I imagine this probably isn’t a huge deal and it happens at a lot of nice hotels…but I don’t get out much. I liked it.

(Sunday Paper, Year VIII, Issue 30)

I’ve been having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that July is just absolutely zipping by.

So it’s not the worst thing in the world that I keep re-visiting our vacation, which is now almost a full month ago.

Last week I gave you a recap of our day and a half at Universal Studios.

This week, some thoughts and pictures from our four days at Walt Disney World.

As it turns out, I didn’t take a ton of pictures in Disney World. I’ll share a couple here…and I don’t think I’ll go blow-by-blow through each ride and activity the way I did with Universal last week.

But I will run through some highlights.

And I can’t stress this enough: I think the best part of this trip was that we didn’t plan everything out by the minute. Most of our days at Disney World were dictated by the dance schedule - we had to be at the Magic Kingdom on Thursday and Epcot on Friday….and then we wanted to spend a full day as a family back at the Magic Kingdom on Saturday, so we had those parameters.

And I understand there is a time and a place (Disney World being the place, I suppose) for a detailed itinerary.

But for our purposes and this trip it was low-pressure and it worked out pretty well.

Again, disclaimer: If you’re looking for intense details about Disney World, there are people who make it their job to do that. This is not that. OK. Onward.

Magic Kingdom

One of the nice things about Disney World is that it brought back a ton of memories of when I was there when I was a kid. That’s a good thing and a bad thing, because the nostalgia is great, but it means some things haven’t changed in 30-plus years. So in that sense Universal has an edge on Disney when it comes to more modern conveniences - some things as simple as just having shadier waits for rides. Some of the rides themselves, too, are kind of feeling their age. (There were quite a few ride issues during the time we were there - either stopping mid-ride or causing longer waits because of some issue or another.)

But the castle and the characters and the train around the park and the general Disney feel were all great memories that came flooding back once we were in the park.

Not only did we ride the Winnie-the-Pooh ride, but he walked right past me and I was able to take this picture of us without even having to push any kids out of the way.

We did a lot of the rides I remembered from when I was young: Thunder Mountain, Small World, Peter Pan, Pirates of the Caribbean, Jungle Cruise. There were some new ones - There’s a Buzz Lightyear ride in Tomorrow Land that is supposed to be good but did not work when we were on it. They offered us another ride and I negotiated a free Lightning Lane which allowed us to speed through the Thunder Mountain line. That might have been the highlight of my vacation, negotiating that Lightning Lane. (I am not sure I fully understand Lightning Lane. I considered getting it for the family for our second Magic Kingdom day but as it turned out we didn’t really need it.) Winnie-the-Pooh was also a fun little ride - I don’t remember doing that one when I may have been a little more age-appropriate for it. Oh! We also did Space Mountain, which I definitely chickened out of when I was a kid. It wasn’t too bad.

Epcot Center

We spent Friday at Epcot because there was a dance showcase right in the middle of the afternoon. We went to Soarin’ first - a little nerve-wracking for those of us who are a little afraid of heights. We did this with friends of my daughter and they explained to me how to use the app reserve the popular rides that only had virtual queues. The queues open at 7am and 1pm. Since we missed the 7am window, I thought I’d check the 1pm window for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.

We went to the Ratatouille ride (Great ride! Clever and fun) and had some lunch in France before the dance showcase. I got in the Guardians of the Galaxy queue with something like a 5-6 hour wait…which was going to coincide with our character dinner.

…and it turns out at Hollywood Studios they had the Rescue Rangers versions of Chip and Dale. I was able to take a picture of them (not pictured), but not with them.

The character dinner was awesome. I took pictures with Chip N’ Dale and cropped my kids out of them. (We also saw Mickey and Pluto and they visited the table and I impressed my kids with my interactions with characters that don’t talk.) The food was very good and I was only slightly worried I would throw it all up on the Guardians of the Galaxy ride.

We probably waited 45 minutes in line after getting to the ride. This was definitely the fastest ride we were on at Disney. A little more intense than I was expecting but it was a cool story built up through the various areas of the ride and I didn’t throw up. So win-win.

Hollywood Studios

I went to Disney twice when I was a kid. I think the second time we went they had just opened MGM Studios, which is now Hollywood Studios. We did not go to MGM. I’m glad we worked it in this time - it was a nice way to spend our last day there.

There were some nice rides - we’re more of a Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad (fun ride!) family than a Tower of Terror one. I’m sure there are people who would enjoy the Star Wars stuff more than us. We just walked through and got a feel for it. We checked out a couple of air conditioned places like the Frozen Sing-Along, which was cute, and the Muppets 4-D experience.

Of course, the highlight of the day was in the Toy Story area…Toy Story Mania! Do not even hesitate if you’re thinking about checking that ride out. You will not regret it.

What I’ve Been Enjoying

Friday’s Immaculate Grid. I did get 9/9 on this one…a rare feat recently.

Have you heard about Immaculate Grid? I’m a little late to writing about this since I’ve been enjoying it for a few weeks by now, but it is something I look forward to every day and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it.

It’s a 3x3 grid with categories (mostly teams, but sometimes awards or accomplishments) around the outside, and you have to populate the grid with players who fit. You only get 9 guesses, so you have to be perfect. On top of that, there’s a rarity score, which is the total of the percentages of people who have picked the same player as you. So you hope to have a low rarity score and a 9/9. I love it and I am not always as good at it as I want to be, but it is a game highlight for me (after Wordle and the crossword and the Spelling Bee) each day.

Notes

*Worth noting: On Friday they announced that starting next Wednesday the grid (which had come out at midnight every day) would not be available until 9am. So that will change the structure of my mornings a bit…but it also might allow me to be a little more awake for the grid, which right now I mostly do before I have my coffee.

*A couple of family things all happened on Saturday and that meant I couldn’t do my long run on Saturday morning, as is my preference. It leaves me a little unsettled when I can’t do that on schedule, if I’m being honest. So after things settled down and everyone was home from work at around 5pm I drove into Brighton and ran my 14 miles along the Esplanade. I did OK…but I did not fuel correctly and paid the price later on.

*A reminder that I’m running the Chicago Marathon in October with Team RMHC to benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities, and you can support the cause and help me reach my fundraising goal at this link. Thank you!

*The timing of my run meant that I hit Kenmore Square just as first pitch was being thrown in the Mets-Red Sox game. (I was listening as I ran, which was a nice thing to have in my ears for the run…until the Mets fell apart, as they are wont to do.) So that was a cool little thing. Unfortunately the Mets continue their pattern of playing terribly just when I start getting excited about them.

*I ran in Boston Saturday night but very slowly we’re logging those Framingham streets with the weekday runs. There are a lot of them! It’s a fun little project and helps focus my mind while I’m running on something other than me running. I’ll post an updated map soon, and of course you can probably get a glimpse sooner at the Instagram link below.

*All of the social media links are below. If you already follow along, thank you. If you are interested, well, I’d love to have you.