A Private Dance with Cinderella... Our Surprise Trip Jan 2011 (completed 7/18!)

[BigTex71]

Yeah! You snagged your Le Cellier reservation! When (how many days out) did you get it? On-line persistence?

I snagged that ADR the morning of the day we left. After I dropped DD off at her pre-school, I checked it before packing. They had the 2:30 slot open so I grabbed it! I had checked every day and that was my last 'official' time to check, since we would be leaving that day. I lucked out!

 

[afwdwfan]

I can now reveal that I was able to get my most coveted ADR! It was at 2:30pm for lunch.

Awesome! Glad it worked out!

Sorry to hear about the incident with your daughter, but it never fails to amaze me when I see stories like this. Disney really does handle situations like this very well. Just another reason it is such a great place.

 

[BigTex71]

For a guy who knows photography, that's a great shot. For giggles, can I have a copy of the original? I'd like to play with it.

Thanks and yes you can. PM me to remind me and I will try to get that out to you tonight.

I received the Understanding Exposure: 3rd Edition by Bryan Peterson for Christmas. I started playing with some different settings on my little Canon G11 on this trip. I still haven't got a full handle on everything, but I am trying to experiment and take more interesting shots. But most of my pictures at WDW this time were still on AUTO or a defined preset so DW wouldn't complain about me wasting time composing a shot. Next trip I will take my time and compose my own exposures.

Disney really rocks at this. There are few places that I've ever been where you are treated like this for something that was the fault of the company, much less where it's your own fault. I'm glad that your DD was alright.

Yes, I thought so also. At first I figured they might be trying to gauge whether we were going to try to threaten to sue or something, but I really didn't get that impression. They all were concerned and empathetic. Disney is in a different league than all the others when it comes to customer service and interaction (just like the Ritz Carlton company.)

Wait, there's a CS restaurant there? I thought it was only TS! DANG! My plans for this year's trip just changed! Woohoo!

Yes, it is directly across the 'street' from the table service place.

I hope that you were able to see this. It's my favorite "end of the day" show of all. Last year, despite a horrible cold and spending all day at the hotel (all-star, ick) I still mustered the strength to go and see Illuminations on our last night at Disney. I love that show.

You are going to have to wait and find out.

 

[rlk]

I'm glad your daughter was ok. My oldest DS 9 at the time,had 2 concussions last year. The first from a rollercoaster ride at Hershey Park and the second from horsing around with his brother.

 

[BigTex71]

I'm glad your daughter was ok. My oldest DS 9 at the time,had 2 concussions last year. The first from a rollercoaster ride at Hershey Park and the second from horsing around with his brother.

Wow, that must have been some rollercoaster!

 

[lnk1229]

Hey BigTex71!! Loving your TR so far- I am having Disney withdrawals from our recent trip to Disney and have been lurking around DISboards to keep a small shred of sanity until our next trip!

I am glad to hear your daughter was okay- I am a registered nurse and often wonder how Disney would respond to medical emergencies... We had only one instance where we happened upon a child who was "choking" on a piece of candy.. his mom was screaming and of course I ran over... He was in fact, not choking, but having some difficulty swallowing a giant piece of chewy candy. Three CM responded just behind me and seconds later an EMT. By then the kid was crying and punching his little brother so I figured he would make it... the CMs stuck around for a bit and we saw him later that day during the parade..

Loving your pictures- I took a million and included at least half in my TR.. haha- I love lurking and checking out other people's photos too!

 

[BigTex71]

Loving your pictures- I took a million and included at least half in my TR.. haha- I love lurking and checking out other people's photos too!

I will have to go check out your TR. I love TRs with lots of photos. Extra points awarded for food porn!

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

I was just about to comment on how much your DD looked like she was enjoying herself, and then got to the part about her hitting her head. I'm glad she was ok. Sounds like the Disney CM's were awesome.

Great job on getting Le Cellier reservations...couldn't agree about that food more. Now I'm craving cheddar cheese soup for some reason...

For a guy who knows photography, that's a great shot. For giggles, can I have a copy of the original? I'd like to play with it.

Hey! I had that shot in my TR too!

 

[Rental01]

Hey! I had that shot in my TR too!

PLEASE understand that I'm only talking photographically here... Yours was a great shot (lighting wise) but compositionally it's, uh, a little lacking. With symmetrical images like that you really want to have it be centered and even on all sides. When I get BigTex's photo I'm going to do some minor edits in lightroom to boost the blacks and color while centering and rotating the image to see if I can make it really stand out.

You can look this stuff up online if you'd like. A friend of mine is a professional photographer/blogger/podcaster (now with over 100,000 downloads a month!) who made a photography 101 class where I learned how to shoot pictures. Mine started to improve immediately because I started framing pictures with composition in mind instead of centering my subject in the frame. I figured $25 for a set of videos I can watch on my computer was just fine with me. Anyway, yours was a great shot in that the colors looked fantastic and the lighting was great but because of the angle it was kind of hard to have one thing to focus on. Conversely, this image is fantastic!

 

[BridgetR3]

PLEASE understand that I'm only talking photographically here... Yours was a great shot (lighting wise) but compositionally it's, uh, a little lacking. With symmetrical images like that you really want to have it be centered and even on all sides. When I get BigTex's photo I'm going to do some minor edits in lightroom to boost the blacks and color while centering and rotating the image to see if I can make it really stand out.

You can look this stuff up online if you'd like. A friend of mine is a professional photographer/blogger/podcaster (now with over 100,000 downloads a month!) who made a photography 101 class where I learned how to shoot pictures. Mine started to improve immediately because I started framing pictures with composition in mind instead of centering my subject in the frame. I figured $25 for a set of videos I can watch on my computer was just fine with me. Anyway, yours was a great shot in that the colors looked fantastic and the lighting was great but because of the angle it was kind of hard to have one thing to focus on. Conversely, this image is fantastic!

WOW..... a bit unnecessary don't ya think?

 

[Captain_Oblivious]

PLEASE understand that I'm only talking photographically here... Yours was a great shot (lighting wise) but compositionally it's, uh, a little lacking. With symmetrical images like that you really want to have it be centered and even on all sides. When I get BigTex's photo I'm going to do some minor edits in lightroom to boost the blacks and color while centering and rotating the image to see if I can make it really stand out.

You can look this stuff up online if you'd like. A friend of mine is a professional photographer/blogger/podcaster (now with over 100,000 downloads a month!) who made a photography 101 class where I learned how to shoot pictures. Mine started to improve immediately because I started framing pictures with composition in mind instead of centering my subject in the frame. I figured $25 for a set of videos I can watch on my computer was just fine with me. Anyway, yours was a great shot in that the colors looked fantastic and the lighting was great but because of the angle it was kind of hard to have one thing to focus on. Conversely, this image is fantastic!

Thanks, Ian. Actually, I did notice that when we downloaded our pictures--it was a bit off-center. I blame my wife.

We actually just got Aperture for our computer, and it's got some helpful tools to rotate the axis of the picture and otherwise get it composed properly if there's a slight bit of operator error at the beginning.

And thanks for the props on the other picture!

WOW..... a bit unnecessary don't ya think?

Nah, it's all good. Ian knows his stuff, and I'm happy and eager to learn. It also helps that in this case, he's right about my picture.

 

[BigTex71]

BTW, I was reminded last night (although I still don't recall this to be accurate) that DW took that picture.

 

[Rental01]

Thanks, Ian. Actually, I did notice that when we downloaded our pictures--it was a bit off-center. I blame my wife.

We actually just got Aperture for our computer, and it's got some helpful tools to rotate the axis of the picture and otherwise get it composed properly if there's a slight bit of operator error at the beginning.

And thanks for the props on the other picture!

I got Lightroom3 last year (new) for $100 and I've not looked back. While I could use Aperture on the mac, it would just confuse me and I'm not into that. From what I understand, though, they're both roughly the same from the standpoint of their functionality and the integration with iphoto is a great help. A couple tricks in post processing that I use pretty often: The first thing I usually do with all of my pictures is to boost the black level until the picture pops and raise the saturation on them a touch. Not a lot, only in the 2-5% range and that usually gets them ready for printing. Remember the rule of thirds (the intersection of the "1/3rds" lines on the picture is where your eyes will jump to) when cropping images and that when taking pictures, "leading lines" (lines in the picture) will lead you to a subject so if you start thinking 2-dimensionally when you shoot you'll see how the picture will appear when it is framed.

That's about it. Of course, I say this with probably 50 pictures still on my camera from an event I shot on Monday. I'm a dirty slacker.

 

[Rental01]

BTW, I was reminded last night (although I still don't recall this to be accurate) that DW took that picture.

I bought my wife a camera for her birthday last year so she can just take her own. That keeps me from worrying that she'll drop mine (yes, that's happened before), and it affords her the opportunity to compete with me - something we do a lot.

Tell her that she did a great job!

 

[GaRain]

I guess I should officially sign the agreement since I already read everything...

 

[GaRain]

I guess I should officially sign the agreement since I already read everything...

 

[tinytreasures]

So sorry your dd got hurt but wow they really looked out for you and your family
Love the matching shirts. We try to keep the kids matching it makes it so much easier to look for one shirt then 5 different ones.

 

[BigTex71]

January 31, 2011 – Day 4 (Universal Islands of Adventure Day)

I really wanted to leave the condo at 8:00am to ensure we could be at the Islands of Adventure gates before they opened at 9:00am. This was one of my most worrisome mornings, since we had been late to all the other rope drops. We almost made my departure goal, for a change. We were parked by 8:55am, but DW needed to stop at the Cinnabon shop at Universal CityWalk on the way to the park entrance for breakfast – she was rushed to leave the condo for some strange, unknown reason. (Hi, I’m strange and unknown BTW, nice to meet ya.) We were at the gates around 9:15am. Crap! I was sure the Wizarding World would be full by now, considering people staying at a Universal hotel were able to enter at 8am. Hopefully the wait for The Forbidden Journey wouldn’t be too bad by the time we got there.

We quickly slithered our way past Seussland and The Lost Continent to make our way to the back portion of the park where the Harry Potter area was. It was hard telling DS that she would have to wait for Seussland until after Wizarding World – you know how little ones are. She saw the way Seussland looked and just had to stop and see it all. I explained to her we would be back really soon after we went to the Harry Potter section. When she heard the words ‘Harry Potter’ she immediately changed her mind. She was now fine with coming back a little later. (Ah, I have raised her right!)We made it to Hogsmeade and I was surprised that it didn’t look more crowded.

The kids posed for a picture with the conductor of the Hogwarts Express.

We then made our way over towards the Hogwarts castle to ride The Forbidden Journey. When we got there, I had to get a picture of the wait time at 9:23am:

10 minute wait for what has been considered one of the best theme park rides ever! We made our way in and I was giddy as a school child. The strange thing about this queue – it appeared to be backed up a bit with a wait in the greenhouse area outside. Once we made it to the actual door to the inside of the castle, it was walk-on. But the bad thing about that (yes, I was a little disappointed that we rushed in to the ride) was that you couldn’t just look around and enjoy the paintings that talk and move and some of the other great themed stuff they had inside. We slowed down a few times to take it in, but there were streams of people starting to come behind us so I didn’t want to back up the line. Keep it moving! There’s nothing to see here… keep it moving! (But there was actually PLENTY to see.) Once we got to the loading area, we informed the person that worked there that we were doing a child swap. I let DW ride first (DS got scared and decided not to ride.) We waited in a room that had several benches along the walls to sit down and a flat panel TV playing parts of the Harry Potter movies. When DW returned it was my turn! I tried to ask DS to ride with me, but he declined. Looking back, I am glad he ended up not riding – I know him too well and he would have been terrified.

Wow!

THE. BEST. ATTRACTION. EVER! I had a huge smile on my face the entire ride! Universal really hit a grand slam homerun with this one! Anyone going to Disney World – you MUST go to Universal, even if only to ride this one ride! And remember - this is coming from a self-confessed Disneyholic! (Should I put more exclamation marks to emphasize the excitement?!)
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We met back up and browsed the store at the exit of the attraction and I got a picture of DS in front of Hogwarts:

Then we went over to ride Flight of the Hippogriff. The queue had some nice details including Hagrid’s Hut:

I would equate that rollercoaster to a Goofy’s Barnstormer on steroids. It was faster and exerted more g-forces on you than the relatively tame Barnstormer. DD usually giggles the whole time through Barnstormer. She was a little timid during this one. She said she really liked it and wanted to ride it again, but I could tell she didn’t like it nearly as much as Barnstormer.

After riding Buckbeak, we made our way over to the line for Olivander’s Wand Shop. The line looked kind of long, but the UM (Universal Member) said it would be about a 25 minute wait. He was pretty accurate with that assessment. I think it actually was a 22 minute wait, all be told. I snapped a few pictures of Hogwarts Castle while waiting in said line.

DS used his money he had been saving to get his own wand that he picked out. I don’t have a picture of it right now, but it is cool. It has a skull at the hilt of it – kind of Knockturn Alley-ish. Then we stopped in to the Hog’s Head for some Butterbeers:

Mmmm. Those are good! It is like a cream soda with a foamy head that tasted like a butterscotch whipped cream. We bought them in souvenir mugs so we could remember our trip. (You thought Disney was expensive? Try $10.50 each – and they don’t have alcohol in them!)

We then walked through HoneyDukes Sweetshop:

Zonko’s Joke Shop was next. Here is a gag gift I just had to get a picture of: (You DISdads Club guys should really enjoy this one)

We then said farewell to The Wizarding World, we still had more of the park to explore!

Up Next: The rest of Islands of Adventure and a Disney vs. Universal comparison

 

[BigTex71]

I guess I should officially sign the agreement since I already read everything...

Welcome!

 

[Rental01]

Thank you! This is all I've wanted to do. I love this shot!