Tag: Disneyland

How I Feel About The Disney Closures

How I Feel About The Disney Closures

March 13, 2020

Disney will be closed. All of the parks and the cruise line will not be open for business for a period of time. When they will reopen is still an unknown. Wait, what? Let that sink in for a minute. I’m sharing how I personally felt when I started hearing the news about the multiple Disney closures.

The Phases Of The Disney Closures

Asia

When the outbreak of COVID-19 started in Asia, the parks in Hong Kong Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Shanghai Disneyland had to close. In all honesty, I think we all expected that. Because those parks are on the other side of the world, it was out of touch for me. It didn’t really affect me.

Hong Kong Disneyland, Shanghai Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland closed during the last week of January due to the outbreak of the virus. It is still unknown when they will reopen again.

As of Thursday morning, we all weren’t sure what was going to happen here in the United States. Throughout the day, more and more news updates were coming across my phone about school closings in my state. As the alerts were increasing, we knew there was a chance our schools were going to close for at least two weeks.

What did this mean for us? It meant that the kids would most likely either have online schooling for 4 hours a day; or, they were going to have packets of work to do without a school check-in and they will need to make up the time somehow. Our family has a vacation booked in the near future. We don’t know yet if we will be going on that vacation.

California

Disneyland announced in the late afternoon that they were closing until the end of March. That’s when I thought, “ok, it’s serious”. I knew it was serious all along; but people were still talking about business as usual in every other area except school. I kept thinking, will we still be able to take our trip? Will Walt Disney World close? Is it worse in CA than it is in FL? Do we even want to fly or be in Disney during a time like this.

Florida

Then a few hours later Walt Disney World and the Cruise Lines were halting operations until the end of March. In my opinion, that was big. I also felt it was important. People needed to see the seriousness of the matter. I think we were in the “if you give an inch, they will take a mile” mentality. Places were closing; but people can still go out, travel, drive, shop, go to the movies, and more.

Paris

Disneyland Paris is following the same schedule as Walt Disney World and they will be closing effective, Sunday, March 15 through the end of March.

How can you control a pandemic if people are still going on vacation to places with large congregations of people from areas all over. Sure, closing schools will help reduce the spread of the virus; but if you take the kids out of school and then take them somewhere else, it defeats the purpose.

The Emotional Impact of Disney Closures

When I heard Disneyland was going to close, I held my breath. I assumed that the number of cases being discovered in the West Coast were higher than those on the East Coast so they were starting there first.

When it was announced that Walt Disney World was closing, and that the cruise line was halting operations, I got the sense like Disney would set the precedence for other large businesses in their industry to follow suit.

I Have To Be A Grown Up

We also got official word that our schools were going to be closed but we didn’t know when or how they would make up the time. This meant we have to make some grown up decisions about our vacation around the kids’ school schedule. They are older now and we can’t just take them out for our selfish wants to spend time with them. So we are going to have to find an alternative time to go on our trip.

There was also talk about post-vacation quarantines. So if we were to take the kids out of school for a trip, they may need to be quarantined for an additional 14 days. It’s a no-brainer.

We had a family meeting with the kids over dinner and talked about it all. We told them that with everything going on and so many unknowns, that our vacation will most likely be impacted and we will have to reschedule it. But we will do whatever we can to make the time we are spending together at home a positive experience, and we will have time for vacation as a family as well. We will work it out.

I was very impressed at how the kids handled the news. I expected more emotion or disappointment from them. My daughter was a little emotional about not being able to go to school for two weeks, and my son seemed a little relieved. I think he was needing a break from the heavy workload of homework. He even said on Wednesday that he was looking forward to Spring Break, and I got excited when I heard him say that because I knew we had a surprise for them.

What About….

The runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon Races

It’s still unknown what the status of the race weekend is. You can join my Facebook group for current updates on this race status.

Annual Passes and Tickets

  • Disney is adding the number of days closed to the expiration date of your existing annual pass.
  • If you have unexpired multi-day theme park tickets with unused days, or dates during the closures, they will be automatically extended to December 15, 2020.
  • After Hours and Early Morning Magic tickets are being refunded automatically. See the graphic below for more info.

Vacations Booked

  • The resorts and Disney Springs are still open.
  • You can modify or cancel a reservation up to your original check in date for a refund.
  • All cancellation fees up through June 30, 2020 will be waived.
How I Feel About The Disney Closures

What Can We Do During The Disney Closures

When Lou Mongello went live from Disney’s Beach Club on Thursday night, I started a watch party. A lot of people joined. We all wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to know what the vibe was like. Were people panicking? Was there still music playing in the parks, and people were strolling along Main Street with their family and having their “normal” vacation? What’s it really like?

Lou went live from The Beach Club in the Breezeway with a few of his friends and his wife. They were walking out of Epcot for the day and he just felt at the moment that he needed to go live. So they sat down and hit the Live button. Lou began sharing why he was going live at that moment and he was feeling emotional. That made me emotional.

There was some shock and awe when the Disney closures were happening. I felt like someone was taking away my favorite toy. Even if I am not there now, I have friends who go there often. I live vicariously through them as I watch and share their live broadcasts. If you know me, you know how much my family and I love Disney. But if it is closed, we can’t go, and our countdown changes, and everything feels out of whack!

It was the human component that was sinking in for me. People were sick and dying. It was because an illness is being spread, and Disney is a place where MANY people congregate. It’s just too risky for everyone. The cast members, the visitors, those traveling to and from there. So I don’t think it was a bad decision to close. It just comes with lots of different emotions. Especially for the groupies like us.

If our favorite place, the place we call home, the place that brings us joy and pleasure has to close, then things must be pretty bad. They aren’t just closing for the day either. They will be closed until the end of March, and anything after that is yet to be determined. Whoa.

As Lou was chatting with us online and with the folks sitting with him in the room, we all felt the need to be together online. We all have this common bond with our love of Disney, but we are also people who care about other people. As US citizens, we needed to be responsible in helping prevent this disruptive virus from crippling the world even worse than it already was.

What Can We Do Now?

Share the good news. Find the silver lining. I already saw some good news coming out of Disney. Disneyland Resort is donating excess food during the temporary closure.

How I Feel About The Disney Closures

Host your own online events!

I will be going live with my family every day to share what we are doing during our time at home. I also have some creative ideas to bring us all together virtually. I’ll be sharing more on that soon! If you have a shared interest with others, get online, talk about it! Sometimes just saying things out loud to other people helps make you feel better.

How do you feel about Disney closing? Share your comments below!

Mickey and Minnie at the Cigna Blogger Meetup

Disneyland Half Marathon Cigna Blogger Meetup

September 19, 2017

During the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend, the presenting sponsor, Cigna held a Blogger Meetup at the Grand Californian Hotel. This was my second opportunity to attend a Cigna blogger meet up during a runDisney race weekend. I went to the meetup in January at Walt Disney World and hung out with old and new friends.  This year I was excited to see friends that I had made from last January’s event.

Lunch

We were served lunch and had the chance to mingle with each other and our team mates.  We were going to play an Amazing Race-type challenge at Disney California Adventure Park. We were given the rules and our guidebook, and envelope of money to be used for some of the clues and a camera.

The Amazing Race

After our lunch, we headed over to the park to assemble as teams and begin our scavenger hunt. It was an incredibly hot day with temperatures in the 90’s so we knew how important it was going to be to stay hydrated since we just ran the 10K earlier that morning and most of us had the half marathon to run the next morning.

With our clues in hand we headed over to Paradise Pier to begin our challenges. Our adventure was only going to last for 90 minutes so we had to get as much done as we could in that time. Throughout the race we had to capture images and video of our challenges and tweet them out using specific hashtags and then the judges back at the hotel were going to tally up our scores based on what we tweeted. I oversaw photographing and tweeting. I would hand Sue my phone to take the photo and then I tweeted out the specific task and hashtags. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work at the same time! My phone was starting to get hot and the screen was dimming!

The Cigna Scavenger Hunt through Disney's California Adventure

At one point, we needed to find shelter in a shady area and solve some of the riddles in the book.  We also needed to plan a strategy for our next moves while cooling down from being in the sun.

Dessert And Winner Announcement

After the time was up we had to return to the location of our lunch, where dessert was provided along with much needed refreshing ice tea and water. And we had a special opportunity to get our photographs taken with Mickey and Minnie Mouse!

Team Mickey getting photos with Mickey and Minnie Mouse

I really enjoy these games. I especially liked the tweeting element to it this time because not only were people in the park curious about what we were doing and asking us; but now those tweets are out on Twitter and the messages will live on and may continue to spark curiosity. I will make it a point to re-tweet one or two a week as throwback Thursday items to regenerate the content again.

Thanks Cigna for the great swag bag and another wonderful opportunity to share with others the importance of living a healthy lifestyle.  I also love the opportunity to meet other bloggers and then seeing them again at future events!

Jindy and I having a photo op

10 miles NYC training run

NYC Marathon 10 Mile Training Run

August 29, 2017

I did it, I got a ten mile training run under my belt for the NYC marathon.  I also needed to get those miles in for the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend.  I hadn’t run more than ten miles since the Middletown Half Marathon back in April.

The struggle

The struggle to get to 10 miles has been quite real.  I have been going through a LOT of life stresses and was listening to the Another Mother Runner podcast, episode 273 and they mentioned how stress from life can have a major impact on your training.  As training is just as much mental as it is physical, when you are facing personal issues that affect your mental state of mind, it causes mental fatigue which also causes physical fatigue.

I have been trying very hard to be consistent with my workouts.  When it isn’t a short run day during the week, I get in my cross training with Beach Body Chalean Extreme videos.  However, my nutrition has not been very good this summer.  Meal planning and prep has gone out the window for me.  I was very consistent with it last year and lost 10 pounds.  Sadly, 5 of those pounds have crept back onto my body.  So I am starting a refresh to get back on track.  Doing this while the kids are back at school seemed logical since we are all trying to get back into a routine again.

Upcoming Races

I have the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend coming up this weekend.  I will be running the 5K, 10K and half marathon.  It isn’t ideal to get in a long run just a week before the races, but I needed that reassurance in my mind to get those miles under my feet.  The day after the run I felt fine so I am glad I got that training run done.  I don’t plan on running until the race weekend so I can give my legs a rest.  After the Disneyland Races I am not sure if I will register for any other races to use as training runs towards the NYC marathon.

The NYC Marathon

The NYC Marathon is just ten weeks away.  I learned this thanks to Facebook and quite frankly, that scares me.  I intended to get in a 20 mile run prior to that marathon.  I now have to pull out my calendar and see how I can realistically fit in long runs between now and then.  To be brutally honest, I did research yesterday to see the penalty for pulling out of the race.  The NYRR site states that you can cancel the 2017 race and if you want to run it in 2018 you have to register again and pay the fee again as well. So to be honest, it is now or never in my mind.

Run Stats

I went slow on this training run.  I took some more walk breaks and it did get warmer out since I went out later in the morning.  But I am still happy that the miles are under my feet.  The last mile I had to circle my driveway for half a mile so that dramatically affected my pace.  But I also have to remind myself that Jeff Galloway wants our training runs to be significantly slower so we can get the miles done and under our feet because they are “training miles”.

10-mile run stats

How To Train for Running Injury Free

August 13, 2017

Antonio Williams, M.S., NASM, P.E.S, Case Management Specialist, Health Educator at Cigna has very helpful information to help you avoid injuries when training for races.  I made many of these mistakes when I was an early runner.

Cross Training

A mistake some runners make is not including strength training in their training program. That’s why I shared why cross training is important in my more recent post.  It is important to include this because the continuous pounding on the pavement fatigues your muscles.  Over time and as you increase your distance, this will force other muscles in your body to overcompensate.  When this happens, you can injure those muscles because they are doing work that your other muscles should be doing.  

Running is primarily a workout that uses your lower muscles like your legs, glutes, and hamstrings; but it is important to have a strong upper body as well to help you maintain good posture when you run.  This will ensure that you don’t injure your lower back and that your upper body can also help you run faster as you swing your arms to help move your legs faster. Running is more of a muscular endurance than muscular strength, so that is why it is important to include strength training into your routine.

My beach body

I have been doing the Beach Body exercise videos for a year and I have been very happy with the mixture of strength training with my running.  It also helps break up the week for me and I don’t feel guilty if I am not doing something on a day that I am not running.

Stretching/Yoga

Antonio says,

a lack of flexibility is the most common cause for injuries. Tight calves, hip flexors, IT bands (side of thigh), quadriceps, lats (back) and adductors (groin) all will put the runner at risk. These muscles are usually tight for people who have desk jobs or sit a lot.

I know this is the case for me because I sit often for work, I sit in my car to drive to and from work and when I am at home I try not to sit as much and get more motion and standing in for the day to make up for all the sitting I did.  I was doing yoga for a while and I found that every helpful.  I loved it for the meditation aspect just as much as I knew I was helping my body become more flexible.

Lack of flexibility affects speed

Antonio also states that a lack of flexibility may also alter proper running mechanics.  When this happens it will cause them to slow down because your muscles aren’t working with the efficiency needed for speed.  A lack of flexibility will cause certain muscles to work harder than others.

Strength Training

To help your body with the pounding on the pavement, Antonio recommends doing strength training two or three days a week.  Over time, your muscles won’t tire as quickly. You’ll be able to run further, faster and for longer durations.

 

Specific Stretches from Antonio Williams

Antonio has listed the following exercises as important to your fitness and training routine to help keep you limber:

Calf stretch

Put both hands against a wall with arms extended. Lean with one leg bent forward and the other leg extended back. Keep your knee straight and foot positioned forward. Push rear heel to floor (toe pointed straight ahead) and move hips slightly forward. Hold stretch. Repeat with opposite leg.

Back stretch

Kneel in front of a chair or stable surface. Place one hand on the surface and slowly lower chest toward the ground. Feel the stretch in your upper shoulder area around your armpit. Do not arch your lower back, and tighten your core as you lower your chest. Repeat on opposite side.

Quad stretch

Kneel with one knee on a padded mat and your other foot positioned forward. Place back foot onto a stable surface like a bench. Slowly drive hip forward and squeeze glute on the same side as the quad being stretched. Hold stretch. Repeat with opposite side.

Groin stretch

Stand next to a stable, knee-high surface. Place your foot on the surface and slowly reach your hand toward your feet. Feel the stretch in the groin area of your leg on the surface. Keep both toes straight ahead, as feet may have a tendency to point outward. Do not shift hips toward leg on the surface. Repeat on opposite leg.

I hope these fitness tips will help you as you are getting closer to the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend.  But you can also use this tips for all races you are doing.  If you are training for the runDisney Dopey Challenge, Goofy Challenge, full marathon, half marathon, 10K, or 5K in January of 2018 these tips will also be get to know as you prepare for these much longer distances.

Disneyland Half Marathon Medals Released

July 25, 2017

The new runDisney medals were released on Monday for the Disneyland Half Marathon weekend.  With just over a month left until the race, things are starting to come together in regards to the theme for the race.  This means I need to get my head around some costume ideas!

Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend Sponsored by Cigna Race Themes

Based on the images on each medal the themes for each race is the following:

5K – Incredibles

10k – Monsters Inc.

Half Marathon – Toy Story

Attention Dumbo Double Dare Legacy Runners!

Good news for Dumbo Double Dare legacy runners!  I read the fine print and answered a question I had been wondering for a long time.  With the change of the theme moving to Pixar, Dumbo Double Dare legacy runners will be recognized with a special medal.

Since I have never done a Pixar theme for a race before this will be fun and interesting to pull together rather quickly.  Thank God for Pinterest and Etsy!

Do you have any ideas for me?  What will you be dressed up as for these races?

Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend Hotel Recommendations

September 20, 2016

I’m starting a new section of my blog which will provide you with hotel recommendations, especially to use for race weekends. Cost is a factor when I travel for race weekends because I am traveling alone and want to do it as cheap as I possibly can because I really just need a bed, shower and coffee maker.

When I went to Disneyland for the past two Dumbo Double Dare Races in 2016 and 2015 I stayed at the Best Western Plus Pavilions. I was very happy with this hotel last year and booked again at the same hotel this year. It is close to the Disneyland Resort area and Downtown Disney and is just about a 15-20 minute walk to the starting area for the races. It is also a more direct route to the races which does not require you to go though security and bag checks like you do in the area between Disneyland Magic Kingdom and California Adventure.

I also booked this hotel for the price. I was able to book it for $135 per night and I use hotels.com so that I can earn free nights. When you book again to the same hotel you also get special pricing. They also offered something great this year that I took advantage of. With their location right next to Denny’s, you are given a voucher for each night you stay there to use for breakfast the following day between 7:00 – 10:00 a.m. And your choices are not just a muffin and coffee. You can choose from eggs, pancakes, toast, tea, coffee, or juice and a side of bacon, sausage or turkey bacon. I made sure to take advantage of this the morning of the 10K since I finished early enough to take a fast shower and head over to the restaurant before 10:00 a.m. I thought this was an excellent addition to their accommodations there.

They are also located on a road that makes my return trip to the airport very easy because there isn’t usually theme park traffic when I depart on Sunday late morning.

I am very happy with the cleanliness, the amenities, the bed and how quiet it is at this hotel. I suits my needs perfectly for a race weekend. Check out my video of the hotel.

Dumbo Double Dare Travel Day 1 and Expo

September 8, 2015

I can’t believe this trip was already a week ago.  Life was so hectic right up to the trip and then right afterwards.  I will be providing you my details of the trip in segments.  Today we will begin with the travel day out to California and the Expo.

The trip began with a little bit of frenzy. When my alarm went off at 6:00 I snoozed it. Then when my backup alarm went off at 6:15 I snoozed that. I finally got up at 6:30. I wasn’t motivated to get moving too quickly. I wanted to be around to see Kevin get on the bus and then at least I’d have a few minutes with Adrienne also. I watched the traffic on the news so I was keeping up with any issues on the highway. With the last traffic check I did at 8:05 there was an accident just outside of Hartford! That’s when a little panic set in. I grabbed the
last of my things, kissed Adrienne and my husband and got on the road. Thank God for the Waze app. The traffic was looking OK according to the app. My estimated arrival time was 9:07 and I was leaving my house at 8:20 for a flight at 10:30. I arrived at 9:00 – Perfect.

I parked the car and got on the shuttle. Diana texted me that the line at the counter to check bags was very long. When I arrived, there was no one left! A flight to Chicago had a large amount of people there so they moved them all through. Security had a longer than usual line. It was doing the Disney zig zag rather than the usual straight lanes. But even with that we got through in less than 10 minutes. But of course, BOTH of my carry on bags needed
to be inspected. We were fine though. We had plenty of time to get a tea, use the restroom and chill for a few minutes before getting on the puddle jumper to New Jersey.

It was a quick 1 hour trip to New Jersey and when we arrived, we picked up sandwiches and snacks for lunch since it was close to lunch time and our flight to California was 6 hour flight.  We wanted to make sure we had sufficient food with us to keep us fueled up for the flight.  The flight ended up taking 5 hours and 30 minutes flight and was a good flight.  I got some work done and rested and Diana read her book and rested.  When I think back on it, it did go by quite fast.

image

When we landed we gathered our luggage and used the restroom. I had a moment in the restroom where I heard a woman calling out for help. I was alone in there with another woman and the woman in the stall. So we both walked over to see what was wrong. The woman who needed help had MS. She needed help moving from her motorized scooter toward the toilet so she could go to the bathroom. She did need the help of both of us women in the bathroom to help her move her legs.  She had no feeling and mobility in her legs. We helped her and left her to her privacy and then helped her get dressed and move back into her chair again. She was a wonderful woman, whose daughter was going to run the Dumbo Double Dare Races. After she was all set and back into her chair we said our goodbyes and I felt grateful for my health and to appreciate the little things like how easy it is for me to quickly go in and out of a stall to get my business done and rush onto my way.

Diana and I got our rental car and went on with our journey to Disneyland. I took the advice from the man at the rental car check-out counter and we took the back roads to the Disneyland hotel. He said the highway at that time of night was a mess. That didn’t surprise me because that is how it was for me for the past two prior years. So we typed in the address to our phones and started on our way. As usual, it took 45-50 minutes to get to the hotel, when it is usually a 15-20 minute drive. Like in the past, I had to make a few U-turns and then we parked at the Downtown Disney parking lot and walked over to the Disneyland Hotel to go to the expo.

image

It was around 6 pm and many of the items at the Expo were picked over and there wasn’t as much of a selection left. I purchase an “I Did It” shirt; but it was only for the Disneyland Half Marathon, it wasn’t even for the Dumbo Double Dare. I also picked up a new Coast to Coast shirt. Those are the two items that I always want to grab when I run the Dumbo Double Dare races.

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I did have the chance to go to the New Balance booth with no wait time and had the chance to pick up a pair of children sized Donald Sneakers. They didn’t have the exact size I wanted; but I was able to squeeze my foot into a half size smaller and was OK with that. We went downstairs to pick up our bibs, park passes, and coast to coast wrist band. Then we went upstairs to pick up our shirts. As we walked to the car it dawned on me that I had a coast to coast wrist band and Diana didn’t. Good thing I noticed it! We went back to the expo and talked to Runner Relations to get that resolved and she got her wristband.

It was getting late and we were getting hungry. So we dropped our items into the car and grabbed a sweatshirt to bring with us to Disneyland to watch the Electrical Parade and fireworks. Mandy had landed around this time and we were making arrangements to meet up near the gate so we could give them their passes. Diana and I went to Earl of Sandwich to pick up dinner and brought it with us into Disneyland to eat. But being close to the parade time; there was a large crowd on Main Street. I didn’t want to be too far from the gate because I still had to walk out to meet Mandy to give her the park passes.

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We finally met up and the parade had started. Unfortunately, it was just too crowded to enjoy the parade. There wasn’t a good place where I could see the floats. But I did my best to take some pictures. We hung out for a little bit at the park and then decided it was time to head back to our hotels because it was getting close to 9:30 (12:30 back home) and I wanted to be asleep by 11:00 PST the latest.

We checked into the hotel, laid out our race materials for the next day and hit the sack around 11:00 p.m. The alarms were set for 4:00 a.m.

Stay tuned for my recap of the Disneyland 10K race recap.

Dumbo Double Dare Donald Duck New Balance Sneakers!

August 30, 2015

 

source New Balance

source New Balance

I’m excited that Donald Duck is the character for the newest release of the NB runDisney special sneakers being released during Dumbo Double Dare Disneyland Half marathon weekend. Donald is my son’s favorite character and I know that they carry children sizes for these sneakers.

This model is the New Balance Boracay Fresh Foam, similar to the Tinkerbell model that was just released in may.  The sneakers will be sold for $140 at the runDisney Health and Fitness Expo.

Source New Balance

Source New Balance Love the hat tail like Donald’s hat coming off the back of the sneaker!

Source New Balance

Source New Balance

Source New Balance

Source New Balance

 

How do you get your hands on a pair of these?

You can wait in line at the New Balance booth at the expo, or to help minimize the wait you can sign up for the virtual queue at NBvirtualqueue.com using your bib number starting Thursday, September 3rd, at 6:00 AM PST.  The queue is also available on Friday and Saturday beginning at 6:00 AM PST.

The NBvirtualqueue.com will also provide you up to date information on inventory availability and updates throughout the weekend.

Check out all the latest releases of the special runDisney New Balance sneakers while you are at the expo as well!

Source New Balance

Source New Balance

 

 

D23 Expo News

August 17, 2015

The D23 Expo took place August 14-16 in Anaheim, CA and it was a BIG deal this year.  I had heard of the expo before and had been curious about it; but never was interested to attend. Then when I was at the Social Media Moms Celebration this past May, Jeffrey Epstein from D23 gave a presentation.  The theme of his presentation was “When Did It Start For You?”  While I found his presentation interesting, I felt like D23 was going to be a big deal this year.  Apparently it was.  There were tweets, Facebook posts, Periscopes and video blogs going up everywhere about this year’s D23.

The biggest news is the new addition of Star Wars Land on both the East and West Coast and then the addition of Toy Story Land on the East Coast.  The Star Wars and Toy Story Lands will be at Hollywood Studios.  Given the recent closings of several attractions at Hollywood Studios it is no surprise that something was going to happen there.  If you follow any of the rumors in the Disney community, there has been a lot of chatter about a Star Wars Land coming to Hollywood Studios for a few years now.  There was also a rumor that Cars Land would be coming to the East Coast; but I always felt that it belonged in the West Coast to give people a reason to travel out to Disneyland and see all they have to offer.

This is a BIG deal.  I have been reading posts on Facebook recently with people showing sections of Anaheim being purchased by Disney.  There was talk that it was purchased for a parking garage, to move Disney offices off property from the actual parks to an off-site location.

Source: Slashfilm.com

Source: Slashfilm.com

Star Wars Lands

The plans to bring Star Wars lands to both Disneyland and Walt Disney World is very ambitious.  The Star Wars lands will have two signature attractions,. one including the Millennium Falcon and the other that puts guests in the middle of a climatic battle.

Source: Disney Parks Blog

Source: Disney Parks Blog

Source: Disney Parks Blog

Source: Disney Parks Blog

What could this mean for the future of runDisney races?  I bet there will be some EPIC races to come to runDisney when these 14- acre lands are completed.  Imagine that?  Two Star Wars lands on each coast, the coast to coast Star Wars race challenges, the MEDALS!  It’s going to be so awesome and I have to take part in it!

Toy Story Land

Toy Story Land sounds awesome to me!  Toy Story is one of my favorite movies.  The new land being built in Hollywood Studios will give guests the perspective of being the size of a toy and explore the world of Andy’s backyard.

Souce: Disney Parks Blog

Souce: Disney Parks Blog

TSL203431

Source: Disney Parks Blog

Some of the attractions you can look forward to at Toy Story Land will be a family friendly roller coaster incorporating Slinky Dog’s back as part of the coaster, an Alien saucers attraction with the little green aliens taking a spin in their flying saucers, in addition to the already existing Toy Story Mania.

What does this mean for things already existing at Hollywood Studios like The Osborne Lights? Will this be the last year for it?  What else will be going away in Hollywood Studios?  Stay tuned to the Disney Park Blog and Twitter and my blog for the latest updates and news!

I Can’t Wait To See and Shop the Disneyland 60th Celebration

June 21, 2015

In just a few short months I will be in California for my third Dumbo Double Dare race through Disneyland. During this time Disneyland is celebrating its 60th Anniversary Celebration and I am so excited that I get to be there during such a big event. One thing I will be doing for sure will be visitng the parks this time. Usually when I travel to Disneyland for Dumbo Double Dare there are enough meet ups and friends to hook up with in Downtown Disney that I am busy enough to not need park tickets. But I want to go to the parks and see the parades, World of Color and the fireworks. This year I am traveling with Diana who hasn’t been to Disneyland at all, so it is her first time. In a sense it will be my first time as well!

While I was in the Disneyland Park for the Pasta In the Park Party at last year’s race, I did ride a few rides; but I feel like I didn’t really see the park. I was struggling with my flying migraine being one of the worst with that trip so I had a rough time. I couldn’t stay out late and by the time I felt better it was time for me to fly home.  This year I want to see the park and ride the rides, enjoy the Paint The Night Parade in Disneyland Park and then go to Disneyland Forever Fireworks show! 

photo by Disney Parks Blog

 

The second must-do on my list is to go Disney California Adventure and see the World of Color.  This is a fountain, fire and laser effects show with music and towering screens.  Celebrate is the name of the show and it reminds us never to give up on our dreams, that anything is possible!

photo by Disney Parks Blog

photo by Disney Parks Blog

Disneyland is also rolling out special merchandise for this celebration and I have a wish list of the must-have items I want to add to my collection.  The Alex and Ani bracelets are the first I want to add to my collection.

photo by Disney Parks Blog

 

photo by Disney Parks Blog

 
I would love a Dooney and Bourke Disneyland edition.   
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photo by Disney Parks Blog

Other merchandise announced by Disney included special picture frames, phone cases, special edition ears, steins shoes and much more!  Check out the video below to see what they have to offer.  
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photo by Disney Parks Blog

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What do you want to get from the Disneyland special merchandise? 

photo by Disney Parks Blog

 

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