The Merry Chris-Mice Run Wild at Disney

[DISprincessWANNABE]

At least, one of us will be running wild!

Helllllllo there! This is my first ever pre-trip report, so you may need to bear with me! I also promise to add lots of pictures later!


Cast Members (aka US)
The "Merry Chris-mice": We are Kim (that’s me!, 28) and Chris (29), are engaged, from Boston...and love Disney. The Merry Chris-Mice name came to us back on our Christmas 2010 trip to Disney during a friendly recycling game at Innoventions (it's a combination of our names--my last, his first...and a little tribute to the mouse) We became annual pass holders in December because we knew we'd be making another trip for the Princess Half Marathon, which I will be running on Sunday.


The Details
We'll be travelling from 02/25-03/02. It'll be short, but it will be sweet (at least, all of our Disney desserts will be).

We’re trying out POR for our stay, which is a first for us. On previous trips, we’ve stayed at CBR, POP, YC, and POFQ. Of those, our favorite was the YC—you just can’t beat a location on the boardwalk; we loved the proximity to Epcot, DHS, and, of course, Jellyrolls. Let’s hope POR was a good choice!

We’ve made minimal ADRs this trip, and, for the most part, are restaurants we’ve never been to before. We consider ourselves to be foodies, and really enjoy the dining aspect of our DIS trips (although our experiences on this trip may be a little less fancy). We also enjoy the obligatory margarita at Cava del Tequila, cantoloopy at the Joy of Tea stand, and the Dawa Colada in the AK. Expect lots of food and drink pictures to follow!

On 02/26, we’ll be eating at Il Mulino (necessary “carboload” before the half marathon on Sunday!). We’ve pretty much avoided eating Italian in Disney in the past just because we have a lot of very good Italian restaurants right near us here in Boston.

On 02/27, we’ll be venturing over to the AKL (possibly my personal favorite resort, though I’ve never stayed there) to try out Sanaa. We both love Indian food, and haven’t been let down by the other AKL restaurants so far as far as dining is concerned. Fingers crossed on this one.

On 03/01, we’re heading back to Kona, where we have eaten dinner twice before. We’re big fans of the sushi bar next door to it, and love that you can get the sushi as an appetizer. Plus, I love that tuna Oscar dish that they have.

A large portion of our trip report will probably be devoted to the Princess Half Marathon. It’s my first time running it, and I am nervous/excited. DF will be there to cheer me on, and I’ll need it!

Okay, that's it for now! More to come soon!

 

[DISprincessWANNABE]

Aaaaand...so begins the planning of our itinerary (well, so begins the typing of it...we're big on the planning )).

The following part comes to you courtesy of DF, Chris.

Arrival Day - We’re arriving late, very late, 11:00pm late on Friday night. Since we’re getting in so late I pricelined a hotel near the airport. No sense paying to stay on site for a few hours. We also get a rental car for this trip, first time for this also. With such a short trip and the need to have someplace to wait/relax in the Epcot parking lot before the race, we figured it would be a good idea.

Day 1 – The plans for day 1 are to get up nice and early and head to RD at DHS (which is 8AM with EMH). The game plan is a quick ride on TSM, grab a TSM FP for later, ride Rn’RC and then leave to get to the race expo by 10AM. If we have time, we may head over to the Boardwalk Bakery for a WDWRadio meet of the month before heading to the race expo. I'm a huge Disney Podcast fan and my DF thinks Lou Mongello seems like a nice guy!

Next, it's off to the Princess Expo. We think an hour and half to two hours at the expo should be a good amount of time, and after that we’ll head back to DHS to use the TSM FP and try to get in a few other attractions. When we’re content or by 3:00, whichever comes first, we’ll drive over the POR, check-in, get changed, tour the resort a little, and head to our 5:00 ADR at Il Mulino. After my DF gets some good carbo-loading in, back to POR for an early bed time. We do have to be up at 3 the next day!

 

[DISprincessWANNABE]

More of our plans, by Chris! If you couldn't tell, he's the real planner in this relationship!

Day 2 – The big day, Race day!! Df has to be in the race corral/waiting area by 5:00AM, and I’ve read it takes 20 minutes to walk from the drop-off location to the corrals, so we hope to be out of the hotel and on the road by 3:45. We’ve read horror stories about traffic during race mornings. I hope that this will leave us plenty of time.
After my wonderful fiance (Kim clearly hi-jacked the post here) conquers 13.1 miles in less than 2.5 hours (her goal), we’re going straight into Epcot to get in some quality time on Soarin’ and TT, and have a few adult beverages around WS (hellllllllloooooo, margarita!). The plan is to stay in Epcot until mid-afternoon; however, DF said she may be too tired/hurting to stay that long, so we may cut out early and head back to POR for nap or a dip in the hot tub.

We have a dinner ADR for 7:00 at Sanaa that night. We’d also like to get to AKL a little early to watch the animals and walk (or limp) around the resort. As I mentioned, I think AKL is my favorite resort and hope to stay there in May (if we come down). We don’t have any plans for after dinner – maybe see if we can do the night-viewing of the animals with the night-vision goggles. I've heard that that is a pretty neat experience. Other than that, I’m sure we’ll be wiped (hey, cheering takes a lot out of you!) and want to get to sleep.