Disneyland Half Marathon Weekend, Tour of LA and a Ride on the Lilly Belle Part 1

I know, I know...I haven't written in a while...well, actually...a long while. Honestly, I havent really felt that I had anything to say. I did want to share about the fantastic weekend we had with the Snyder's running the Disneyland Half Marathon, our Tour of LA and a rare ride on the Lilly Belle.

Part 1

The Snyders flew in on Wednesday and once we picked them up at the airport, we headed off to Huntington Beach "Surf City" for them to get a look at the Pacific Ocean. We walked down to the end of the pier and took a few pictures, then headed back towards Main Street. We stopped for a quick lunch then headed for Anaheim, the place we would call home for the next 4 days. After checking in, we walked over to Downtown Disney to pick up our park hopper tickets, do a little shopping and relax a bit. We headed back to the hotel for a dip in the pool to cool off.

T-Bone, Veronica, Jamie Snyder

After an early breakfast, we walked over to California Adventure and sat and waited for them to open the gates. Once in the park, we started riding rides and aquiring Fast Passes for certain popular rides. By 10am it was already extremely warm and the humidity level was way up. We spent the rest of the day looking for "air conditioned, sit down" rides, which there are plenty of. At one point I tweeted that I was on a Tour of all the DCA bathrooms, since that was some of the best AC in the park. After dark, we got into place to watch the World of Color show, which was spectacular. After the show, we got the bus back to the hotel and crashed.

Tower of Terror - Best Ride Ever!

Uncle Bob & T-Bone

Radiator Springs Racers

World of Color

Friday started with a quick breakfast, walk to Disneyland, go on a ride and head off to the Disneyland Hotel for the expo to pick up our race packets. We got to the DL hotel at 10am and all you could see were people everywhere. There was a lack of Run Disney employees and no one seemed to know what line was for what. I think after Run Disney took a beating on social media, they started sending people out to direct people where to go. We found the line that went down stairs to pick up your race bib and waited about 15 minutes. After I got my bib and Coast to Coast wristband, I found my wife and she had an issue with her registration...they didnt have her down for Coast to Coast (turns out that a lot of people had that problem) We were directed to the Runner Relations line where we waited for about 45 min. When we got to the counter, we explained the situation to the very nice woman and she started to look up the results from WDW 1/2 in January. After about 4 minutes, she said that their computers were slow and or down. I whipped out my phone, brought up the results and insisted she accept that and give my wife the wristband. She did and off we went. By the time we left Runner Relations, that line was well over 200 people deep. We headed upstairs to the expo and yet another line. There were a few Run Disney employees shouting directions by that time, but it was still a "ClusterF*%K (Im sorry, but green tape on the ground doesnt tell me anything!!!! After about 20 minutes in line, we were let into the expo. We got our shirts and stopped by the New Balance booth to see my friend Monica. My wife even tried on a pair of the Disney shoes, they were a bit snug on her and Monica informed us that they are coming out with more styles of the Disney shoe in January. We walked through the merchandise area and all my wife wanted was a 13.1 car magnet. I saw the line (heard up to 2 hour wait to checkout...no thanks!) I ordered the magnet online and should have it soon. We high tailed it out of there and back to the park to meet our friends. We capped off Friday night with fireworks and something very special....I'll save that for the end.

To Be Continued...

Tour of LA, Disneyland Half and the ride on the Lilly Belle