I thought I had everything planned out perfectly for this race weekend – flights booked, outfits planned, fastpasses at the ready – and then mother nature stepped in, and shouted “You know what New York needs? A snowstorm!”
Then just like that, I suddenly didn’t have a flight to Florida anymore – what?! I had booked flights for my parents and I on southwest. We like to fly out of the smaller airport on Long Island, MacArthur Airport in Islip, since it makes for a less stressful travel experience compared to LaGuardia and JFK, and I like that southwest usually has very affordable fares, with options to easily change flights if needed. We had even opted to purchase early bird check in, but 24 hours before our flight when I tried to pull up our boarding passes, I received an error message – and then about 30 seconds later I got an email that our flight was cancelled, due to an impending snow storm. Dang it winter!
This was on Wednesday morning, as I got ready for work. I pulled up the other available flights, and in a panic booked a flight for Wednesday at noon, figuring it would allow us to leave before the storm. The issue? I had not even begun packing, and I really needed to go to work that day to tie up loose ends before being out of office for almost a week. I called my dad, who talked me off the panic packing ledge that I had climbed onto, and we decided to rebook for a later flight on Thursday, as they storm was supposed to be over by then.
I spent the next 24 hours checking the weather and flight status obsessively, and while the weather got a little nasty during the day on Wednesday and that night, by the time Thursday rolled around the skies were clear, and our new flight was ready for departure. The downside to this later flight? I would be getting to the race expo later in the day, and unable to meet up with Kasey and her family when they headed to the expo, as they had fast passes in the afternoon, when I would be going.
By the time Mom, Dad, and I landed in florida, collected our luggage, picked up the rental car and got on the road to Disney it was rush hour in Orlando, and we got to sit in traffic as we made our way to the hotel – not how I had envisioned the first day of the trip going, but I was rolling with the punches as best as I could.
When we got to the hotel dad wanted to take a ride up to target to get supplies for the room – snacks, a coffee maker, and what not – but I was itching to get to the expo. It closed at 8, and it was already 6:00, and I wanted to have time to experience as much of the expo as possible. So Mom and I decided to take the bus from the hotel to the expo while dad made the supply run. We got lucky, and there was a bus waiting on the side of the hotel when we got there, and we were able to hop on right away.
Kasey, Aunt Karen and Hallie had already been to the expo earlier in the afternoon, and while I knew some of the merchandise that I had my eye on was already sold out, that didn’t stop me from searching for one of those damn tye-dye princess half spirit jerseys. Did I find one? No. Was I a little disappointed? Yes, but at the end of the day I really did not need to drop $70 on a shirt anyway.
Mom and I headed into the Visa center first, where the RunDisney official Merchandise was housed. We wandered through the aisles, checking out the various wares, and picking some items out. I really liked the color schemes and art styles that they used for the race this year, and was happy to spot Jasmine and Mulan on some merchandise. By the time I made it to the register my haul included a pair of Mulan jogger style, a fairy tale challenge jacket, a half marathon hat, a passholder shirt, a wine glass (that I later shattered) and a Tervis travel mug. Mom even picked out a few things, as she was walking the 5k with me the next morning, including a t-shirt, the same Mulan pants as mine, and a 5k headband. I got a lot of items, but the merch was so tempting this year that there were many more objects that I was a little bummed to be leaving behind.
Once we finished shopping we headed over to bib pickup, and got our numbers. We were there late enough in the day that this was a fast process as there weren’t too many runners around. I tried to get a few photos outside, but it was already getting dark so their quality was less than stellar. We walked over to the exhibition hall after, where the non-Disney vendors and race shirts are to pick up our shirts. There was no wait to get into that area of the expo either, although the show floor was a little crowded as we made our way to the back of the hall to pick up our shirts.
The expo was getting close to closing, so the only other stop that we managed to make was at the pandora booth, where they had a photo op. Mom any I got our photo taken, and then it was time to head back to the hotel and get our bags and outfits set up for the 5k the following morning. Her one race morning request? That I didn’t tell her how early we would be getting up.