Author: ted

Thinking Disney Thursday – Which Disney ride is most special to you? – November 7th, 2013

Which Disney ride is most special to you?  I think most Disney fans have a ride that holds a special place in their hearts.  The reason why a particular ride is a person’s favorite is probably a lot different for each person.  But that is kind of one of the special things about Disney, the parks, the rides, the hotels, the atmosphere – even though many thousands of people go through the parks every day, people are still able to find a personal connection somehow that will keep bringing them back or at least give them a good warm and fuzzy when they think about it.

So which ride for us?  Spaceship Earth in Epcot at Disney World.

Our connection goes back to our first trip to Disney World as a family in 2008 – My wife and I were down with our son (who was 17 months at the time and our daughter wasn’t born yet) for Disney World Marathon Weekend and we went to Epcot later one evening and took our son on Spaceship Earth.  I had never been on it and my wife had many years previously so we didn’t know what to expect from our son – would he enjoy it?  would he sit quietly and not disturb the other riders?  The kinds of questions that all parents probably ask themselves.

Our son was fascinated, entranced even.  He watched everything in awe.  It was great to see.  As the cars turned around at the top of the ride to slide backward down the slope he watched the stars and once he couldn’t see them anymore he started to cry.  He cried and repeated “bye, bye stars”.  He was only 17 months and didn’t have a huge number of words yet but he found a way to express how he was feeling.  The ride had a major impact on him – while we were sad he was upset, we were happy that he had made that connection.  The ride is a must do for us for any of our trips now.

Spaceship Earth in Epcot
Spaceship Earth in Epcot

Wild Wednesday – rhino! – November 6th, 2013

Today’s pic comes from the Kilimanjaro Safari ride at Animal Kingdom.  Sometimes the ride can be a bit of bust if the animals aren’t particularly active or hanging out close to the safari trail…but other times you can get the animals very close to the truck and get some awesome shots.

Probably the animals that we have had the most luck getting shots of are the rhinos – almost every time we have been on the ride we have managed to get good shots.

The shot below shows a rhino less than 10 feet from safari truck – pretty awesome.

rhino at Animal Kingdom
rhino at Animal Kingdom

Sometimes you just need to dance – Magic Memory Monday – November 4, 2013

The memory today is actually 3 photos in a series.  During our first family trip to Disney World in January 2008 for the Disney World Marathon we ended up at Hollywood Studios one night while the kid dance party was going on (can’t remember the official name for it).

Our son was only 17 months at the time and really didn’t know many of the Disney characters yet but the music was hopping and he couldn’t get out of the stroller fast enough to get dancing.  He charged up to dance on the edge of the group of kids dancing and just did his thing.  I believe he danced a bit with Goliath the Lion.

Being on the edge of the group though he was the only one who saw Mickey and Minnie coming in from off-stage.  I’m not sure he really knew who they were at the time but he sensed they were something special and charged over to them – luckily I had my camera because even as it was I only managed to get one quick shot of him running toward them.  Not the best photograph but just awesome that it is just T running to them and them reacting to him with really no one else around – brings back some great memories.  A special moment.

After that Mickey and Minnie joined the dancing kids and T got into the mix.  So there is a shot of him dancing with Mickey with Mickey clapping for him and you can tell at least one other parent in the background is watching T and smiling and pointing.  Spreading the joy with dance!

Even with Mickey then turning around to interact with others just got deeper into dancing and you can see the joy and happiness he had just other dancing and grooving to the music.

The only downside is we had to shut things down a bit early as T decided to sit down for a rest in front of the big speakers and since we figured him being able to continue hearing was important we decided to call it a night.  He cried most of the way out of the park at that point – sometimes you just need to dance and he wanted to keep going.

Still a great memory from that first trip – just the joy he had dancing and interacting with the characters was fantastic and it is always nice to remember those moments when there is unconditional happy!

T running toward Mickey and Minnie at Hollywood Studios
T running toward Mickey and Minnie at Hollywood Studios
T dancing with Mickey clapping at Hollywood Studios
T dancing with Mickey clapping at Hollywood Studios
T dancing at Hollywood Studios
T dancing at Hollywood Studios

Disney trips – racing and family – January and February 2014 – Pop for #wdwmarathon weekend and Beach Club in Feb with the kids

So as highlighted on biggoofyrunner.com, my wife and I will be doing a couple only trip to Disney World in January 2014.  We will be participating in the Disney World Marathon weekend (we are both signed up to the Goofy Challenge) and as we will both be running we are not bringing the kids with us.  We decided when we when we booked it we would do that trip as inexpensively as possible while still staying on Disney property.  This led us to booking the Pop Century resort for the 5 nights we will be there – by booking a Disney hotel we are getting the Magical Express which will make it a lot simpler and faster to get to the hotel from the airport (also makes the heading home day a bit less stressful).

When we booked the trip we intended to not buy any tickets and just enjoy non park Disney stuff during this trip as we weren’t bringing the kids.  We are both annual passholders but my ticket expires before we get there and my wife’s expires the 2nd day of our trip.  As we didn’t intend to have a family vacation with the kids to Disney World this winter (due to putting in a pool this past summer) we figured we wouldn’t renew our passes and then on our trip if we couldn’t take not going to a park we would buy a day pass each and just go with that to get our fix.

That was our plan back in September at least.  As time progressed I think we both started feeling guilty about not taking the kids on the Disney World Marathon weekend trip, plus we were both starting to look at Disney stuff as we were getting ourselves pumped for the race trip and frankly I know I wasn’t very good at hiding what I was looking at from the kids.

So long story short we were randomly looking around at flight prices on Expedia and hotel deals on Disney.com and we found some surprising deals that we thought we might be able to deal with financially.  In the end we found flights out of Minneapolis (we will have to drive there from Winnipeg but even with gas, food and hotel rooms for the drive there and back we will save well over $1000).  We have done the drive to Minneapolis before as part of our Winter 2013 family trip to Disney World and the kids did really well – we do have to watch for winter storms coming in but with the timing of the trip we can adjust our driving day going down by a day or 2 and beat the storms.

We are doing the Pop Century as part of the Disney World Marathon trip for my wife and I – we have stayed there before and we found it tight when we were there with just our son – now with 2 kids we are worried about it being too crowded.  Plus the double beds at the Pop are a bit small for me (at 6′ 2″ 218 pounds with wide shoulders I can use a double myself if I am greedy).  So we wanted to bump up to a moderate to get bigger beds and maybe a bit more room – we really were hoping for French Quarter but that didn’t work out with our travel times.  We looked a few of the other moderates online to see what would work and in the end we admitted to ourselves that we have been spoiled our last few trips to Disney World with the family.  We have done our last 2 family trips to Disney World at the Beach Club Resort and we love it there.  A huge part of the draw is the ability to walk right into Epcot and have a short walk to Hollywood Studios (plus the kids love the pool area).

Once we made that admission to ourselves it didn’t take too much to convince ourselves that the club level jump in cost wasn’t too bad considering we know how much we have used the club room (Stone Harbour Club) in the past when we got a bump to club level.  We used it for all breakfasts, snacks, travel cokes and waters and beers for the room – with the discounted room rates this was a cost win bumping to club for the trip.

Yeah…so we went from saying no trip so that we could rebuild our reserves to doing a week club level at the Beach Club…I think we may be very slightly addicted to Disney World.

Thinking Disney Thursday – Perseverance and Passion – Oct 31, 2013

Perseverance and Passion – our son T showed quite a bit of it the day this picture was taken.  It was during our first family trip to Disney World – it was before our daughter was born and T was just 17 months old at the time.  It was his first trip and mine too.  We were there for the Disney World Marathon weekend (the wife did the half and I did the full).  We stayed at the Pop Century that trip (coming full circle as my wife and I will be staying there for the 2014 Goofy Challenge – no kids for the weekend!).

One of the mornings we took T to play on the play structure / play area before we headed off to a park.  He decided that morning he was going to climb the slide of the structure and he must have spent 15-20 minutes trying.  To be perfectly honest I can’t remember if he made it to the top or not but what I do remember is his attitude while he was trying.

He never once got upset or gave up.  He would get half way up and then slide back down, then he would get back up and try again.  I must have dozens of photos of him on his morning climb and whenever I look at them I am always impressed with the look on his face.  He is focused and shows no frustration whatsoever.   He looks happy in the challenge.

That is a Disney thing too – happy in the challenge.  Think about what the Imagineers do – creating something new – mixing engineering and artistry.  Or Walt himself – the things accomplished by that man don’t happen without perseverance and passion.

It is also a running thing – perseverance and passion.  You can’t do a marathon without a bit of both.

My son (and Disney) continues to teach me things.

T and his mountain at Pop Century
T and his mountain at Pop Century

Wild Wednesday – Wicked Cool Pigeon – Oct 30, 2013

The coloration on this thing is phenomenal.  Saw this bird during one our trips to Animal Kingdom.  It is in the bird house part way through the Maharajah Jungle Trek.

I just love the colors on the bird and I was ecstatic that it decided to perch on a pillar right beside and I was able to grab this pic.

I wish the flying rats here Canada looked that nice.

Colourful pigeon at Animal Kingdom
Colourful pigeon at Animal Kingdom

Wild Wednesday – Big Cat – Oct 30, 2013

Man I love cats – especially big ones.

I am going to try something else new to supplement the Magic Memory Mondays and Thinking Disney Thursdays posts.

In keeping with my alliteration theme I have been trying to decide if I should try a Wild Wednesday or Wishing Wednesday.  Wild would be animal themed photos and posts and Wishing would be pictures and thoughts that get me thinking about going to Disney World.  I really can’t decide which to do so I will start with Wild today and see how things go from there.

So back to the big cats – Disney World has a few places to see big cats – Animal Kingdom has Kilimanjaro Safari comes to mind with the lions and the cheetahs but they always seem pretty shy whenever I have been on the ride.  So the Maharajah Jungle Trek is my place to see the big cats – tigers to be exact.

Now the tigers can be elusive some days too but some days you can get really lucky.  The day I took this picture was one of those days.  One the tigers was wandering around the main fountain and caught it taking a drink and surveying the area.

Love the markings and the quiet strength – just awesome.  You can just tell that bugger can just move it wants to.  Maybe that is one of the reasons I am drawn to the big cats – most long distance runners are gazelles.  Me?  Not so much.  But the tigers remind me that big carnivores can run too and they can sometimes catch the gazelles, if they are smart and strong and keep pushing.

That being said no one is going to mistake my running style for that of a graceful cat either.  Three legged elephant maybe?

Tiger on Maharaja Jungle Trek
Tiger on Maharajah Jungle Trek

Magic Memory Monday – Oct 28, 2013

The picture today brings to mind many memories and reminds me of the start of a very good trip to Disney World.  The picture was taken was the first night of the January/February 2013 family trip to Disney World.  We were booked into the Beach Club and had the fantastic surprise of a phenomenal upgrade to start our trip.

After supper we hit Stormalong Bay (the wonderful sand bottomed pool shared by the Beach and Yacht Club resorts) and were basically the only people in the pool.  We had the whole big kids’ area to ourselves and the kids had a blast.  After a rough drive from Winnipeg to Minneapolis through a wicked winter storm and lots of snow to be dealt with in Minneapolis before the trip the massive pool was all the more fantastic.

When I think of this night I think about feeling relaxed and happy to be there while the kids were having such a great time.  We had been on Disney property for less than 6 hours at this point and were already in full on vacation mode.  It was the start of probably our best ever family trip and when I look at this picture I get a whole wave of fun memories from this trip.

Aaaahhhh!

Stormalong Bay pool view at night
Stormalong Bay pool view at night

Thinking Disney Thursday – Sometimes you just have to run on the beach like a maniac – October 24th, 2013

Like the title says – sometimes you just have to run on the beach like a maniac.  There is so much to do at Disney World and it is all so easily accessible if you are staying that the Beach Club Resort like we were on this trip.  But even with Epcot being 5 minutes walk away and Hollywood Studios less that 20 minutes sometimes you just have to ignore that and go with the simple pleasures.

Like running up and down a beach, yelling at the top of your lungs and trying to catch seagulls – ahh to be 5 again like my son is in this picture.

That is one of the beautiful things about Disney World – there are these opportunities to get away from the crowds and do your own thing and just be a kid.  Awesome.

T on the Beach Club / Yacht Club beach
T on the Beach Club / Yacht Club beach

Magic Memory Monday – Oct 21, 2013

Port Orleans Resort – as a family we have stayed there once and I stayed there once with my brother for the 2012 Disney World Marathon weekend.  Both times it was at the French Quarter portion of the resort.  It is just an absolutely beautiful place with lovely New Orleans influences.

We enjoy so many aspects of the resort from the cafeteria with its Mardi Gras float decorations to the tree lined walkways to the themed pool area.  But really the most important thing to us with this resort is how peaceful it is.  The French Quarter portion is the smallest of the Disney World resorts (at least by room numbers) and from what we have seen one of the least crowded.  The reduced crowds have allowed us lots of opportunities to just wander around and see the sights, take pictures and just really relax.

This picture this week was taken one of the mornings at the French Quarter – our son (who was about 2 and a half at the time) and I were up well before my wife and 3 month daughter so we grabbed the trusty camera to go for a walk.  It was a sunny morning with no wind and just a touch of a chill – it made everything crisp and clear.  We wandered around a bit at the French Quarter and then wandered the walking path to the Riverside resort and got some lovely pics of the southern mansions.

On our way back I snapped the picture below as we wandered beside the lake – you can see the little fellow is pretty happy and I remember very well the peacefulness of the moment.  That is definitely one of the big draws for us with Disney World – those moments of peace seem to be so easy to grab.

Port Orleans - T out for a walk
Port Orleans – T out for a walk