Princess Expo

OK, we're working on a slide show so you don't get overwhelmed by giant posts...that's why there's no pictures to go with the story below...but we're working on it, stay tuned!

Every Princess needs a show, right? Well, the day before our race, we headed over to the ESPN Sports Zone at DisneyWorld to pick up our race packs. We got there before it started, and it was already so busy we had to park on the grass and pack sandwiches for the hike into the expo.  The line looked huge, but it was mostly because they weren't letting anyone in yet.

While we waited in line, we were able to hop into Guest Services and pick up our park passes, (big time saver the next day) and chatted with the ladies around us in line. We were in a perfect spot to see the Fairy Godmother make a speech and with a burst of streamers, the expo had begun!  We could choose the "express entrance" and go straight in, or opt to wait for a photo  with the Fairy Godmother herself. Since we were all practically crying with excitement, we naturally chose to wait and say hello to the FG. She called us all her darlings and with a smile and wave of her wand, we got some pictures with her and the footmen before heading into the expo itself...

Just inside the door were greeters with magic wands to sprinkle us with Pixie Dust!  Bibbity Bobbidy Boo...may all your race day wishes come true!  With a wave of the wand, we were all showered with green glitter (good luck which would serve us all well over the next 3 days). After all getting dusted up (and the shrieks of excitement had died down), we headed down to pick up our bibs.  Since we had registered minutes apart and they were organized by bib number, we were all in the same line, yay! Bibs were colored by the princess we had chosen during signup and all labeled with our Princess names.  Pretty sweet!  We were also pretty excited to see were were in Corral D, not F (the last one) like we had assumed, so we would be leaving 15 minutes earlier than we thought.  We walked across the marker that activated our race chip and head over to pick up our swag bags.  The bags were awesome lime green drawstring mesh backpacks and the race shirts were adorable!

After we picked up our shirts, we searched for water to begin the pre-race hydration process...only to find that in addition to bottles of water and Powerade, the Expo was kind enough to have FROSTY MILLER LITE BEER FOR $3 a pint!!!!!  YES PLEASE DISNEY!?!  We drank our 1030am beers as we wandered the expo and felt as gleeful as frat boys in Vegas!  We checked out the medals, the merchandise, and entered draws and grabbed freebees like pace bracelets and fridge magnets before heading back out into the sunshine.

We spent the afternoon relaxing- tanning and hanging out at the awesome pool at our condo, resting up before the big race while drinking plenty of water.  The weather throughout the trip was unseasonably warm, so we were treated to glorious blue skies with fluffy clouds and perfect 30C temperatures.

For dinner, we headed out early to the Cheesecake Factory, confident their giant portions would carb load us up before our race.  Naturally, it did not disappoint, in fact, the servings were so huge we ended up bringing home most of what we had ordered (even though it was all delicious) and we all took our cheesecakes (2 red velvets, a chocolate mousse and a peanut butter cup, mmmmm!) to go.

We were home around 830, spent a bit of time getting ourselves all organized, and it was lights out around 9pm for the Princesses....I think we had 4 alarms set for our 3am wakeup...

WE DID IT!!!

Thank you to all our friends and family for following and supporting us through this journey. We're too busy hanging out with Mickey and Minnie right now to update the blog but here are a few photos of the race. More to come when we're back home!

"Journey to a New World"

It wasn't as easy as we originally planned but overall, we think it worked out better than planned! It all started on Thursday afternoon when we noticed there were 11 seats left on the Red Eye and we were counting 9, 10 & 11. Quick action... change to 6:15pm which meant Crystal leaving work early to go home and pack, Felicity staying at work (thanks to her great thinking and bringing her suitcase) and Christi picking up Crystal once she was done packing to race for the 4:30 bus to get to the airport.

A few hiccups, Felicity forgetting her WJ pass on the bus (quick run to grab it from the bus driver before he drove away) and wearing her big down coat to the airport (quick fix with a drop at airside arrivals). Went for a quick bite and a couple of drinks at Milestone's then to the boarding lounge.



This is proper hydration before a race, right?

 We head through security with barely a hiccup, and headed down to our gate, hoping we wouldn't have any seat issues. After waiting for what seemed like an eternity, we received our boarding passes....hurray!

 
We board the stuffed plane and are seated like ducklings all in a row...24, 25 and 26B.  We have a lengthy delay, our TVs don't work, and Christi gets her ear talked off by Chatty Charlie until she fakes sleeping, but we're in seats and on our way to Toronto!  Now, with the last minute change to our flight, we were looking at a 10 hour layover in YYZ and all our calls to nearby hotels were coming back with regretful no vacancies, so we were getting worried...a princess doesn't sleep on cold marble airport floors if they can help it.

Luckily, Crystal is well connected and she called a friend who not only offered us a place to stay, but also picked us up and booked us a fancy town car back to the airport in the morning. We didn't get much time there, but we all gave the Casa St Clair full marks on Trip Advisor!

Our dashing footman picked us up promptly and we were whisked to the airport in sweet comfy leather. Our driver pulled some impressive and questionable manouvers, including uturns, triple lane changes, and edging through 4 lanes of traffic to make left turns and all with a smile and a dapper black hat. He gets us there so fast, we have time for breakfast pizzas at Wolfgang Puck Express before heading through another completely painless security check AND customs check. YAY!

Airport woes..

Well the countdown is almost over and the real thing is almost here. Just a couple of last minute ‘minor’ things like.. well, booking flights, paying for flights, etc. Seems simple enough... Call the Call Centre, and book the flights.. check! Catch the 11:30 shuttle to go to the airport to pay for said tickets.. uh.. well .. here’s how THAT went.

Princesses Crystal and Felic came to my desk with 8 minutes to spare. We then jumped on the shuttle and we were starting the journey.. so to speak. We got to the airport and the Disney magic seemed to start as there was no line. After asking a wonderful WJ ambassador to take our photo we were quickly ushered to Eric who was more than happy to hear our story .. the whole story. Another photo op of the three of us and our separate payment methods… ooooh this is were it got more than a little sticky.

Eric was efficient in our first payment, then mayhem. The quote for the day is now.. “How many CSA’s does it take to check three princesses in on one PNR?” The answer.. 4, almost 5 but the fifth was dealing with the line up that started after we started our payment process. Luckily, number 4 Jeremy was able to sort us out and we were on our way to get lunch at Chachi’s!

We ordered quick and Felic suggested we head down as it was getting close to pick up time. Uh.. yeah.. we watched the bus go by as we hit the bottom of the escalator. Crystal with her lightening speed called the driver and we asked him to wait. With Felic running down the escalator at this point and the bus waiting for us at Tim’s, we sprinted down the concourse and hopped on the bus with apologetic faces. Our only worry now is how tired we were after our 200m sprint .. our next run will be 20.8km longer!! It's just gotta get easier from here!!

1 MORE SLEEP!!!!

Well it has come to the final hour. We leave tomorrow night! One more sleep at home in our beds (if we even can with constant nausea from the excitement) and we are off on the Red Eye tomorrow night!

Today has been especially hard to stay focused as the day began with us trying on our new shirts to wear on the plane (See blog post previous to this one), booking our standby flights and receiving the most amazing surprise from our Ops Support Team!! They gave us each a care package filled with running themed goodies!!!! It was so thoughtful and really made our day!

Best surprise ever!

Not sure which camera to look at!

OMG PRESENTS!!!

Very happy Princesses

Best 'fit for a Princess' care packages ever!!