The Magic Kingdom!

I got in bed at 5:05 a.m. Sunday after the race. We all woke up around noon. We got dressed & had lunch. We had tickets to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party Sunday night. The party officially starts at 7:00 but they'll let you in at 4:00. 

When you went in the park you got a wristband because at 7:00 if you don't have one you don't get to ride. They sell a limited number of tickets to the party.

I love Main Street, especially at Christmas.

Have to have a pic with the Castle in the background!

Our first stop was Starbuck's. LOL. 

We got to ride everything that we wanted to except Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. It was broken.

I love Big Thunder Mountain!

Once the party started there was some of the most delicious hot chocolate ever & snickerdoodle cookies. So good! They're free too! It's not often you can say you had something free at Disney.

There was a parade & a very cool light show on the Castle.

How many pics can you take of the Castle? Apparently, about a zillion judging by how many were on my phone. The light show projected all sort of different things on the Castle. My favorite are the ones that are just lit up. 

The party lasted until midnight. We made it until 11:00. We did everything we wanted to so we went back to the resort & got all of our stuff ready for luggage pickup in the morning. Seriously, that's one of the best services Disney offers. You call the luggage people - there's a button on the phone in your room - tell them what time you're scheduled on the Magical Express & they tell you what time someone will be to your room to get you. They come & take you & your luggage to the luggage center at your resort & you check it with them & they handle it from there. You see it again when you get to your final destination. 

I've read a lot of blog posts about this years race & Disney. There seem to be some differing opinions. I love Disney. I'm not one of the people that go multiple times a year or even once a year but I do really love it when I'm there. Some of the reviews I've seen seem to be written by people with unrealistic expectations. Disney is the happiest place on earth with the most unhappy people you've ever seen. There's nothing wrong with that. It's actually pretty funny. There's so much to see & do, you are totally exhausted every single day. Kids are on sensory overload & exhausted too. If you go in knowing that you'll be fine. Especially, at the Magic Kingdom. 

People complained that the race was shortened. While it wasn't ideal, I see why Disney chose to do it. There was a party scheduled. If the race would've been a Half after starting over an hour late, there wouldn't have been much of a party. Some people didn't care about that, they wanted to run a Half. My thoughts on that are that if you're that serious about it, this isn't the race for you. Disney is FUN, not the place for a PR.

 People complained about the price of registration. It's $200. Yes, it's expensive but that included entrance into Epcot for the party which allowed you to ride rides. I would've spent the same amount of money if not more had the registration been cheaper & I would've had to buy a ticket to Epcot. I'm not sure what people expect.  

I saw a few complaints about the number of people that ran & that you couldn't actually run. Maybe that was the case if you started in the very back but it wasn't my experience. We didn't start at the very beginning. We were in Corral G & it went to something like P. There were some spots that were more crowded than others but we never had to stop running. 

Disney is very strict about the corrals. Times are to be submitted by a certain date in order to be in a corral other than the last one. If you choose not to submit a time, you're in the last corral. They will let you move back to a slower corral but they will not allow you to move to a faster one. 

I saw a review about how long the food line was. Again, not something I experienced. We stood in line less than 5 minutes to get our picture taken after we finished & we just walked up & got our box of food & fruit. Water & Powerade was lined up on tables & there was no line for that either. Even when we got our beer, wine & Cokes there wasn't a line. Again, this may have been because of the corral I was in. 

The only complaints I had were that the water & Powerade weren't cold. It was hot & humid & I always want my drinks cold but that wasn't a huge deal. The one thing that did annoy me was that there was only white wine at the finish line. I don't know what the reason was for this because the wine they gave us was the same wine that they sell in Disney (with the exception of Magic Kingdom - no alcohol there) and they had red everywhere. I thought that was weird.

I've been asked a lot if I'd do it again. Based on my experience I absolutely would but there are a bunch of other places I want to go. I had a fabulous time & loved the race but Disney isn't cheap. Even just going with the girls & sharing a room. I've been 3 times in the last 6 or 7 years & I've loved every minute of it but there are other places I want to go. I'd love to run the Rock 'n Roll Half in Vegas! Maybe that will happen next year!

Toodles!