Nick, Marie, The Diva's & Me!! Finally Finished 10-20-13!!

[DizNee Luver]

Time to get back to the trip report!!! We are onto Day 3~~March 1.

We were up early so I could meet up with the Divas for a group photo in DCA and Nick & Marie were heading to Disneyland for the Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour.

So let's start with Nick & Marie's morning. They go to Disneyland & checked in with the Tour Office. They had a little time before they needed to be there for the 9:30am start....so they walked around Main Street. Their first stop was the Mad Hatter and Nick tried on some hats.

The walked up to the castle and got these picture.

The found a large park map in braille.

It was time for Nick & Marie to go back to the Tour Office for the Walk in Walt's Footsteps Tour.

They started the tour by hearing about the names on the windows of Main Street. Next stop was Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

The group heading through the castle and to Peter Pan's Flight for a ride over London & Neverland.

After their ride, they headed to Frontierland and the Petrified Tree down by the Rivers of America. The "tree" was a gift from Walt to Lillian for an anniversary......I'm not sure this would have been a gift I would have been thrilled with.......lol Next stop on the tour was New Orlean's Square. A part of the tour everyone looks forward to..........Club 33!!

You get to go through the doors and stand in the small lobby area as you hear about the history of the club and see a little artwork displayed. You also get to hear about the beautiful wood used in the lift and how Walt's imagineers needed to replicate the original (don't remember from what country) since they wouldn't sell it to him.

Back out to NOS and shown all the balconies that tie into the Club.

While in NOS and heading to the train station, they saw the Jambalaya Jazz Band coming out to perform.

On the train in NOS and heading towards Tomorrowland.

 

[DizNee Luver]

They arrived in Tomorrowland.

They stopped at the exit of Innovations and was told about the history of shows & exhibits, like~~America Sings, Carousel of Progress and the House of the Future. They headed towards It's A Small World and after a brief history of the attraction, they rode it.

After the ride, they headed back to the Fire Station and the private apartment of Walt & Lillian's.

You aren't allowed to take pictures in the apartment but the tour guide will take one picture of you with the apartment in the background.

Now this is the funny part.......since I bought the tickets for the tour for Nick & Marie as a gift......Nick's lunch came to him with my name on it......lol

The lunch is part of the tour price. It includes a sandwich, fruit and a dessert. You chose your sandwich and dessert before going out on the tour.

At the end of the tour, you are presented with this beautiful WiWF Tour pin!!!! (I will have more pics on this pin later in the report)

They headed back to the hotel (and actually ran into me as I had gone back to the room after the hunt to have lunch)........more on that later!!

The took the Monorail from DTD into Tomorrowland.......I guess it was hot & stuffy.........

They decided to ride Space Mountain.

After Space Mountain they went to the Enchanted Tiki Room. They wanted to get a Dole Whip but the lines were crazy long. (probably because it was about 90 degrees out today)

 

[Trentmom]

That looks like a great tour

How cool they got to see The apt. So awesome

Love the Walt Pin....

 

[DizNee Luver]

That looks like a great tour

How cool they got to see The apt. So awesome

Love the Walt Pin....

Mike & I did this tour in 2009 but it's really changed. We rode the Jungle Cruise, train and watched the Enchanted Tiki Room show. We also didn't get to go into Walt's Apartment.......so I see doing this tour in my future!!

That pin is amazing!! The pin we got was pretty plain compared to that one. It was the Partner's Statue.

 

[kelmac284]

Nice installment. I would like to re-do the tour as well. WE too did it several years ago and you went on the lilly belle and I don't remember the rides but yeah I would def like to do it again. Love that pin and would love to see the apartment. Mom and I had hoped it wasn't all booked on Sunday of the diva trip since we had nothing going on but it was. So hopefully we can do it on one of our next trips.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Nice installment. I would like to re-do the tour as well. WE too did it several years ago and you went on the lilly belle and I don't remember the rides but yeah I would def like to do it again. Love that pin and would love to see the apartment. Mom and I had hoped it wasn't all booked on Sunday of the diva trip since we had nothing going on but it was. So hopefully we can do it on one of our next trips.

I think you could probably repeat this tour every 2 years and have a completely different experience. The Lilly Belle wasn't part of our tour...... but we did finally get to ride.

I was going to do the tour with them, but figured this would be a nice thing for them to do as a couple while I did the scavy hunt.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Now we're going to back track to the beginning of the day and see what I was up to while Nick & Marie were doing the tour.

I headed to DCA to meet up with the Divas at the new fountain. We were going to do a group photo. Once all the ladies gathered, we realized there wasn't a photopass photographer at the fountain......but there was one at the Walt & Mickey statue.....so we ended up moving over to the statue. While we were trying to get everyone in the shot......MICKEY came out and joined us!!!

I'm hiding behind the statue........lol

The group headed to Taste Pilot's to use the outside seating to organize and start the Scavenger Hunt~~"Crusin' California". We sat with our teammates and got dressed in our costumes. My team was the "Low Riding Ladies of Radiator Springs". My teammates were Lisa/LisaCat, Lorinda/Lorinda & Linda/Grumpy Grandma.....notice all of our names started with "L"......lol Our costumes consisted of a license plate with our DIS names and scarves.

We did official team pics (I don't have that one yet), then got the instructions for the hunt, received our packet & then we had to do Part 1 before leaving the area. Part 1~ Disney Trivia & Name That Disney Song. Once we were done with this, we turned it in to the committee and then headed off on the hunt.

Part 2~ Locate answers to questions in DCA, I Spy Pictures, Find these Letters in CarsLand, Word Scramble, Locate the Committee Members & Collect these Items. This was a fun hunt that included taking a ride on Monster's Inc. We felt like we had done a pretty good job. We guessed on 2 questions, found all the committee members, collected all the items and we turned in our packet in 2nd place.

After we turned our stuff in, we had about an hour & a half break before we'd meet back up for the results. I decided to head back to the hotel after picking up a quick lunch at White Water Snacks. Well, quick was what I was hoping it would be......it was empty in there, except the guy that ordered before me and the 2 ladies that ordered after me. It took them almost 15 minutes to produce a hot dog with fries. Once I had my lunch in hand.....I headed back to my room. I had just sat down when Nick & Marie popped in. We talked for a few minutes before they headed back to the park. I told them I would text them when I was done with the hunt results.

WHITE WATER SNACKS~ HOT DOG w/SIDE OF FRIES, 32oz BEVERAGE WITH TAX AND 15% AP DISCOUNT~~$9.62

I headed back to the Wharf area to meet up with the Divas and hear the results. The committee:

The Divas........everyone was a tad hot.....

Bridget announcing the winners!!

1st Place: Fillmore's Grooving Gals
2nd Place: Dinoco Divas
3rd Place: Git R Done Divas

Best Dressed: Fillmore's Grooving Gals
Best Name: FORD~~Fabulously Outrageous Racing Divas

Last Place: Broadway Babes

Our team took 4th place.....we missed placing by 6 points!!!!

After the results, I texted Nick to see which park they were in. They were in Disneyland, so I headed that direction. I told them I was stopping at City Hall to pick up our Fantasmic Tickets and then would text to find out where they were. Nick & Marie were going into the Tiki room........which worked out perfectly......it took a while to get thru the line at City Hall. Once I had our tickets in hand, I headed towards Adventureland to meet up with them.

We decided to head to Indy.

Our next ride was Star Tours......we went to the Planet Kashyyyk (the Wookie Planet).....that was the first time I had seen that!!! We saw Darth Vader & Princess Leia and then went to the planet Naboo.

Next stop was Space Mountain!

(now you might notice.....some of our pics are a little strange, blurry, odd......that's because we were "logging" what we did by snapping a quick shot)

Our on-ride pics:

I was having horrible foot/ankle issues after the hunt and it was getting to the point I could hardly walk. I decided to head to First Aid to see about getting an ace bandage. Well, Disney doesn't carry ace bandages (not even in the resort hotels)......so plan on packing one......just in case! While I was talking with the Disney RN.....Nick & Marie caught a bit of the Soundsational Parade going down Main Street.

I just have to say, I'm not happy with the "NEW" photobucket.......this one post took me an hour........ UGH!!!

 

[ksromack]

Thanx Kathy!! Disneyland is a breeze compared to WDW......I haven't been to WDW yet, but all the research I've done and speaking with my son (who did the College Program there and is heading back in May).....WDW is quite the adventure.....lol

My plans are still going forward on our Anniversary Trip.....unfortunately, it's trying to figure out what to do with our 4 littles. I may have to trim it down (which I don't want to do......we want at least 2 days for each park, we don't want to go from the time we arrive until the time we leave since we're coming from the west coast and the time difference is gonna be a killer. So we're kinda stumped right now on our options.

After the way the 7 & 12 yr olds acted on the December trip.....I'm not in a hurry to take them with us either......lol

Ok, what if you cut the trip down to 9 days and bring the kids then? Stay at POP (but if you have 7 in your party that may or may not work).....we had 9 days and 8 nights but we were only "2" people. It was plenty of time for us. I know you want to see everything and that this is your anniversary trip.....which bringing kid isn't exactly the "anniversary atmosphere" that would be ideal. Hmmmmm that's a tough one. I will think happy thoughts that it will all work out!

 

[Sherry E]

That is a really, really cute group shot of all the ladies!

I know of Grumpy Grandma/Linda from my Christmas Superthread, and I think she also posted in the Newport Beach thread and/or possibly in one of my Catalina threads last year. So, hello, Linda, if you are out there!!

Nick really resembles you! I hadn't noticed it as much before, and then yesterday or the day before I was looking at your last round of photos of Nick and Marie and I realized how much you two look alike!



Join the club on not being happy with the "new" Photobucket (and it's not entirely off topic because it involves the photos that you are posting in your TR)! Don't even get me started on them. It has sometimes taken me 40 minutes to resize one single photo, then another 40 minutes to try to locate one single photo in an album because they messed up the entire order of my photos. But, ultimately, everything now takes more time, more effort, more attempts, more mouse clicks, etc., to accomplish. Nothing is easier or better than it was on the old site.

For the last month or so there have been various threads in the Photobucket Support/Help section where we - the users - were allowed to comment, complain and voice our frustration over the missing features or messed up existing features. There was a guy named Danny - basically, the only Photobucket person willing to interact with us and hear us out - who was listening to our complaints and making excuses for the horrible new site.

Some of our complaints were heard and because of that, some things will be added back into Photobucket, little by little (I fought and fought for the upload resize options until they were reinstated), but it is a sloooooooow process. Unfortunately, leaving those types of comment threads open on Photobucket is an invitation for a lot of the angry people to start posting stuff that is considered unacceptable, and thus, each thread has been closed, one by one. The last one we were allowed to comment in was closed just this morning. Photobucket doesn't want to hear anymore from the customers.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Ok, what if you cut the trip down to 9 days and bring the kids then? Stay at POP (but if you have 7 in your party that may or may not work).....we had 9 days and 8 nights but we were only "2" people. It was plenty of time for us. I know you want to see everything and that this is your anniversary trip.....which bringing kid isn't exactly the "anniversary atmosphere" that would be ideal. Hmmmmm that's a tough one. I will think happy thoughts that it will all work out!

I'm sure we could consider cutting it shorter or even taking kids.....but then it defeats the idea of taking time for ourselves.....a much needed break. I don't think asking for 2 weeks off after starting this process (foster care/adoption) almost 12 yrs ago. It's so rare for Mike & I to do something for us.....that having this anniversary trip was something for us to "hang on to" on our roughest days. I don't know what to do at this point. I'm still going to go forward and hope we can come up with a plan. We need this!!

Thanks for the happy thoughts.....we could use them!!!

That is a really, really cute group shot of all the ladies!

I know of Grumpy Grandma/Linda from my Christmas Superthread, and I think she also posted in the Newport Beach thread and/or possibly in one of my Catalina threads last year. So, hello, Linda, if you are out there!!

Nick really resembles you! I hadn't noticed it as much before, and then yesterday or the day before I was looking at your last round of photos of Nick and Marie and I realized how much you two look alike!



Join the club on not being happy with the "new" Photobucket (and it's not entirely off topic because it involves the photos that you are posting in your TR)! Don't even get me started on them. It has sometimes taken me 40 minutes to resize one single photo, then another 40 minutes to try to locate one single photo in an album because they messed up the entire order of my photos. But, ultimately, everything now takes more time, more effort, more attempts, more mouse clicks, etc., to accomplish. Nothing is easier or better than it was on the old site.

For the last month or so there have been various threads in the Photobucket Support/Help section where we - the users - were allowed to comment, complain and voice our frustration over the missing features or messed up existing features. There was a guy named Danny - basically, the only Photobucket person willing to interact with us and hear us out - who was listening to our complaints and making excuses for the horrible new site.

Some of our complaints were heard and because of that, some things will be added back into Photobucket, little by little (I fought and fought for the upload resize options until they were reinstated), but it is a sloooooooow process. Unfortunately, leaving those types of comment threads open on Photobucket is an invitation for a lot of the angry people to start posting stuff that is considered unacceptable, and thus, each thread has been closed, one by one. The last one we were allowed to comment in was closed just this morning. Photobucket doesn't want to hear anymore from the customers.

We did quite a few pics......even ones where we used our fists on our head to look like Mickey ears (Mickey just pointed at his).......lol

I got to meet Linda back in December when we drove down. We did that dinner in Sacramento & her and her hubby joined us at the Spaghetti Factory.

Yes, Nick looks a lot like me. I remember my mom coming into the hospital after I gave birth and her looking at Nick and saying "he looks exactly like you did as a baby". (poor kid.....lol)

Photobucket's new & improved sight is horrible. It doesn't leave the pics in the order I upload them (which is how I want them for my trip reports) and I end up having to go search all the pages to find that rare one that is out of order. I also don't like going to the album and not being able to click the link to use here without actually having to click the picture first. There are more steps now and this reorganizing my uploads is going to be a deal breaker for me if they don't fix that!!

 

[daisy_77]

I am loving your report! How fun to have family with you and spend time with the Divas. I'm super jealous!

I hope you find a way to take a trip to WDW. It is amazing there. I love Disneyland but WDW, IMO is a extra special treat! You and your husband deserve it.

 

[DizNee Luver]

I am loving your report! How fun to have family with you and spend time with the Divas. I'm super jealous!

I hope you find a way to take a trip to WDW. It is amazing there. I love Disneyland but WDW, IMO is a extra special treat! You and your husband deserve it.

Hi January!!

I find bringing someone with me, helps keep my anxiety in check. I didn't do very much with the Divas this trip.....but I didn't feel the best and had been having lots of anxiety prior to the trip and just felt it best to stick with Nick & Marie for the majority of the trip. I missed just talking with the girls, but it wasn't meant to be this time.

We're really hoping to go.....we were supposed to go as a family this past December.....but money we were needing to come in.....didn't come in time & so we ended up switching our trip to Disneyland. So I planned for almost a year for our big WDW trip and now am "jones~ing" to go!! My son did the college program last year and is going back to do it again in May. He wants us to come visit.....he doesn't plan on returning to Oregon when he's done.

 

[kelmac284]

Loved the new diva installment and you got a good group shot. I haven't done photopass in a long time cuz I just never want to spend the money. Thought about going in on the group thing but we just didn't take a ton of pics and I didn't want to get a cd with 400 pics when only 10 had us on it LOL. But I may do it next time cuz it is STILL cheaper to do it that way then to buy even ONE pic through photopass.

I hope your DW trip works out as well. We are hoping to go back in 14 but over thanksgiving week. Mom needs to deposit her weeks for the timeshare but has to come up with some money to do so and with our trip to North Carolina this summer I don't know when she can do that and by the time she does it may be too late to get dvc. We were going to trade and trade into it using RCI but being that week we may have to stay offsite. I just want to go back though cuz it has been awhile and will be 4 years if we end up going and really want to see all the new stuff they have done since we were last there.

I don't know why but I was thinking you said Derek wasn't happy with the college program. Sounds like he changed his mind or is it the girlfriend?

So I am guessing he wants to stay in Florida? Fun for him but I know you will for sure miss him being that far away.

I secretly hope that may girls stay close to home when they grow up but know that that is not always possible.

That sucks about photobucket. I haven't used it in years and I think that is why so many post to fb because it is so much easier. Wish they had that on here where you didn't have to use a different site but could post directly to this.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Loved the new diva installment and you got a good group shot. I haven't done photopass in a long time cuz I just never want to spend the money. Thought about going in on the group thing but we just didn't take a ton of pics and I didn't want to get a cd with 400 pics when only 10 had us on it LOL. But I may do it next time cuz it is STILL cheaper to do it that way then to buy even ONE pic through photopass.

I hope your DW trip works out as well. We are hoping to go back in 14 but over thanksgiving week. Mom needs to deposit her weeks for the timeshare but has to come up with some money to do so and with our trip to North Carolina this summer I don't know when she can do that and by the time she does it may be too late to get dvc. We were going to trade and trade into it using RCI but being that week we may have to stay offsite. I just want to go back though cuz it has been awhile and will be 4 years if we end up going and really want to see all the new stuff they have done since we were last there.

I don't know why but I was thinking you said Derek wasn't happy with the college program. Sounds like he changed his mind or is it the girlfriend?

So I am guessing he wants to stay in Florida? Fun for him but I know you will for sure miss him being that far away.

I secretly hope that may girls stay close to home when they grow up but know that that is not always possible.

That sucks about photobucket. I haven't used it in years and I think that is why so many post to fb because it is so much easier. Wish they had that on here where you didn't have to use a different site but could post directly to this.

I get the photopass every trip. I did the photo share once & didn't like that we were sharing our personal pics with everyone. I guess I'm semi-private. I'll share.....but I'll share what I want too......lol The new Photopass+ is well spent money~~the character meal picture packages are just over $30 each, on-ride photos (if you buy them) are $10?? The Photopass+ costs $69.95......so getting 2 character meals almost pays for it!!

We hope to do the WDW thing......it's something I really want to do!!

Grrrrr photobucket........... it used to be pretty easy to do these installments.....but now, I need to allot quite a bit of time for each one!!

 

[Sherry E]

We did quite a few pics......even ones where we used our fists on our head to look like Mickey ears (Mickey just pointed at his).......lol

I got to meet Linda back in December when we drove down. We did that dinner in Sacramento & her and her hubby joined us at the Spaghetti Factory.

Yes, Nick looks a lot like me. I remember my mom coming into the hospital after I gave birth and her looking at Nick and saying "he looks exactly like you did as a baby". (poor kid.....lol)

Photobucket's new & improved sight is horrible. It doesn't leave the pics in the order I upload them (which is how I want them for my trip reports) and I end up having to go search all the pages to find that rare one that is out of order. I also don't like going to the album and not being able to click the link to use here without actually having to click the picture first. There are more steps now and this reorganizing my uploads is going to be a deal breaker for me if they don't fix that!!

I found that in following the threads on Photobucket where we were allowed to complain and list off all the problems on the stupid new site, other moderators of other boards and forums were coming out of the woodwork. We were united in the war on Photobucket! We may have come from totally different boards about totally different things, but we all understood how people on discussion forums use Photobucket.

So one of the many, many things I was telling "Danny from Photobucket" was that people on my board often have threads that feature thousands and thousands of photos. Those people need to be able to have the same features they previously had on Photobucket to manage those photos.

The feature you need - and this was one of my biggest complaints because it affects me as well - is the "Sort by File Name" feature. That's the feature that will put the photos in the order they were taken (IMG 266, IMG 267, IMG 268, etc.) - which is what we need when we do trip reports. The old site had the Sort by File Name feature. The new site does not have it, and Danny says that it's "coming soon," which is what he says about almost everything. When they switched everyone to the new site, they should have had that feature in place. Instead, they switched us over without warning us that we'd lose certain things, and the previous order in which our photos were sorted suddenly got messed up and photos are now all out of sequence!

Also, the way it is set up now, if someone (one of your TR readers) wants to click on a link and view your photo in a separate window on a blank page, they have to view the photo on a Photobucket page with ads instead of seeing the photo by itself. Photobucket made the "business decision" to not allow direct viewing or direct linking to a photo and that the ads have to be there.

Danny said the other day that sometime last year Photobucket collected data from surveys taken by Photobucket customers (but not ALL the customers). He said that Photobucket later realized that the data collected from the surveys was "skewed," and that there were many features they simply "did not realize" people needed until everyone began complaining. He said, for one thing, that Photobucket did not realize that people had so many photos in their albums! That's so irritating, it's hilarious.

So, basically, now they are trying to do damage control and make up for the mess they made at Photobucket, while still claiming that this new site is great. They will not be adding back in everything that they took out, but they will be adding in some things (like they just rolled out the page numbers to everyone in the past week). They claim that they can't do it quickly; it "takes time." Some of the things they add in will be full of bugs and will not work.

Sort by File Name is coming at some point, but there is no guarantee of when. It could be in 2 weeks. It could be in 2 months.

I came to the conclusion that Photobucket has no clue how their users are actually using their site. The new design seems to cater to people who only have maybe 10 or 20 photos in their albums, and not the mass volume of photos that many of us have!

In any case, I just wanted to let you know that I was there in the trenches, fighting for all of us on the DIS (with the fellow moderators from other boards)! This new site is not user-friendly at all!

 

[DizNee Luver]

I found that in following the threads on Photobucket where we were allowed to complain and list off all the problems on the stupid new site, other moderators of other boards and forums were coming out of the woodwork. We were united in the war on Photobucket! We may have come from totally different boards about totally different things, but we all understood how people on discussion forums use Photobucket.

So one of the many, many things I was telling "Danny from Photobucket" was that people on my board often have threads that feature thousands and thousands of photos. Those people need to be able to have the same features they previously had on Photobucket to manage those photos.

The feature you need - and this was one of my biggest complaints because it affects me as well - is the "Sort by File Name" feature. That's the feature that will put the photos in the order they were taken (IMG 266, IMG 267, IMG 268, etc.) - which is what we need when we do trip reports. The old site had the Sort by File Name feature. The new site does not have it, and Danny says that it's "coming soon," which is what he says about almost everything. When they switched everyone to the new site, they should have had that feature in place. Instead, they switched us over without warning us that we'd lose certain things, and the previous order in which our photos were sorted suddenly got messed up and photos are now all out of sequence!

Also, the way it is set up now, if someone (one of your TR readers) wants to click on a link and view your photo in a separate window on a blank page, they have to view the photo on a Photobucket page with ads instead of seeing the photo by itself. Photobucket made the "business decision" to not allow direct viewing or direct linking to a photo and that the ads have to be there.

Danny said the other day that sometime last year Photobucket collected data from surveys taken by Photobucket customers (but not ALL the customers). He said that Photobucket later realized that the data collected from the surveys was "skewed," and that there were many features they simply "did not realize" people needed until everyone began complaining. He said, for one thing, that Photobucket did not realize that people had so many photos in their albums! That's so irritating, it's hilarious.

So, basically, now they are trying to do damage control and make up for the mess they made at Photobucket, while still claiming that this new site is great. They will not be adding back in everything that they took out, but they will be adding in some things (like they just rolled out the page numbers to everyone in the past week). They claim that they can't do it quickly; it "takes time." Some of the things they add in will be full of bugs and will not work.

Sort by File Name is coming at some point, but there is no guarantee of when. It could be in 2 weeks. It could be in 2 months.

I came to the conclusion that Photobucket has no clue how their users are actually using their site. The new design seems to cater to people who only have maybe 10 or 20 photos in their albums, and not the mass volume of photos that many of us have!

In any case, I just wanted to let you know that I was there in the trenches, fighting for all of us on the DIS (with the fellow moderators from other boards)! This new site is not user-friendly at all!

When Photobucket was first introducing people to the new site, you were able to switch back to the old and if you did......they asked why you weren't staying on the new site. I told them because they were not keeping my photos in the order I was uploading them. It's not up to them to decide how to organize my pics. I said, until that was fixed....I would not be using their new site. I also mentioned that I didn't like having to click on each picture to get the links.

Then they started "threatening" me that EVERYONE would be switched to the new site & to go ahead and do it now. I didn't & waited until they made the switch.......I'm not happy!!!!

I tried shutterfly, but it's the same on needing to click on each picture to get to the links.......so I quit using it.

I also paid for photobucket pro but now they've changed that and I've gotten notification that I'm over my storage limits. Well, when I paid for the photopass pro......I was given unlimited. I think people that already HAD this paid feature should have been grandfathered in. I'm not happy that I may need to pay more to keep my photos good.

 

[Sherry E]

When Photobucket was first introducing people to the new site, you were able to switch back to the old and if you did......they asked why you weren't staying on the new site. I told them because they were not keeping my photos in the order I was uploading them. It's not up to them to decide how to organize my pics. I said, until that was fixed....I would not be using their new site. I also mentioned that I didn't like having to click on each picture to get the links.

Then they started "threatening" me that EVERYONE would be switched to the new site & to go ahead and do it now. I didn't & waited until they made the switch.......I'm not happy!!!!

I tried shutterfly, but it's the same on needing to click on each picture to get to the links.......so I quit using it.

I also paid for photobucket pro but now they've changed that and I've gotten notification that I'm over my storage limits. Well, when I paid for the photopass pro......I was given unlimited. I think people that already HAD this paid feature should have been grandfathered in. I'm not happy that I may need to pay more to keep my photos good.

Yep - that's another thing that people were mentioning in the various complaint threads on the Photobucket website. They were starting to see that their storage was about to exceed its limits, even though many of these customers had paid for Pro accounts. (I have Pro as well.)

Photobucket has done another sneaky thing. On the old website, you could customize your upload & storage size. So, for example, if you wanted to upload your photos at the 640 x 480 size, or the 800 x 600 size, etc., you could do that - and all of the photos in your albums would be stored at the size you chose for your upload.

But now, with the new Photobucket, they trick us! They give us the upload size options (which I fought for), so we can choose the size before uploading photos. However, that is not the size that our photos are being stored at. Our photos are actually being stored at their original sizes, which, depending on your camera's settings, may be much bigger than you need to store on Photobucket. When we link the photos to forums like this one, the photos will display at the size we chose for the upload, but the original size is what is kept in our albums.

In a nutshell, Photobucket is tricking a lot of people into storing larger photos than what they need to store in their albums so that their storage limits will be maxed out faster, and they will likely end up paying more money to store the photos. It's a money-making ploy, plain and simple.

Photobucket should have actually e-mailed out surveys to all of us - every single user - last year with a warning that said "We are about to make big changes to the site, but we need to know which features you use." If they had been clear about that, more people would have replied and the data would not have been as "skewed" like Danny said it was.

Bret/mvf-m11c uses Flickr, and he takes thousands of photos too. He loves it. There may be a bit of a learning curve to get used to it, but if Flickr works for Bret it might work for the rest of us if we get disgusted enough with Photobucket. I've also heard some good things about Smug Mug, Image Shack and Slick Pic.

 

[DizNee Luver]

Yep - that's another thing that people were mentioning in the various complaint threads on the Photobucket website. They were starting to see that their storage was about to exceed its limits, even though many of these customers had paid for Pro accounts. (I have Pro as well.)

Photobucket has done another sneaky thing. On the old website, you could customize your upload & storage size. So, for example, if you wanted to upload your photos at the 640 x 480 size, or the 800 x 600 size, etc., you could do that - and all of the photos in your albums would be stored at the size you chose for your upload.

But now, with the new Photobucket, they trick us! They give us the upload size options (which I fought for), so we can choose the size before uploading photos. However, that is not the size that our photos are being stored at. Our photos are actually being stored at their original sizes, which, depending on your camera's settings, may be much bigger than you need to store on Photobucket. When we link the photos to forums like this one, the photos will display at the size we chose for the upload, but the original size is what is kept in our albums.

In a nutshell, Photobucket is tricking a lot of people into storing larger photos than what they need to store in their albums so that their storage limits will be maxed out faster, and they will likely end up paying more money to store the photos. It's a money-making ploy, plain and simple.

Photobucket should have actually e-mailed out surveys to all of us - every single user - last year with a warning that said "We are about to make big changes to the site, but we need to know which features you use." If they had been clear about that, more people would have replied and the data would not have been as "skewed" like Danny said it was.

Bret/mvf-m11c uses Flickr, and he takes thousands of photos too. He loves it. There may be a bit of a learning curve to get used to it, but if Flickr works for Bret it might work for the rest of us if we get disgusted enough with Photobucket. I've also heard some good things about Smug Mug, Image Shack and Slick Pic.

Good to know about the other sites......If things don't shape up quickly on photobucket, I will be looking for somewhere else to go!!

The survey should have gone to ALL of us, or at least to those that spend money on their site.

 

[PHXscuba]

I am caught up! Missing my happy place ...

We tried to get Dole Whips one afternoon and were told the line was 45 minutes! Luckily DD10 was satisfied with a Mickey bar. Maybe next time!

PHXscuba

 

[DizNee Luver]

I am caught up! Missing my happy place ...

We tried to get Dole Whips one afternoon and were told the line was 45 minutes! Luckily DD10 was satisfied with a Mickey bar. Maybe next time!

PHXscuba

I'm missing it too.........

I can take it or leave it on the Dole Whips......it's nice to share with my hubby when we're going into the Tiki room......but otherwise, it's not something I'm going to go out of my way to get (or stand in a ridiculously long line).