We slept in pretty late and then went over to pick up the bus to Disney's Wide World of Sports for the Marathon Expo. The bus ride took a while as there was a huge mass of cars all trying to get into the parking lots for the expo. Once let off the bus, we walked in the somewhat-heavy rain to the entrance. The half-marathon was run this morning and we felt pretty bad for those that ran in the cold and rain (and some hail during the start of the race!). We purposefully picked Disney for two reasons - (1) lots to look at during the race, and (2) good, warm weather. So much for (2).
Anyway, we made our way in and picked up your bibs and timing chips. From there, it was off to the expo, which was very crowded, to the point of not being able to walk around. Cin bought some running socks. We both wanted to get the marathon jacket they had but the only sizes they had were XXL. This seemed like some really poor planning, which is very unusual for Disney. After we got home from this trip, Cin spoke to a rep from Disney and they said that the very cold weather is the reason they sold many more jackets than ever before and that was the reason they were all out of the normal sizes. I can understand that, but it still sucks as we really wanted these as they looked really cool and it was our first marathon. Pretty annoying and frustrating. Anyway, we ended up purchasing Marathon pint glasses and sweatshirts, which are nice but no where near as nice as the jackets. Oh well...they are still nice.
After we were done, we got back on the bus back to our room and then spent some time traveling to the other hotels on the monorail service, including the Contemporary (webpage is here and TripAdvisor page is here) and the Polynesian (webpage is here and TripAdvisor page is here). Both were really cool and the Contemporary is the one where the monorail comes right into the building (this is even part of the logo for the hotel). Being a monorail geek, I found this awesome. We also discovered that the Contemporary has a much better quick-service food joint than the Grand Floridian. We did some shopping and ended up back at our hotel for a little relaxing before dinner.
Dinner was at the Yachtsman Steakhouse (webpage is here and TripAdvisor page is here) at the Yacht Club hotel. This is connected to the Beach Club hotel, where we stayed during the last trip down to Disney World. I had beef short ribs and Cin had a salad and order of macaroni and cheese. She wasn't in the mood for a steakhouse so we could have planned this better. We had tried to switch to somewhere else but everything was filled up. The food was really good but not what she was in the mood for, so this would have been better on another night. A would-be-plus is that they had Sam Adams Cherry Wheat on draft (never seen this really good beer on draft before!). The downside is that they were out when we were there. Bummer! The beef short ribs, however, were excellent.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep nice and early. Our first marathon and a 2.50am wake-up awaits!
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