Trip Report A Wine and Dine week at Disney!

We got back Friday from an amazing week's visit to Walt Disney World, and i've already got a major case of the post disney blues so i'm writing this trip report to try to cheer myself up (and share the disney love!) hopefully I can actually finish this one unlike my last!

My husband and I are from the UK and first went to Disney together in March 2013 for our honeymoon (we had both been multiple times as children), and then again in June 2014. This was our third trip in 3 years and we could only afford a week, but because we have taken up running to try to get some exercise we decided it would be awesome to run the Wine and Dine half marathon at Disney World and managed to snag a spot at the very competitive registration in March. We were really pleased, this would be our first ever half marathon - neither of us having really run at all before the beginning of this year - and of course it was an excuse to go back to Disney World!! If you have heard anything about the Wine and Dine half this year you'll already know that it didn't go exactly to plan, but i'll get to that bit eventually... first I need to share with you the beginning of our trip!

We flew out of London Gatwick on the 5th of November. Our flight was delayed by an hour and a half but due to the fact that I won a Virgin Atlantic twitter competition a few months ago we had been given a free upgrade to premium economy! Ahhh extra leg room! We splurged for premium on our honeymoon and it was great to be back! You do get a lot of extra room, more comfy seats, better food and more attentive service... however i'm still not sure it's worth the extra money, but it sure was nice to have it for free!

Premium Economy selfie! Woop!

We arrived into MCO at around 6:3ish so had made up a little time during the plane journey. We rented a car for this trip, Gid wanted a Mustang, but they have any left so we had a Camero instead which was equally as fun. The only problem was that it was a squeeze to fit our suitcases in - they had to go on the backseats, but as there were only 2 of us it didn't really matter!

This was taken later in the trip but here is our awesome car!

We drove ourself to our hotel for the next week - Disney's Wilderness Lodge!! We were originally staying at the All Stars but we saw a really good deal for the lodge on the disney site and decided to splurge and upgrade! I'm so glad we made that decision, we have never been to the resort before and it absolutely took my breath away! That lobby!! Just WOW! I could not stop staring at it for the whole trip - it was the first time where i've almost wanted to stay at the hotel rather than go to the parks at points... it was just that magical! If you've never been i'd definitely encourage you to go - even if just to visit! Words cannot describe this place, and my pictures do not do it justice, but i'll share a few anyway!

Take me bacckkk!!!

Anyway... being from the UK we have to collect our magic bands when we check in, but unfortunately despite the fact that the computers showed they had been delivered to the lodge they were nowhere to be found! We weren't overly upset, and the nice cast member was able to give us coloured ones anyway and gave us $15 dollars credit to buy some cool accessories for them! That's disney for you! Always above and beyond!

We spent the rest of the evening chilling and exploring the lodge. Our room was number 6004 - the very furthest at the end of the corridor and quite a walk from the lobby, but once we got there and opened up the doors to the balcony we were greeted by an amazing view! We could see Cinderella's castle through the tree's all lit up with it's christmas lights! Magical!

We went to get some food at the roaring fork and settled on a bowl of chilli each (only a snack on the dining plan, but plenty for us as it was getting quite late), and then wen't back to our lovely room to get a good nights rest before hitting the parks and the rundisney expo the next day!!

 

[RiceCrispyMickey]

I woke up at about 5am the next morning (Darn jet lag) but we managed to stay in bed till around 6:30 before finally giving in and getting up. We had breakfast at the roaring fork and I had to order my FAVOURITE disney breakfast..... Mikey Waffles!!! But with a twist this time as they came with bananas and caramel sauce. Yumyumyum!

We then drove our convertible over to the Animal Kingdom in time for the 8am extra magical hours, and after checking out the cool new root extension's to the tree of life we headed on over to Harambi to ride our favourite ride at AK - Kilimanjaro Safari's! The wait was only 10 minutes and we were off on our safari in no time. I didnt take any safari pictures this year as I just wanted to enjoy it - and it was a very enjoyable trip with lots of Giraffe's up close (including cute baby ones) and a good view of the elephants, rhino's and lions! A hippo even had it's head out the water which I don't think i've ever seen before! It was awesome!!

Loving the new tree of life roots!

aA
AK is just the most beautiful park!

Off to Harambi!

the 'leafless tree of life' as I like to call it!

After our safari we headed to Asia to ride expedition everest and were able to ride with another minimal wait. I always get a little nervous before I ride because going backwards sometimes hurts my neck - but I usually end up enjoying it in the end and this time was no exception!

After riding everest we decided to walk the Pagani forest trail so I could see the tiger - I can't remember the last time we went down here but it really is lovely, the little disney details are fantastic!

After watching the Lion King show which is always a favourite for us and wandering around dinoland a bit we decided that we had accomplished everything we wanted to do at the park for that day and were ready to drive over to ESPN Wide World of Sports for the Rundisney expo.....

 

[RiceCrispyMickey]

We arrived at the expo at what i'm sure was probably the worst and busiest time of day! It was about 11.30 and the place was PACKED. We were directed to park up on some grass and walk over to the sports complex. We had never visited ESPN world wide of sports before so had to get a photo by the big ESPN statue and some cheeky pics by the wine and dine banners!

We went to packet pick up first to get our bib's and hand in our waivers etc. There were long lines but thankfully the line for our bib numbers was short! We then went to the rundisney merchandise section where we picked up some wine and dine wine glasses and a t-shirt each. The line to pay for these was probably the longest line we queued in all holiday!!!

Afterwards we went over to the main part of the expo to pick up our t-shirts and look around some of the exhibitors stands. We also got to meet Jeff Galloway (hero!!!) olympian marathoner and the man who's training programme we had been following in preparation for running the Wine and Dine half. He spent some time chatting with everyone who queued to meet him and was a genuinely nice guy!!

 

[LilWalt]

I have not been back to ESPN Wide World of Sports since I was 18 and played baseball there. That was 14 years ago I guess. I didn't really get to see much of it other than the baseball fields and restaurant.

 

[RiceCrispyMickey]

After leaving the RunDisney expo at ESPN we headed back to our resort to drop off some of our stuff and for a short rest before heading back out to EPCOT for our first taste of what EPCOT is like during food and wine festival!

We first headed to some rides which we had fastpasses for. We rode Spaceship Earth, then headed to the land pavilion where we had a fastpass for Soarin. This will be the last time (we believe) that we will have ever rode this version of Soarin what with the planned refurb for next year to add a 3rd theatre and upgrade to a new movie. We also went for a ride on living with the land as there was no wait. It's had a short refub since our last visit and I definitely noticed a difference. Everything looked newer and less tired than it did on our last visit (I noticed this in a lot of places actually - well done WDW!). The halloween display was still up in one section as well which was nice as most of Disney World was gearing up for Christmas at this point!

After taking a ride on Mission Space (Green - i'm to much of a wimp to try orange) we meandered round World Showcase checking out the food and wine booths to see if anything looked good (for tomorrow - not today). We had reservations for dinner at Tokyo Dining at 7.10 so made our way to Japan. We had amazing seats right by the window looking over the lagoon. If only illuminations was on at it's normal time that night we could have stretched out dinner and watched it, but the park was open for an extra hour that day and illuminations was at 10 (very bizarre I thought!).

We had never been to Tokyo Dining before and whilst I did enjoy it, i'd say it was probably the least memorable meal of our holiday (sorry Tokyo - it's nothing personal I promise). We both had the same - some sort of panko chicken and shrimp thing (the exact name of which I can't remember) followed by the green tea cheesecake. I'm a huge cheesecake fan but didn't really know what to think about this one - but it definitely exceeded expectations - it made a really nice 'cleansing' type end to our meal!

We wanted to stay for illuminations but were getting pretty tired and decided to watch it later in the week instead, so after our dinner we headed back to our lovely hotel and chilled for a bit before hitting the hay ready for the day of the Wine and Dine half marathon!

 

[RiceCrispyMickey]

We woke up quite early again on Saturday morning (race day - woo!) the body clearly hadn't got into American time yet. Still, it didnt bother me as I was eager to get to the park for the morning and enjoy ourselves before coming back to rest for a bit in the afternoon. We decided to head to EPCOT again. We had booked some more fastpasses and wanted to explore the food and wine festival a bit more (in the day this time - hopefully without some of the crowds).

We got to the park and headed to test track which we had an early fastpass for. On our last trip we had been in the queue to ride test rack when a thunderstorm had arrived and the ride was temporarily suspended. We waited as long as we could but we had dinner reservations so we had to leave and didnt get to experience it. So we were looking forward to riding this time. Here was our car:

It totally won the speed category lol! I still prefer the old version of test track, but it was nice to ride this one.

We rode mission space and Ellens energy adventure (so we could sit down for a bit - didn't want to ware ourselves out before the run). Then we wandered world showcase for a bit so that I could try a few bites from the food and wine booths. I settled on some pork belly thing from Brazil (very good) and a teriyaki dumpling from Japan (ok - but not great).

After wandering round world showcase some more we made our way over to the land for lunch where we had Mongolian beef and rice. We have eaten this before and knew it shouldn't upset our stomachs so thought it would be good race day food. I love sunshine seasons and the Mongolian beef and rice, its so tasty and flavourful!

We then used our final fastpass to ride the seas' with nemo and friends and look round the seas pavilion. I could spend hours staring at the fish, rays, sharks, dolphins and my absolute favourite - the SEA TURTLES, but it was getting on in the afternoon and we knew we needed to go back to the resort to have a rest, nap and get ready before the buses would start picking up for the Wine and Dine half in the evening!