Special VIP
I woke up this morning around 4AM. I played on my phone for a while as my husband was still sleeping. I did get dressed a little after 6AM. For some reason, a little before 6:30AM, I decided to see what the line looked like for the VIP Experience Early Expo Entrance and discovered there were already 5 people in line! I went back upstairs to get my husband and we settled in to pass the next hour until the 7:30AM opening time. As we were playing on our laptops/phones in the room, sitting on the floor playing on our phones wasn’t going to be a huge difference.
Once the line got about 10 people deep, they started coming around to check us in with our IDs and giving us our VIP wristbands. We would have to keep these on all weekend in order to have access to early shopping, the Chewbacca photo, New Balance shoes, the Lounge and the party.
Betsy soon arrived as well and claimed her spot in line with her purse and then came over to where we were sitting to talk to pass the time. She was mad we finally beat her to the Expo as the previous two years she had beat us! Our other friend, Jan, was with her killing time until her Goofy’s Kitchen reservation. It was nice passing time talking to friends outside of just playing on our phones. Right before 7:30AM, we all stood up and got our instructions from RunDisney officials. There were probably about 30 people in line at this point (not too bad) After we were done with Official Race Merchandise, if we wanted to visit New Balance, we had to go through a certain set of doors only and couldn’t go thru the rest of the expo as it wouldn’t be open until the official 10AM time.
When 7:30AM hit and we weren’t immediately let in the official merchandise, I think some people were about to freak but a couple moments later they let us in and to spend all the money….
My husband and I split up so we could pick out the items we liked. My husband was disappointed in the jackets available for men and was jealous I got a nice selection for females this year (ha!) We both picked out a couple shirts and I got a jacket, the Dooney & Bourke Wristlet, a single Sweaty Band, and the metal pins. I was really glad my mother had given us a $400 Disney Gift Card for Christmas as we spent that + $125 upon checkout.
On our way to the New Balance Booth, we noticed Chewbacca had zero line...we took our photos separately. He was really enthralled with my watch as he thought it was a communicator. He did not like my husband’s Boba Fett shirt one bit!
After our furry hugs, we went to New Balance to drop more money like it was going out of style. We knew that going in though as we wanted ALL THE SHOES!!! My husband and I bought one of each of the styles for the respective genders they were meant for. This meant I got Haunted Mansion and Mad Tea Party and he got Space Mountain and Toy Story Mania. I wanted Space Mountain as well but I couldn’t justify buying 3 pairs of shoes especially since I can’t run in the Vazee Paces as they aren’t supportive enough for me. I can run in the Mad Tea Parties at least! He also picked up a long sleeve pull over that had “Rebel Runner” on it since he had been unhappy with the jackets at the expo. Gone went another $655!
I looked at my watch and realized we still had 45 minutes until it was time for DVC/AP sign ups for Wine & Dine so I was ok with us going upstairs to pick up our bibs. We were given our bibs and shirts in a RunDisney bag along with a Light Side Button, our VIP credentials, our photopass benefit and they had a breakfast ready for us. We actually had to tell them to take our ‘coupon’ for claiming our shirts as if they didn’t take off our bib we could have gone back downstairs and claimed more shirts. Since this was a new thing, they might not have realized that. They hadn’t taken the tickets from the people that picked up before us so hopefully they didn’t double claim! Once we were all set, we grabbed some breakfast from the lounge and headed back to the room. I wanted to be ready for the Wine & Dine sign ups and we made it with about 15 minutes to spare!
After some nervousness with how slow RunDisney was to update the website from
Disneyland Half to Wine & Dine, it became live right at 9AM and I soon was done having my husband signed up for the Wine & Dine Challenge and myself signed up for the 10K!
It stung a bit to realize how much I spent in all of 90 minutes that morning…
I laid out all our goodies to see everything we got.
Betsy had messaged me and told me that after I had left the merchandise area they had brought out the Yoda Ornaments that weren’t out earlier. As she knew I wanted it, she picked up one and I could just pay her back later. I went downstairs to the lobby to grab that and talk to her and Jan a bit more before heading back to grab my husband for us to take a walk through the rest of the expo.
When we went through the rest of the expo, we were rather disappointed. We stopped by the RunDisney booth to pick up our lanyards and luggage tags that were included in our RunDisney package. We picked up my husband some Clif Gels from Fit2Run and said hello to our usual salesman from our Naples store who was going to see if he could still claim a bib at runner relations as he heard there might still be a couple. (As I saw him running during the half, I’m guessing he got one!) Outside of that, we felt it was a lot more empty than usual and nothing grabbed our eyes. We headed back to the room to change as it was raining outside and there was no way we were going to wear jeans outside in that weather! We had been able to avoid all the rain up until now since we were in the Fantasy Tower and never had to go outside until this point!
