Trip Report **Completed** The Wine and Dine Half Marathon and we are never changing hotels again!

Hello everyone! I have been (sadly) back for over a week now so I suppose its time to start my TR. I have been in a moderate Disney depression since I have been back, so hopefully this cheers me up. Its probably the freezing cold weather here in Buffalo, but I am longing for Disney and sunny weather (I know its only like 55 there right now, but its 25 here ). I suppose this is the true sign of a Disney addict! Anyway, on with the TR!

Who?:
From left to right:
My Dad (Jeff), Me (Megan), Mickey , My sister Betta (her name is Elizabeth, we call her Betta), my nephew Max, my Mom (Mary) my sister Jill and Betta's friend Deanna

Deanna came with my sister to help with Max She has been to Disney before, but not for several years. This is Max's first trip! The rest of us have been to Disney (several times...)

When?
My Mom and I: November 3 - 12
My Dad and Jill: Nov 5 -12
Betta, Deanna and Max Nov 7 - 12

Where?
We moved hotels 3 times, I will introduce them as we go

Why?
Jill and I really wanted to run the Wine and Dine Half Marathon so we planned a trip around it! Plus, Betta wanted to bring Max to Disney the first time!

The Title?
Well, its pretty obvious! We ran the Wine and Dine Half Marathon Also, we were not keen on moving hotels during the trip. It is incredibly disruptive and takes up a decent amount of free time. I will comment more as we go.

T-5 days
As my Mom and I were driving to help my sister and Max pack for the trip we were getting a little bit Disney crazy and really did not want to stay at All Star Sports. We have nothing against people who like the values (or can only afford them), but we really don't enjoy them. When I was a kid we only stayed at values and we loved them, but we definitely have gotten spoiled lately. Knowing we booked All Stars to save us money I did not think a hotel move would be possible. However, the huge AP discount was still a thing so we started looking into other hotels. While at my sister's house I kept trying to change the hotel, but it was not working. Eventually I gave up and finally called Disney. I had the sweetest CM ever on the phone and we chatted for quite a bit about all sorts of things. In the end I decided on moving to the Wilderness Lodge because we love it so much! The CM also added a bit of magic and upgraded us to Concierge level for free. Woohoo!!! The only downside is this would mean we would have to pick up our luggage in the airport for Magical Express. Annoying, but no big deal overall

November 3, 2016
We got up around 5 am and got ready to go to the airport. It was a gross and rainy day in Buffalo so we were happy to be heading to sunny Florida! While my Mom and I were finishing up last minute things and taking pictures my Dad started grabbing our suitcases and bringing them to the car. Only, we weren't done with them yet so he had to bring them back in. Because it was rainy he really looked the part of a grumpy airport worker

We had a quick ride to the airport and we got there by 6 am. We had the same Southwest worker check us in that we had in October. Thats when you know you travel too much? haha
We both had TSA pre-check and for once I did not set off the metal detector! We were through security by 6:08 am. You have got to love TSA pre-check
For breakfast we had some bagels and water

Petey and Drake were ready

Since we had a crazy amount of time to kill we sat down at our gate and I already started working on my notes haha

Then we took some selfies...

Finally it was time to get on the plane. We ended up in row 4! I love sitting in the front, takes less time to get off the plane!
Magic Bands ready

Purple Magic Bands for the win! The woman sitting next to me also had a purple Magic Band

Next up: Arriving in MCO!

 

[Ciara]

View attachment 179262

This picture is too cute! Just running by like "sup photo pass man" LOVE your outfits, those shirts are too great!

 

[Doc Disney]

This picture is too cute! Just running by like "sup photo pass man" LOVE your outfits, those shirts are too great!

haha thanks! I like that picture picture because I think I was genuinely smiling unlike half the other pictures When we decided on a pirate theme I searched and searched for fun shirts and finally found those! I love them

 

[Doc Disney]

Sorry for the delay everyone, unfortunately we had a death in the family (a cousin) so we have been busy with that. I will come back soon, hope everyone has a Merry Christmas

 

[Doc Disney]

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! In case anyone was curious my sister Jill and her boyfriend Nick (you would know him from a few other TRs) got engaged
Day 5 continued

Two things we noticed about Epcot were 1. it was already super crowded and 2. the booths were open before 11!
Oh well, we better get started!
Our first stop was Africa
Jill had the Buttered Chicken with Micro Cilantro and Naan Bread

My Mom and I had this last year and it was much better that time. The chicken was a bit dry so Jill did not each much of it (I tried it too)
Jill also had wine....Jam Jar Sweet Shiraz I think

My Dad got the Berbere-style Beef Tenderloin Tips with Onions, Jalapeños, Tomato and Pap

He really liked this, I did not think it was great...but I am a picky eater
Another gem of a picture taken by my Mom

While my Dad and Jill ate their African food my Mom and I headed to Germany to get my Mom a milk chocolate sea salt caramel

We also grabbed Jill some caramel popcorn
Next up was Italy.
No one had any food but I did get a Limoncello Spritzer which was delightful!
Look at Jill taking a selfie in the background

Next up: Food and Wine continued

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
In case you really felt the need to see it, here is a close up of the spritzer

While we continued our way around the world Betta, Max and Deanna were on the second plane that would take them to us!
Max had his Bills gear on already (and a runny nose...)

Next up was America! This was the one place I wanted to eat last year but we never made it so I was excited!
My dad and I both had the Smoked Beef Brisket and Pimento Cheese Served on Griddled Garlic Toast

This looks repulsive, but it was actually delicious! I would like some right now
Maybe this angle looks better?

Jill had a frozen Orange-spiked Tea featuring Florida Cane “Orlando Orange” Vodka

My Mom decided to take some flattering pictures

After our delicious American food (I'm so adventurous..) we continued around World Showcase

Our next stop was something for my mom: Belgium!
She had the Belgian Waffle with Berry Compote and Whipped Cream
She really enjoyed it!!!

Next up: some fellow Bills fans and France!

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
We met so many Bills fans along our journeys and had so many nice chats with people who were originally from Buffalo or who still live there I love meeting people, but I am pretty shy so the Bills clothes are a nice ice breaker!
Our next stop was France
I ordered the Soupe à l’oignon au Gruyère et Cognac: Gruyère and Cognac Onion Soup (aka French Onion soup)

Yum! This was great! I love French Onion soup!
Jill got the La Passion Martini Slush: Vodka, Grey Goose Le Citron Vodka, Cranberry and Passion Fruit Juice

I remember this being pretty good!

We sat in France for awhile to rest our legs so eventually got my Mom a Grand Marnier Slush

We moved on from France because Jill and I had one more stop we wanted to make
But, first we stopped for a picture

We were all getting full, but Jill and I had our eye on some soup from Canada.
The line was pretty long, but Jill and I made a game with our spoons to entertain ourselves. You know you are related when you both get spoons and immediately at the same time decide to make a sword fight!
When Jill and I checked out (which in the end fast because we weren't waiting for steak so we skipped the whole line) the CM said "Hey Bills Mafia!!" and we had a great quick bonding experience with the CM over the Bills
Soup!

That was so yummy

Next up: future world!

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
Goodbye World Showcase (for now)

We had a FP for Nemo, but had a little bit of time before it so we all sat in the sunshine and enjoyed it

Finally it was time for Nemo!

After our ride through The Seas we spent some time in the aquarium. They were doing some manatee feeding so we watched that for awhile then looked at some of the other animals!

After the Seas it was time for our next FP:

If I remember correctly there was no CM working the FP line so we let ourselves in Jill and I made up a dance to celebrate Living with the Land. We may have received some stares haha

Next up: Future World continued

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
The Land continued

We enjoyed our ride as usual (well, most of us...since my Mom hates it!!)
Next up was Figment!

After our ride Jill made a Figment !

After this Betta, Max and Deanna were on property so we sat outside and waited for them
While we were waiting we entertained ourselves with the jumping fountains. We also met a super nice fellow runner who had completed the Lumiere challenge so we talked about that. He was saying something about how hard it was to run through AK in the dark and we all agreed even though it was completely light out when we got to AK
Finally the rest of our crew arrived!

The whole reason we met over in this area was to do the Visa M and G, but the wait was 25 minutes so we moved on
We had a FP for Frozen after this so we headed towards World Showcase
Traditional Mexico picture

I will come back to Frozen, but Max really loved these puppet things that they have in China

Next up: the best ride picture you have ever seen!

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
Since my Mom and I had been on Frozen twice already and I could not get a FP for Betta or Deanna we gave them our bands and waited for them outside the ride
When they got off the ride everyone said they enjoyed the ride, but Max hated it. When we looked at the ride photo that was clearly evident....

HAHAHAHHA! We have made memes out of Max's face on this ride!
Anyway, we continued along World Showcase and showed Max the train in Germany which he loved watching

Our final destination was Via Napoli! This was at the request of Betta, since I pretty much talk about it all the time!
We checked in and waited

While Jill and I were sitting on the couch I looked over and saw Tom and Sophie from YouTube! Jill and I follow them on IG and YouTube and we really like their videos. We debated about going up to them and in the end we did! We chatted about a few things, and Tom said he was jealous of our medals and always wanted to do a Run Disney race! Unfortunately they called our name to sit down just as we were taking a picture so I only got one with my camera and its a bit blurry

I wish I knew how to edit pictures and make them less blurry
Anyway they were the nicest people ever!
Sitting at the table

This is the best picture I got of my side of the table...haha

Our waiter came over and obviously realized that we were from Buffalo and told us that Via Napoli is actually owned by Delaware North, which is a company based in Buffalo! I joked that the brand new building they just made was due to me eating at Via Napoli too much Anyway, I thought that was pretty neat!
For drinks my Mom and Jill both got a sangria
White for Jill

Red for Mom

I did not have anything to drink because my stomach was still a bit iffy from running
For dinner we ordered the big cheese and pepperoni pizza for my family and Deanna ordered a salad (she has a Gluten allergy)

Yum! I am pleased to say everyone really enjoyed the pizza! I am glad because I really talked this place up and Jill and Betta had never eaten there before Deanna enjoyed her salad as well (I didn't want to scare her right away by asking for a picture of her food....). We did finish the entire pizza. Honestly, had we not ate around World Showcase earlier in the day I am not sure this big pizza would have cut it for us, though. We probably could have ordered another (smaller) adjunct pizza

Next up: leaving Epcot

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
After finishing our pizza we went outside and enjoyed a little of the Boyz II Men sounds coming from the America Stage.
We were trying to find a Photopass picture spot so we walked around a little bit
Betta and Deanna grabbed a wine from somewhere...I didn't write it down but I feel like it came from Italy

Max enjoyed a cracker snack

I finally used to app to locate a Photopass spot and saw there was one in Norway so we headed there
First we saw all these birds in the trees! All those white things are birds!

Finally we saw a Photopass CM!

At this point we split up. We usually never spend this amount of time in a park and we were anxious to get our luggage back at the hotel so my Mom, Dad and I left and the rest of them stayed behind for a bit.
Beautiful sunset

I know some people find Spaceship Earth to be ugly, but I really love the look of it

At this point we were ready to ditch our AP bands and start with out Christmas ones, but for awhile I wore both

Its so weird leaving one hotel in the morning and going back to a different one at night
We hopped on a POFQ bus and we were happy to be going to our "home" resort
Our room was obviously ready at this point so we popped through the lobby and headed to our room. Our room was in building 3 on the second floor. I wasn't exactly pleased about the building or the floor as I had requested a ground level room (to save our legs after the half) and our "garden view" was a parking lot. I am pretty sure this is all because Betta requested adjoining rooms, though. Oh well, we would slowly walk up those stairs the rest of the week
In our room we found a washcloth turtle

And a towel Mickey!

At this point I called for our luggage and encountered another very rude CM. What is it about Bell Services CMs being rude?! Anyway he told us it would take awhile for our luggage to come up so I decided to take some pictures of the room while we waited

Next up: room pictures

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 5 continued
Bed

TV

Desk area...my Dad always takes over this spot

Little bench area

Double sinks

We were happy to have the shower and toilet separate again. That was the weird thing about the Polynesian, that the bathroom is all one room.
Since we still had plenty of time before our luggage came my Mom and I headed down to look at the gift shop and check out the temporary cafe.
We grabbed our old cups (from our previous trip) and we went to grab some water. I knew they had the freestyle coke machines and I thought no way would you need a chip for that, but someone they managed to find a way to put a chip reader in those My plans to cheat Disney out of free beverages failed . Truthfully our plan was to buy one cup and share it since we don't use them that much, but we never actually did that so we stuck with water most of the trip
In the lobby

We went and checked out the pool area and noticed all the crocs were back

When we finished exploring we came back to the room the same time as the CM bringing out luggage. Unlike the people on the phone she was very sweet!
With our luggage in tow we unpacked a little and I decorated the window. Jill, Betta, Max and Deanna eventually came back after riding Test Track and checking out Club Cool. They made Max try Beverly and he liked it..... To be fair, both of my sisters like it as well. Bad genes
After unpacking we watched some of the Bills game and then went off to sleep

Next up: MK!

 

[LadyBelle]

I love the look of Spaceship Earth. I have a couple of great pics (one day & one night) and those are my favs.

Well, looks like your Bills will have a new coach when they visit my Panthers next year. It's on!

 

[DonnaOnTheRocks]

I watch Tom and Sophie too! It's so cool you got to meet them! Loving your report!

 

[Doc Disney]

I love the look of Spaceship Earth. I have a couple of great pics (one day & one night) and those are my favs.
Well, looks like your Bills will have a new coach when they visit my Panthers next year. It's on!

Yep....the Bills are having another rebuild year.... My sister and I have been thinking about going to a road game next season, maybe the Panthers game is a good one since its somewhere warm

I watch Tom and Sophie too! It's so cool you got to meet them! Loving your report!

Thank you! They were truly the nicest people ever too! They seemed like they were surprised when they were recognized

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 6:
This morning we got up around 7 am and hoped for a Bills win. Unfortunately that didn't happen...as usual . We did spend some time watching ESPN to see the highlights since there was a big controversy about some of missed penalty calls which lost us the game. Oh well, whats another year without the playoffs when it has already been 16 years
My Mom and I ran down to the cafe and waited in a super long line to grab some croissants, water and coffee for my Dad. We did run into Betta, Max and Deanna down there!

I wasn't super pleased with how inefficient the makeshift cafe was in the mornings, but there was nothing we could do about it.
Back in the room we took some pictures of everyone in their matching shifts. Only, no one was cooperating so what I have is what they got

When we all got our stuff together we headed down to the buses. Unfortunately we just missed a MK and had to wait 20 minutes for a new one. This would be our first encounter with trying to entertain a 14 month old while waiting for the bus....here is how it went:

Anyway a bus finally came and soon enough we were at the MK. We just missed the opening show again . Our plan was to rope drop for Mickey so thats what we did. We got in a fairly long line, but entertained ourselves with Heads Up. We even had an amazing CM named Steven play with us! He was so funny and got super into it Overall we waited about 25 minutes which wasn't bad and it was definitely worth the wait when Max met Mickey!
Max wasn't quite sure how he felt about Mickey! He did cry briefly and Mickey said "I guess thats enough giant talking Mouse for one day."
In the end he really warmed up to him, though!

After this we headed over to our first FP for the day: Dumbo!
Along the way we snapped some pictures

Next up: Dumbo!

 

[Doc Disney]

Day 6 continued
We all had FPs for Dumbo, but my Dad opted out so it was just the ladies and Max

Even from the line Max wasn't impressed by Dumbo

I can't remember why but we were not all in a row in our Dumbos so I used some zoom to get some pictures of everyone

My Mom took this paparazzi style picture of me....I like to imagine that one day when my YouTube channel takes off these are the pictures people will take of me JK!

Turns out Max hated the ride, but the rest of us enjoyed it! This is actually the first time in Jill's memory that she had been on Dumbo
We tried to take a picture of Max and Betta in the Dumbo they have out for pictures, but Max thought he was getting back on the ride

We had a FP for IASW after this so parked the stroller and headed over there. On a side note, I am not used to stroller parking obviously, so I usually just pointed out a spot that seemed to be close. This time I forgot about the Rapunzel stroller parking and we parked fairly far away The only reason this mattered was because IASW was closed so we eventually decided to go on the HM as a replacement, but Betta had already run to get the stroller when she could have just kept it there

Max surprisingly did well with HM! He loved the crows in there to look at. In the stretching room when the lights went off we just said "yay" to make sure he wasn't scared. Something possessed me to take this picture...

When we got out of HM and put Max in the stroller this happened

Max typically is not a good napper, but as @ScarletBegonias told me would happen he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in the stroller many times!

Next up: the great race to a dining reservation

 

[JamieLee18]

Awww, Max and Grandpa are so cute in their matching shirts!

 

[LisaBelle]

This will not only be my first RunDisney race but my first race ever. I've never been a runner but reading all the trip reports about RunDisney events make it look like so much fun so I figured why not try it, especially in one of my favorite places with some of my best friends.

My ultimate goal is to maybe run the Wine and Dine 1/2 but I want to see how the 10K goes first.

You will love the runDisney race. I was exactly the same. I have never been a runner but wanted to run a runDisney race after reading all the TRs on these forums. I did my first ever 5k race last February in the Princess 5k for my 50th birthday. My sister and I had a ton of fun and I would do it again in a heartbeat! Have an awesome time. Hope you write a TR!

 

[LisaBelle]

I am so far behind in my TR reading! So sorry you were sick the night before the 1/2. I don't know how you managed to run a race after being sick overnight. I loved reading about your meet up with @Longers and @prfctlyximprct. Still sad I wasn't there as well, but thanks to all 3 trip reports I was able to live vicariously through you all! I am hopeful that we will all be able to meet up someday in the future .

 

[Longers]

I am so far behind in my TR reading! So sorry you were sick the night before the 1/2. I don't know how you managed to run a race after being sick overnight. I loved reading about your meet up with @Longers and @prfctlyximprct. Still sad I wasn't there as well, but thanks to all 3 trip reports I was able to live vicariously through you all! I am hopeful that we will all be able to meet up someday in the future .

I would love that to happen! Fingers crossed.