Disney Holiday Firsts At Last! - Final Thoughts Finally!

[mnmrmustard]

Loving your TR and all of your fantastic photos !! Looking forward to reading more about your adventures.

Thank you very much! Between myself and my girls we take a LOT of photos. I saw in your siggy that you're less than two weeks out - whoohoo! That's great!

 

[Trentmom]

Glad you got your pics to work. Went back and read other update and htis one.

Great shots as usual.

Was that yellow car the one from Roger Rabbit?

Can't wait for more

 

[mnmrmustard]

Glad you got your pics to work. Went back and read other update and htis one.

Great shots as usual.

Was that yellow car the one from Roger Rabbit?

Can't wait for more

Yes, it was strange. The computer was up but wouldn't communicate on the network. A reboot fixed it fine though.

The yellow car may have been from Roger Rabbit. I know they used to have the steamroller from that movie on display.

More coming right now!

 

[mnmrmustard]

It is funny the little things that pop back into your mind when youre doing a TR. I was thinking about our Backlot Tour and suddenly remembered two things. First was that Bean got bent out of shape because of the seating arrangement, basically that PumpkinGirl got in first so had a front row. We offered to shift around so she would be right next to her and would have a great view herself but she didnt want to sit next to PumpkinGirl because of the situation. Ahhh, the joys of siblings.

The other thing was that the sun was shining down on us while we were waiting for the tram to get started. I almost started complaining about it being a bit uncomfortably hot when I had a thought. I opened up my phone and went to my weather app and saw that it was currently 39 degrees and raining at home. I then thought much better about sitting with my family on vacation in shorts and a t-shirt on a 79 degree day with low humidity. Yay Florida in December!!!

Back to our journey we were just entering Catastrophe Canyon. There be the plane with the oil derricks on its side. Does that mean that it did battle with them and won against five of them? If so, was it the derricks that rallied together to bring the evil plane down?

Some mysteries may never be solved. We moved on into the canyon and as I said we usually sit in the middle or towards the back so it was interesting to see the catastrophe take place from so far forward.

I thought it was funny that it was still dripping water from the last show

Here comes the kaboom!

Cue the water!

I must remark that weve got a bit to go on day 2 of our intrepid journey and Im already posting pic number 400 on this TR - lol

Here comes the overhead waterfall!

We made it through with very minor soakage from the deluge. We circled around the back of the canyon and all of its inner-workings and on back past Walts plane to the rest of the boneyard.

Still not sure what movie this one is from

Snowspeeder from Empire Strikes Back

The sub Deep Search and Helicopter from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

A beat-up Herbie

And lastly the escape pod from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

We came out of the ride area and toured the costumes and props area and then moved on to the gift shop. PumpkinGirl was enamored with some of the Nightmare before Christmas stuff they had there and I almost bought an Indiana Jones hat. But we started looking around and realized that Bean was gone. We left the store to find that she was peeking in on some Monster friends.

We abandoned our purchasing ideas and got in the short line for Mike and Sully. I like the little details they do like the message boards for a working Monstropolus

Soon enough it was our turn and we got a good family shot

And then with Roxys gentle prodding I got one of just me with them

That has gotta be one short CM in the Mike Wazowski costume!

Next up Bean snuggles Stitch, we take a Rockin ride to an Aerosmith concert, and we get our Terror on at the Hollywood Tower Hotel.


Click here for the next Chapter: Day 2 Part 14 - Hittin' the DHS Thrill Rides!

 

[mnmrmustard]

We rolled on into shockingly, another gift shop! PumpkinGirl tried on some Christmas-themed Mickey ears but decided not to buy them

Bean however saw a Stitch stuffy that she had to have. She was really catching Stitch fever and had us all looking for Stitch pins the rest of the trip. I looked at the time and saw our RnRC FPs were coming up soon so we strolled back towards the front of the park.

On the way we caught a good photo op at the archway (note the brand new Stitch in Beans arms)

As we walked back to the front of the park I was pleased at the overall low crowd levels. Other than a couple of choke points of narrow walkways and intersections we could move pretty freely. Soon enough we were at RnRC.

Smile ladies! Well, two smiles and a grumble from PumpkinGirl.

Our FPs put us right into the crush waiting for the doors to open into the bands sound studio. We are all big fans of the front car so once we made it to the front we asked for the front car line and Bean and I went first  I like to drive the limo

Followed by Roxy and PumpkinGirl  I love their expressions, especially Roxys!

We headed over to ToT from our limo ride. Hello nice lady

That would be one gritty tea service

Who does this stuff belong to?

What was riding that horse?

The main lobby

Do I have any messages?

We were sent to the far room so I was able to get a shot of a side I usually dont see

She looked very contemplative

We moved into the room and before Mr. Serling came on I got a couple of shots.

I love the marks from all of the people trying to pick up the room key

Cool globe

Great job on the spiderwebs there

Bean liked the Chinese dragons

Mr. Serling did his spiel and we were on our way through the boiler room to the service elevator. Once there I asked Bean if she wanted to have a picture in front of the elevator and she said yes. I told her to look scared &not sure that she pulled that off. But even better was the unintentional photobomb by the elevator operator.

He did a good deadpan apology for being in the shot but I said it was a great shot so he came over and took a look and broke out of character a bit to smile and agree :-D

Now we go for our ride and start the trial of the where is Bean ride photos.

Ride #1  her own bag came up and perfectly covered her face

Ride #2  we got back row and just the sheer number of hands up guaranteed that we were in bad shape. Still a good shot of PumpkinGirl and I, I was doing my contemplative ride pose

Bean was very frustrated after than one but the ride wait was only about 10 minutes by that time so the ladies went to ride one more time while I wrote some notes for this here TR &and got myself a smoothie from the stand outside the gift shop.

Smartly Roxy asked for front row and we finally get a good shot of Bean, plus cute ones of PumpkinGirl and Roxy with a heart :-]

Bean was happy and we all talked about what we wanted to do next. We had already decided to give Fantasmic! a pass since we had all seen it a couple of times and didnt want to fight the crowds/sit on the uncomfortable stadium seats. We decided to hit up the Jack Sparrow Pirate thing and then go see the Osborne Lights.

Next up we join the crew of The Black Pearl!


Click here for the next Chapter: Day 2 Part 15 - Joining up with Jack Sparrow

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

enjoyed all the updates but i have to say i never noticed those acme bricks before, will have to search them out next time.
thanks for the heads up.
literally

 

[mnmrmustard]

enjoyed all the updates but i have to say i never noticed those acme bricks before, will have to search them out next time.
thanks for the heads up.
literally

They're easy to walk by if you don't look up. They're just outside the gift shop that both the Backlot Tour and the Monster's Inc. character meet dump into. Right across from the Studio Catering Company

 

[jecskc]

Thank you very much! Between myself and my girls we take a LOT of photos. I saw in your siggy that you're less than two weeks out - whoohoo! That's great!

YES !! We are getting excited !! Just a quick birthday trip to use up our DVC points before they expire. The kids have a long weekend from school, so it was the perfect time for a short trip.

 

[Trentmom]

Great pics of Catatrosphe canyon. Loved all the water shots

RNRC is awesome. We did not make it on that this time. Maybe next year

Love TOT, but didnt make it on that either. Trent won't go on it. Took him on it when he was 4 and he hated the way his stomach felt.

Glad Bean finally got a good shot and she was happy. That poor little boy in back looks so scared holding onto his dad with a death grip

 

[mnmrmustard]

YES !! We are getting excited !! Just a quick birthday trip to use up our DVC points before they expire. The kids have a long weekend from school, so it was the perfect time for a short trip.

Sounds like a perfect way to spend a long weekend ...or any weekend to me!

Great pics of Catatrosphe canyon. Loved all the water shots

RNRC is awesome. We did not make it on that this time. Maybe next year

Love TOT, but didnt make it on that either. Trent won't go on it. Took him on it when he was 4 and he hated the way his stomach felt.

Glad Bean finally got a good shot and she was happy. That poor little boy in back looks so scared holding onto his dad with a death grip

Thank you, I can never get enough of the big splash that water makes. No RnRC, that's too bad. And bummer that Trent won't give ToT another try. Maybe in a couple more years?

Yes, Bean was very happy after that. And I noticed that boy too, poor kid! We have just over 30 ride photos from this trip and on top of our own expressions I loved seeing the reactions of others on the rides

 

[mnmrmustard]

Since we were skipping Fantasmic! our goal was now to see what they had done to make over the former sad little Narnia walkthrough they had next to TSM. We hadnt heard much about the Piratey makeover so we had no idea what we were going to get.

We left the exit area of ToT and started to walk back up Sunset Boulevard.

I took a quick snap of the entrance area of RnRC as we walked by

And turned back to catch the ToT

By the time I caught up to the ladies I found that they hand fallen to the siren call of cotton candy. I took a slightly longer exposure shot to catch the glow of the ToT at night

&and then another shot with a flash as they all took a big bite!

We strolled up the boulevard and took the right down into the Animation Courtyard. We saw that The Little Mermaid would be starting soon so we actually went into the waiting area and sat there for a couple of minutes. But we all discussed it and decided not to see it after all. We had been at the studios for around 11hrs and hadnt had dinner yet so were ready to wrap things up.

On to see Jack and his pirate show! If you havent seen it yet you are greeted by a talking skull over the main entrance.

He does a bit about having what it takes to be a pirate and eventually lets you into the main set area
They Imagineers put some good detail into the set pieces

After a minute we were greeted by that same skull

He flitted around the set, which had a full-sized replica of the bow of the Black Pearl

& and appeared on the sail

There was much talk about pirate hijinks and that Jack would be there soon to do the swearing in. Bur first we had a visit from a skeletal pirate army

Ghost ships sailed the skies

And finally we were attacked by the Kraken!

More skeletal pirate dialogue as we rode out the attack

Next mermaids made an appearance to try and enchant us

Jack finally made his appearance on the arms of a woman whom he might or might not have deserved to have been slapped by

He moved around constantly so it was pretty impossible to get a clear shot of him. He swore us in and Huzzah! we were part of the pirate league. Overall a cool enough show and a HUGE improvement over what it replaced.

Next up we check out Mr. Osbornes Lights!


Click here for the next Chapter: Day 2 Part 16 - Mr. Osborne's Dancing Lights

 

[mnmrmustard]

We came out of the Pirate experience and with some prodding I got the ladies to head up to the Osborne Lights. We were tired and hungry but once we actually got out there they all lightened up and agreed that it was worth seeing. We strolled down the Streets of America and stayed for about 4 songs.

I tried to take pics to make a panorama but my angle was just too low and I was too close to all of it so I just ended up shaving it down to my favorite individual shots. Think of some good holiday music and enjoy the show!

The ladies enjoyed the lights and music and the snow falling in the streets.

Next up we wrap up a very long day at DHS


Click here for the next Chapter: Day 2 Part 17 - End of our DHS Day

 

[mnmrmustard]

I got one more shot looking back up the street while we waited in line for the Photopass photographer.

We really liked the way this one turned out could be a future Christmas card well, it actually was one on FB

We headed back towards the hat and I took a pic of it from an angle that didnt show that big ugly stage

Next we headed over to the DHS sign

I handed Bean the camera to Bean to take a shot of Roxy and I

Unfortunately I had forgotten to take it off the manual setting to capture the sorcerers hat and we were kind of lost in the glow of the sign. Luckily my budding photographer Bean looked at it and saw the issue and switched over to the auto setting so the flash would kick in. There we are!

We headed back up Hollywood Boulevard and did a bit of shopping, getting some popcorn and finding a couple of smaller items for both girls including some earrings for PumpkinGirl set with her birthstone and a Stitch-themed lanyard for Bean. From the shops we headed towards the entrance and I stopped to take a couple of pics before going through the turnstiles

We stopped at the big tree for a family pic

And then started heading towards the busses. We were about to turn the corner and head down to the end of the row where the POP busses are when one of the girls realized she had to use the bathroom. Roxy took her back while I sat with the other DD and caught a nice pic of the tree

And a cool pic of the tree and a palm tree with the ToT just visible in the distance

The ladies returned and we made our way to the bus stop. We ended up next to a family who we had seen at POP that had a dog with them that a gentleman had there as a certified mental health animal. Bean had a great time playing with him and feeding him a couple of pieces of popcorn.

Soon enough we were loaded up and back at the resort very quickly (DHS is the closest park to POP for the uninitiated). It was around 9am when we got back. We picked up some food and brought it back to the room to snack. The ladies grabbed showers and headed to bed while I planned out the next day with the daily cash envelope, my quick itinerary, and fresh pins for everyones lanyards. I then grabbed my shower and was still in bed by 10pm.

Tomorrow would be another early start thanks to my stupidity in booking breakfast ADRs in park two days in a row. But it was going to be EPCOT, which is mine, Roxys and PumpkinGirls favorite park. Tune in soon for the beginning of day 3 of our Holiday adventure!

 

[Trentmom]

That pirate thing looked really cool. Way better than that lame Narnia thing they had before. Going have to check that out sometime

Great osborne light pics. I could hear the music playing as I looked at the pics

Those photopass pics came out great!!

Good job to Bean for catching the camera error and getting a good show of you and Roxy

Cotton candy looked good...mmmmm

Can't wait for more

 

[PracPerfPatricia]

I'm feeling that you were contemplating the ethics of taking that armor on the Back Lot Tour... lol...

Great photos of you and family with Mike & Sully... I think I read that they usually have petite women play some of the shorter costumed characters ... so Mike was probably a girl...

I love all of your facial expressions on RnRC and ToT...

I saw Pirates had replaced Narnia when we walked by... but as Narnia was a little weak... we passed... I'm wishing now we had done in...

Ahhh... Osbourne Lights... Lovely photos...You did a great job... It's a hard thing to totally explain though don't you think? It really is one of those things... that you have to see...

 

[mnmrmustard]

That pirate thing looked really cool. Way better than that lame Narnia thing they had before. Going have to check that out sometime

Great osborne light pics. I could hear the music playing as I looked at the pics

Those photopass pics came out great!!

Good job to Bean for catching the camera error and getting a good show of you and Roxy

Cotton candy looked good...mmmmm

Can't wait for more

The pirate thing is worth doing at least once, we enjoyed it.

Thank you on the Osborne lights pics - makes me realize how much I need a wide-angle lens!

Yeah, we were happy with the PP pics other than the Bean head debacle. Still, it just meant riding it more which wasn't a bad thing.

Yes, Bean is getting to be a pretty sharp cookie with my camera. The only place I don't trust the girls to it is on water rides

The ladies enjoyed the cotton candy. I'm not much for it myself, but I was still finishing my mango smoothie at that point so I was happy.

I'm feeling that you were contemplating the ethics of taking that armor on the Back Lot Tour... lol...

Great photos of you and family with Mike & Sully... I think I read that they usually have petite women play some of the shorter costumed characters ... so Mike was probably a girl...

I love all of your facial expressions on RnRC and ToT...

I saw Pirates had replaced Narnia when we walked by... but as Narnia was a little weak... we passed... I'm wishing now we had done in...

Ahhh... Osbourne Lights... Lovely photos...You did a great job... It's a hard thing to totally explain though don't you think? It really is one of those things... that you have to see...

Well I wouldn't mind having that armor hanging around the house

Oh yes, they'd have to have a petite girl do Mike Wazowski. Even if they had a shorter male CM it wouldn't work out because his more masculine legs would look weird. I hear that a majority of the "big head" characters are female anyways because they have a better expressive demeanor when interacting with park guests.

If you liked the expressions on these ride pics just wait! The girls and I got really inventive in other ride photos, especially on the rides we rode more than once

I would suggest doing the Pirate thing, it is worth going thru at least once. Just gives you something to look forward for next time!

Thank you on the Osborne pics, but I agree. No matter how good the pics or video is it doesn't come close to the experience of standing in the middle of it and taking it all in We were glad to finally have experienced it live.

 

[FauntleroyFAN07]

first time seeing the new pirate attraction thanks for sharing all the pics, gave me a good idea what it was like...totally different that what i thought in my head.

 

[mnmrmustard]

Lots of pics to go thru, hope to have a new post sometime this weekend!

 

[mnmrmustard]

first time seeing the new pirate attraction thanks for sharing all the pics, gave me a good idea what it was like...totally different that what i thought in my head.

Glad to be able to share Dan! And I'm slowly catching up on your TR, great stuff so far!

 

[mnmrmustard]

Saturday morning comes earlier than any of us would have probably liked. Goofball me had made breakfast ADRs for our first two days in the parks. Yesterday was 8:05am at Hollywood and Vine at DHS, today would be 8:15am at Akershus in the Norway pavilion at EPCOT. The only plus was that we had everything laid out the night before so we woke at 7am and got dressed, got meds into Roxy and PumpkinGirl, grabbed our gear and headed out the door.

We rolled out and around the corner past the main lobby entrance and after a quick detour in the gift shop to scope out CM’s pins we were at the bus stop. A bus came pretty quickly and by 7:49am we were rolling out of POP

I love this sign for TOT they have up, especially at night

EPCOT is just slightly longer than DHS, so by 7:57am we were heading through the gates

The sun was just starting to peek over the top of Spaceship Earth

It is a bit of a walk from the bus drop off so it was already 8:07 by the time we hit the gates

Gate check-in was no waiting so we buzzed through it. Our schedule was tight but I still took a minute to snap pics of the topiaries as we went by

This Stitch would show up again later in our trip thanks to Bean ;-]

Have to take the obligatory shot of SE in all its glory

The water was very serene

But the part I thought was cool was that it looked like we basically had the park to ourselves!

I was so excited I had picked up the pace with PumpkinGirl in tow and then realized I had left Bean and Roxy behind

I stopped and looked around. MouseGears – no waiting!

I love this fountain

More open spaces!

Hi Mickey! Hi Minnie!

The sun was still very low in the sky as we passed under the monorail track

As we came up to the Christmas tree at the entrance to World Showcase we saw signs of life in the form of a boy lagging behind his family

He saw us and scooted back to his fam and we trailed them as we turned the corner to the left in the WS arc

America and Italy looked very tranquil across the lagoon

The whole lagoon looked quite nice

Click here for the full-sized panorama: World Showcase Lagoon Panorama

After shooting that I looked at my watch and realized there was no more time for quiet reflection – it was now 8:15am. Onward!

Hola Mexico!

Norway sighted!

Next up we have a good meal and PumpkinGirl has a very special encounter with Akershus's princesses!