40 yEARS: Expedition Everest Challenge

Our third day of Honey’s surprise birthday trip started off with a few hours in Hollywood Studios!

 

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We headed straight for fast passes to the Great Movie Ride, Tower of Terror and Rockin Rollercoaster.

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I had a few questions about my top on instagram… I found it on the last Disney cruise. The shorts were a FAB Lilly for Target snag, the bracelets are Alex + Ani for Disney, and I painted the TOMS.

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We were beyond excited to finally have a luxurious wine lunch on the patio at The Hollywood Brown Derby!! The bar tender out here is usually running a list but we walked up first in line for the next available table on a Saturday at lunch time in May. Not too bad! I had the delish cobb salad and Honey carb loaded for our race. At least that’s what he used as his excuse :-)

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For dessert we shared our very favorite carrot cake cookie at the Writer’s Stop. I will be forever grateful to Disneyfied Ash for bringing these into my life.

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After piddling around the Kilimanjaro club, reading on our balcony and a nap for yours truly (gasp!), we had dinner at Sanaa – another favorite! We were pretty full from lunch still so we traded in our dinner ressie for seats at the bar and just did the full bread service. Oh my, it was DELISH!

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I treated Honey to this year’s RunDisney New Balance shoes and we donned our Raw Threads yeti shirts for the race!! Disney Mint made the the darling yeti bow.

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We caught the last race bus over to Animal Kingdom at 9PM. After a few pics, team FORTY yEARS was off to the corral!!!!!! As usual, the race entertainment / dance party was super fun. I may or may not have embarrassed Honey with my smooth moves.

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Expedition Everest Challenge is in it’s final year. Booooo!!! This night time race started at 10PM and includes a 5k with obstacles, scavenger hunt, and after party in the park until 2:30AM.

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We hit the first obstacle about .7 miles in. Hay bales…

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… we stopped for a pic with Chip & Dale just inside the park entrance mostly because they are the baby’s favorite

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…and then we met Timon just because we never have.

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The next two obstacles were in the back lot of the park – crawling under a net and running through tires.

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We finished the 5k in under 40 minutes, which was great considering our photo stops and bathroom breaks. At this point we got our first of five clues and were off on the scavenger hunt!

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The hunt led us all the way back through the park, and when we crossed the finish line we’d added at least another 2 miles to our tally! It was SO.MUCH.FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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At the after party, we headed straight to Expedition Everest. I cannot say how much fun it was to ride at night … and on a full moon too. I swear it went faster and was way better than usual :-)

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We ate a 1AM meal in DinoLand, grabbed a few beers and enjoyed the sights and scenes of Animal Kingdom at night. It was a magical and FUN evening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really hope they bring this race back after all the park construction is complete.
xoxo

Everything Disney  |  RunDisney

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8 thoughts on “40 yEARS: Expedition Everest Challenge

  1. Wow! I had no idea there was such a race. It looks really fun. That would be more of my kind of race (not that I've ever done a 5K). I think a straight run would be kinda boring. This looks like it was just an adult game that happened to include a race. Fun!

  2. Oh my!!! If I had known this even existed Rick and I would of put off our trip for a few months!!! It sounded like so much fun, and I'm not even a runner! Haha!!! So excited for your awesome trip and so envious of you hitting all our favs!! ??

  3. The Brown Derby…just divine! My husband and I met while both working at the derby in high school. He can still make the cobb salad to perfection :) Loved reading your post!

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