Backstage Magic - June 2010

[soarin three]

We received the pictures Michael and Diana took and the CD from the final night Tuesday of this past week. While we were pleased with the quantity, we are disappointed that there were none of the farewell dinner. Please let me know if you have any of these when you receive them. Hope you are all well.

 

[micmous]

We received the pictures Michael and Diana took and the CD from the final night Tuesday of this past week. While we were pleased with the quantity, we are disappointed that there were none of the farewell dinner. Please let me know if you have any of these when you receive them. Hope you are all well.

We are still waiting for our CD with the pictures. How did the CD ship (USPS, UPS, Fedex)? Did anyone else get the CD?

 

[Birdie1981]

We are still waiting for our CD with the pictures. How did the CD ship (USPS, UPS, Fedex)? Did anyone else get the CD?

They where sent UPS! I got my package in the mail Thursday and then I recieved the Stamm's package in the mail when I returned from Las Vegas, so there came on Saturday. Which I shipped out by Mail yesterday to them.

Hope you get them soon.

 

[AStamm]

We received the pictures Michael and Diana took and the CD from the final night Tuesday of this past week. While we were pleased with the quantity, we are disappointed that there were none of the farewell dinner. Please let me know if you have any of these when you receive them. Hope you are all well.

We got our CD yesterday (sent first to Birdie in NY, then she had to send it off to us ).

I was really disappointed with the quality of the pictures and the fact that they are read-only, so can't be edited. There are so many fuzzy pictures and many of the indoor ones have red-eye. The other thing that I'm not happy about is that the time stamp on one of the cameras doesn't appear to be set correctly and the pictures weren't in order to begin with between the two guides, so getting everything in order along with my own is going to be a monumental task.

Anyone know of any way to crop, reduce red-eye, etc. without having to purchase some additional program? I tried messing with the properties of the picture, but I don't have permission according to the message that popped up. So frustrating!

For any ABD employees that happen to read this thread--if you don't want to allow the customer to alter the pictures, you should hire someone whose only job is to fix the pictures your guides take and get everything in order! Or, at the very least, provide your guides with state-of-the-art cameras that automatically reduce red-eye, take crisp pictures, etc.

 

[jacksparrowfan]

We got our CD yesterday (sent first to Birdie in NY, then she had to send it off to us ).

I was really disappointed with the quality of the pictures and the fact that they are read-only, so can't be edited. There are so many fuzzy pictures and many of the indoor ones have red-eye. The other thing that I'm not happy about is that the time stamp on one of the cameras doesn't appear to be set correctly and the pictures weren't in order to begin with between the two guides, so getting everything in order along with my own is going to be a monumental task.

Anyone know of any way to crop, reduce red-eye, etc. without having to purchase some additional program? I tried messing with the properties of the picture, but I don't have permission according to the message that popped up. So frustrating!

For any ABD employees that happen to read this thread--if you don't want to allow the customer to alter the pictures, you should hire someone whose only job is to fix the pictures your guides take and get everything in order! Or, at the very least, provide your guides with state-of-the-art cameras that automatically reduce red-eye, take crisp pictures, etc.

Are you trying to access the disk through the "auto" program it goes through? If so, try this...

Right click "Start", then click on "Explore". Go to the drive that shows the disk you are trying to access. There should be a folder "My Disney Folders". Then, you can copy all of the pictures to your computers hard drive and it's much easier to access and deal with. I am a Scrapbooker and I use Photoshop. I have been able to clean up and crop many of the Photopass photo's. They are now yours so you can do as you please. My friend has told me about something called picnik.com. She really liked it and did some nice things with her pictures. I haven't tried it or accessed it, but I am sure there are many freebie type of software online you can work with.

The Guides are given older cameras. I was so appreciative that they had something for us. They don't organize them by where we went. There is just no time. Every night they lock themselves in a room and go through the pictures. Talk about a monumental task when there are so many people on the tour and trying to sort through all the pictures for each family. Plus, they are creating that slideshow at the Farewell dinner to make sure everyone is a part of that show. They also plan the next days activities, so it's crazy for them. Kudo's to all ABD Guides and THANK YOU for taking pictures for us!!!

You mentioned that they sent the disk to someone else? Was the other person someone you stayed with in the rooms and on the reservation?

I hope that you can share pictures amongst your group that each of you took? We had a wonderful person on our tour create places on Flickr for all of us to upload our pictures and share with each other. He separated them by experience/location. It was such a great idea!

Did you happen to get the disk as part of the tour? Is it something they are now offering instead of the extra fee in paying for the Photopass?

Hope you enjoyed your trip! Diana and Michael were my Guides for two different tours. Love both of them!!!

 

[AStamm]

Are you trying to access the disk through the "auto" program it goes through? If so, try this...

Right click "Start", then click on "Explore". Go to the drive that shows the disk you are trying to access. There should be a folder "My Disney Folders". Then, you can copy all of the pictures to your computers hard drive and it's much easier to access and deal with. I am a Scrapbooker and I use Photoshop. I have been able to clean up and crop many of the Photopass photo's. They are now yours so you can do as you please. My friend has told me about something called picnik.com. She really liked it and did some nice things with her pictures. I haven't tried it or accessed it, but I am sure there are many freebie type of software online you can work with.

The Guides are given older cameras. I was so appreciative that they had something for us. They don't organize them by where we went. There is just no time. Every night they lock themselves in a room and go through the pictures. Talk about a monumental task when there are so many people on the tour and trying to sort through all the pictures for each family. Plus, they are creating that slideshow at the Farewell dinner to make sure everyone is a part of that show. They also plan the next days activities, so it's crazy for them. Kudo's to all ABD Guides and THANK YOU for taking pictures for us!!!

You mentioned that they sent the disk to someone else? Was the other person someone you stayed with in the rooms and on the reservation?

I hope that you can share pictures amongst your group that each of you took? We had a wonderful person on our tour create places on Flickr for all of us to upload our pictures and share with each other. He separated them by experience/location. It was such a great idea!

Did you happen to get the disk as part of the tour? Is it something they are now offering instead of the extra fee in paying for the Photopass?

Hope you enjoyed your trip! Diana and Michael were my Guides for two different tours. Love both of them!!!

Thanks for the advice. I was already accessing the pics the way you suggested, just didn't get the "make copy" part of it.

I certainly didn't want to sound ungrateful that the guides were there taking pictures, just disppointed that the quality of them isn't better, they aren't in chronological order, and that the red-eye wasn't photoshopped out first. I realize the guides don't have time to do all this each evening, which is why I suggested ABD employ someone who takes care of this following the adventure. It took 3 weeks until the CDs were sent out--plenty of time for an ABD employee in an office somewhere to give them a little TLC in organizing and touching up photos.

The disk addressed to my DH went to BFFs house--we had two reservations. She and I were in one room, with DH and DS in another. ABD definitely had all our correct addresses. The disk was sent without any charge--a nice touch for a very expensive trip.

 

[sayhello]

Did you happen to get the disk as part of the tour? Is it something they are now offering instead of the extra fee in paying for the Photopass?

Yes, it appears that ABD now gives you a CD of all of the pictures taken by the Guides. It arrives with the DVD of the slideshow. It's included in the cost of the ABD. My understanding is, it's ALL the pictures, not just your family. The CD I got for the ABD/DCL Med cruise seems to be everything, but I haven't talked to anyone else to see if they got all the same pics that I did. I think it's nice, because I want pictures of the other travellers, too. And it certainly makes it less work for the Guides, if they don't have to separate the pictures out.

Sayhello

 

[jacksparrowfan]

Yes, it appears that ABD now gives you a CD of all of the pictures taken by the Guides. It arrives with the DVD of the slideshow. It's included in the cost of the ABD. My understanding is, it's ALL the pictures, not just your family. The CD I got for the ABD/DCL Med cruise seems to be everything, but I haven't talked to anyone else to see if they got all the same pics that I did. I think it's nice, because I want pictures of the other travellers, too. And it certainly makes it less work for the Guides, if they don't have to separate the pictures out.

Sayhello

Thank you, Sayhello! How wonderful!!! I, too, would love all pictures with all guests being a scrapbooker. A little extra off the Guides in the evening. (

 

[micmous]

They where sent UPS! I got my package in the mail Thursday and then I recieved the Stamm's package in the mail when I returned from Las Vegas, so there came on Saturday. Which I shipped out by Mail yesterday to them.

Hope you get them soon.

Everyone seems to be getting the CD. I guess it must take longer to get the CD to the Midwest. We are still waiting for our CD. I hope to have it before our trip the WDW in August.

 

[airplanegod]

Hello everyone, we just got back from the July Backstage Magic, and had Michael and Diana as our guides, and they're wonderful! We also got a ton of suprises like Walt's barn, the Dream Suite, Club 33, Steakhouse 55 etc. It was really great!

 

[rstamm]

Hello everyone, we just got back from the July Backstage Magic, and had Michael and Diana as our guides, and they're wonderful! We also got a ton of suprises like Walt's barn, the Dream Suite, Club 33, Steakhouse 55 etc. It was really great!

Nice to see that ABD is continuing to get Club 33 and the Suite into the tour. I felt bad that the group of 6 the week after this thread's tour didn't get to eat at Club 33. How many were in your group?

 

[airplanegod]

Nice to see that ABD is continuing to get Club 33 and the Suite into the tour. I felt bad that the group of 6 the week after this thread's tour didn't get to eat at Club 33. How many were in your group?

38 people.

 

[DisneyCruisin']

38 people.

I'm hoping the group that leaves on 8/8 gets Club 33!!! Fingers and toes crossed!!!!!

 

[Miss SD]

Hello everyone, we just got back from the July Backstage Magic, and had Michael and Diana as our guides, and they're wonderful! We also got a ton of suprises like Walt's barn, the Dream Suite, Club 33, Steakhouse 55 etc. It was really great!

Hi Betsy, Ernie and family. It was wonderful meeting you on this fantastic trip! Yes, we got all the "upgrades" mentioned in previous posts. There were some other changes to the itinerary such as using a Renaissance meeting room for the first dinner instead of Trastavere and eating at Big Thunder BBQ instead of Cafe Orleans for our lunch at Disneyland. The guides also got us fastpasses for the World of Color show, which was fabulous.

I went on the tour last year, and this year offered a lot more surprises, but, in my opinion, we didn't get see as much at Jim Henson and Disney studios as we did last year. I remember getting a tour of the sound stage area of Disney studios (and visiting a sound stage) and seeing the shop where they keep the puppets at Jim Henson studios. Maybe they just weren't available last week, but it was a change I noticed.

 

[DisneyCruisin']

Hi Betsy, Ernie and family. It was wonderful meeting you on this fantastic trip! Yes, we got all the "upgrades" mentioned in previous posts. There were some other changes to the itinerary such as using a Renaissance meeting room for the first dinner instead of Trastavere and eating at Big Thunder BBQ instead of Cafe Orleans for our lunch at Disneyland. The guides also got us fastpasses for the World of Color show, which was fabulous.

I went on the tour last year, and this year offered a lot more surprises, but, in my opinion, we didn't get see as much at Jim Henson and Disney studios as we did last year. I remember getting a tour of the sound stage area of Disney studios (and visiting a sound stage) and seeing the shop where they keep the puppets at Jim Henson studios. Maybe they just weren't available last week, but it was a change I noticed.

I'm glad you all got a lot of upgrades to the trip! It makes me so much more hopeful for our trip in two weeks!

 

[AStamm]

Hi Betsy, Ernie and family. It was wonderful meeting you on this fantastic trip! Yes, we got all the "upgrades" mentioned in previous posts. There were some other changes to the itinerary such as using a Renaissance meeting room for the first dinner instead of Trastavere and eating at Big Thunder BBQ instead of Cafe Orleans for our lunch at Disneyland. The guides also got us fastpasses for the World of Color show, which was fabulous.

I went on the tour last year, and this year offered a lot more surprises, but, in my opinion, we didn't get see as much at Jim Henson and Disney studios as we did last year. I remember getting a tour of the sound stage area of Disney studios (and visiting a sound stage) and seeing the shop where they keep the puppets at Jim Henson studios. Maybe they just weren't available last week, but it was a change I noticed.

Our June 20th trip also ate in one of the conference rooms the first evening instead of Trastavere as well as Big Thunder BBQ--looks like this will be a regular part of the tour now. From what I read in other posts, I'm glad we didn't eat at Trastavere. It was also nice to be in the hotel for this--after dinner, DH and DS went back to the room (still on East coast time!) while BFF and I walked around a bit.

At Jim Henson studios I remember the guide saying we weren't going into the creature shop because they had pretty much cleared it out and were using it for "Sid the Science Kid". He said there wasn't much to look at since this is a digitial show .

Seeing a sound stage would have been really cool. The ultimate Studios offering would be to see Walt's actual office. I also wish we had more time in the Legends plaza for pictures--we were pretty much rushed out of there in order to get on the bus and head to DL--and only had about 15 minutes to spare before heading to Steakhouse 55 as it was!

 

[mouselike-harrier]

Hi Betsy, Ernie and family. It was wonderful meeting you on this fantastic trip! Yes, we got all the "upgrades" mentioned in previous posts. There were some other changes to the itinerary such as using a Renaissance meeting room for the first dinner instead of Trastavere and eating at Big Thunder BBQ instead of Cafe Orleans for our lunch at Disneyland. The guides also got us fastpasses for the World of Color show, which was fabulous.

I went on the tour last year, and this year offered a lot more surprises, but, in my opinion, we didn't get see as much at Jim Henson and Disney studios as we did last year. I remember getting a tour of the sound stage area of Disney studios (and visiting a sound stage) and seeing the shop where they keep the puppets at Jim Henson studios. Maybe they just weren't available last week, but it was a change I noticed.

Hi Sandy! That's Devlin who was posting. I'm still too tired to be saying much. We really appreciated all the upgrades mentioned and the surprises, including talking with Dave Smith and receiving the 55th anniversary maps. But even if there were no upgrades, it still is a fantastic trip! The people on our trip were the greatest. I'll post more when I catch up on some sleep. Say hello to your family from us.

 

[meg8182000]

OMG - just 13 days until I leave for my Backstage trip! Woo Hoo! After hearing about the June and the July trips - I'm really getting excited for the August trip. DisneyCruisin - our turn is almost here.

meg

Crossing fingers for breakfast at Club 33.