Believe it or not, we did things OTHER than run for the three+ days we were in Anaheim over Labor Day weekend. 🙂 Here’s some highlights.

We stayed at the DVC Villas at the Grand Californian. At first I wasn’t too thrilled with our room location…here’s a view from outside the elevator lobby of the DVC wing. See the door that’s just past the lobby? That was our door. I was concerned that it would be noisy, being so close to the elevator, but we never heard any noise from the hallway. It was on the ground floor, so we didn’t have a view, but it was ok, and it was VERY convenient to not have to take the elevator to get to our room.

The Grand Cal’s entrance to DCA is very convenient – we entered that way even when going to Disneyland because it was shorter than going out through Downtown Disney. Be aware that before 11:00 or so this entrance is for the exclusive use of Disneyland Resort hotel guests, and you must present a valid room key from one of the three hotels in order to enter. We saw them turning people away on Saturday morning.

We spent some time enjoying attractions in the parks on Saturday after the 10K and on Monday morning.

It was very warm, so on Saturday morning we went on several rides that had mostly indoor queues! Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye underwent a refurb earlier this year – we hadn’t been on it since it re-opened. There’s some new lighting effects, especially in the first room with the face of Mara (which of course you aren’t supposed to look at!). But we noticed different lighting in other places, too, like on the snake heads and the skeletons. We also went on Pirates of the Caribbean and Buzz Lightyear AstroBlasters. Over in DCA we saw the Aladdin show, which featured one of the funniest Genies I’ve ever seen – lots of zingers including a mention of Miley Cyrus and twerking.

That evening we went back to DCA for dinner and then walked onto Voyage of the Little Mermaid and had a very short wait for Luigi’s Flying Tires. I wasn’t very impressed with the flying tires the first time I tried it, but it takes a little practice to learn how to fly the tires, and after that it’s a lot more fun. We try to find some clear space where we can get a pretty good run going and bounce off the walls. 🙂 We saw a beautiful sunset over Radiator Springs.

We met a few of our fellow Team AllEars members back at the Mad T Party – that version of Wonderland looked a lot different from the one we had run through that morning! 🙂 In addition to the band we saw a dance group and the aerialists. But we didn’t stay late since we had to get up and run the half marathon the next day!

Sunday night after dinner we saw World of Color. We didn’t have Fastpasses for it so we watched it from the area under Silly Symphony Swings. You can’t see much of the projections from there, but it’s a very interesting perspective of the fountains. You get a much better look at everything that they can do and how the lighting works. And it got REALLY hot when they turned on the flame fountains!

Monday morning we went to DCA for Magic Morning and rode Radiator Springs Racers, Toy Story Midway Mania (which we WALKED onto), and California Screamin’. Then we went over to Disneyland with our teammate Eddie and his daughter, because I wanted to get a photo of us riding Dumbo wearing our Dumbo medals. We also went on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, the Carrousel, made a wish at Snow White’s Wishing Well, had breakfast at River Belle Terrace, and sailed on the Jungle Cruise – all by 10:10 in the morning!

For Limited Time Magic the only thing we experienced was the special caramel apple that is being offered in September…and it really WAS special! An apple dipped in caramel and then covered with crushed English toffee and drizzled with chocolate. Oh. My. It was sooooo good! Even Lee really liked it, and he’s not really into sweet things. They are available at Trolley Treats, the Candy Palace, and Marceline’s. I wish I’d gotten another one – you can be assured that I will be getting one on my next trip! I hope they will keep this one around. Or maybe I hope that they don’t so I won’t be tempted!

And a mini food blog…

Friday evening we ate at Tangaroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel. I had the Crispy Tofu Salad, which I really like except for all of the red and green peppers, which I pulled out and gave to Lee. The tofu is coated with panko and fried – it actually had more of the consistency of fried mozzarella, and it was really, really good.

Lee had the Kahlua Pork Flatbread, and enjoyed that.

Saturday morning after we’d raced and showered we walked over to Disneyland and had breakfast at River Belle Terrace. It’s a buffeteria and not table service, but I think they do a nice breakfast there. We sat outside, which is usually a nice setting close to the Rivers of America, but it was a little bit steamy that morning. Speaking of steamy…I had the Steamboat – three pancakes, scrambled eggs, and choice of sausage or bacon. It was more than I could eat – Lee ate most of my pancakes.

Lee had the Mark Twain – scrambled eggs, potatoes, biscuit, and choice of bacon or sausage. He said the potatoes were especially good. (We went back to River Belle on Monday morning and we both had the Mark Twain – I don’t like the peppers in the potatoes, but I’d rather have the biscuit than the pancakes.)

Our usual dinner spot the night before a Disneyland race is Boardwalk Pizza and Pasta, and we didn’t see any reason to change that. It wasn’t as busy as it often is before a race, though we still had to wait a short time for our food. We both had our favorite Four Cheese Ravioli with pesto sauce. I brought my own bread, since they don’t serve it there.

After the race on Sunday went to Storyteller’s Cafe at the Grand Californian for the breakfast buffet, as we usually do. It’s always very busy on race morning, but it was really slammed and way, way overbooked on Sunday. I had a reservation and we STILL waited over 40 minutes to be seated! The buffet line was also very long – you really didn’t want to go through it more than once. It’s a character meal – Kenai and Meeko came to see us, but Chip and Brer Fox completely bypassed us. It was not a very good experience, especially given the cost, so this is probably the last time we’ll do that.

Sunday evening we had dinner with our friends Mike and Joelle at Napa Rose. As an appetizer we split the Signature Pizzetta, which was basically a Margherita pizza (really good).

Lee and Joelle split the Truffled Mac and Cheese. I had a bite – it was very rich, and they enjoyed it.

Mike and Joelle are vegetarian, and they each received a Vegetable Stack, customized with the types of veggies that they liked. They said it was very good.

I had the Dove Breast, which was good, though I think the accompanying vegetables were my favorite part.

Lee ordered the Short Ribs, which he said were tender and delicious.

We were a little too full for dessert, but they brought us three scoops of the Honey Peach Sorbet to celebrate my upcoming birthday. I would have called this ice cream and not sorbet, but it was very good, especially the marinated chopped peaches that came with it. It was a very nice dinner with wonderful dining companions and an excellent server.

Looking back I’d have to say the highlight of my food experiences for the weekend was the English Toffee Caramel Apple. 🙂

And that does it for our Disneyland Half Marathon weekend. We came, we ate, we ran – not necessarily in that order. Thanks for reading!

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