In case you missed my onslaught of Instagram posts over the last few days, I went to Disney World last weekend for the Disney Princess Half Marathon Weekend! This race weekend has been a dream of mine since college (the better part of a decade now!) and I feel so lucky to have finally gotten to experience it for myself. This was my first runDisney experience and even though I've completed dozen of races in the past, this was definitely an experience all its own and I knew I had to document it all so I could share it with you! 😉 Let's hop in with Day 1!
My weekend started on Friday morning by journeying to the airport! I took the train into the city so I was able to relax and read my book to pass the time. I got to the airport so early and was the only person in line at security. The barista at the terminal Starbucks even mentioned that I was his first customer of the day. 😅 This is what happens when the idea of being late to things stresses you out! Cassie met me at the airport a few hours after I arrived and we hopped on the plane to head to Orlando. My mom picked us up at the airport and we immediately made our way over to ESPN Wide World of Sports for the expo!
We received a royal welcome when we entered and got our first character photos of the weekend! These servants were so funny and interacting with them was a great way to kick off the weekend. We made our way into the merchandise building first because I really wanted a pair of the commemorative Minnie ears. Everyone in the Facebook group I was a part of made it sound like EVERY commemorative item would be sold out after the first morning of the expo. We got there at 5pm on the second day and....
I got ears! 🐭🎀 There were racks and racks of ears available so I honestly had nothing to stress about. I think runDisney has been getting better at restocking items throughout the weekend so that not everything is immediately sold out. If you have your eye on something in particular before getting to Disney, fear not! It will likely still be there when you arrive. ✨ After I snagged my ears and Cassie and Mom got a souvenir or two of their own, we made our way to the next location - bib pick up!
Each part of the expo is in different buildings at ESPN, but I thought each location was very well marked and easy to find so you don't have to worry about getting lost! Cassie and I headed over to the Fairy Tale Challenge booth to grab our bib and mom picked hers up from the 10K booth. For the Fairy Tale Challenge you only get *one* bib for both races, so you need to be sure you're taking care of it throughout the weekend! In order to ensure that you're the only person who could pick up your challenge medal after you complete both races, they also snapped a photo of you holding your bib. I was wondering how they were able to differentiate who did the challenge so findin gout how they managed all of that was interesting! We made sure to stop at a couple of the photo opportunities around the hall (there was a set up of each race distance!) and we even snagged one outside that was on-brand for mom's 10K costume - Ariel!
Last but not least was the expo itself. The expo was HUGE and chock full of vendors selling so many awesome Princess-themed items. It was really tough not to throw all of our money at every booth! 😂 We picked up our race shirts & gear bags at the shirt table, grabbed a drink, and spent the remaining time that the expo was open perusing the vendors and having a fantastic time. My mom ended up buying a Ariel-themed visor for her 10K costume which was so cute (and you'll see in the next post)! We basically shut the expo down and headed out to grab some dinner and get to bed.
We got to our room around 9pm and immediately started to get everything together for race morning. We had a 3am wakeup call waiting for us and it was going to be a super short night of sleep. We were all extremely excited, though! Our first runDisney experience was off to a great start and we could not wait to get to the good part - the races!
More to come in the next blog post where I talk about the Enchanted 10K! Stay tuned! ✨
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