I knew I had neglecting this blog, but hadn’t realized just how long it had been since I’ve written anything. The jury is still out on whether this will be a quick drive-by post to share/organize some thoughts, or if I’ll start writing/sharing/posting on a more regular basis. But either way, I wanted to take the time to write up a recap of my latest Disney trip.
If you’ve read my previous posts, you may know the history behind my running the Disney Princess Half Marathon. And if you haven’t read anything or you don’t remember, well, sit tight, because I’m gonna share the story again.
I ran my first half marathon in 2011. Not long after that first race, I started searching for more, and I found out about the Princess. At a girls’ weekend, I casually mentioned how it would be fun if we could go to Disney and they could all cheer me on as I ran/crossed the finish line. Their response was, “yeah, that sounds like fun, but forget cheering - we’re gonna run with you.” So we started training and planning for what we thought would be a once in a lifetime experience. Well, to make a long story short, we had so much fun, we would repeat the experience 5 more times
So, for six years, my friends and I made the trek to Florida to run the Princess together.
But when registration for the 2019 race rolled around, life, as it tends to do, had brought some changes in our lives, and it was time to rethink our participation. In the end, I decided I was going to run it at least one more time (it’s a favorite, and I just wasn’t ready to say good-bye to it quite yet), but my friends decided they were out. So for 2019, I was on my own.
I convinced my mom that Disney in February is cooler than May/June when we usually go and she should come with me. Since she’s turned into quite the Disney junkie since her first visit 2 1/2 years ago, I didn’t have to to do much convincing to get her to agree to go.
So, on Thursday, February 21, we were off, driving up to Pittsburgh so we could catch our direct flight to Orlando on Friday.
(Sidebar for those wondering why we drive all the way to Pittsburgh when we could fly from home: if you book your flights early enough (as in as soon as your travel dates become available), it can actually be cheaper to fly out of PIT (even factoring in hotel costs, gas, wear & tear on the vehicle, etc.) . Yes, really. Add in the convenience of a direct, non-stop flight (and the possibility of using Southwest points to purchase at least one of our flights) and it’s kind of a no-brainer. The key is booking early; if you wait, the price will go up and then it wouldn’t make sense. But I digress.)
We had a couple minor snags at the airport on Friday - an extra scan to get through security (PSA- if your cardigan/sweater has metallic threads, take it off before going through the screener machine; otherwise, you may light it up like a Christmas tree) and a flight delay while SW dealt with a computer network issue. Luckily, we had no set plans for the day and the delay was only an hour, so we didn’t miss anything.
One benefit of the delay was our room was ready when we got off the Magical Express. So we dropped off our carry-ons, and headed off to the race expo. The expo was set up a little different this year, with the bus drop off/pick up area on the opposite side of the complex and three seperate buildings to go into to collect all your race gear. Yes, three.
I’m assuming separating the bib pick up, shirt pick up, and runDisneygear into three places was an effort to alleviate crowds. And it kind of did, but it did make for a lot of extra walking (not necessarily an issue for the runners, but not so great for non-running family or friends). The bib pickup area was pretty much empty when we got there and it hardly took any time at all. Bib in hand, we headed over to the main expo area to get my race shirt and check out the vendor booths. As usual, it was crowded and loud,with pretty much the same vendors as in years past.
Next stop was the runDisney merchandise building. I was hoping to get my hands on one of the long sleeve hoodies and half marathon hats, but both were sold out by the time I got there (well, they did still have size 3X and 4X shirts; while I have no problem buying a size or 2 up, because I often prefer shirts to be a little on the big size, but the remaining sizes were even too big for me.)
Our business at the expo completed, we headed back to our resort, grabbed some dinner, and settled in to rest up four our trip to the Animal Kingdom on Saturday.
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Day 2 Recap coming soon
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