Star Wars Dark Side Half Marathon WDW: Day 2

Thursday April 20th:
6:45am alarm.We were out of our door by 7:30am for a quick 3.25 mile run. It felt good! Back at our room, we showered and got ready. Off to the food court by 9:30am and it was a madhouse! We typically don’t get there anywhere this late. We grabbed a quick breakfast of Gluten Free waffle Bounty platter and oatmeal. We went out to the Expo bus pickup spot by 10:10am. But we weren’t picked up until 10:35am. They were having lots of bus issues for the Expo and nearly all resorts to get to the Expo. I guess they were using a new company. We were to Wide World of Sports just before 11am (it opened at 10am) and met Teri (my sister) and we hugged and squealed for a good 5 minutes!! I miss her so much living 2,000 miles apart! The great news about arriving a little late was there was zero line for bib pickup! Upon check in at bib pickup, Ryan and I discovered we would be getting BOTH the Kessel Challenge Medal (for doing both Star Wars Half Marathons on each coast) AND the 10th Anniversary standard Coast to Coast Medal for doing a half marathon on each coast! We were stoked!!! We then worked our way to the other building for shirt pickup, merchandise and vendor booths. It was about a 10-15 minute wait to get into the other building. Outside while we waited, they had Storm Troopers walking around and a DJ! Upon entering the building, we went straight to shirt pickup. Then into the RunDisney merchandise line with a 20 minute wait to enter the shopping area. Once in, we were able to find all of the items we were wanting for the half marathon plus the Kessel Challenge! Got the cool shoe ornament for Dark side, shirts, car decals, pins, mug, glass, etc. We made our purchases and then off to explore all of the vendors and take our time. We started wrapping up shopping and grabbed Wetzels because we were hungry and it was 1pm. There were Storm Troopers milling about. We found a fun photo opp with race specific frames and took some pics. On our way to Teri’s car, we stopped for pics with the race signs outside with our bibs. Teri drove us to Riverside and we visited for a bit before she had to head home to get my niece from school.

We refilled our pack with ice water and were to our bus stop buy 2:50pm. The tv screens showed the next EPCOT but was at 3:06pm and it was. We were dropped off at the very far island in the bus drop off, it was very strange. We were through security by 3:25pm. Our Test Track FP ended at 3:30pm and we got to the ride at 3:28pm and we still had the green light! We had about a 20 minute wait, standby was 80 minutes. Our car design won in our vehicle, thanks to Ryan’s design! It was then time for our Character meet and greet and we were in line by 4:15pm. Then off to Mexico for some yummy nachos! Neither of us felt up to using our Mission Space FP’s so we swapped them for The Land at 5:15pm for a 5:15pm FP. It was really a walk on. We then got a SSE FP for 6:35pm. We then went shopping in Mouse Gears then off to take entrance pics with the Flower & Garden Topiaries. At 6:15pm SSE was a walk on. So we opted to just ride then and were able to swap the SSE FP for a Toy Story FP for 7:45pm. After SSE we went to the bus stop for HS and were in line at 6:45pm and picked up at 7pm. It was a lot longer of a bus ride than we thought it would be!

We went immediately to Launch Bay and met BB8 in less than 10 minutes! We tried to grab dinner at Pizza Rizzo at 7:45pm but they were already closed for the day. We ended up at Dockside Diner (which we’ve never eaten at, it’s the boat in Echo Lake). We got the pulled pork foot long hot dog and the pulled pork sliders. The CM who handed us our food wasn’t satisfied with the small amount of pulled pork on the hot dog and asked for more. The person in the back said they only get one scoop. He said he didn’t care and asked for more and they gave it to him to give to us. It was pretty awesome. The hot dog was so good, but rich! We liked the sliders too! So this is definitely a food spot to keep in mind since there aren’t too many options in HS. The downside was that at sunset the gnats were horrendous, especially by the water, so beware! With bellies full, we waddled over to Toy Story at 8:15pm to use our FP’s! However, they weren’t even needed because there was almost no standby line since the fireworks were getting closer to starting. So that’s my tip! If you don’t care about being early to find a spot for the fireworks, head to Toy Story after 8pm! At least it worked fantastically for us! I’m sure Ryan beat me at Toy Story, he usually does. We got to our spot for the Star Wars fireworks by 8:35pm and had a great spot! We LOVE this fireworks show and even noticed some updates since our last trip! There was the typical mass exodus after the fireworks ended but we were to the bus stop by 9:20pm and were backto our resort by 10pm. We got ready for bed and had lights out by 11pm.
Miles Logged 13.3 included our 3.25 mile run in the morning.