Trip Report Princess Half Marathon 2014 - #2 Packet Pick Up, Hollywood Studios, Pop Century

our view from just out side our door at Pop Century

We woke up bright and early to head to pick up our race packets at the ESPN Wide Wold of Sports.

We were all alone in the beautiful elevator lobby of the 90's wing of Pop Century.  

A walk to the bus was like a walk through our childhood.

Possibly the best decorated stairwells on earth.  

At 8:25 am the bus lines are packed for the parks.  If you are in the line for the bus at 8:25 you will most likely not be in the parks by 9:00 that is the sad truth.  you really need to be in line for a bus around 8am if you want a good position at rope drop.  The saddest thing about this picture is people in line for Animal Kingdom which had morning extra magic hours.  The park has already been open for about a half hour by this time.  Morning extra magic hours are great but you have to be there before it opens otherwise you are just heading into an already crowed park.  

We arrived at the packet pick up just as it was opening.  That's right we rope dropped packet pick up.  We already had our race waivers printed and sign(we did it at home) so we could go straight to our window for a bib number.  It is extremely organized and fast.  The lines do grow and can get long in the middle of the day.  (just like the parks)

Around just about every corner there was some sort of back drop people were taking pictures in front of.

With our pack it in toe we headed over to the expo.

This was the scene as we were heading in.  Still early even with the time it took to get the packets.

And a shot the other direction. If there was something you wanted that has to do with running this is the place you could find it.

We grabbed an I Did It button from the RunDisney booth.  It seems weird that they have a booth mixed in with all the other vendors.  Most people we saw around the parks the next few days asked where we got the button.  I bet the "convention" arm of WDW even charged runDisney for the booth space, even though they are promoting future races.  

They had a big wall with every ones name on it.  I'm snapping a pic of our names.

Here is Doug's.  I put his picture on here because I am nice.   There were 5 McKnight's in the race.  

After a stop in the Official merch area and a stop to buy my next pair of running shoes we headed out.  I was able to buy shoes way cheaper then normal.  There really are some great deals to be found at the expo.  From this picture you can see the level of crazy has doubled in the Expo and it was only 10am!

It is defiantly a hike from the front of the ESPN WWoS back to the bus stop.  If you didn't want to hike and wait for a bus, a cab or Uber would not be a bad way to go.  

After dropping our stuff off at Pop we hopped the bus to Hollywood Studios.  Looked like it was going to rain and our first goal was to hit Star tours with a FastPass+ while Doug still had his motion sickness patch on from the flight.  He left if on just to ride Star Tours, He is such a nerd.  

After a flight though a galaxy far, far, away we had lunch at Backlot Express.  We got some boring sandwiches which were actually very tasty and good.  We were trying to limit the amount of fat we had the day before the race.  I'm sure the fries were a good decision.  One of the great things about Backlot express is you can refill your drinks so we could hydrate with the best Coke products Disney has to offer.  

After lunch we headed over to the Animation Academy.  We got there just as it was starting to sprinkle.  

We got to draw with our favorite artist!

Any Guesses who Doug drew?   At the end of the class the artist had a trivia question for his drawing.  Doug give the room a few guesses before he raised his hand to answer.  He really wanted to let a kid win it but failed.  The question was from Monster U about a characters mother or something that no one with a life should know.  

His might be a little better then ours.

It was still raining out side so we met Minnie.

When it is raining out they sometimes move the Disney Jr. meet and greets around.  

It was all dried up and we had a Toy Story Midway Mania FastPass+ ready to use.

It was still only 1:26 and it feels like we have been up and at it for ever today.

Doug was thoroughly disappointed in this score.  He blamed riding with me.  He claimed I stole his targets.  He will continue to ride alone when we come with the kids.  On the other hand It was one of my better scores!

After some shooting we did the single rider line for Rocken' Roller Coaster.  It took about 20 min for us both, the posted wait was 60min.  

We looked at some snacks at Sweet Spells.

Lots of neat apple options!

This case gets the kids and Doug more excited.  We didn't get any thing because we we're having an early dinner.  With the race so early in the morning we wanted to eat and get to bed early, not or normal Disney plans!

We got a bus to Art of Animation to Eat at the Landscape of Flavors.  They have a build your own pasta.  It was the perfect pre race meal.  It is a nice big serving of pasta just the way you want it.  Lots of options of what type of noodle, sauce, meat, and veggies you want.

The John Lasseter signed art in the lobby.

It was misting just a little as we made our way from Art of Animation over to Pop Century.  It is only about a 10 minuet walk from the food court to our room.

The two resorts are connected by a bridge in the middle.  

I believe this is the 60's section.

Petals is the bar at the main pool.

Even with the rain  though out the day it was plenty warm to swim.

This is the entrance from the pool side into the main building of Pop.

The store and food court are very nice at Pop.  The only reason we ate across the bridge was for the BYO pasta.  

The lobby of Pop Century.  

flat Michelle and flat Doug

Back at our room and off our feet by 6pm.  We got our bibs on and every thing laid out and ready for a ridiculously early wake up call.  

Trip Report 2013 - #6 - Hollywood Studios Rope Drop, Sci - Fi, Good bye Riverside hello Art of Animaition

This morning we get to head to what has become our families favorite park.  As weird as it is to put that  into writing it is true.  I love the Magic Kingdom and because it has the most attractions it is where by the end of the trip we have spent the most time, but if I'm being honest Hollywood Studios makes it the easiest to get out of bed in the morning. 

This was our last night at the Alligator Bayou room in Port Orleans Riverside.  Clair is still trying to fight off waking up by hiding under a pillow.  She wanted to pack the "Louie" pillow but we were confident house keeping would notice. 

Each kid got their turn in the murphy bed.  They fought over it every night.  We developed a highly sophisticated system of Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine who got the special bed.  Sam snuck back in bed after getting ready for the day.  

A look back at our building and room from the outside.  We packed up all our stuff in the mini van so we did not have to worry about coming back to check out in the middle of our park day.

It was a nice morning so we took a few pictures of the resort before we left for the park.  The Sasagoula river runs through the resort.

The pool area is neat with a water slide.  We were in the parks too much this trip to get to the pool.

Inside the main building there is the lobby, a bar, sit down restaurant, gift shop, and a food court.  We did use the food court a time or two.  This end of the building with the water wheel is the location of the food court.  It was about a 10 min walk from our room to the food court and we were in one of the further away rooms.  

We found our favorite place to start a day.  We were able to claim both sides of Mickey readers.  This is nice because 4 out of 5 of us can scan our bands as soon as they say to go.  By being at the front of the line we beat almost everyone in to the park and to Toy Story.  We also don't have to worry about someone using the wrong finger on the scanner and holding up the whole line.  

After dashing to Toy Story Doug grabbed a paper fast pass and we then got in line.(the good old days of paper fast passes)  We always try to enter the line together their is nothing more annoying then the person that cuts because their group did not wait for them, especially at rope drop.  

My scores continue to improve as does Clair's 

It is hard to read but Doug was "Best This Hour" and "Best Today"  This is something that he would point out several times over the next year.  And he would like to remind everyone that Best Today is over the last 24hours not just since park opening.  We learned this when we were the first on and he was not the best of the day.  

After Toy Story we headed over to rocken roller coaster.  Sam was a little braver today and wanted to give it a try.  When we got up to the front they do a second measuring of height and they said Alden did not measure up.  So he got kicked out of line.  Luckily Doug was hanging out by the exit so we took Alden to Doug.  Sam and I were allowed right back in to the load area.   He was not happy.  I think he really believed that he shrunk over the past few days.

Sam's picture to remember her first time on the ride.

More proof that she did it!

Back over to Toy Story to use our paper fast passes.

We had to meet these guys since were were decked out in our Monsters U gear today.

Christmas continues to invade the parks.

Hanging out in the back yard to have the best day ever.  

I snowed at home today so we thought we would show that we had some snow too.

Clair and I headed to Disney Jr. Live on stage while the big kids headed over to Rocken To use the Rider swap.

Clair loves Disney Jr.  It is an odd show because you sit on the ground and some of the puppets they use are short so if you are in the front you can't see every thing going on on the stage.

So they got to Rocken and stood in line and then had to leave because it broke down.  So this picture was the consalation prize.  Doug did have a good time explain to everyone around him what the magic bands were for and how we got colored ones.  Most people at this time had gray bands because it was the color Disney issues you if you don't customize your bands.  By the end of the trip we found ourselves using the words "gray banders" when one of us would turn the wrong way or the like.  

Time to head back to use our FastPass+ on Toy Story.

There are lots of places to park a stroller and they are always labeled and some of the label are fun because they fit with the area you are in.

Clair is getting better and better.

They are so serious.

Doug was so close to best of the hour.

Time for lunch.  We are heading to Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater!

That's right you eat in a drive in theater as they show clips of "B" horror Movies from the 50's and 60's.  It is lots of fun.  Seating is a little weird, but that is what makes it fun.  

For a full review of lunch click HERE.

After a few spins around the galaxy on Star Tours and Taking in the Muppet's it was time for a snack from our favorite snack stop, Sweet Spells.

We are really good at taking pictures of half eaten food.

More half eaten food and a goofy glacier.

After snacking we did a few other things before heading back to Light's Motors Action.

If you want a good seat I suggest you get there early.   We were about 20min early and this was our view on a non busy day in November.  Also a heads up that this place is HOT.  I could not imagine watching this show from May to September.  Just lie and tell your kids it has to do with math or broccoli.  

It is an interesting show and shows how they make stunts look real in movies.   Then they randomly add Lighting McQueen to the show for no reason what so ever.

                                       

Here is about 10 seconds of Lights, Motors, Action Stunt Show that sums it up nicely.  Most kids will enjoy this and decently every 5 -12 year old boy in the crowd.  Add some motorcycles, jet skis, a backwards driving car, gun shots, and fire and you have the whole show.  They do a good job of explaining how movies are made, which is refreshing in a theme park that is geared towards movie making but has lost its way.  

After the show we headed towards the exit with about half the stadium watching the show.  

One More Monsters U. photo just outside of the park.

With the van all packed up we headed to our new home for the next few days.

Whenever a rainbow welcomes you that means things will go smoothly.

Lighting was feeling left out of the rainbow picture. 

The lobby is huge and full of great things to look at and see.

We were in a cars suite so we headed over to ornament valley.

They have all the "Cars" characters out to meet.

Our families favorite was right outside our buildings door.

This street sign marks our door.

The table and lots of space right inside the front door.

The living room area and kitchenette.  The couch looks like a back seat in a car.  It folds out and sleeps 2.

The TV stand is beyond cool.

Master bed room.  It has a TV as well you just can see it.  We were able to put the kids to bed a little earlier tonight and we could still watch TV in our own room.  

Master bath is a car wash.

Smaller bath off the main room.

Snack time after dinner at the food court. 

Alden got the Mater bed each night!

We really liked the Suite, it was nice to have the space and a door separating us from the kids.  We will be here just 2 nights before setting sail on the Dream.  

Tomorrow we head back to the Magic Kingdom, but this time we will be touring with the entire McKnight clan.  The Kids were super excited to show them around the Magic Kingdom.