My Disney Plans

I’m in the process of writing up a blog post about my recent trip to Disneyland with Amy.  That will be a (mostly) chronological recap of what we experienced on the trip.  In the meantime, I want to make a post regarding some of the differences I encountered at Disneyland – that is, some of the things that make Disneyland distinct from Walt Disney World.  Some of them I knew going in, some of them were a surprise to me.  Some of them are obvious, others not so much…

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This past weekend, I flew out to California for the dual purpose of visiting my friend Amy (who has recently relocated to SoCal) and making my third-ever trip to Disneyland.  Yes, I moved to Florida last year to be close to Walt Disney World.  What’s your point?

I flew out on Friday mid-morning, and thanks to the magic of TimeZones, arrived in the early afternoon, even though my travel time was nearly 10 hours.  Amy kindly picked me up at SNA, and our first stop was lunch (as I’d stupidly not brought any food with me on the planes) at In-N-Out burger.  I then got to see Amy’s new place, we went shopping for a bit, and later that night had a nice walk over to the nearby mall-type area for games & dinner at Dave & Busters.

On Saturday morning, we woke up bright and early and made the 15 minute drive to Disneyland.  After getting off I-405, it was a bit confusing trying to figure out where to go.  I was assuming that the parking lots were actually attached to Disneyland Property (my previous two visits were both at hotels within walking distance of the parks), so we were following signs for “theme parks” , when we should have been following signs for “parking”.  In any event, we eventually found the Toy Story parking lot, a couple blocks from Disneyland.  About a week earlier, I had upgraded my WDW Annual Pass to the Disney Premier Passport, which is a premium Annual Pass for both WDW and DL.  So I was able to use that at the parking lot, to avoid the $15 parking fee.  We parked, applied sunscreen, and then walked over to the waiting shuttle buses.  And right there before we got on the bus was a Cast Member with a pin lanyard and a pin trading board.  Yay first pin-trading of the trip!!  The whole concept was still a little bizarre to Amy, but I’ d given her a lanyard of pins of her own when I arrived.

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This past weekend, my sister Amanda flew down from MA for a ridiculously short visit, so that we could run in the 2012 Expedition Everest Challenge. It was a great weekend, filled with success and happiness.

Pre Race Preparations

On Friday I picked Amanda up from the airport and we simply went back to my apartment, watched TV for an hour or so, and then called it a night. (Not wanting her to miss any school, I’d booked the last flight of the night for her, so it was around 10pm when we got out of the airport).

Saturday morning we impulse-decided on breakfast at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, which was fantastic. From there, we drove to the ESPN Wide World of Sports for packet-pickup. We turned in our race waivers, and got our bibs, final race instructions, race shirt, and pins. They also had a series of “Course Talks” in which a runDisney Cast Member went over the course and what we could expect. Before the talk started, we asked her to explain the “Scavenger Hunt” portion of this event. It really wasn’t a “Scavenger Hunt” in the traditional sense. We didn’t have a list of objects or people to find or search for. Instead, we were to be given clues to solve, and once we solved each one and turned it in, a volunteer would give us the next one. We’d have to solve all five before crossing the finish line.

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Warning: This post will contain spoilers of the new interactive game, “Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom”.  If you wish to experience the game from a clean slate of knowledge, do not continue reading.

Earlier this month, Disney opened Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom to limited guest testing.  This past Sunday, I had my first opportunity to begin playing the game.  The game’s checkin center is at the Firehouse on Main St, to the right of Guest Relations.  There was an A-Frame out in front, saying that they were “recruiting” new Sorcerers.  Even with this notification, however, there seemed to be very few people at the Firehouse, only about 3 people ahead of me in line when I went to check in.

While waiting to check in, we see a video explaining the story of the game.  Basically, Hades has decided to take over the Magic Kingdom, using something called the Crystal of the Magic Kingdom, which has been broken into several pieces, scattered throughout the lands.  Hades, being the god of the dead, has the ability to resurrect different Disney villains who met their end.  (Side note: this was also the plot of an episode of Hercules: The Animated Series, which crossed over with the Aladdin series as Hades resurrected Jafar.  I wonder if the Imagineers knew that when conceiving the story).  Merlin, King Arthur’s trusted wizard from The Sword in the Stone, is attempting to stop Hades, and he’s recruited us guests to help him. [Read more →]

So my blog somewhat seems to have stagnated since I moved to Orlando.  The primary reason being that now that I go to Disney so often, the idea of writing “trip reports” no longer quite works.  I mean, no one wants to read “Went to Magic Kingdom after work.  Rode Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion.  Came home.” 3 or 4 times a week, right?  So I didn’t know really what to write about.  But I think I will now make an effort to update my blog on random musings and happenings that I discover, as well as make entries about special events that take place in Walt Disney World.  This entry is the first of the latter category.

I volunteered at the 2012 Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend.  It was an incredible experience, and one that I hope to duplicate on several more occasions.  Deb Wills, of AllEars.net, asked me to give her some information about my experience volunteering, and my response to her turned out to be significantly closer  in length to Trip Report than it was to a survey response.  With that in mind, I figured it might be something others would enjoy reading, so I’ve decided to copy/paste it here:

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