Disney World's Marathon Weekend is always a busy and hectic few days for us. We've covered all the races in previous posts, but we didn't cover some of the other things we did during that trip.
New Fantasyland
This was our first chance to see the new Fantasyland attractions (that were not part of the earlier Storybook Circus opening). We started with Enchanted Tales with Belle. Great details throughout the queue and inside Maurice's cottage. The show was very good and we may have misted up a little watching the little girl playing Beast dancing with Belle. We tried LaFou's Brew from Gaston's Tavern (tasty, but not a "can't-miss" for us). We enjoyed the new Journey of the Little Mermaid ride as well as our lunch at Be Our Guest Restaurant. We waited about a half hour in line for a counter service lunch.
Characters
There were a lot of characters on all the race courses. We also stopped for a few other photo opps.
We went to the character meet in the circus area. Here Mickey's friends are dressed up like circus acts.
By The World Showplace entrance (near the UK Pavilion) they had a few characters hanging out. Since this was the afternoon after the half marathon we visited with Donald to get a picture with our Donald medals. Holly also got to meet Smee. In the Studios we met up with some characters from
Wreck-It Ralph.
Off Property
We know; the horrors of that heading..... We wanted to rest up some the day before the half marathon. We drove to the town of Winter Garden to visit the store
Theme Park Connections. It's a large warehouse that combines flea market with Disney's trash bin. You can find old employee handbooks, Disney magazines, old awards (with names of recipients on them), movie props, ride items, blue prints, etc. lots of fun but smells like your grandpa's attic. We purchased a "Dave" cast member name tag, a Peter Pan Imagineering pin, and a Disney Magazine issue from WDW's 25th anniversary (the year we first went to WDW together).
After that we drove to the town of Celebration. This is a Disney created planned community. Lots of parks, nice houses, shopping, and dining. We had a good lunch at the
Celebration Town Tavern.
Food
Of course we had our share of decent meals. We started at The Yacht Club. It was good, not great. Service was off and the steaks did not measure up to Jiko or California Grill. We enjoyed the Mac and Cheese side dish and pretzel-based dessert.
We had two trips to The Polynesian for food. Breakfast at Kona was requested by Dave so he could have some Tonga Toast and real pressed-pot coffee. Later for lunch we shared the grown-up grilled cheese and a beer cupcake. The cake was good but we can't say we really noticed the beer.
We had great dinners at Tutto Italia, Flying Fish, and Mama Melrose (no photos from any of those). We also enjoyed a nice dinner at The Brown Derby. Pictured are a shrimp and fish dish, the pork chop dish, and a margarita flight (with a martini flight in the background).
There were multiple visits to La Cava de Tequilia, The Rose and Crown Pub, Japan for the Kirin with a frozen beer topping, and Bellevue Lounge at The Boardwalk. We learned from our friend Anna you can get a glass of prosecco a few dollars cheaper in Italy vs. getting a glass of champagne in France.
Hanging out
We spent a lot of time hanging out with friends. Some meetings were planned, others weren't. We had a great time seeing our long time friends Faye and Jim; especially watching Jim run his first marathon. We ran into our friend Laura in the Studios and ended up combining our ADRs at Mama Melrose for a fun pre-race dinner. While with Laura we built our own droid action figures in Tatooine Traders. Watching Yehaa Bob is always a good time - especially with 100 other people you know.
We also did close to two days of park touring with Eddie and Anna McCoy. We had a blast, even though we may have come close to losing our annual passes due to an incident with a puppet. That may be a story we share a year from now ;)
Overall another successful Disney trip. We shot some video of stuff during non-race events which may make it to a later post.
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