KPEM Does Disney Part 3

We had planned to have a very low key day on Saturday since our big race would come bright and early on Sunday.  We spent the morning at Hollywood Studios.  

 It was fun to start the day off meeting with Donald and Daisy!

 We rode Toy Story Mania and Star Wars which are always favorites.  We also rode Rockin Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror for the first time.  So fun!!  It was great to get to ride some fun new thrill rides.

 We saw the Beauty and the Beast stage show and then met the Wreck It Ralph characters.  They were really cool!!

 Paige's friend Angie joined us for the day which was fun.  We had a nice leisurely morning at the park before heading back to the hotel for the afternoon.

 We planned our pre race meal to be at O'hana!  I mean what could possibly be a better meal before a race.  It is so yummy!!

 After dinner we rode the monorail over to the Grand Floridian so we could check it out.  It is beautiful!  We loved hearing the jazz band play Disney favorites.

 We had to head back to the hotel early because we had a super early morning coming up!!  Paige and I got to bed at around 8:00 pm with our alarms set for 2:45 am!  Ugh!!!  It was exciting to lay out all my fun running clothes for the morning.

Up next the big race!!!  But first we have a birthday that will take up a few blog posts!!

KPEM Does Disney Part 2

We were up early headed on Friday morning ready for a big day!!  You can't go to Disney and not have matching shirts.  We managed to talk the guys into these fun KPEM shirts.  

Our first stop for the day was at Animal Kingdom.  We hit all the highlights in the morning.  

 Our safari ride was awesome.  The giraffes were out and all around our jeep.  So cool!  We could almost reach out and touch them.

 We did a little goofing off in Dinoland.  We rode Dinosaur for the first time.  I really liked it!

 We took a fun ride on Expedition Everest!

 We had a quick visit with Pocahontas.  She was beautiful!  We were in awe of her skin.

We grabbed lunch at Yak and Yeti before heading back to the resort to rest for the afternoon.  We then headed to the Magic Kingdom.  I don't think there is a better walk in all the world than the walk down Main Street!

 The park was pretty crowded since it was still late afternoon.  We did a little wondering around since we didn't have any Fast Pass reservations until later.  I will give a quick commentary on the new Magic Bands and Fast Pass+.   I was very concerned that it would not go well but we really enjoyed the new system.  The Magic Bands were so simple and easy to use.  Although some of the restrictions on Fast Pass+ were a bit of a pain we did like how easy it was to change reservations and make adjustments.  Overall I would have to say I like the new system.  

 Our day in the park didn't go real well to start with.  Every ride we went on seemed to break down for some reason.  We spent almost an hour in line for Pirates and then had it break down on us.  We got stuck on the new Ariel ride for about 15 minutes.  We got very nervous because we almost missed our dinner reservation which would have been awful!!

 We were so excited to score a dinner reservation at Be Our Guest for the evening (it was totally lucky that we got it).  The whole experience was just amazing!!

 We had to wait a while to get in but it was worth the wait.  Our hostess handed us the candlestick to lead us to our table (I might or might not have broken it).

 The theme of the restaurant was AMAZING!!!  Every little detail screamed out the story of Belle and Beast!  This was the grand ballroom.

 We were seated in the gallery off to the side.  We had this view during the whole dinner.  So cool!!

 The food was awesome!!  We all had the steak which was great.  The dinner was finished off with "the gray stuff" and it was delicious just like the song says.

 At the end of the meal we got to meet our "host" which was so neat!

 One of my favorite thing about the parks is how they clear out late in the evening!  We got to ride all of the ride with almost no wait and we even got to meet Ariel in her new grotto meet area.

 We stayed until park closing (crazy old people staying at the parks until late).

 It was such a fun day!  We enjoyed getting to hit 2 parks and experience the new Be Our Guest restaurant.

KPEM Does Disney Part 1

We managed to pull off something last week that I thought would never happen.  We took an adult only trip to Disney.  CRAZY!!!!  When we started throwing the idea around 8 months ago I figured it was just a fun idea but it really happened.  We went with the McClures and Kelly so that meant there were a total of 8 kids that we left.  Ha!!  Our kids were ok with us going because we promised them we would take them in October.  

We headed down to Birmingham on Wednesday night and spent the night at Paige's aunt's house since we had an early morning flight.  I survived the flight (I don't like flying)!  

 We were in Disney World by like 9:30 in the morning.  Our first Mickey sighting was in our hotel,Caribbean Beach.  It was a really nice hotel.  Lots of fun beach themed stuff.

 We threw down our carry on bags and headed over to the running expo at ESPN.  We had to do some photo opps of course!  The expo was really simple to get around and we were in and out!

We took a long trek (we ended up walking the long way around) over to Epcot.  We were starving so we ate dinner at the Mexico pavilion.  So yummy!!

 Then we hit the big rides at Epcot.  Our favorite ride is Soarin'.  We also did Test Track, Mission Space, Nemo, Turtle Talk with Crush, Malestrom and Spaceship Earth.  It was amazing how many things we could do without kids!

We also hit some characters!  We saw the big man himself - Mickey!

 We finished the night with a stroll through the countries.  This was what I was most excited about doing in an adult only trip.  A chance to check out all the little details.

 We ate dinner in Italy.  It was so yummy!!  We were on the dining plan so we did a lot of eating at Disney.  We saw a shirt that summed up our experience perfectly - "I run Disney so I can eat Disney."  After dinner we went over to France to get some pastries for breakfast.  Yep we did our share of eating.  

We called it an early night since we had a long day and knew that it was be several more long days.  It was a great first day of our trip!