Star Wars Darkside 1/2 Marathon and WDW parks

[Travisma 1,317]

Headed to Orlando on Saturday to relax then support our nephew on Sundays run.

We were able to get the Embassy Suites on Lake Street for $95 including a $20 resort fee and taxes.They tried to add a $12 parking fee, but they waived it because it didn't show up on Hotwire until after we won the bid.

It's a very nice hotel, recently rennovated, has happy (2) hour with adult drinks and snacks, and a great breakfast.  The have an indoor outdoor pool and a dive in movie every night.

My nephew had done the 10K on Saturday, then ended up at EPCOT.  He came over to visit and stayed until after 11 and he had to be up by 3!  When we saw him the next day he said he actually overslept until 4 then he had to drive to the MK for the start. We got up at 6:00 to pack, and get our breakfasts to go.  The hotel gave us a stack of boxes to load up our breakfast to take with us,

The race itself seemed to be well organized, but information for spectators was non existent. The Run Disney site wanted you to sign up for the cheer squad at $50 a person. At the packet pick-up my nephew found a link that said you could park at the start at MK or the end at EPCOT.  On the way to Orlando my wife spent about 45 minutes trying to get information from various Disney groups.  Ultimately they told us to go to the start or finish.

We drove over thru back roads and ended up at the Boardwalk.  We were there by 7:00 and told the guard we were there to cheer on our nephew.  he asked for ID then waved us thru to the small self parking lot.  What a decent guy!

Here are some picture of him coming down the Boardwalk

 

 

 

As you can see, he ran as Forrest Gump.

My wife made our shirts based on this scene from the movie

 

Star Wars characters near the end of the Boardwalk

A mile to go.  This was near Morocco

 

Afterwards we headed to EPCOT.  We picked up an egg hunt sheet and headed thru World Showcase.  Once we got in, we saw that Frozen was only a 40 minute wait, so it was an abbreviated egg hunt on our way to Norway.

 

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choo choo

Decorated for the festival

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Veggies

Flutterby

 

Afterwards we took the monorail over to the MK to meet up with our nephew.

It was amazing that we only did the security stuff coming into the International Gate, and not at the MK since we stayed within the Security Bubble!

It felt like the good old days.

Met up with our nephew and ate at  Columbia Harbor House, then headed to Tom Sawyers for my granddaughter to run around.  My nephew had never been over there.

The MK was surprisingly not that crowded.  Wait times for Splash Mtn, Big Thunder and Small World were all around 40 minutes, Mine train was till 70 plus and Peter Pan was around 50.

We caught the 3:00 parade.

I was finally able to get a few semi decent dragon fire pictures.

Goofy

After the parade we headed to Tomorrowland,.  Space Mountain was 60 minutes, and the People Mover had a huge line and kept stopping. Purchased my granddaughter a Minnie holder for the MB 2 puck.

Then it was time to head out.  We caught the Boardwalk bus and were soon on our way back to Tampa.

 

 

 

 

 

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

I saw him at the finish of the half. I told my kids "hey, there's Forrest Gump". They had no idea what I was talking about. lol

[Travisma 1,317]

During other races people would always yell that to him because of the beard and hair, so he decided to do the total outfit and hat.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Your nephew's costume and the t-shirts your wife made are awesome!

Also, good job on the fire breathing dragon photos.

TCD

[Travisma 1,317]

5 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Your nephew's costume and the t-shirts your wife made are awesome!

Also, good job on the fire breathing dragon photos.

TCD

Thanks. she silk screened them.

First time I saw the fire using my DSLR camera. I was thinking there would be fire because there were no trees in that area.  We watched from the pathway along the Rivers of America.  It was a great spot.