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Hello everyone,
Today I want to share with you a (rather large) selection of my photos from our recent adventures through Pandora - The World of Avatar, at Disney's Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World.
I'll give a few thoughts along the way, but I thought that on this occasion I would let my photos do most of the talking, and let you form your own opinions about the new land.
Let's start with some of the initial sights you'll see when entering Pandora from its main entry point, over the bridge from Discovery Island.
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Hello everyone,
Last month (April 2017), Jon and I took part in our second runDisney weekend, the Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon Weekend at Walt Disney World. Followers of my blog will know that in February we participated in our very first ever runDisney event at the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend. Well, here we were, two months later, ready to do it all over again for the Empire!
I won't repeat everything I said in my first Princess blog about our impressions of runDisney, training, organisation of the event, impressions, etc, as many of those aspects were very similar this time, but needless to say, we were exceptionally proud of ourselves for being able to achieve not just one half marathon weekend, but now two in the space of two months!
As per the usual setup with the runDisney events, we went along on the Thursday before the race weekend to collect our bibs and merchandise at the health expo, at ESPN. The setup was virtually identical to the Princess Half expo, down to the bib collection areas, the vendor booths and show area, and the official race store.
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Hello everyone,
Last month, on the 14th April, Disney's Hollywood Studios held its first ever Star Wars Galactic Nights; a premium ticketed event held after park closing.
When Disney first announced Galactic Nights, it was kind of bittersweet. 2015 saw the last ever Star Wars Weekends at the park, which at the time we didn't know would be the final event. Star Wars Weekends were held over four or five consecutive weekends in May and June since 1997. The weekends were insanely popular, and involved many fun character greetings, shows, celebrity appearances, special dining options, special merchandise and much, much more. They were quite simply the ultimate Star Wars fan event. Without warning, Disney announced, after the 2015 event, that they had decided to cancel them, and so anyone who missed 2015 - or had already made plans for 2016 - were left very disappointed, and honestly, as diehard fans we were left bitterly let down and a little stunned.
Disney have tried in the past year to increase the Star Wars presence at Hollywood Studios, including the Star Wars Launch Bay, the March of the First Order, the fireworks spectacular and other small offerings. When Galactic Nights was announced, with the celebrity appearances, cavalcade and special character greetings, it felt like they were trying to give the fans a little bit of Star Wars Weekends back, if only for one night, and at a high premium.
With all that in mind, I was a little skeptical, honestly. How could one night live up to the all-day activities that lasted for four weeks per year? And how could we possibly get everything done in one night? I imagined it being a little frustrating, and actually anticipated complaining to guest relations at the end of the night, based on our recent experiences at Disney events. I don't deliberately go into these things wanting or intending to complain, but I think I was so jaded by the loss of Star Wars Weekends, and now having to pay a lot of money to just even get a slither of that back for one night, that I just expected to dislike it.
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Hello everyone,
A couple of weeks ago we dined at Trattoria al Forno at Disney's Boardwalk (Walt Disney World) to try the new Bon Voyage Adventure Breakfast character dining experience. You do not need to enter the Boardwalk resort hotel in order to access the restaurant; it is located along the Boardwalk area itself, and not within the hotel.
For those who like to know these things, for planning purposes or whatever, we had a 7.45am reservation. Our reservation was on a Saturday, and it seemed to be fairly quiet at that time.
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Hello everyone,
A couple of weeks ago we had lunch at The Garden Grill, inside The Land pavilion at Epcot. We had eaten there several times in the past, but it had been several years, so we thought it was time that we went back to get an updated view.
The Garden Grill is a character dining experience, which has its own title of Chip 'n' Dale's Harvest Feast. Throughout your dining experience, Chip and Dale, as well as Mickey Mouse and Pluto, make their way around the restaurant for hugs, photos and autographs. Prices can be up to $60 per adult, depending on the time of day, plus tax and tip. You should plan to be in the restaurant for at least an hour. Reservations are accepted, and can be made on the My Disney Experience app.
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Hello everyone,
At the end of February we were fortunate enough to attend a special event at the Magic Kingdom held for DVC Members. Moonlight Magic was held on two separate nights from 10pm until 1am. Tickets were free for DVC members and up to five of their guests, however, you needed to book it in advance, and spaces were limited. [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
Last month Jon and I, along with a very dear friend, took part in our first ever runDisney race weekend. We participated in all three races (5k, 10k and half marathon) at the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend at Walt Disney World in Florida.
It's hard to even know where to begin describing this entire journey to you, since it wasn't at all like a normal trip. We didn't just go to the parks and happen to run through them like our lives depended on it - this was an altogether different experience. A journey that involved months of hard training, registrations, and bookings at precise moments to get what we wanted, and planning out strategies and coping mechanisms for running these events as a team, while making individual achievements.
We had known for a few months prior to booking that our goal was to be fit enough to want to complete a runDisney event, and when we booked the races last year, we had reached a point where we felt we could be ready in February to compete. The booking process itself was a challenge - as with everything with Disney these days - and we had to make several calls and enquiries to get what we wanted. They don't really make it very clear with regards to some aspects of it, if you have never done this before. So to that degree it was frustrating.
Months later still, and February finally arrived, and we were as ready as we were ever going to be! [ Read More... ] |
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 | Disneyland, February 2017 - A Trip Report | |
| DisneyDan
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 10:41:27 AM |
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Hello everyone,
Last month I shared with you my report on our trip to Disneyland for AP Days and the return of the Main Street Electrical Parade. That report specifically focussed on those two things, can be found by clicking here.
In this second and final part of my trip report for our visit to Disneyland, I am going to share with you everything else that we managed to do in the whirlwind less-than-two-day adventure we had there!
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Hello everyone,
In this third part of my Walt Disney World Christmas trip report, I am going to share with you some of my photos from our various viewings of Mickey's Once Upon a Christmastime Parade and Mickey's Most Merriest Celebration at the Magic Kingdom.
The Christmas parade has changed little over the past few years, but there have been some tweaks along the way nonetheless. This past year saw the princes wear their new outfits in the parade for the first time. Being there Christmas week, we got to see the parade during the day (as opposed to at night, at the much more crowded Christmas parties), which was nice so that we could get decent photos of their new outfits.
Before the parade the Kringle Crew danced down Main Street USA, giant inflatable balls in tow. [ Read More... ] |
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Hello everyone,
In this second part of my Walt Disney World December trip report I am going to share you with your our adventures at Disney's Hollywood Studios and Epcot. In case you missed it, the first part of my report, which covers Disney's Animal Kingdom and the Disney resort hotels, can be found here.
Let's start with Hollywood Studios. [ Read More... ] |
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