age of 10. Lyla’s 10th birthday is April 1. I’d like to get a floating lantern and send it up to the heavens with my family on that day. We want to send our love to her in the heavens.
Please enjoy this video recap of our beautiful night last night. Many thanks to all the volunteers and to my daughter’s teacher Mrs. Bannon who organizes the event. She was my son and Lyla’s second grade teacher and started the event three years ago for Lyla. Mrs. Bannon gives her heart into everything and this was an especially beautiful tribute to our best friend Lyla. We love you Lyla! We love you Bill, Jana, Grant and Bennett!
The last day of the Glass Slipper Challenge weekends ends with the half marathon. I took the time the night before to lay out all my race gear, get my food and tea prepped, and had most of my bag packed for the trip home. All I had to do was get up when my alarm went off at 3:30 to plan on being on the road for 4:30. I was on the road at 4:30 but there were major traffic issues. I didn’t arrive to my parking spot until 5:21… the race starts at 5:30. However, as I was making my way to the corrals, Mandy sent me a text and then I got a Tweet from runDisney that due to the traffic issue, they were going to delay the start of the race. I was concerned about that because I had a very tight window of time for when I could finish the race, shower at my hotel and be to the airport for my 12:20 flight home (more on that later).
I got down to the corrals after the start of the race. I was in Corral G so I wasn’t worried; but I did run into a problem. As the corrals moved forward, the volunteers for the corralled sections wouldn’t let me move forward to Corral G. I was stuck in Corral H. Had I been there 5 minutes earlier I could have snaked my way up to where Mandy was. I told her I was stuck and that I would meet up with her. She told me she’d stay to the right of the road so I could find her. My corral released at 6:01 and I kept a pretty consistent run the entire first mile. I stopped for a picture of the mile marker and then continued over the bridge and on the road towards Magic Kingdom. With no sighting of Mandy, I called her. She and Kenn had to make a pit stop and I found them and meet up with them on World Drive. As you can see from my splits, my first mile was quicker because I ran most of it to catch up with them.
After I caught up to Mandy we ran past the photo stops which were the Pirates of the Caribbean and further up was the heroes. We took our usual pictures at the Magic Kingdom toll gate and then continued to run towards the Magic Kingdom. Again, the plan was to save our time for photo opportunities in the Magic Kindom. The photos along the way were the Incredibles, the Evil Queen, Malificent and then the drummers were at the TTC. My favorite DJ was on the overpass leading to the Contemporary.
Once we got into the Magic Kingdom we planned on using a real bathroom, and then I knew to look for Sam Ganow from the Mickey Milers and Kenny from Team Shenanigans. Found them and proceeded on towards the back of the park to Fantasyland where we wanted to see who was going to be out for photos. We skipped past Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum and found Gaston. He was the longest wait for us. This was between miles 5 and 6. The Beast was the next photo stop after Gaston; but the line for him was VERY long, so I took a selfie with the Beast in the background. We ran through the castle and towards Frontierland. We skipped the photo with Woody and Jessie and ran on towards backstage. Sadly, because the train was being refurbished it was not on the tracks on the way to the backstage area. They had Cinderella and Prince Charming at the large float backstage; but that was a very long line as well. We continued up through cone alley and tried to run as much of that as we could to make up for time we spent taking photos in the Magic Kingdom.
After cone alley were the Penguins from Mary Poppins. Then I found Richard from the Floridian! I found him during the marathon weekend as well! The gentlemen singers were on Floridian Way as well as vacation Genie on the golf course. I had been tracking my friend Kim and saw that she was catching up to us and I spotted her just before mile 8! We stopped for a quick picture and then pushed on. This part of the race gets boring and I had a plane to catch so I didn’t want to slow down at the end. We set up little mini plans to make up time and make that portion of the race course more tolerable. We’d run up to a water stop and then walk. Then run up to the mile marker and then resume our run/walk intervals. After mile 10 we decided to run the entire ramp up to the bridge and walk across the bridge and then run downhill towards mile 11. It was good to keep pushing forward because by that point in the race it is easy to decide to walk it in for the end.
Finally we were in Epcot and there were a few chances where we wanted to get some photos. We took one with Daisy just near the turn around, and then attempted another jump photo in front of the waterfall. Then we brought it in for the finish. I HAD to get my Fitz hug before the finish line and then we took pictures with Donald and Goofy!
Our fourth Glass Slipper Challenge accomplished. Just one more year to go in hopes to get legacy status. With the announcement of a new name for the challenge next year we aren’t sure that we will be recognized for doing five consecutive Princess weekend races in a row. Same holds true for Dumbo; so I think once Dumbo comes around we will know what the result of that will be. But I still enjoy this weekend with Mandy and Kenn and it’s a nice race to run mid-winter to keep my mileage up. Considering I hadn’t run longer than 4 miles since the WDW marathon, I felt great during these races.
The first race of the Glass Slipper Challenge was done and I wanted to take a shower and nap before my 10:50 Team Shenanigans breakfast at Kona. I was looking forward to a day of relaxing and did just that! We had the Shenanigans breakfast and then the #werunsocial meetup was taking place just outside the Polynesian at 1:00 so Christina and I went to that together.
Then Mandy and Kenn and I had tea reservations at the Floridian at 4:00 so after the meetup I took the monorail over to the Floridian and sat by the pool for about an hour and enjoyed the warm sunshine. I was hoping to nap in a beach chair but there were no beach chairs and I was at the pool with the water slide. Kenn and Mandy met me at the pool and sat for a little bit and then we went to the lobby to check in for tea.
During that time the Princess promenade was taking place! Cinderella and Prince Charming were heading down the main staircase and little princesses were following her. I was so excited to see that for the first time! Then after they got downstairs Cinderella and the Prince waltzed and encouraged the girls to waltz. It was so sweet.
The tea was wonderful. We had to choose our flavor of tea (there were so many to choose from), and then they sandwiches and dessert we wanted. I had the Fig & Rose White Tea which was so delicious. The sandwiches we received were egg salad, curry, cucumber with cream cheese, and orange beets with goat cheese. Then we had a scone with lemon spread, butter or an apricot spread. There were also two cheeses along with a cracker and some berries and grapes. My choice for dessert was a chocolate covered strawberry; but it came with two macaroons and also a swan cream puff. There was so much food I had to wrap my dessert to go. The whole experience was really enjoyable and I would definitely do it again.
The Bedfordshire Tea –
First Course
Medley of Finger Sandwiches accompanied with Berries, Cheese and Lavosh
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Second Course
Buttery Scone and Jam Tart
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Finale
Choice of delicate House-Made Pastries, Strawberries and Creme, or English Trifle
Accompanied by your choice of tea
$35.00
After tea we decided we wanted to walk around Disney Springs for a little bit and then call it an early night. I had to take the monorail around back to the Poly and saw the new construction going on at Wilderness Lodge. It looks like they are building water front bungalows like the Polynesian did.
As I returned to the Polynesian I caught the tail end of the torch lighting ceremony. I had always wanted to see that. I did a lot of first on this trip! I drove over to the Lime garage at Disney Springs and circled around the first floor for about 15 minutes until I finally found a spot and then met Mandy and Kenn at Arribas brothers. I got some great pictures of the beautiful crystal art there and then they went back to their hotel and I wanted to go to D-Living because Christina told me that they were doing the entire store Beauty and the Beast themed! I loved the store and bought a great book written in the viewpoint of the Beast. I can’t wait to start reading it!
As I was leaving I spotted the Sephora store. I have NEVER been in a Sephora store, can you believe that?? So I had to go see what all the talk was about. It was quite the store. I thought they only carried Sephora brand products but they have much, MUCH more. So I got consultation for a mineral foundation by Bare Minerals. I will definitely go back there again and spend more time browsing. It was fun!
I went back to my hotel and was in bed before 9:00. It took a while for the kids to say goodnight but I think I was asleep before 10:00. I had a really fun day, did a lot of new things, and met some great people at the #werunsocial meetup.
Mandy and I had a different strategy for The Princess Glass Slipper Challenge 10K this year. We were going to skip the character stops on the course outside of Epcot and save our time for when we are in Epcot. Especially in France because that is where Lumiere and Cogsworth were last year and we especially wanted to get Beauty and the Beast themed photos.
The corrals also released quicker this year. I was in corral B but she and Kenny were in C so I joined them in their corral. The last corral was F. They released the corrals every 3 minutes and did section off the corrals into halves. Luckily we were in the first half of our corral. We started running at 5:41 a.m. I had arrived at the Epcot parking lot at 4:50 so I had plenty of time.
The characters we chose to pass up were Princess Elena, Tink and her friends, The Evil Queen with the poisoned apple (which we now wish we had taken). Inside there were the entertainers on stilts backstage. When we entered Epcot we passed Pinnochio and Gepeto in Italy, Dopey and then approaching France there were cast members with champagne bottle props along with Marie the cat. Mandy and I were disappointed that Lumiere and Cogsworth weren’t there like last year. Had we known, we would have gotten in line for the Evil Queen. We did take photos with the topiaries of Lumiere and Cogsworth along with Belle and the Beast. I also found Faith Dority while we were waiting in line. It was great to see her again!
We continued over the International Gateway towards the Boardwalk and there was a thick fog hanging over the Swan and Dolphin. It looked really cool. Outside of ESPN was vacation Genie so we chose to skip that photo stop. We knew there was a Royal Minnie as we were going to be heading backstage back into Epcot so we had time to decide if we wanted to stop for her.
We continued to run around the Boardwalk to the Yacht and Beach club and approached the area where Minnie was; but decided not to wait in the long line for her. I was lucky to get a photo of her waving to us. We ran through the UK, Canada and up the middle towards the fountain. We stopped there for a photo with Spaceship Earth in the background. We decided to do a jumping photo. We laugh when we look at it now; but hey it was fun and we did something different. We continued on towards the front entrance and back under Spaceship Earth towards the back area to the finish line.
As we were approaching the end of the race there was a mom with her daughter in a special wheelchair and I asked her if she was being highlighted by runDisney she said yes. I introduced myself to her daughter and noticed her name was Tea (as in Tea Leoni). I saw them again close to the finish line and Tea was yelling out “Your my Rock Star” to other runners, so I told her, “no, YOU are my rock star and I can’t wait to see you with your medal!” After we finished and I got my medal I saw that runDisney was interviewing them so I waited and got a picture of Tea with her medal and asked her mom a few questions. I’d like to find out more about their story and do a separate inspirational blog post, so look for that in the near future! There was something about Tea that reminded me of Lyla. I think was her curly hair but she touched my heart. And I was so proud of her mom and her best friend for pushing that stroller all those miles and all the training she did for this race. It’s a beautiful thing.
I had breakfast reservations with Team Shenanigans at Kona, a #werunsocial meetup, and tea with Mandy and Kenn in the afternoon, so I was looking forward to my fun filled day ahead of me. Stay tuned for a recap of that fun I had!
