Hey! There's Something on your Window! - WDW Marathon Weekend 2020 Volunteering Report

We decided last year, after Wine & Dine (although, we never actually volunteered), that we didn't want to work at the Expo any more. It's too hectic and stressful, and hard on my knees. Instead, since now we have more latitude at work and at home (the Kiddo is self-sufficient now), we opted to work at the smaller race, and was able to leave home on Thursday, instead of hauling ass to Disney Friday morning.

So, with that being said, we packed up the car, packed up all the IKEA ALGOT system pieces that I need to return (after a maddening week of trying to install it), and left home around 12:30. We packed the IKEA stuff last, because we planned on going to the Expo to pick up our race credentials, and then taking everything to IKEA to return it (rather than having to deal with it being in the trunk all weekend).

We stopped at McDonald's on our way to the interstate, and (shocker!), our order was wrong. When I went inside to have it fixed, I will give credit to the Manager who bent over backwards to get it right, and the Cashier, who put in the correct order then slyly asked me, "What else you want?" So I got a caramel sundae!

And... even with all of that... our order was wrong again! She rang up two orders of chicken McNuggets, instead of fries. Hubby was okay with that, so we didn't go back inside again.

While we were eating, Hubby suggested going to IKEA first, and then the Expo. I wondered if we could get there without going on I-4? Hubby pulled up Google Maps on my phone, and I kept telling him to simply screenshot the directions, but Hubby being Hubby refused to do that. He couldn't figure out why Google Maps wouldn't bring up Offline Mode. He tried to connect the phone via Bluetooth to the Garmin Nuvi. He downloaded the Garmin app (which I already knew wouldn't be what he wanted, but when he gets like this, he doesn't listen to rationality). The whole time he's doing this, I'm eating my lunch. Finally, I'm frustrated with him trying to do things that won't work (and that I know won't work), and not listening to my simple suggestion of just screenshotting the damn directions - which I'd told him to do 30 minutes ago, at this point - so I just grabbed my phone out of his hands and got on the road.

Good Lord, this is all I wanted him to do!!

We drove in silence until around exit 329, where I pulled off the Interstate to look at Google Maps again. Oh, and I took some damn screenshots this time. I headed towards Leesburg and The Village, and I asked Hubby again if he thought that we'd have enough time to get to IKEA, do what we needed to do, and get back to the Expo before it closed? After some chitchat, he didn't realize that we had to go to the damn Expo to get our credentials, even though we weren't working the Expo... JFC.

So, +1 to the Uternometer, we headed back to the turnpike, went to the Expo, got our creds, and left. I still wanted to avoid I-4, especially since it was getting to be the end of the day, so we took Osceola Parkway to International Drive roundabout to Conroy Road, coming at the area from the other side of I-4. It was easy, it was much more calming, and dare I say, quicker than going on I-4? We'll do this again!

We returned all of the ALGOT stuff and headed back the way we came, headed towards the Wawa on 192, where we picked up dinner (he got ice cream), and checked in to our hotel at Orbit One vacation villas. It was a nice corner unit, in the back, on the ground floor. We unloaded the car and sat down to eat dinner and watch the Greatest of All Time Jeopardy! game (with James, Ken, and Brad). Afterwards, we unpacked and settled in. The WiFi wasn't working, and he refused to call (he hates talking to people on the phone, or in general really, and I'm not a huge fan either, but sometimes it feels like he's forcing me to do it because he's just lazy...), so we had a no WiFi night. I read a book and played some solitaire before going to bed by 11.


On Friday, the alarm woke me at 3am, and we were out the door by 3:45. Today we were signed up to be Screaming Fans for the 10k race. After picking up our typical race breakfast from Wawa (soda and Lil Debbies), we headed to Epcot and met up with Kathy, our Team Leader. While there, three other Team Leaders recognized us and said hi, which made me happy, because it means that we made a good impression on them when we last worked with them. At 5am, we headed out to our spot, just past the Guardians of the Galaxy tunnel, behind the Play Pavilion.

Close to the Finish Line (just before Mile 6)

Unfortunately, since this was both backstage and a construction zone, photos were not allowed, so I have no photos from the entire race. Also, it's hard to tell from this photo, but the entire sidewalk we were on was lined with cement K-rails (you can kind of see them in the photo above, just over the purple jacket. This, of course, was so that Cast Members could walk to work safely, but it kept us a little bit away from racers and made giving High Fives a little harder to give (we still did though!)

We were done by 8:15am, checked out and back to the hotel before 9am. Once there, it was time for a swim in the absolutely HUMONGOUS bathtub.

You can see the tub in the mirror               Photo: TripAdvisor

You can just barely see my legs in the tub, nowhere near the edge of the tub

The downside of this horribly huge bathtub? The room's water heater wasn't big enough to handle the capacity of the tub, so the water was cold by the time the water was about 3/4 of the way full. Which for me, is a total bummer, because I love a hot, hot, bath, and I love to either keep the hot water trickling so it stays hot, or to let the water drain a bit and refill with more hot water halfway through the soak. Either way, I couldn't do that here. But, since this tub was big enough for two, I invited Hubby to join me, which he did (wink wink), and the temperature was good for him (he's a wussy). Afterwards, we relaxed in bed (with WiFi that was working).

For lunch, we headed to Miller's Ale House on 192, mostly because of some random #DisTwitter people we follow on Twitter. He got either chicken fingers or a burger (I can't remember), and I stuffed myself silly with the 35 Shrimp plate. And, because we make amazingly fun bad decisions on vacation, we also gorged ourselves on their Treasure Chest Cake (a triple-layered vanilla ice cream cake with an Oreo crust, toffee crumbles, caramel AND hot fudge sauce.

It's massive

After a quick trip to CVS for a few items, we headed back and napped off the massive amount of food we ate. Later, we had McDonald's and Chick-fil-A for dinner, then hit the sack.

Chicken Nuggets in a Bowl... because I can

On Saturday, we slept "late," and headed to ESPN with our breakfast.

Our position today was Buses, which I love (for 1/2 marathons only... it's too long of a shift for the Full Marathon).  After a transportation snafu (the bus taking us to our position actually got lost and delivered us to the wrong location), we met up with Jan, our Team Leader for the day, and a TL we've enjoyed working with with a few times now. As we've done before, Hubby was Bus #8 (Caribbean Beach & Riviera Resort), and I was Bus #9 (Yacht & Beach Club, Swan & Dolphin, and Boardwalk).

It's so warm today, my camera lens is fogged up!

Weather today was warm and drizzly, and soon, everything was sweaty and damp. Jessica was the first WDW Transportation employee I met, and she was very... functional? Like, she got shit done the way it should be done. I asked her if she had a way she wanted this done, and she never gave me any direction, so I was just kind of going with the flow. For the beginning, that was fine, since it wasn't busy.

Not too busy yet...

Later, a second employee - Shirley - came to assist as well. Then, once it started getting busy, a third employee came by. She didn't have a name, so I gotta call her Laverne... (please tell me someone gets it...). 

At one point, for about an hour, it was so busy we had three lines going. What we'd do was count out 50 people (capacity of a bus), and either Laverne or Shirley would stand at the end of the line, while we counted out the next 50 people, and the other employee would stand at the end of that line. All the while, I would stand at the very end of the line, making sure people came and stood in my line, to avoid any line jumping.  

If Hubby's line was this long, imagine how long mine was!

This is my favorite volunteer position, I love being busy. And it gives me a chance to congratulate runners, I like talking to people, and for the most part, there wasn't anyone who was grumpy about having to wait (the longest wait was about 15 minutes, but if you just did a half-marathon, 15 minutes could be hell). I joked to many people that if they didn't stay in line, or some other silly order, I'd hit them with my stick... one guy (who was run-delirious and slightly drunk, I think) let me hit him. It was a lovely day.  


On the way back to the hotel, we passed the condemned Shoney's on US192, and once back in bed, I wondered if there were any Shoney's still in operation, and oh shit - there is a Shoney's like 5 miles away!!! Yeah, we gotta go...

I, of course (!), got the Brunch Buffet, while Hubby got chicken fingers. 

French Toast Sticks and an assload of amazing bacon... yes, I am 12

Afterward, I realized that we were close to the Disney Character Outlet, so I thought we'd take advantage of that while we were over here, but after searching for a parking spot for 20 minutes, we said fuck it and headed over to Animal Kingdom so I could take a bunch of photos.

This bird was just chillin' in the parking lot

This is my new favorite hiding spot - there's a bench in there!

With a wait under an hour, we hopped on Everest.

No camera body deserves to be old and dusty...

No Dramamine means I need some Ginger Ale

After Everest, I wanted to walk around the Maharaja Jungle Trek... but it was closed. So we went over to Gorilla Falls... which was also closed. So we did Flight of Passage and then rode Everest one more time, in the dark. (It needs some sort of lighting inside, it was maybe a little too dark.)

We picked up Arby's for dinner then slept HARD the rest of the night. 

On Sunday, we had to be up stupid early - I'm talking Closing Time at a Bar early. I felt like crap, but we were up and out by 3, and as we left, we noticed that there was a huge puddle of water in the middle of the hotel parking lot... odd. 

We checked in at ESPN again, for our shift as Course Monitors at the Magic Kingdom (a new task for us). From there, we were bused over to Magic Kingdom, dropped off practically at the front door, and we walked into a completely empty, yet fully illuminated, Main Street U.S.A. 

Good morning, Beautiful!

And what is the first thing we do when we get to a completely empty, yet fully illuminated, Main Street U.S.A? We take photos, of course!!!

Yes, I'm as sleepy as I look

While we were all standing around, I heard one volunteer announce to anyone who would listen to her (over and over and over and over) that she wanted to be by the castle, it was the best place, no one better take her spot at the castle, blah blah blah. 

So I meandered over to Paul and Harold, the two Team Leaders (we've worked with Paul before) and mentioned that if we could choose a preference, we'd like to be at the Castle. No pressure, just sayin'. 

We were assigned to be Course Monitors at the Castle. She was NOT happy... Sorry sis!

Anyway, once we were assigned our spot (the Liberty Square side ramp), Paul and Harold continued on, assigning others their spots throughout the park, and we were left alone, able to eat our Wawa breakfast, potty, and of course, wander around some more!! Oh what I wouldn't give for a tripod and my DSLR!

I literally laid down on the ground to take this photo... WORTH IT!!!

Our task, as Course Monitor, was to ensure that runners stayed on the course, watched their step (as it was a sharp turn), and went the right way. After a quick potty, we took up our positions as the race soon began.

Our post... It's weird to see vehicles like this inside the MK!

At first, it was fine. The fast runners were on point, they weren't confused at all about the course. But soon, PhotoPass people (seen in the above photo, in green), set up for the infamous Castle Shot. 

My Castle Shot from 2013

So, now, people running out of the castle don't know which way they're supposed to go, because they see people going to their left (for castle photos) and going to their right (the actual course). And to make it worse, there wasn't a good 'break' in the cones for it to be a smooth transition (there were no Exits and Entrances, so to speak). As it got busier and busier, it became a bigger and bigger clusterfuck, and I truly was waiting for two runners to collide and really hurt themselves. You can see in the photo below how runners are going in and out the same little area... Bad, bad, planning on the part of PhotoPass!!! 

You can see that people are going IN and running OUT of the same break in the cones

Over the course (haha) of a few hours, Hubby and I repeatley looked at each other, and afterwards decided... yeah, we don't like this spot! It's terrible (especially with teh PhotoPass snafu), and worse, all the family members behind us... Yeah, I get it, you want to cheer for your family, but there was this one group of women who were there to cheer on a large quantity of runners, so I got a screaming Woo-Hoo Girl in my ear for 4 hours. 

The cheering fans behind us at the Hub

Once the Balloon Ladies came through, and we cheered on the final ass-kicking Back of the Pack runners, it was time to pack it in, bus back to ESPN, and head back to the hotel.

Balloon Ladies and Bike Riders

On the way back to the hotel, we pit-stopped at McDonald's for some actual food, and as we drove through the hotel parking lot, we saw that not only was there still the huge amount of water, but it looked like it was coming from inside one of the villas? Surely I didn't see that. 

We ate breakfast in bed, then I wandered in to take a bath... but there was no water. Oh, duh... they were probably fixing the lake issue (sure would have been nice to have been notified though). So, after relaxing a little longer, the water was back on, so I took a longer bath, then crawled back in bed and took a nap until after 5! I got up and got dressed, but we ended up saying to hell with it, and I had some Redneck Charcuterie for dinner (which would be cubed cheese, Slim-Jims, and pretzels). I got some packing done so we wouldn't be so pressed for time in the morning, and then went back to sleep. 

Monday was our Final Day, and the day we thought would be the best to get a boarding pass for Rise of the Resistance. My body, however, wanted to have none of it, and I didn't even roll out of bed until 6:30 or so. Hubby snarkily said to me "if you didn't wanna do Rise, I could've slept in..." whine, whine, whine. Dude, shut up! I do want to ride it, but my body isn't happy with me right now!!

Follow WDWNT on Twitter... Seriously!

We packed and checked out of the hotel, heading over to DHS anyway, on the off-chance that there would be back-up boarding groups still available when we got there. There were, and we got BUBG #145... oof. That's like getting a 10pm FastPass when you got to the park at 8am. I don't think it's gonna happen this time around.

The "You probably won't get on the ride" Important Update

We hung out in the park a while, enjoying the day. We rode Slinky Dog Dash with only a 45 minute wait. 

Ooooh, artsy

Then we rode Toy Story Midway Mania, after a 60 minute wait. And... YOU GUYS... I won!! I beat Mr. Video Game himself, the man I married, who has played video games for decades! I beat him! And finally, after so many years of getting beavers... I finally got a pussy!

I was so excited, I couldn't even get a good shot!

We utilized Mobile Order for the first time at ABC Commissary, getting chicken nuggs and shrimps, of course, and then to round out the afternoon (and let the food settle), I took Christmas photos around Echo Lake.

After that, we decided to hop on the Skyliner and go check out the new Disney Riviera Resort (Disney's first Moderate DVC property). It's pretty, but damn, it's boring.

We returned to DHS, got in the car, and finally, headed over to IKEA to pick up my new shelving. About halfway there, some random lady flagged us down while we were drivng, telling us that there was something on our back window. We pulled over into a gas station, and holy shit... it was my fucking WALLET! I must have pulled it out of  my pocket at DHS when I was emptying my pockets and forgotten to put it back...

REENACTMENT - Poor little guy kept up for a good quarter-mile or so...

I picked up a slice of pizza at the Race-Trac, since we were there, and ate it as we finished our trip to IKEA.

First task was to help Hubby plan his own desk. He's had it in his mind that he needs to buy a pre-fab desk, and of course, nothing he's been looking at is what he wants (he's a very particular person, which can oftentimes be maddening). After taking him by the hand and showing him all the things I'm planning on doing with my desk, it finally got through to him that he could build whatever kind of damn desk he wanted! For the time being, we purchased two ALEX add-ons for hubby to use as a monitor risers, and when he gets the new desktop, we'll secure them with corner brackets for stability.

Once that was done, we went over the shelving area, where... of course... they didn't have the shelf-brackets I wanted. I ended up with GRANHULT and EKBY VALTER brackets, and I'd see which ones I liked more once i got home (spoiler alert - I went with GRANHULT). I also purchased 4 BURGSHULT shelves, a few storage items and other various odds & ends.

With our shopping complete at around 4pm, we thought it best to head for home...

Until we got a Push Notification from Disney that our Boarding Pass for Rise of the Resistance was up!

Do it! Do it! Do it!

I looked at him... he looked at me... should we go?

Hell yeah, we should go!!

I told him that if we could be in and out in under an hour and a half, we should totally go. So, we drove back to DHS and headed over to Galaxy's Edge.

Oh. My.

I was not prepared for what was ahead of me.

Grand Avenue at 6:48pm

There were hordes of people gathered on Grand Avenue, before we even got to the tunnel. Surely these people are just standing around, right? Well, yeah... But, as we got through the tunnel and into GE, it was ALL LINE. It snaked around itself two or three times, with one very patient cast member holding up a Line Starts Here sign. 

After the first switch-back at 6:54pm

At one point, they had non-costumed cast members out, keeping the line moving.

Keep moving, keep moving!

We'd get near the end, and then we'd snake back to the tunnel again. I think we did this twice.

Heading back into Galaxy's Edge again

Aaaaand back, almost out to Grand Avenue at 7pm

After about a half hour, we made it to the "official" start of the line, where Cast Members were checking MagicBands for Boarding Passes. Once past that checkpoint, we were serpentined again, until we got to the actual outdoor queue.

Getting our Boarding Pass checked at 7:10pm

We were in the actual queue at around 7:45, already an hour after we got to the park.

Amost into the "real" queue at 7:33pm

I can never pass up a waterfall photo!

We've made it inside, about 8:10pm

I love the girl in the back flashing the Peace Sign at me

For the most part the line was moving well, until around 8:15, when the line stopped moving at probably the tightest part of the entire queue. I wonder what's up? I hope it didn't break down!

A lot of folks behind us already sitting at 8:20pm

20 minutes into the stoppage, Cast Members began to bring out (themed) bottles of Dasani.

Hey, this is six bucks outside!

Shit... the ride has definitely stopped.

Then... they bring out bananas and popcorn at 9pm.

Oh, man... I've not had some good Disney popcorn in a while!

By the time they brought out the popcorn, I said Fuck It and plopped my ass on the ground. As I shoveled food in my face, I heard a commotion coming from behind us in line, and soon, thanks to everyone playing The Telephone Game, we heard that they were bringing Chewbacca out for photos, and the download or print would be free for anyone who didn't already have that option with their tickets. That's pretty cool!

This actually came out really well!

But finally, FINALLY, at 9:30, they got the ride back up and running, and we were able to ride!

Learning about our mission

The Money Shot of this ride... it is as breathtaking as you think it will be

The Cast Members (especially Sebastian) were spot-on, which added a lot to the ride experience. Would I ride it again? Oh, yeah! Would I wait this long to ride it again? Yeah (as long as it wasn't a shutdown where I got stuck in a cave).

We were back out of the ride by 9:45 or so and we didn't get home until almost midnight... and I had to go to work today! I'm so fucking tired!!!

 Hi, folks! Lazy here... Coming back and editing some of my posts from this year...

On December 31, 2019, China officially alerted the World Health Org (WHO) about pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. The "Wet Market" it came from (supposedly) was closed the next day. This "mystery" disease will eventually be known as Covid-19, or Coronavirus, or China Virus, or WuFlu, or Hong Kong Flooey. Take your pick. It fucked up all of 2020. In a study conducted by a group of China's top scientists, dated February 21st, it was concluded that Covid-19 was detected on December 8th, 2019 - possibly even earlier - and spread to the whole city in December. 

On January 6th, 2020, the CDC offered assistance to China, who did not accept assistance for several weeks, delaying US access to the virus. Three days later, the first death in China was reported.

On January 14 the WHO tweeted that there was no Human to Human Transmission of this virus, according to the Chinese; this information was changed a week later.