A very Disney birthday

Since my running has continued to improve, I wanted to try doing a runDisney event. My friend Chris had completed the Dopey challenge a few years ago, which is when I learned that Disney even held marathons. So I kept a watchful eye for when registration opened, and when it finally opened…I missed it. I was looking to sign up for a 5K, but that was full and the only thing left was a half marathon. So I asked Elson if he would run it with me (albeit slowly) and he said sure! When I went to go register….sold out! Great. I didn’t really want to run a 10K AND a Half-Marathon which was the only thing left. So I just said forget the running, I’ll just enjoy Disney without the running for my birthday.

20181122_DisneyBirthday_001 — Happy faces ready to take off!

And so it came to pass that I gathered a crew of 5 others to join me on my Epcot Food & Wine adventure. The plan was to spend my birthday at Typhoon Lagoon, then eat & drink our way around the world at Epcot the next day, and ending our adventure in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

So I had forgotten my waterproof camera this trip. So there weren’t many pictures I was able to take. Just take my word for it, it was a lot of fun. The weather was great, and the slides were fun. Sarah was a little terrified, but we encouraged to go down all the body slides. Last time I was at Typhoon Lagoon I mistakenly got onto Humonga Kowabunga; it was terrifying. It’s a 5-story drop, and when you’re expecting anything but that it’s real surprising. As we passed it, I said I would go on it again but not alone. Bravely, Elson accompanied me and let me tell you, when you know what to expect, that ride is a LOT more fun. It was so fun that we went on it twice before convincing Katrina and going a third time. Definitely an adrenaline pumping experience. Typhoon Lagoon is home to the best wave pool I’ve ever been in and I was very pleased to be in it again. I had a blast here and I felt vindicated in my choice to spend my birthday here.

After the water park, we headed to Disney Springs where I had chosen Raglan Road Irish Pub for dinner. The food was great; I got a scotch egg and a shepherd’s pie. The bread pudding that I got for my birthday was probably the highlight. I’m not normally one for desserts, and I’m definitely not usually a fan of bread pudding but this was phenomenal. Best bread pudding I’ve had in my life. I need to strive to make bread pudding like this. I got a beer flight and a whiskey flight; they were served on a wood tray that had 1 through 4 in Gaelic – I really liked that touch.

We headed home and played some drinking games. In fact Ryan taught Sarah and Katrina how to play fingers. I am not going to explain it here, but I did link it (so stop being lazy). It was a lot of fun, I will have to play it at New Year’s Eve Eve with more people. But we went to bed eventually, exhausted from the sun and the food. We had a big day of eating and drinking tomorrow.

Epcot had it’s annual Food & Wine festival which is the primary reason I chose to come for my birthday. As I mentioned above, it was a nice alignment of circumstances. It was truly a wonderful experience. I am convinced that I will come back, if not next year then the year after. The food portions were extremely reasonable (I daresay even more than reasonable) for what you paid. Everything was between $4-$8 and even the drinks were around $5 at the Food & Wine stands. There were so many different countries, and there was a free “passport” you could get to mark what you had and stickers to track your progress. It definitely made Drinking Around the World much cheaper and more delicious.

So these pictures are my progress of drinking around the world! My friends said they could tell how I was getting more inebriated as I sent the snapchats to them. I certainly don’t know what they’re talking about. Primarily in the right order, there is definitely a picture of my drink at Morocco that is missing, but I added my drink from Ireland to make up for that.

But drinking and eating isn’t the only thing we did! We went on a few of the rides that exist at Epcot. And I took Sarah and Katrina to meet Baymax! He’s my favorite, he really is. I rarely go to anything other than the World Showcase while I’m at Epcot, and I’m glad Stevie wanted to check out The Living Seas exhibit. We went on the Nemo ride, which was very whimsical. We also marveled at the aquarium that was a large part of that building. It was a really great experience. After all our drinking I dragged everyone to the Soaring ride. It was a nice way to end our trip to the park.

This is now the third consecutive year I’ve gone to Harry Potter World. I’m always awestruck by how immersive Diagon Alley is; it’s so cool. I grabbed a some fun pictures since it was everyone else’s first time there. Not much else to say that I haven’t said in my previous posts, so I’ll let the pictures do the talking.