Barca33Runner's Journal: Thanks For Noticin' Me(Comments Welcome)

Made it to Disney with no issues. Took a little longer on DME to get to the resort than I had hoped so I didn't make it in time to head over to MK and see Happily Ever After. A little bummed, but I'll have a chance in the future. Nothin else really to report for tonight, about to get some sleep for my early AK adventure and long Disney day tomorrow.
 
Jealous you are at WDW!!! Glad it made it without difficulties, but bummer that you couldn't get over to MK. I hope you have a great day at AK today.
 
Checking in before heading out for MNSSHP. Fantastic day so far. Everything has gone pretty much exactly to plan. Made it on the first bus from Coronado Springs to AK and was about 10 deep in line to get into the park. Went straight to Flight of Passage when they let us in at ~8:20. Waited about 10 deep at the bridge before they escorted us over and was off the ride by 9:00 AM when the park was supposed to open. More details and pictures later when I recap the trip.
 
Back from my short vacation. Had an awesome time with my sister, brother in law, niece and nephew at MNSSHP last night. Was such a bummer to be leaving so soon this morning, but I'm incredibly grateful to have been able to fit any vacation into my schedule at this time of year. Going to get a few miles in tomorrow before sorting through some pictures and posting a trip recap (My pics were very bad during the parade; the problem with using my phone as a camera in the dark while everything is moving). Not sure how the posts will go, it was a short trip but I/we accomplished a lot. We'll see how it goes when I start my write-up.
 


Going to start the recap with my arrival and thoughts on Coronado Springs and then my Animal Kingdom adventure.

Arrival

My plane was due to arrive at 6:40 PM on Thursday, September 14th. I had an incredibly optimistic plan to try and make it to my resort on DME and immediately board one of the last buses of the night to try to get to MK to see Happily Ever After. I was fortunate that my flight landed about 20 minutes early and I made it to DME in no time. Had a slight delay at check-in, as usual, because I was the only person with my MagicBand and prepared for the check-in process. I completely understand that others have not been to Disney World as often as myself and I count myself incredibly lucky to have the opportunities that I do; still, in the moment, I get incredibly frustrated when a process that should take 2 seconds takes about 10 minutes because others haven't followed instructions and aren't prepared. I know that I boarded the same bus I would have anyway and I waited standing in a line rather than sitting on the bus, but I need to be irrationally angry sometimes (It didn't show, I processed things internally).

The bus got going around 7:00 so I still had a chance. Unfortunately, as is also always the case for me, Coronado Springs was the last stop following stops at Jambo House and Kidani Village at AKL. We pulled into Coronado Springs at about 7:54 and my plan could have theoretically still come off, but it had started to rain pretty heavily and I had not eaten all day (I am a hostage to my fear of GI issues and airplane/bus restrooms when I travel and rarely eat or drink much other than water when I am travelling). I made the decision to leave Happily Ever After for January and head to Pepper Market to get some dinner. I had a mexican rice bowl with chicken and it was certainly passable. I liked the ambiance and setup of the main lobby and restaurant areas of the resort. My only other experience is with POR (which I love) and, unsurprisingly, this CSR was basically Port Orleans Mexico (or POR is Bayou Springs).

I headed to my room and was very happy with my placement. I was on the first floor of Casitas 4 with a pool view (I was just using the room to sleep, so this was inconsequential, but potentially nice on a different trip). I had a very short walk to Bus Stop 2, which was the only request I had made: close to transportation. Overall, very happy with the resort. I'm pretty sure everyone is aware that CSR is currently undergoing some pretty massive renovations and construction. I was aware and was completely unaffected by any of this during my trip, but I did find this nice surprise inside my room:
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As possibly the world's biggest fan of Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros I was unreasonably happy with this development. I'm not a pin collector, but these are pretty rad and I was quite pleased to be taking them home. Pretty much went to be to prepare for the next morning.

Animal Kingdom

I had done my research online and knew that to get on Flight of Passage that I would need to get to Animal Kingdom as early as I possibly could. Buses were scheduled to run 1 hour before park open, which would have been 8:00 so I got to the bus stop at 7:45. The bus showed up at 7:54 and there were about 15 other people on the bus by the time we hit the other stops and took off toward AK. I got past security and lined up at about 8:10. I was about 10 deep in line to get into the park. The regular lines were a good deal shorter than the AP line, so I got into the shortest one. It worked out fine when they started letting us enter around 8:20, not sure I saved any time, but I didn't get derailed either. Entered the park and did what everyone was doing and headed straight to the bridge to Pandora. Here is the scene when I arrived:
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You can see the CMs holding everyone back, it wasn't an unruly scene at all and everyone seemed to know the drill.

At about 8:40 they took us across. I think I drifted back a little from my original positioning as a result of not seeing any purpose in being aggressive. Here is where I ended up when we finished winding around the path to the actual queue:
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You can see the signs for wait times just ahead, so I guess I was in pretty good shape. The only delay between this photo and getting on the ride was walking through the queue. Here are some photos I took while walking (and annoying the people behind me):
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The last picture is pretty blurry because I was moving, but it shows a little of the line that was developing in the background of the water feature in the foreground. The only downside of my experience in line is that I didn't get to experience all of the cool touches in the queue as we were walking so fast. Much of the indoor features were not lit up yet as well. It took me less than 5 minutes to get into the pre-show and I was done with the ride before 9:00. It's not my favorite ride experience, but it is pretty cool. I know most people have either experienced it or have read about it, but I would say it's like Soarin' on a motorcycle. Was very glad my plan worked out so well.

I immediately went over to River Journey after I was done with Flight of Passage. Here is a look at that queue:
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This queue took less than 10 minutes and I was able to achieve my goal of riding both Pandora attractions. My impressions of River Journey are that it's fine. I wouldn't spend more than 10 minutes waiting for it though. It was really short and didn't particularly have a narrative to follow. I hate to say it, but I can't imagine why they couldn't have come up with something more interesting. I'm a thrill rider, but that wasn't the issue. As I said earlier, I love Gran Fiesta so this type of ride isn't a non-starter for me. It just feels like they left a lot on the table here. Flight of Passage certainly feels like they achieved what they set out to accomplish, I wouldn't say the same about River Journey.

I took a couple pictures and looked around the shop before leaving Pandora:
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Really excited to see Pandora at night some time in the future. Overall, the land is really beautiful and I think everything was executed beautifully outside of River Journey.

After exiting Pandora I had FP+ for Festival of the Lion King for the 10:00 show and Expedition Everest at 10:30. Both were fun, I hadn't seen the Lion King show before, and I was out of the park by 10:50 after picking up a water and headed toward Epcot for Food and Wine Festival.

Tomorrow: Food and Wine
 
Food and Wine

Found the Bus Stop for Epcot out of AK very quickly after exiting the park. Surprisingly, a bus pulled in almost immediately as I walked into the queue; unsurprisingly, I was the only person transferring from AK to Epcot that early in the morning. It was a nice chance to relax and cool off. I didn't mention it in my Animal Kingdom post, but it was very hot and very humid (go figure, huh?). I'm not sure exactly how warm it was at any given moment during the day, but I know when I checked before heading out for MNSSHP that it was 90+ degrees outside and I think the hottest part of the day was when I was in Epcot.

After arriving I decided to head straight the the Festival Center:
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I've never been to Food and Wine Festival before so I figured going to the Festival Center was probably worth it to get my bearings. I picked up my AP free button and walked around inside. I honestly don't know enough of Epcot history to know what this pavilion originally housed or whether it was around when I was younger, but I don't remember it at all. I really liked some of the AP merchandise and made a mental note of it for later. I also passed through the Ghirardelli booth and took a few pictures of the chocolate scenes they had created:
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Of course, I had to get a picture of the Wreck-It Ralph scene, but they were all pretty amazing. It was going to be a station to station day for me in Epcot to find AC, that was another reason for the stop at the Festival Center. I had cooled down from my walk into the park so I headed out to find some lunch.

Coming upon World Showcase I saw a familiar face:
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I decided to head left toward Mexico because I knew it was where my first booth was located. I absolutely love Mediterranean cuisine and Greek food is a weakness of mine. I don't get a lot of chances to get Greek food, so I was looking forward to it. I decided to get the Taste of Greece and the Bougatsa:
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The biggest downfall of the day was that it was essentially surface of the sun hot at this point, but I couldn't change the weather and I was pretty hungry so I just went with it. It will be a theme of my experience at the festival, but everything I ate was fantastic. In this case I particularly loved the Bougatsa, which was a phyllo pastry stuffed with vanilla custard and covered in cinnamon and a lemon and honey syrup. I could eat it everyday. The Taste of Greece was a feta cheese dip on pita, grilled octopus and stuffed grape leaves. All were very good, but the cheese dip was heavy for such a hot day.

After Greece I was literally dripping sweat, so I needed an AC break. And lo, my favorite AC break in the park was just ahead, Gran Fiesta Tour. Being inside was awesome and, of course, I just walked on the ride (TBH a 10-15 minute wait might have been nice). I decided against riding twice and headed back out into the heat. I stopped at each booth and, honestly, would have loved to have had multiple days at the Festival to try all of the things that sounded so delicious. On a different day with lower temperatures (which would never happen in September, but I digress) I may have tried a few more things. My next stops were at India and Spain. India for the Mango Lassi and Spain for the Seafood Salad:
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Once again, absolutely no complaints. I had planned to stop in Morocco for the Spicy Hummus Fries, but scratched that for the Seafood Salad because of the heat. I'm not sure I'd ever had Octopus before this festival and now had eaten it in two dishes in the span of 30 minutes. I'm an adventurous eater, so I guess that was more a result of circumstance than choice. Very tasty in both dishes and wouldn't hesitate to get it elsewhere in the future.

I was pretty much trapped outdoor at this point and decided to power through the rest of World Showcase before finding some AC by stopping in the Light Lab booth after getting all the way around and back up front. My final food stop was in France for the Croissant aux Escargots:
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There were four large snails in the croissant and it actually exceeded what I was expecting. I get Escargots very rarely but I really enjoy it, so this was another no-brainer for me. I wasn't expecting four snails and it held together very well and was very easy to eat.

Between the heat and the fact I'd eaten a lot of food, I knew I was just a spectator at the rest of the booths. I visited them all just to torture myself and ended up taking a picture of my good pal Figment before heading into the Light Lab as my last visit of the day:
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I decided to head back to the Festival Center to pick up a couple things before heading out of the park at around 1:30. It was an all-too-short visit, but I am really glad I got to go. I was back to Coronado Springs by 2:00 and had a couple souvenirs from my busy morning:
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In hindsight, getting extra chocolate when I was headed to MNSSHP in couple hours might not have been the best choice...but I've got no regrets. Couldn't pass up the AP Figment Festival shirt either.

Tomorrow: MNSSHP
 


Great day! I'm glad to hear that your rope drop strategy for Pandora worked out. I'm hoping to get an FP+ for Flight of Passage, but even staying on site they are hard to come by, so my backup strategy is to rope drop them by getting there as early as possible. Sounds like that worked great for you! All the food looks delicious!!
 
Had a very busy day and was unable to sort photos and find time to organize my thoughts on MNSSHP. Getting my run in was more important, so I am going to postpone that post until tomorrow. Hope everyone had a fantastic day.
 
Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party

First, a mea culpa: I did not take many pictures at the party and the ones I did have not turned out well at all. I was enjoying the time with my family and just wasn't thinking of pictures.

After returning from Epcot I assessed the damage in my hotel room and noticed that I was working on a pretty good sunburn/tan. It was supposed to be overcast and threatening rain all day and then thunderstorms were predicted for the evening. I didn't get lathered up in the morning before heading out because I didn't think the sun would be a huge problem and didn't want the extra layer of lotion knowing that it was going to be hot regardless of the sun situation. I ended up being lucky since I worked pretty hard to give myself breaks throughout the morning/early afternoon either in the shade or indoors. Decided to take a shower to clean up and cool down before heading back out.

This time I did put on sunscreen. Thunderstorms were still predicted over 50% for the entire evening, but I was pretty close to a burn and didn't want to take chances. Headed out to MK at 2:50 and was at the park and in by 3:05. There was a big line already for people who were waiting for the Party. Because I currently have an AP I decided to head in and pick up my wristband in the park. My sister also has an AP, but my niece, nephew, and brother-in-law do not so they were still at their hotel after arriving in Orlando earlier in the day. They were planning on walking over from the Contemporary to be there at 4:00. Here are some of the decorations before entering Main Street USA:
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I had made a FP+ for Space Ranger Spin and was able to pick up my wristband and treat bag just outside the entrance to the attraction. I headed back up front at that point to meet my family. It was soooooo hot. It was nice that most of the concessions had small cups of ice water available throughout the night and I took advantage every time I had the chance to make sure I stayed hydrated and as cool as possible. My family was able to get in at ~3:50 as it seems they opened the gates for party tickets early. I met up with them and we headed down the main street bypass and picked up more goody bags; well, more for me, the first for them. They had a FP+ for Peter Pan that I was unable to get because of the late planning on my trip. While they did that I walked through Memento Mori and then the gift shop near the exit to Peter Pan. My niece wanted to do It's a Small World next, so that's where we went. I'm not particularly a fan, but it doesn't show up in my fever dreams anymore so it was good to get out of the sun and I can't say no to my niece.

After that we went over to Haunted Mansion. It seemed like a good time to do HM because the party hadn't really started yet and it didn't have the, um, theme adjacent popularity line built up yet. Unfortunately, the attraction was having issues and went down while we were in line. The line still only took about 10 minutes. It was the kids' first time on HM and it didn't go super well. The ride broke down a few more times while we were on the ride and ended up taking more than 15 minutes. My nephew's car with my brother-in-law got stopped multiple times in the pitch black and we were right behind, once watching the dancing ghosts and then for a long time just next to the murderous bride. We eventually finished the attraction. No one in my family has ever really had an affinity for HM and I think the kids are right there with us after that experience.

My sister made a reservation for Skipper Canteen at 5:15 and we headed there next for dinner. With their travels the kids had not really eaten a good meal during the day and this was a chance for that and to get cooled off. It was good, I certainly can't complain with my meal, but I kind of had my mind set on a corn dog from Sleepy Hollow. Alas, I'll have to return some other time to achieve that goal. It was still before 6:30 when we came out of dinner. It was clear at this point that it was never going to rain. I'm not sure how interesting the play-by-play is, but I know it wouldn't work very well for our next three hours. We hit basically every ride in the park, starting with Big Thunder and winding back through Adventureland, New Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. Here are a couple pictures from that period:
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My sister and niece took a short break while we were back in New Fantasyland to go see the Hocus Pocus show, but my nephew wanted to ride. They met us back in Tomorrowland. My niece is still too short for Space Mountain so she went on the PeopleMover with my brother-in-law while we were on Space Mountain. Obviously none of us have gone often enough to remember where all the cameras are. After we finished with Space Ranger Spin it was time for the first parade. In my planning I had planned on skipping the first parade and hitting the second so we could get more stuff done, but we had done pretty much everything so we went over to watch the parade. We found a spot in front of the Castle on the Tomorrowland side. Here are the terrible pictures I took:
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There were a lot of lights in the background that were really affecting all of my pictures, the motion wasn't helping things either. It was an awesome parade and the only disappointment was that Vanellope's float was out of commission for this one. We had a great view of everything even if my pictures don't show it.

At this point the kids were pretty wiped. They had a long day of travel and this would have been very late for them even on a normal day. We headed back to get a Lefou's Brew for each of them before we left. I was a little bummed that we were leaving early, but we had done literally everything and I had also had a very long and eventful day. I think if I had just come down for MNSSHP, I would have stayed at the park and had more fun on my own, but I had an incredibly full day and it wouldn't have been the same without my family.

HalloWishes was just starting as we were walking out. Although I really want to see Happily Ever After, I'm not a huge fireworks person so it wasn't that tough to miss the show. The rest of the trip was uneventful, loaded onto DME at 10:15 the next morning and was back in Indiana at my house by 4:30. A short trip for sure, but it was still really amazing.

Thanks for reading along.

A few, quick wrap-up thoughts on MNSSHP:
-The lines for the attractions were incredibly short. Like, shockingly short in most cases. We waited for about 20 minutes for Pirates of the Caribbean and Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, but everything else was a walk-on. I'm sure those lines were a lot shorter during other times of the night as well. *I'm not sure what Peter Pan would have been if I tried at 4:00 when they had their FP+
-We each got about a pound of candy. I made a pretty conscious decision not to get a ton, but we stopped at most of the candy trails once. If you went with the intention of getting as much candy as possible you could probably get 10-15 pounds easily. Saw plenty of kids (10-14 age range) running around with pillowcases well on their way to being full (and we left a little after 10 PM)
-I'd seen videos of the Hocus Pocus show and had planned on going to the later viewing if we had stayed. I feel bad that I missed it, but I'm sure I would have rather been doing attractions.
-It is so empty in some places of the park during the Party that it almost feels as though you aren't supposed to be there. I found myself wondering whether things were closing more than once and it was hard not to feel awkward when so few people were there. (and, again, we left with 2 hours left in the party)
-I definitely want to go again and would recommend it to anyone. I got more done in that 7 hours than I have in most full days I've spent in MK.
-We weren't specifically looking for a lot of the Party-specific goodies, but I did notice that many of them seemed like they were sold out at the locations they were advertised. When we went to Gaston's Tavern after the first parade they no longer had any of the special pastries they were suppposed to have. More than a few disappointed people were hopping out of line around us.

Not sure what else to say. If anyone has any specific questions I can do my best to answer them.:figment:
 
I'm always excited to see the new medals revealed for Marathon Weekend. My first trip to this site was while I was searching for leaked medal pictures, so there's a pretty direct link between my posting here and medal unveiling. As I said in the Marathon Weekend 2018 Thread I'm pretty underwhelmed by the medals this year. I think that's primarily my own fault for having high expectations, but they had hit such a home run (IMO) with the 20th Anniversary Medal that I was expecting a lot this year. There were certainly things I liked: the ribbons, overall cohesiveness of the first five 10K medals, Mickey being represented in every medal but Dopey, etc. That was offset by the things I didn't: Goofy is a hot mess, Dopey still has never really gotten it 100% right in 5 years (although this looks to be the best attempt), semi-cheap looking, etc.

I know they need to be able to produce mass quantities at relatively low cost and that they've pretty much done everything you can do with a race medal at this point, so I guess they were never going to surprise me. On the other hand, I think they left a big opportunity to blow a lot of people away with a really cool batch of designs.
 
I'm not sure I had expectations for the medals, so it was pretty easy for me to be pleased. I actually like them quite a bit (with everyone's exception - Goofy). I'm honestly baffled by why they were so cohesive and then went TOTALLY different with that one. Strange. But, that 20th anniversary medal still is the winner by a long shot. It helps that there is lots of sentimental value for me too since it was my first marathon, but it's also just an awesome medal. I'm still pretty stoked to earn them all though. :D
 
I pretty much 100% agree with your take on the medals! I like that Mickey is on 5 of the 6, the Dopey one is pretty good (straight from the movie), the Goofy one is SO random - I could understand it if it were an anniversary year for Goofy, but it's not. I don't know why they don't acknowledge the 5K (25th) and 10K (5th) anniversaries on the medals, maybe it's on the ribbons? And I too had very high expectations after the 20th anniversary perfection - that one and the 2017 marathon medal are my favorites. At least the half medal is better this year!
 
Looking forward to a good 10 tomorrow to start a 40 mile week. Starting to ramp up mileage for Dopey, hopefully it will help make my November race more enjoyable.
 
Harvest is about to begin, so fitting in my training is about to get tougher. Last year I really let myself down, so this year I am determined to overcome the long hours and find a way to fit my training into my schedule. With a little more than a month until my Half I need to make sure I don’t falter this year.
 
First full day of harvest here today. A week straight of 90 degree temperatures has really dried things out and has moved what we thought the timetable would be just a couple weeks ago forward considerably. As things go it is still a late start to the season, but I'm glad to get going because it means we will be finished sooner. At the moment I'm dreading my Half Marathon and that isn't a good frame of mind for race day. I'm sure I can change that outlook though. It's all about putting in the work.
 
It's so dry here. We haven't had much rain this summer and mixed with these late HOT temps, everything is dry and crunchy. Hope your harvest goes well. What do you harvest?
 
It's so dry here. We haven't had much rain this summer and mixed with these late HOT temps, everything is dry and crunchy. Hope your harvest goes well. What do you harvest?

I work in agriculture at a grain elevator (storage facility) and trade commodities and do most of our office work and receiving during the season. It means I have two really busy months every year and a relatively slow remaining 10 months. We take in about 2 million bushels (56 lbs./bu) of corn and about 500,000 bushels (60 lbs./bu) of soybeans every year during harvest. Our hours during harvest are, essentially, whatever the farmers demand that they be, so I'm at work about 12 hours a day during harvest.
 
So, I got a new smart scale yesterday and it had some not so great news for me. I knew I haven't been doing so hot for a while on the weight front, but this confirmed it. When I first lost a lot of weight while beginning my running journey I think I was helped a great deal by weighing myself religiously and seeing what was working and what wasn't. I got out of that habit for a long time but I'm excited to get back into that routine.

I've been having a really tough time getting down on myself recently and really wondering how I ever changed my lifestyle around in the first place; I've been trying to remind myself that it wasn't through huge changes, it was just by diligently taking small steps and sticking to them. I think I have a longer post about my struggles in me at some point, but I want to get things back headed in the right direction before collecting and organizing them fully. I'm in a good frame of mind and I'm very optimistic that I've fixed my issues. Now I just need to be like Bob Wiley and take my baby steps in the right direction.
 

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