Tag: Disney World Marathon

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