Disney Firsts! Wine Dine Half Weekend Recap

Well, a week late, but wanted to get a post up.  Been a busy week, so I have barely had a chance to look at Brightroom or photopass pix.  Most of these came from our phones.

So, now a weekend of firsts...  where to begin.

Friday: We left my sister's house in Tampa, and got to WDW a little after 10.  With all the things we wanted to get done, we decided to go to Expo first, before the hotel.

Our first race expo!  So cool! Got my book signed and some training advice from the legendary Jeff Galloway.  (We had our Bride and Groom ears on so running friends from twitter and FB would know us.)Purchases: One More Mile race belt in the new Zombie Apocalypse design for DisneyGroom, plus a runDisney shirt and lanyard to use for all the race pins we will start collecting.

We were rushed at this point, so I only got to walk through ¼ of the vendor booths.  SO much shopping I didn't get to do.  And I didn’t get to hear any of the speakers. But there is always January! and February!
Rushed back to our resort.  Was hoping to change, but it was still too early to check in to our room.  We got our room keycards and dining plan activated.  Just enough time to park the Jeep and hop a bus to Animal Kingdom.  First visit to Tusker House.  This is the most vegetarian friendly spot I’ve found to date at WDW.  We had a great meal here.  DisneyGroom got his carnivore on, and I enjoyed at least four different types of couscous. Nom!

Hopped the monorail to the Polynesian for our first runner meetup. RunDisney so I can Eat Disney FB group.  Really nice group, led by the tireless Linda (follow her on twitter @runeatdisney).  Runners and Foodies!  These are definitely our people!

Got a swag bag stuffed full of goodies that a runner needs.  This is what was left after we ate all the snacks and used the sunscreen.  Don't you just LOVE that bag?

Made it over to Magic Kingdom, just as it was getting dark.  And score! A First! We got into New Fantasyland.  Did the Under the Sea: Voyage of the Little Mermaid ride.  It was too cute. And all too brief.On to the next first.  First MVMCP! SNOW!!! On Main Street USA  Sorry... ALL of the pix were really blurry.  But it was a great time.
We stayed for the first parade.  I know from our favorite movie, “A Christmas Story” that the Santa float signals the end of the parade.So here he is…now we were exhausted and ready to go back to catch some ZZZs.

Saturday Morning: Our first runDisney event!Woo Hoo!  So many cool stops along the way.  We saw Pluto and Donald and Goofy! Rafiki, Balou, and goats, owls, and sheep too!  What a fun course!

Also had a quick post race photo with some of the Run Disney So I Can Eat Disney group too.  Alas, with the sun behind us, no one got a good pic.

Back to our hotel to change for MK.  Our first stop is almost always the Buzz Lightyear ride.This time was my First time maxing out the Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin.  DG taught me the 'sweet spots' for high scoring.  And here are our scores! INTERGALACTIC HEROES!  That's right!Then Buzz Lightyear meets his hero.DisneyGroom is enjoying the new Buzz ears I got him.Off to New Fantasyland: Meet my new boyfriend
Be Our Guest lunch and desserts

 


Got a Le Frou’s Brew – OH MY! DELICIOUS!  This will be the next Dole Whip.  Frozen apple cider blended with marshmallows and other tastiness.  I got the special 'ale mug' with Gaston on it.  But I forgot to get a pic before I drank it down.

On to Enchanted Tales with Belle.  DisneyGroom got selected to be part of the action.  Love this, as it is very interactive, and has a photographer every step of the way.  You get a Belle themed photopass card at the end, so all participants can relax and just enjoy the show.

The plan was to go to DHS until closing, then head back to MK.  We knew with the race coming through later we wouldn’t have a lot of time there but we had two things in mind.1) Animation Academy is one of our traditions.  This time we drew Pluto. Guess which one is DG's drawing?

Grabbed QS dinner at the ABC commissary at Hollywood Studios – meal was ok – but dessert: OH MY! Pumpkin Maple cupcake the size of a giant muffin! What a cute Pumpkin Mickey on top (made of white chocolate).

2) The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights – DisneyGroom really likes the New York street facades.   The city blocks make me nostalgic for my hometown of Washington DC.Ours were NEVER this clean though.By then we were really tired and made it an early night.  Didn't get any pix this time of the Spectacle, but grabbed one on the way out.

Contemplated going back to MK for Extra Magic Hours… but we had that early wakeup and no rest that day.Sunday: Late Saturday night, early the next morning were really miserable.  We had some food poisoning.  I'm going to surmise it was the Tuna Nicoise Salad at Be Our Guest.  As that was the only thing both of us ate the day before.  DG was in awful shape.  Somehow we got our belongings gathered and checked out of our resort.  Really wanted to head home, but DG knew I was looking forward to Food & Wine, and we had a lunch reservation at Akershus.  It would just be rude to stand up the Princesses!We got to the gate at EPCOT…  and ugh….  DG got very very sick.  A very kind castmember put him in a wheelchair and got us to First Aid.  We lay down on cots, sipped cold water, and napped for several hours.  I woke up in time to run over to Norway and explain why we couldn't make our lunch reservation.  They were booked solid, but promised to squeeze us in at dinner.  That gave us five more hours to recover.This was what we both ate for a late lunch.At five pm, we finally emerged from First aid station and decided to try to walk gently until dinnertime. We may not be able to eat, but we could still enjoy the sights of our First Food & Wine festival.We had just started to work our way around the showcase when we decided to stop at a Photopass photographer.  The couple right in front had a magical moment when the guy got on bended knee and pulled out a ring!  Clever guy, the photographer got 29 photos.  I was so excited for them - I only thought to grab a phone pic after he stood up.  How Exciting and Romantic! Congrats mystery couple!

We made our way around the showcase with only one food stop for me.  A tasty little cheese bread from Poland.
And now - our First time at Akershus.  DG decided to get me back for flirting with Gaston by charming Princess Belle.  Yep, I was jealous.

We were still feeling too queasy to enjoy the tasty food.  But DG had a small bite of pork medallions and declared we HAD to return.We had our photo ops with Princesses Ariel, Snow White, Aurora, and Jasmine.  And we were pleasantly surprised that a photo package of a framed 5x7 and several 4x6s were included in our meal.  What a deal!The desserts looked decadent and so tasty.  Our wonderful server understood our dilemma and packaged them To GO for us.  So we could enjoy them the next day from home.And that was it.  We stopped for one last pic (note we still look nauseous) and headed to the highway for our four hour plus drive to north Florida.  
A very eventful weekend.This was also a (one month early) celebration of our first wedding anniversary.Unfortunately, the first weekend of December we’ve got too much going on close to home and won’t be able to make it back down to ‘the scene of the crime’.  We are hoping to sneak in a Disney day over Thanksgiving weekend, since our families live in Central and South Florida.But, we’ll try to do something magical and wonderful on December 3^rd back at home in North Florida. J