This will (probably) be my last post before my trip - even though I do have one last outstanding decision. I am writing this while sitting on the porch of our condo in Costa Rica. It's New Years Eve and I think I've had quite enough sun so I thought I'd make this last post before the big Florida trip. I'll be posting a write-up on Costa Rica in the next few days.
First, the final bits are in place. I put in a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest Restaurant at 1:00 on Tuesday. I also signed up for a Illuminations dessert party and "Bling Fest" (showing off race medals) sponsored by the Mickey Miles Podcast on Sunday night after the marathon. This has necessitated my decision to upgrade to a park-hopper since Kirk and I will be in MK before the party. This is fine because its always more convenient to have a park-hopper. Finally, our wait list request for Old Key West came through. We were really hoping for this to happen because the rooms at OKW are signicantly larger and the studios have 2 beds instead of one bed and a fold-out sofa.
Lastly I did make changes to our FP+ reservations for Thursday after the 5k. I made a 9:25 reservation for "Mission Space" that we have no intention of using. I won't get to Epcot until about 11:00. We have "Soaring'" at 10:35 and "Nemo and Friends" at 11:35. This way we will have used all three FP+ reservations early enough to hopefully get one for "Test Track" later. That one last outstanding decision is whether to go to a breakfast meet-up on Thursday morning at Epcot. As of this writing I have not decided, although I think I have to decide soon. I'll see...
That's it. We are all set for our trip. I'm looking forward to seeing some of my Disney runner friends!
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Welcome to my blog. I write mostly about travel and in particular my love of Disney, with a few tidbits such as musings about movies or theater thrown in for good measure. I have stories dating all the way back to 1997 so be sure to explore! I don't post regularly, so if you want updates be sure to join and follow this blog (links below). Feel free to share, and if you want you can also click the Facebook or Twitter links below. You can also follow me on twitter. And be sure to comment letting me know what you think!
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, November 14, 2014
WDW Marathon trip planning part 2
A bit of an update on trip planning for my trip to Walt Disney World for the WDW Marathon weekend.
First, I purchased my pass. I got a 5-day single park pass. Because of my race schedule I am not planning any park hopping. In my previous post I mentioned that, if I wanted to park hop on Monday (the one day I might want to park-hop) I could always buy a sixth day. Turns out, I was informed by a reader that Disney does not allow that. No biggie, it just means no park hopping on Monday either. As I mentioned, Kirk has an AP so if he wants to park-hop while I'm doing the races he can do that.
Second, I was able to procure our FP+ reservations. I had heard that getting reservations for Toy Story Midway Mania, Soarin' and especially Seven Dwarfs Mine Train can be tough. So, I went online at midnight on the day they became available to procure those reservations. (And this was on a night when I had a 6AM flight the next morning - oh the things I will do for a perfect trip!) It was worth the effort, however, and I got exactly what I wanted. Here is a list of what I got:
Wednesday January 7:
First, I purchased my pass. I got a 5-day single park pass. Because of my race schedule I am not planning any park hopping. In my previous post I mentioned that, if I wanted to park hop on Monday (the one day I might want to park-hop) I could always buy a sixth day. Turns out, I was informed by a reader that Disney does not allow that. No biggie, it just means no park hopping on Monday either. As I mentioned, Kirk has an AP so if he wants to park-hop while I'm doing the races he can do that.
Second, I was able to procure our FP+ reservations. I had heard that getting reservations for Toy Story Midway Mania, Soarin' and especially Seven Dwarfs Mine Train can be tough. So, I went online at midnight on the day they became available to procure those reservations. (And this was on a night when I had a 6AM flight the next morning - oh the things I will do for a perfect trip!) It was worth the effort, however, and I got exactly what I wanted. Here is a list of what I got:
Wednesday January 7:
- 9:15 - 10:15: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
- 10:15 - 11:15: Toy Story Midway Mania
- 11:15 - 12:15: Star Tours
Kirk does not like Star Tours so that will be me riding twice. We could not get a reservation for Rock 'n Roller Coaster because you have to chose between that and TSMM, and TSMM is harder to get. After we have done all 3 hopefully we can get a RnRC reservation for later.
Thursday January 8:
- 9:25 - 10:25: Mission Space
- 10:35 - 11:35: Soarin'
- 11:50 - 12:50: Character Meet & Greet
We actually won't be arriving until 11 (at least I won't). The MS ressie is just so that we go through our 3 reservations early enough to get a reservation later for Test Track (you can't do both Test Track and Soarin', and again Soarin' is harder to get)
Friday January 9 & Saturday January 10:
No reservations as I won't be park touring. I told Kirk to let me know if he wants me to get any reservations for him.
Sunday January 11:
- 5:10 - 6:10: Space Mountain
- 6:20 - 7:20: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- 7:20 - 8:20: Pirates of the Caribbean
This is Marathon day and I won't get there until about 5. I talked to Kirk about it and offered to make separate reservations for him earlier, but he said he'd rather we use our reservations later together. The main thing was that we wanted to ride SDMT for the first time in the dark Mission accomplished.
Monday January 12:
- 9:20 - 10:20: Soarin'
- 10:20 - 11:20: The Seas with Nemo & Friends
- 11:20 - 12:02: Journey into Imagination
We may not use the Figment reservation. The important thing is to get a reservation for Test Track - and maybe even Soarin' again - later if we can.
Tuesday January 13:
- 9:45 - 10:45: Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- 10:45 - 11:45: Space Mountain
- 11:45 - 12:45: Peter Pan Flight
I'm hoping we'll be able to get a reservation later for Enchanted Tales with Belle. We'll see.
I haven't changed all of the touring plans to reflect the FP+ reservations - I'm still playing aorund with that. All that's left for me to do is (hopefully) get a lunch reservation at Be Our Guest.
That's it for now!
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
WDW Marathon trip planning
Well, it's been over a year since my last blog post. Shame on me.
Wednesday January 7: Kirk picks me up early and we drive straight to WDW. Our Magic Bands should have arrived so we should be able to go straight to the park. Our park for the day is Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS - though that may change depending on my ability to procure FP+ reservations for Toy Story Midway Mania - TSMM). The crowd level is projected to be 5 (out of 10). We have an early lunch reservation for SciFi Dine-in (SFDI). I went to SFDI once with my family about 16 years ago and was not thrilled, but Kirk's never been there and IMO it's someplace you should go to once. If we end up not doing DHS on this day I'll cancel the reservation.
I have 2 things coming up that I plan to write about in the blog. The first is a trip to Costa Rica over the holidays with my family. We have plans to do some cool stuff while we're there, so I'll be sharing photos and thoughts from that trip.
Just 2 days after we get back from Costa Rica I'll be heading down with Kirk to Walt Disney World for a week. While there I will be participating in the WDW Marathon Weekend events. In fact I will be participating in a big way as I will be participating in the Dopey Challenge. This involves running all 4 events over the course of 4 days - the 5K on Thursday, the 10K on Friday, the Half Marathon on Saturday and the Marathon on Sunday. That's a total of 48.6 miles in four days. I'll write about the races here, and I'll also get into more detail about the races in The Runner of a Certain Age Podcast. If you're interested in the podcast you can search for "runner of a certain age" in the iTunes Store or you can get them here.
What I really want to get into in this blog is to talk about planning for the WDW trip. Going to WDW requires more planning now than ever before. Or, I should say, there are more opportunities for planning than ever before - with Magic Bands, FASTPASS+ (FP+), MyDisneyExperience and all the new tools Disney offers. I won't be getting into any of that now, but rather I am going to assume that the reader is familiar with all this. If not, I suggest going to the Disney website or one of the non-Disney affiliated sites (my favorites are The DIS, DISBoards and Touringplans). There is a wealth of information available.
So let's get down to the nitty-gritty. First is an overall agenda. This is all tentative, especially depending on the FP+ reservations I am able to procure.
Tuesday January 6: Fly to Jacksonville. Scheduled arrival 10:37PM. Go straight to the hotel.
Wednesday January 7: Kirk picks me up early and we drive straight to WDW. Our Magic Bands should have arrived so we should be able to go straight to the park. Our park for the day is Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS - though that may change depending on my ability to procure FP+ reservations for Toy Story Midway Mania - TSMM). The crowd level is projected to be 5 (out of 10). We have an early lunch reservation for SciFi Dine-in (SFDI). I went to SFDI once with my family about 16 years ago and was not thrilled, but Kirk's never been there and IMO it's someplace you should go to once. If we end up not doing DHS on this day I'll cancel the reservation.
I'll be leaving DHS early afternoon - probably be 2 at the latest - to go to the Marathon Expo so I can pick up my race packet and spend some time checking out the expo. I'll leave Kirk to his own devices. From there I'll head to Sanaa (and presumably meet back up with Kirk) for 5:45 dinner. This is one reservation we're most likely to cancel, I'm just not sure it will work into our schedule, but it is a restaurant we both want to try out. At some point we'll check into our resort - perhaps taking advantage of the automatic check-in. I also plan to request a specific building using the recommendations at the TouringPlans site. Our reservation is at Saratoga Springs but we are wait-listed at Old Key West. I am a Disney Vacation Club (DVC) member and reserved using points.
A final note - for each day that we are planning to tour the parks, I have created touring plans. I will publish my plans which should (theoretically) make them visible. I don't know if they can be viewed by someone who is not a TouringPlans subscriber - if you are not a subscriber please let me know whether you can see them. These touring plans are, obviously, "works in progress" (especially as we have not procured FP+ reservations yet). The touring plan for Wednesday at DHS can be found here.
Thursday January 8: First off is the 5K for me. The plan is to meet Kirk at Epcot after the race. I estimate I should be at the park by 11:00AM. We'll do counter service for lunch - probably Sunshine Seasons, a favorite of ours. (I also have a second SFDI lunch reservation for this day - in case we decide to do DHS on Thuesday instead of Wednesday.) The projected crowd level is 7. The touring plan for the day can be found here. We will probably leave the park 4-ish as we have a 6:00 reservation at Boma (a restaurant both Kirk and I have been meaning to try. Heck, I've never even seen the Animal Kingdom Lodge.) After dinner it's an early bedtime for me.
Friday January 9: 10K to start off the day for me. I'll be leaving Kirk to his own devices as I do not intend to visit any parks. I'll probably relax at the resort and go to lunch at DTD (perhaps Earl of Sandwich - EoS). At 4:00 I'll be attending a meet-up of fellow Disney enthusiasts/runners who are members of a social media group that I am a member of at Disney's Pop Century Resort (POP). I won't be able to stay long as Kirk and I have an early dinner reservation at The Flying Fish at The Boardwalk. After that it'll be early to bed for me again.
Saturday January 10: I start the day with the Half Marathon. Other than that I'm planning a totally relaxing day for myself. I'll probably do both lunch and dinner at either the resort or DTD. I'll just hang out and rest up - recouping from the day's race while preparing for the final event on Sunday.
Sunday January 11: The big event - The Walt Disney World Marathon. Once I'm done I will (hopefully) have a total of 6 medals - one for each race plus the Goofy (for completing the Half and Full Marathons) as well as the Dopey for completing all four races. After eating my intention is to go back to the resort and relax for a couple of hours. I hope to have the energy to spend the evening at the parks (I use the Galloway method for running races and typically I recover pretty quickly so I think I'll be OK). My plan is to meet Kirk at the Magic Kingdom (MK). The projected crowd level is 3. Here is the touring plan. We'll probably do dinner at counter service, perhaps Pecos Bill's. MK is open late that night (until 11:00) - hopefully I'll be in good enough shape to stay until then. We'll see...
Monday January 12: First (and only, technically) all-day-in-the-parks day. As you can see from the previous days, there will be no park-hopping (at least not for me). Kirk has an annual pass (AP) so for him it's a moot point, but for me it made no sense to pay for park-hopping when I would only have this one opportunity to use it. So I intend to buy a 5-day regular pass with no park hopping. If, by chance, we decide we want to park hop this day, then I'll add a 6th day. Still cheaper than a park-hopper. Anyway, the plan is for Epcot all day. We have a lunch reservation at Le Cellier. Counter service - perhaps Tangerine Cafe - for dinner. The projected crowd level is 3.Touring plan here.
Tuesday January 13: Final day at WDW. The plan is to head back to MK. You may have noted that we do not intend to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom (AK) on this trip. We also did not go on our previous trip. In truth, the only "must do" for us at AK is Expedition Everest (EE). For me, with all the other stuff going on with the races (and I do anticipate more meet-ups of running groups to get announced) it simply does not make sense to take out the time to go to AK. I actually like the park, a lot, it just does not make sense this time around. Kirk can go whenever he likes - and he may choose to do so on this trip on his own. As for me, I'll be running through AK on the Marathon, so technically I will have visited. AND... last year the Marathon runners were allowed access to EE during the race. I really hope that happens again this year. The projected crowd level is 4. Touring plan here.
In terms of pre-planning, here is where I am:
A final note - for each day that we are planning to tour the parks, I have created touring plans. I will publish my plans which should (theoretically) make them visible. I don't know if they can be viewed by someone who is not a TouringPlans subscriber - if you are not a subscriber please let me know whether you can see them. These touring plans are, obviously, "works in progress" (especially as we have not procured FP+ reservations yet). The touring plan for Wednesday at DHS can be found here.
Thursday January 8: First off is the 5K for me. The plan is to meet Kirk at Epcot after the race. I estimate I should be at the park by 11:00AM. We'll do counter service for lunch - probably Sunshine Seasons, a favorite of ours. (I also have a second SFDI lunch reservation for this day - in case we decide to do DHS on Thuesday instead of Wednesday.) The projected crowd level is 7. The touring plan for the day can be found here. We will probably leave the park 4-ish as we have a 6:00 reservation at Boma (a restaurant both Kirk and I have been meaning to try. Heck, I've never even seen the Animal Kingdom Lodge.) After dinner it's an early bedtime for me.
Friday January 9: 10K to start off the day for me. I'll be leaving Kirk to his own devices as I do not intend to visit any parks. I'll probably relax at the resort and go to lunch at DTD (perhaps Earl of Sandwich - EoS). At 4:00 I'll be attending a meet-up of fellow Disney enthusiasts/runners who are members of a social media group that I am a member of at Disney's Pop Century Resort (POP). I won't be able to stay long as Kirk and I have an early dinner reservation at The Flying Fish at The Boardwalk. After that it'll be early to bed for me again.
Saturday January 10: I start the day with the Half Marathon. Other than that I'm planning a totally relaxing day for myself. I'll probably do both lunch and dinner at either the resort or DTD. I'll just hang out and rest up - recouping from the day's race while preparing for the final event on Sunday.
Sunday January 11: The big event - The Walt Disney World Marathon. Once I'm done I will (hopefully) have a total of 6 medals - one for each race plus the Goofy (for completing the Half and Full Marathons) as well as the Dopey for completing all four races. After eating my intention is to go back to the resort and relax for a couple of hours. I hope to have the energy to spend the evening at the parks (I use the Galloway method for running races and typically I recover pretty quickly so I think I'll be OK). My plan is to meet Kirk at the Magic Kingdom (MK). The projected crowd level is 3. Here is the touring plan. We'll probably do dinner at counter service, perhaps Pecos Bill's. MK is open late that night (until 11:00) - hopefully I'll be in good enough shape to stay until then. We'll see...
Monday January 12: First (and only, technically) all-day-in-the-parks day. As you can see from the previous days, there will be no park-hopping (at least not for me). Kirk has an annual pass (AP) so for him it's a moot point, but for me it made no sense to pay for park-hopping when I would only have this one opportunity to use it. So I intend to buy a 5-day regular pass with no park hopping. If, by chance, we decide we want to park hop this day, then I'll add a 6th day. Still cheaper than a park-hopper. Anyway, the plan is for Epcot all day. We have a lunch reservation at Le Cellier. Counter service - perhaps Tangerine Cafe - for dinner. The projected crowd level is 3.Touring plan here.
Tuesday January 13: Final day at WDW. The plan is to head back to MK. You may have noted that we do not intend to go to Disney's Animal Kingdom (AK) on this trip. We also did not go on our previous trip. In truth, the only "must do" for us at AK is Expedition Everest (EE). For me, with all the other stuff going on with the races (and I do anticipate more meet-ups of running groups to get announced) it simply does not make sense to take out the time to go to AK. I actually like the park, a lot, it just does not make sense this time around. Kirk can go whenever he likes - and he may choose to do so on this trip on his own. As for me, I'll be running through AK on the Marathon, so technically I will have visited. AND... last year the Marathon runners were allowed access to EE during the race. I really hope that happens again this year. The projected crowd level is 4. Touring plan here.
In terms of pre-planning, here is where I am:
- Book room - done
- Book flight - done
- Create MyDisneyExperience account - done
- Link resort to MyDisneyExperience - done
- Link Kirk into MyDisneyExperience - done
- Customize Magic Bands - done
To Do:
- Buy 5-day pass for me
- Link our passes to MyDisneyExperience
- Make FP+ reservations
- Change Touring Plans in accordance with FP+ reservations
- Fingers crossed that waiting list request for Old Key West comes through
That's it. Tuesday night we drive back to Jacksonville. I'll spend the night there and I have an early flight home Wednesday. Please feel free to comment on this plan. I'd love the feedback!
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