Our Star Wars fun continued into April where the whole group went to Disney World to take on the Dark Side Challenge. Hiram was super excited about returning to Disney and all the fun we would have and the rest of us happily went with him. We were excited to enjoy different parts of Disney and have Hiram and Karen run their first half marathon. We again packed the weekend with parks and races.
Friday:
Friday morning we caught the earliest flight to Orlando and took the Magical Express to our hotel. I was so excited to see Art of Animation. I have been to Disney so often that I love being able to enjoy something new. Since there were 5 of us, we decided to stay in a family suite with a Cars theme. It was a little smaller than we expected, but we survived. One of the beds pulled down from the wall and my bed was a sofa couch, but at least their were two bathrooms. The resort was incredible. The theming was done so well and we all loved it. The themed areas included Cars, Lion King, Nemo, and Little Mermaid.
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| Lobby of Art of Animation |
We didn't get to check in right away though and exploring the resort came later. We dropped off our luggage and went immediately to the expo at Wide World of Sports. We got our race bibs and spent a few minutes at the expo. I love race expos, but this one is so busy and we had better things to do with our day.
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| Expo time |
It was back to the hotel to check into our room and get to Epcot. We were starving when we got to the park since it was past noon and we spent the whole morning traveling so we grabbed lunch at the Electric Umbrella. Then we fit in a few rides thanks to Fastpass. I know some people hate that you can plan ahead with these, but it was very helpful considering we couldn't get to the park at opening. We hit Spaceship Earth, Finding Nemo, Soarin', Journey through Imagination, and Test Track in under 3 hours. We also enjoyed finding every photographer possible since we purchased the PhotoPass. If you go with a group, this is totally worth it. Even more worth it if you are doing a race and those photos are included. We each paid $30 and ended up with over 350 professional photos.
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| I took this photo at the entrance. It was the garden and flower festival. |
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| And I kept trying for artsy photos. Spaceship Earth always makes me smile. |
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| Incredible what they can do |
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| Group shot |
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| And we had to add Tink |
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| Embracing more photos |
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| Embracing the garden festival |
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| While we were off riding Test Track, Hiram and Karen got to meet Anna and Elsa. |
Then it was off to the Biergarten Restaurant for dinner at 5pm. Since we had to wake up so early for the race, we wanted to get in an early dinner. None of us knew what to expect other than great German food. We sat down next to a stage and had access to an unlimited buffet. Corey's beer was bigger than his head. The food was delicious and then several German musicians came out to play traditional German music, although I am pretty sure playing It's a Small World on the bells isn't quite German. They did an incredible job and it was nice to see a surprise show. After eating a little too much, I convinced everyone to join me to wait 45 minutes for Frozen the ride. We played Heads Up for the entire ride (Disney categories), which helped it go faster. Hiram doesn't like "scary" rides so I made sure that he knows that there was a small section that goes backwards and a very baby drop. He was hilarious to sit next to as he semi stressed about these despite the baby sitting in the boat in front of us. I was impressed by the animatronics and enjoyed the ride. It will be very boring without Hiram sitting next to me next time.
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| We are all intently staring at Elsa while she is singing. And yes, we went backwards right after this photo. |
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| More attempts at artsy photos |
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| I love how things look at night. |
Then it was time to head back to the hotel to try to get some sleep. We were at the park too late (totally my fault) so we had a very short night. We needed to get up at 3:30am to catch the shuttle by 4 for the 10k. It was a great first day at Disney and there was so much more to enjoy.
