Disney World Recap

Ok…so I’m going to try and cover 6 days in one short recap, mostly pictures! Has it already been 6 weeks since Marathon Weekend? Crazy how fast time flies by!

Pretty much, the first three days of our trip were outlined here:

• WDW Marathon Weekend Expo
• 2013 WDW Half Marathon-Goofy’s Challenge Part 1
• 2013 WDW Full Marathon-Goofy’s Challenge Part 2

On Sunday after the Marathon, I went back to my hotel room and took yet another nap. Aaah, naps. How heavenly! It did not last long enough at all,but I knew that my absolute favorite meal on earth was coming up for dinner, so I didn’t have much trouble dragging myself out of bed!

I took a similar picture like this after Marathon Weekend 2011…just had to recreate the moment! No way I’m walking up those stairs!

We met up with Laura and her husband David (I ran my very first Half Marathon with Laura!) and Melissa and her husband Randy (Melissa and I ran the Full together) at Ohana for dinner!

Ohana…how lovely you are to my tummy! My most favorite dessert EVER – Bread pudding with Ice Cream topped with Bananas Foster Sauce. Heaven on Earth!

On Monday morning, Melissa picked me up at my resort and we drove to Zahanati Spa at Animal Kingdom Lodge for massages!

We each scheduled a 50 minute post-race massage and boy was mine amazing. I told the therapist my sore spots and she did an awesome job! I love massages and have always wanted to try one in Disney but never knew if I would have the opportunity! Melissa is an Angel and I loved the Spa at AKL!

After leaving AKL, I took a bus to EPCOT to meet up with my husband, Heather, and Bobby for lunch!

We ate in Mexico, then walked around to find our friends Crystal and Mary! It’s funny to me that in 2009, we were in WDW to cheer Crystal on in her first Full Marathon, and none of us knew anything about distance running. Everyone was bitten by the bug and…well, here we are…all Goofy’s Challenge finishers! As we were taking this picture, two Japanese tourists jumped in and wanted their picture taken with us! It was SO funny!!

We parted ways with our friends, then walked over to Test Track and Mission Space…you know, the usual. We also went on a Goofy hunt! Since the Character Spot was under construction, we had to ask around but we finally found him!

Just Goofin around!

I also found Mickey! Yay!

Pluto and Minnie were out to play, too!

We ate dinner at Le Cellier, another favorite of ours! We LOVE cheese soup and pretzel bread! Delicious!

After dinner, we enjoyed a ride on Soarin and Spaceship Earth. Jason likes to make the goofiest faces for the camera (he thinks he’s funny)!

We ended our day with a little Illuminations! Yay!

Tuesday, we met up with Heather and Bobby at Animal Kingdom!

Our first stops were Expedition Everest and Bugs Life followed by Dinosaur.

To this day, I still crack up at the picture we took on Dinosaur. My husband is a genius.

Is this not the BEST Dinosaur picture you’ve ever seen?! I don’t know where he comes up with this stuff!

After we wiped the tears off our faces from laughing so hard, we took a ride through the Savannah!

We parted ways after lunch so Heather and Bobby could enjoy the afternoon by the pool since it was their last day in Disney.

Jason and I caught a showing of the Lion King before heading over to Hollywood Studios for the afternoon.

This is my usual every trip picture! Get it? I’m Karen…and this is Mousketeer Karen’s display…yeah.

Our dinner reservation was for Sci-Fi at 5:45 p.m. We didn’t realize that Fantasmic was scheduled for 6:30 p.m. (with an early park closing), so we arrived at Sci-Fi around 5:00 p.m. and asked for an early seating. To my surprise, not a single person (besides car hops) was inside the waiting room (I haven’t seen it that empty, ever!). Our wish was granted…YAY…and we were able to eat, then haul booty to Fantasmic.

As we were walking to the stadium, we heard the announcement that the only seats available were standing room. We didn’t care, we just wanted to see the show. We arrived just as the final stadium seats were being filled, which means we didn’t have to stand! Yay!

After the show, we returned to our resort to drop off a few bags and watch Wishes from our balcony (with music piped in of course). We then took the boat over to the Contemporary to shop. Why stop at the Contemporary when the Grand Floridian was  just minutes away on the Monorail? Good question!

We shopped around at the Grand, then took a bus to Downtown Disney. We didn’t like the fact that the parks closed so early, but we did like having the rest of the evening to shop!

Love me some Ghirardelli!!! My favorite is the Caramel Quake Shake! YUM!

Wednesday was our final full day in Disney World. Our trip came to an end so quickly!

We received several towel animals throughout our trip which we loved! We are like big kids! :0)

All of Wednesday was spend in the Magic Kingdom, a park we had yet to visit this trip!

I love both of these sayings!

Why hello there, my favorite castle! :0)

 

We spent our entire morning in the New Fantasyland visiting Under the Sea with the Little Mermaid, Enchanted Tales with Belle, and Goofy’s Barnstormer followed by lunch at Be Our Guest.

The ordering system in this restaurant is different from any other I’ve used on property. You do all of your own ordering via computer screen – pretty nifty!

We ate in the Ballroom and really enjoyed the atmosphere.

Each person is given a rose for their table and that’s how the orders are tracked via GPS. The waiters knew exactly where to bring our food!

We didn’t care for the chocolate mousse puff, but Jason’s sandwich was very good!

I really liked my sandwich and my strawberry cupcake!

We would love to eat dinner here one day!

After lunch, we were on a hunt to find Donald Duck. There was only one Donald available in all four of the parks at the time being….“The Astounding Donaldo” in Magic Kingdom (no classic Donald to be found…we even asked a CM)!

I told him that he was one hard Duck to track down and he shrugged his shoulders at me! Hah!

After lunch, we slowly took in the rest of the Magic Kingdom and really enjoyed ourselves. This was the first time we were able to enjoy a laid back trip in a while and it was nice. No crowds, hardly any lines, no rushing…perfect!

The best afternoon treat? A Dole Whip Float, of course!

Who found the sweet spot on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin? I DID! Oh yeah!!

To top off our fabulous last evening, we had dinner with Randy and Melissa at Liberty Tree Tavern!

Nothing beats the end of a Disney trip like watching Wishes on Main Street.

Yet again, we had another amazing trip filled with fun races, laughter, and great times with friends. Up next on my Disney Race calendar is Dumbo’s Double Dare at the Disneyland Resort….my very first Coast to Coast Challenge! I cannot wait!!

Since it is Princess Half Marathon Weekend this weekend and we ARE on the subject of runDisney, I want to wish all of my Princess friends a great race! Have a magical time!!

Thanks for following along with all of our fun adventures0! Have a great day!