Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #3!- HOLIDAYS BEGIN 11/12/13!!

[kaoden39]

Sherry,

I hope that you are going to do a full trip report. I would love to read about your whole trip.

 

[mom2rtk]

From Mickey's Fun Wheel. Thanks for the kind words!

How about "Christmas" car light trails?


Night Racing, Radiator Springs Racers by KC MikeD, on Flickr

Mike, I'm loving the tripod work you did on your trip. I'm impressed that you fit it into your limited time. We were there for 5 full park days and I only got mine out for fireworks one night. I'd like to get back for more night shots, especially in DCA.

LOVE the headlight trails!

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Sherry, I also noticed a few differences in IASWH (or at least I think they are) - I will post a picture of one later this weekend and hopefully somebody can confirm or deny for me.

We ran into the carolers many nights in the DLH, but never anywhere else. And I felt bad for them because we stumbled into them in the middle of their set every time and were the 2nd family, so they didn't have a big audience.

 

[ksromack]

4. I got another park view upgrade at the PPH -- this time it was the best park view room I've received thus far! I love that PPH!;What room did they put you in? We also got a free upgrade and I was tickled.....but we were in room 700 which is the very last room on that side. We could see the Viva Navidad people backstage after shows too...no way we could see WOC though.....we did see when the water got high.

5. I did the Carthay Circle tour (thanks for the tip, KCmike!) on Wednesday. A very good use of 15 or 20 minutes of time -- for free!;We loved this tour.....so informative and interesting!

6. Candlelight -- I waited for a long time in the crowds to see the second show on Sunday night and it was beautiful and amazing...until I got nauseous and had to quickly escape the crowd. ;

7. I saw Kurt Russell in the lobby of the GCH on Monday morning. He was no more than 2 feet from me. He was by himself, and when he interacted with the CMs in the Valet area he seemed friendly, nice, personable, etc.;We saw him come out to the podium a couple hours before the show. He was wearing a red plaid flannel shirt I'm guessing he was sizing up the situation. I still can't believe we basically stood/sat in one spot for over 4 hours!

8. I did the Walk With an Imagineer tour today, and that was very informative and fun. Plus, it took us into 1901, which is also awesome!;Excited to hear about this!

11. I love Viva Navidad! Not only could I see all of the dancers and floats and performers walking to and from the "backstage" area from my PPH window, and I could see the warehouse where all of the floats were kept, but I could also hear the VN music from my room. When I finally made it over to Paradise Pier to see it, I was very impressed. It's a joyous, jubilant, uplifting show that makes you want to tap your feet. I hope it is brought back next year. I don't know that it really fits in the Paradise Pier area of DCA, but I can't really think of where else it could go.I agree with this! We thoroughly enjoyed Viva Navidad! I haven't looked at my pictures yet...I hope they were as vibrant as the show was in person!


2. The gingerbread cookies with mouse ears were actually discontinued for a short time, as a CM at Trolley Treats told me, and then all of a sudden TT got more of them in. That explains why those cookies seemed to be scarce when I was at DLR on 11/15. (And, by the way, the Trolley Treats CM who told me about the discontinuation of the gingerbread cookies also told me that she was looking for the Peppermint Wonderland ice cream at the store and it was all gone.); We were given this MM Gingerbread cookie on our Holiday Tour. It was quite tasty. Unfortunately MM lost an arm on the trip home. We saved one as Steve and I just split the one while we were on the tour.

3. I missed Winter Dreams, but...oh well... ; I enjoyed it. We only saw it once although we had opportunities to see it again. I modified my WOC dining reservation at Carthay Circle to just a regular reservation since we had seen WOC 2 days prior to that meal....the LTM AP deal worked out very well for us.

Duffy's photo spot.i never once saw Duffy at his photo spot!

2. Entertainment/characters -- It was probably just bad timing on my part, but I never saw the characters in Winter Sweaters in Town Square, as I normally do each year.We saw them there most mornings.

Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore were in constant rotation at the Pooh photo spot in CC.Eeyore is my favorite character and while we were in line I was bummed because Rabbit was there but not Eeyore.....then a few minutes later Rabbit left and Eeyore took that spot.....score!

Carolers -- for some reason, I did not see any carolers at all, ever. I saw the BVS Bell Ringers but that was it. No carolers in the GCH lobby and none in DL. I know they were there but my timing was bad.Janet and I even saw the carolers at PPH the evening we walked back from the parks together. We saw them earlier at GCH but not in the lobby.....at the end of the glass hallway next to the hallway that leads to the DTD entrance......

B) The Paradise Pier Hotel -- First of all, the new in-room coffee is Joffrey's so it's better than what used to be there.We were pleasantly surprised at the coffee! It wasn't awful at all!

While I love the PPH for giving me the best park view room I have had thus far (I could see the people on the rides in DCA!) and for continuing to give me free park view room upgrades, they goofed at check-in. Because everything had been pre-paid well in advance, the dreaded "incidentals" hold on my card should have been waived. When you pay in full in advance, before arrival, unless you choose to leave your card on file to be attached to your room key, they are supposed to enter a "cash" code in their system to tell it to waive the hold and let you pay for any charges in cash (such as phone use, etc.), if they should be incurred. That's what I experienced in 2012 and I have heard of others experiencing this too.

However, when I checked in the CM asked me if I wanted to leave a card on file. I said no. I had already pre-paid and I don't want to leave a card because I don't use anything associated with the incidentals.

And, guess what happened? Yep. The PPH "system" put a hold on a hefty sum of money on my card anyway -- the last card that it had on file for me, from earlier this year! I was under the impression that nothing was being held on my card because that's what I was led to believe, so imagine my surprise when I got home and discovered an email alert that told me that a certain amount had been blocked on my card. I wouldn't have noticed this as we did leave our cc on file so we could charge food and souvenirs to our room. Then I went to the front desk to settle up our bill on saturday morning and thereafter paid for meals and such using cash/debit or disney gift cards.

The PPH business center offers Internet access, but the fee is something like $5.00 for 10 minutes. Not worth it unless it's an emergency, in my opinion; Steve printed our boarding passes for our flight home but I think this must have been separate from general internet use.....we didn't pay for that, fortunately.

Glad you are back, Sherry. I have just downloaded my pictures but haven't sorted through any of them yet. That should take me many days of work so I'm putting it off!

 

[mom2rtk]

Glad you are back, Sherry. I have just downloaded my pictures but haven't sorted through any of them yet. That should take me many days of work so I'm putting it off!

I just downloaded my cards to my computer. I have a lot of work to do since I shoot in RAW and will have to make edits to each one. But it will keep me out of trouble until we can start planning our next trip.

Just as an FYI, I asked at the front desk about printing boarding passes, and they sent me over to the Guest Services desk where they did it in less than a minute. I was glad too, because I completely forgot about it until late on our last park day!

WELCOME BACK SHERRY! I'll catch up to some of your comments soon I promise!

We didn't have a theme park view like all the cool kids did, but got to peek out the windows down the hall on our way to the elevator every morning:


IMG_0008 by mom2rtk, on Flickr

 

[kmedina]

Sounds like you had an eventful trip, Sherry. Sorry about what happened with your card and the Candlelight Processional. I will email you when I receive my PhotoPass CD. In the meantime, here are the ones Crap took. It was awesome to finally meet you. Kathy and Janet were cool too.

 

[farmfresh]

Great first day - arrived late but still got a few rides in as crowds didn't build until later. Finished with Fantasmic and fireworks, off to bed for early start tomorrow.

Cold in the evening but otherwise pleasant, didn't find the crowds too bad.

 

[Sherry E]

My pictures are trapped!

Janet/mom2rtk and I were saying the other day that we each had no clue what we had taken photos of while at DLR. It was all a blur. So, because I have been wading through the hundreds of emails that accumulated while I was gone, as well as trying to clear off some stuff from the DVR and deal with the PPH "incidentals hold" madness and other things, I have not had a chance to go through my photos and see what I took!

It's always a bit exciting and a bit scary to finally have a look at the photos you've taken on a trip, isn't it? You always know there will be some gems in the bunch, and then there will inevitably be some clunkers too! You just have to hope that the photos you thought were going to be gems don't turn out to be the clunkers!

Finally, today I was going to load the photos from the camera to the PC, and then begin the laborious task of transferring them to Photobucket headache. I don't use a card reader. I typically just use the software that came with the camera to get the photos from the camera to the computer.

But...I got a "communication error" message when trying to download the photos this morning. After momentarily panicking, upon further investigation I can see that the software probably only "recognizes" my camera/memory card up to a certain point, and when I get past a certain number of photos on a card it won't recognize the camera or the card. There are over 5000 photos on this one card, and maybe 2200 of them are from this past week's DLR trip.

I tried a blank memory card to see if that one was recognized and it was. So the issue is definitely that I have too many photos on this one card! If I had only taken 500 photos, or even 1000 photos, I might not be having this problem right now. I overloaded the card!

The simple solution would be to clear off some of what's on the memory card. However, I don't do that. I leave 98% of the photos on the cards as back-up -- because I don't trust any other method of storage 100% (and I store them on flash drives, on the PC, on Photobucket, etc.), and if all else fails I can always go back to the original card and retrieve something. You can never have too many back-ups when dealing with photos or precious documents.

The next simple solution is to get a card reader, or go somewhere and pay them to copy my photos from the card to a CD. I will get a card reader. I will most likely need it again in the future because...as we all know...I take a lot of photos. It's just that, in the past, I used memory cards with less storage space on them so I never exceeded a certain number of photos on the entire card like I have now, on the card with more space! (Note to self: Go back to using cards with less storage space on them!)

So my photos are trapped until I get a card reader, which may not be for another couple of days. And then I have to download the photos to the PC. And then I have to upload them to Photobucket.

In any case, the good news is that I finally went through all 2000+ photos on the camera itself, just to see what it was that I got photos of! Some of them are totally useless, and came out worse than I thought they would come out. On the other hand, some of the photos came out much better than I expected and are quite good (at least, they are quite good in my own warped mind!) and quite festively holiday-ish. I am eager to share a small sampling of them in this thread -- hopefully I can do that while it is still the holiday season! Otherwise, they are destined for a trip report of some sort...and for the 2014 Theme Week Countdown!

Stay tuned!

I know I have to reply to some posts that have come in since yesterday (from PHXscuba, Michele, Kathy, Kim, etc.). I will have to come back and do that a little bit later.

 

[aidensmom31]

Single Digits!!!!!!!



As you can tell I may be a little excited

 

[tksbaskets]

Trapped pictures Sherry I'm glad you will be able to access them and there wasn't something wrong with the memory card! Hopefully you'll be able to share your pictures with us soon!

We leave bright and early in the morning. Having serious snow today so hoping we don't have any flight issues. Sitting waiting for our second college graduation ceremony of the day. Our older twin's ceremony was this morning. So proud of both of them and anxious to celebrate at the Happiest Place on Earth!

 

[Sherry E]

Trapped pictures Sherry I'm glad you will be able to access them and there wasn't something wrong with the memory card! Hopefully you'll be able to share your pictures with us soon!

We leave bright and early in the morning. Having serious snow today so hoping we don't have any flight issues. Sitting waiting for our second college graduation ceremony of the day. Our older twin's ceremony was this morning. So proud of both of them and anxious to celebrate at the Happiest Place on Earth!

TK -

You're not kidding! I would have probably collapsed in a heap on the floor if I thought that the card itself had been corrupted. I can still view all of the photos in the camera without difficulty, though. It's just the downloading that is the issue. Of course, it could be a problem/malfunction with the memory card but I don't think so. This is the same card I had in the camera when I visited DLR for one day in November, as well as in September, and also when I went to Catalina in July. It was fine when I downloaded all of those photos. I think that the fact that I cranked out over 2000 photos on this week's trip just pushed it past the point of being "recognized" by the software. Maybe the software stops recognizing the card after photo #3000 or so, and I already had that many pictures on the card before this recent batch.

I can still take and store more photos on this card, but as long as I am continuing to download from it I think I will have to get a card reader. When I switch to a new card I think everything will go back to normal.

Congratulations to your twins on their achievements! You must be a very proud mama! You will have a great time celebrating when you return to the holiday merriment at DLR. There is so much you have to see in person, and so many new things have gone up since you were last at DLR. Have a great time, TK! (And don't get sick on this trip!)

 

[mrsw94]

We are on our way! Surprised the kids this morning. They went nuts! Ed are still about 2&1/2 hours away, but doing ok. I gotta say though, I-5 is the most BORING road ever! It's REALLY smoggy, so lots of squinting.

 

[CallieMar]

I'm posting from my phone so it's hard to quote but I just wanted to chime in on the differences Sherry thought she saw in IASWH. This is only our 2nd holiday trip so I don't know if its something that always changes but I think there were less vocals and more instrumental only potions during the ride? And what vocals there were seemed very quiet (I've been listening to the soundtrack leading up to our trip so that may have skewed my view a bit but I felt the vocals weren't as loud as last year). Still so much fun though and the little light show in front is great! I'm sad its our last day in the parks but we have had such a good time. The weather has been fabulous and except for yesterday and today the crowds have been reasonable.

 

[kaoden39]

Sherry,

Trapped pictures is not cool at all! I am anxious to read about your trip as well!

 

[KCmike]

Mike, I'm loving the tripod work you did on your trip. I'm impressed that you fit it into your limited time. We were there for 5 full park days and I only got mine out for fireworks one night. I'd like to get back for more night shots, especially in DCA.

LOVE the headlight trails!

Thanks Janet so much!! Really excited to see and hear about your trip.

LOVE this one!!! RSR at night was a definite highlight for us.

Thanks czmom. I was so happy to get this shot this time around. I will take the tripod with me everywhere now!

 

[mom2rtk]

I've been in and out of this thread since I got back, and decided it was time to finally really catch up. I honestly don't remember what comments I have made where and to whom, so I'm just going to state this again for the record:

Many thanks to everyone for making me feel welcome and part of the Disneyland family on our trip. Running into so many DIS friends in the parks really was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

Our first morning out Wendy (czmom) greeted me by name in line for DL EE. What a great and happy welcome! We ran into her family several times in the following days.

Kathy (ksromack) first said hi on our way back to the hotel one night. I mean, what are the odds of finding her there? And let me follow up and tell you thank you again for the 9 PM fastpasses for WOC on Friday night. Our fallback would have been Monday night's show....which I now see was cancelled because of the winds. So you really did save the day.

Meeting everyone under the tree Sunday morning was awesome, and thanks for posting the photo Kim!

Sherry, running into you everywhere was definitely a highlight for me! Thanks for making a point of saying hi each time you saw me. So glad you had a nice visit to Club 33. We did finally get more chicken gumbo. We had to make reservations at Café Orleans to get it, but we really enjoyed it.

I'm sorry to say I don't remember the name of the person I chatted with over by Blue Bayou when you guys were meeting up to head for Club 33. But I enjoyed the chat and wish the best of luck to your daughter on her college selection process!

This morning we did EE and I got to meet Janet (momt2rk? Sorry, internet is slow and I can't remember your exact screen name!)

I'm so glad you came up and said hi! It was a great way to start our last day.

Have you gotten any better feel for that new lens?

Well, since I asked about the little lighting show on IASW, I'll answer for others.

The parade came through at 5:30 and we made it into line just after the parade ended (a little after 6:00). One CM said the lighting show wouldn't happen until 6:30, another I asked said they might do it at 6:15. We were going down the last ramp to load at 6:15-ish and all the lights went off. I knew what was probably going to happen, so we started letting people go in front of us and saw the show. It's very short but so cute and a great example of the tech that is possible. Worth an extra 2 minutes before getting on the ride.

Side note: just as we came out after riding, the lights went out again and there were blue lights and "snow" projected on the facade -- I think it was part of the castle light show but I couldn't tell.

PHXscuba

I'm sorry we didn't get to see more of the projection show on IASW. It wasn't for lack of trying though. We went into the ride on our last night and came out just before 6:15, when we had caught the tail end the night before. It didn't happen then, or at 6:30 or at 6:45. Maybe they were having technical issues that night? Or maybe it was going to be at 7? But it was our last night and our feet were begging to get out of the park.

New Orleans Square looking festive:


Blue (Bayou) Christmas by -Jamian-, on Flickr

So glad to see you posting here. Your work is amazing.

After speaking with the Trolley Treats CM, I, too, am a bit concerned for the fate of the gingerbread cookies with ears. I couldn't believe it when she told me those cookies had been temporarily "discontinued"! Madness! Why on earth would they even temporarily be discontinued?

I'm sorry you didn't find the cookies. I know they gave us mickey ear gingerbread men on the holiday tour, so I'm kind of surprised you didn't find any.

Lori --

Thank you! I got a picture of Kurt from behind as he was putting his stuff in the trunk of his car! That seems to be my M.O. I did the same thing last year when I saw Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani in DCA -- got a picture of them as they were walking away.

I first saw Kurt in the GCH lobby. He was checking his phone, standing by himself. I was maybe 2 feet from him, at most. I almost, almost, broke my rule of not approaching celebrities at DLR to go up to him and tell him that he did a great job as narrator of the CP the night before. He seemed like he would be approachable and friendly.

However, just as I was about to work up my nerve to say something, a CM came along to tell Kurt that his car was out front and the two of them walked out of the hotel. I followed a few seconds later, and it was at that point that I observed Kurt interacting with the various CMs. They were asking him about his son. They were thanking him for "doing this for us" (meaning the CP). Kurt was shaking hands, laughing, smiling and handing out tips. He finally got in his car and drove away. I didn't see Goldie with him so I don't know if she was in a separate car or if she didn't accompany him.

Our server at Club 33 confirmed that Kurt is a really nice, personable guy and not a jerk...which is always good to hear!

What a great story! And I'm really not surprised to hear the waiter confirm that he is indeed the nice guy he seems to be.


farmfresh --

The funny thing about my trip is that it was cold and warm. It really cold and dry the first two nights -- appropriately Christmasy! I was bundled up and so was everyone else. However, the next couple of days warmed up a bit and the daytime was sunny and almost hot. I didn't even wear a jacket at all, yesterday or Wednesday. But I still saw people wandering around in winter wear -- scarves and heavy sweaters and jackets. I couldn't believe that they could possibly still be cold in the warm sun!


I'm so glad you got to experience some of the warm weather. We managed to miss almost all of it! Our last day was on Tuesday, and what a glorious tease it was! But we survived WDW in December of 2010. Since then I don't worry as much about it. I figure we can handle it.


Further comments on my trip (adding on to what I already posted here last night):


1. Decorations -- Let's revisit this subject for a moment. I would have brought this up anyway, but it's particularly relevant (and maybe unintentionally amusing) in light of egritz's assessment of the holiday decor.

As I was walking around DLR over the 5 days I was there, I encountered many decorations that I didn't even know about. It seemed like everywhere I turned I saw a strand of garland, a wreath, a sign, a tree or some other symbol of the holiday season that I didn't expect to find and hadn't seen in the past. I saw so, so, so many Christmas trees. Trees that I never knew were there. Some places had many trees. Trees at Club 33. Trees at Carthay Circle. Trees in 1901. Trees, garland and wreaths at the Mandara Spa, in the Napa Rose lounge, in the window of the Heraldry Shoppe in FL, in the assorted towers of the Disneyland Hotel, in Tangaroa Terrace, in the Downtown Disney stores and restaurants, etc. They were everywhere -- and I loved it!

I think that a couple of my favorite trees for this year's holiday season have got to be the tree in Tangaroa Terrace -- adorned with exotic flowers and other tropical knick-knacks -- and the tree in Ariel's Grotto (thank you for that tip, Jamie!). The trees in Club 33 and 1901 were very elegant and sparkly. I also love the garland in the Fiddler, Fifer & Practical Cafe -- which is dotted with little musical notes and sheet music!

My least favorite trees -- well... The Toontown trees are not ranking any higher on my list than they did last year, but I appreciate that Toontown has its own themed decorations.

Also -- I do not like this year's GCH tree as much as previous years' GCH trees. The lights have been changed and they are much brighter this year than in previous years -- not as dim and golden-toned as they used to be.

I love the new-for-2013 reindeer (maybe made of wicker or something like that?) planted outside of the entrance to the GCH! What a nice touch!

I also love the little colored lights in the planters outside of the entrance to the DLH -- they change color every few seconds! Each bulb changes color, from green to blue, to purple, etc.

I love the gingerbread houses at Storytellers and in White Water Snacks.

I did not like this year's Winter Castle as much as last year's version -- the lights have been switched out so that the Castle does not look quite as shiny and sparkly at night as it has in the past. The light pattern on the turrets is different this year, too, so the icicles are not twinkling as much as they have.

Overall -- and I said this even before my trip this week -- I am very, very pleased with the extensive level of decor resort-wide, even though there are a couple of areas that are lacking a bit of holiday oomph (like FL). My only fear is that Disney will not be able to continue this extensive of an overlay in the coming years, and that it may be scaled back next year;

I just wanted to say I so much appreciate your mind for details. Thank you for such a complete rundown! I usually get so caught up in the overall feeling that I miss so many of the details. I love that you bring them to life for me.



2. Entertainment/characters -- It was probably just bad timing on my part, but I never saw the characters in Winter Sweaters in Town Square, as I normally do each year.

Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore were in constant rotation at the Pooh photo spot in CC.

The GCH Santa was a very busy guy this year. With the exception of the mornings, he was there every time I walked through the lobby.

Carolers -- for some reason, I did not see any carolers at all, ever. I saw the BVS Bell Ringers but that was it. No carolers in the GCH lobby and none in DL. I know they were there but my timing was bad.

I wanted to see the Dickens Yuletide Band in DL but I never caught them either.

However, again I say that Viva Navidad is great! It's just festive, colorful and celebratory, which is what I want in my holiday entertainment!;


We didn't really stop for many of the characters on Main Street, but did see many of the Fab 5 out in sweaters quite a bit. I'm surprised you missed them. They are a staple in Animal Kingdom so we have photos with them in sweaters a lot through the years, so we passed on what looked to be pretty long lines each time. The only one we saw was Minnie in her sweater at the Plaza Inn that morning.

For us, the goal was to find Mickey and Minnie in their red Christmas gear. Someone had said Mickey was in his Santa suit at Paradise pier, but we never found him, and even asked around and at guest relations and were told he didn't appear there like that. We finally found him on Monday at JJJ. Thankfully he had an orderly line and we got our photos. A few days earlier we had met Minnie back there in her red, but felt like we had to stalk her. She was "mingling" as opposed to forming a line, using all sorts of evasive maneuvers. It was just odd.

I called the front desk at PPH early in our trip to confirm when the Santas would be out. As previously reported here, he was there in the AM, and at the other 2 hotels in the afternoon, 4:30 to 8:30 I believe. That info made it very easy to find all 3 on our day off.

We got lucky with the carolers. That day we came in with Kathy and her husband they were at PPH. After they went upstairs, I got a private performance that was just lovely. We caught the same group another day over at GCH. Another day we saw a different group back at PPH. Sherry, it sounds like your timing was just unlucky.

We caught Viva Navidad, but were disappointed in how it was set up. We didn't know what the format would be but just joined the groups lining the street. So we ended up on the wrong side of the street too far down to see Donald and the 3 Caballeros. And we really hoped to see them. I couldn't even get over to take a photo. There was no walkway left open at all. Thankfully Mickey and Minnie came down to our end. And the dancers were lovely to watch.


3. Crowds -- Since I usually go to DLR during the same time frame I can make a direct comparison to previous years.

Yes, it was more crowded than the previous couple of years -- in fact, the usually calm Monday seemed to become more crowded while the usually busier Tuesday seemed a bit less so. However, it was not too bad. There were lots of times I walked down Main Street and peeked in shops and in Gibson Girl and there were only a few people. The line for POTC was only 10 minutes long when I got in it. IASWH's line said 45 minutes but it actually took only 20 minutes or so to board the boat.

So I would say the overall crowd level increased -- and that is likely due to the fact that word got out that the first 2 weeks in December are better than the second half of December -- but it still was not awful. Certain areas will always be more heavily trafficked, such as Adventureland and New Orleans Square, so on a busier-than-normal day they will seem crazy.

I always say that the concentration of crowds changes. At certain points in the day Main Street might be packed. At other points of the day it won't be. Sometimes New Orleans Square is packed and other times it is not; and

I'm glad to at least have some validation that crowd levels were up. That certainly never felt "low crowd" to me. But I assume like you that's because there is less time between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

I'm glad we were just a group of 2. It would have been hard to travel through the crowds in a larger group.


4. Miscellaneous stuff --

A) Earl of Sandwich -- They've hired better, nicer, more attentive employees, I think. No mistakes on the sandwiches -- and, they let me use my expired free sandwich birthday coupon! My birthday was in July. I could not get to EOS on that day in July to claim my free sandwich, but I brought in the coupon and asked if they would honor it even though it had expired and they happily obliged!! No arguments, no complaints, no problem! I don't know if they will keep up that habit, but just remember that if you cannot use your free b-day sandwich coupon from EOS (which you get if you sign up for their newsletters and mailings on their website), hang on to it because they may take it anyway if you visit EOS within a few months of the expiration date!;

Yeah to EOS for taking your expired coupon! And yeah for doing better with your order. We ended up eating there 4 times! And I'm happy to repor they got our order right each time. But honestly....... it's going to take me a full year to be ready to eat there again.



While I love the PPH for giving me the best park view room I have had thus far (I could see the people on the rides in DCA!) and for continuing to give me free park view room upgrades, they goofed at check-in. Because everything had been pre-paid well in advance, the dreaded "incidentals" hold on my card should have been waived. When you pay in full in advance, before arrival, unless you choose to leave your card on file to be attached to your room key, they are supposed to enter a "cash" code in their system to tell it to waive the hold and let you pay for any charges in cash (such as phone use, etc.), if they should be incurred. That's what I experienced in 2012 and I have heard of others experiencing this too.

However, when I checked in the CM asked me if I wanted to leave a card on file. I said no. I had already pre-paid and I don't want to leave a card because I don't use anything associated with the incidentals.

And, guess what happened? Yep. The PPH "system" put a hold on a hefty sum of money on my card anyway -- the last card that it had on file for me, from earlier this year! I was under the impression that nothing was being held on my card because that's what I was led to believe, so imagine my surprise when I got home and discovered an email alert that told me that a certain amount had been blocked on my card.

Since I was unaware of this until I returned home, I called the PPH to complain and...needless to say, they goofed. They offered to credit me back $100 for the inconvenience, which I think is more than fair and is not anything I expected! At first the CM on the phone tried to tell me that I handed over my card at check-in, which is unequivocally untrue. I handed over my ID and my AP. That's what I handed over. I never handed them a card because everything was already paid. Plus, I specifically said "no" when asked if I wanted to leave a card on file, so that should have been the end of it;

So my word of advice is -- even if you have pre-paid everything well before checking in at the PPH or any DLR hotel -- be sure to ask them at check-in if an incidentals fee is being applied or you could be in for a surprise later on!

So glad they took care of you! Like you, I don't leave a card on file. Thankfully they didn't put a hold on one for me.

I was surprised last year at WDW when they charged a card I had used to book our stay for something when I had purposely not put a card on file. It was a legit charge, so no huge issue, but it just seemed to be immaterial whether we actually added a card or not since they will charge it when they want to anyway.



C) I went on IASWH and thought I noticed a few differences in certain spots...and yet, I cannot figure out what they were! Did anyone else notice subtle changes inside the ride?; and

Of course, we had nothing to compare it to since this was our first time. But I just want to say IASWH was a highlight of the trip for us. I don't even want to think about the total number of photos I ended up taking inside and out.

Our first view of the outside lights was standing down by the loading dock waiting to load with our tour group......... and poof! On they went! It was great.

My pictures are trapped!

Janet/mom2rtk and I were saying the other day that we each had no clue what we had taken photos of while at DLR. It was all a blur. So, because I have been wading through the hundreds of emails that accumulated while I was gone, as well as trying to clear off some stuff from the DVR and deal with the PPH "incidentals hold" madness and other things, I have not had a chance to go through my photos and see what I took!

I'm laughing about you clearing your DVR! Ever since I switched to HD this year, my DVR has become high maintenance since it holds so much less. I have been working on clearing mine too!

And I have downloaded my cards to my computer, but still have absolutely no idea what I took so many pictures of! Can't wait to see!

It's always a bit exciting and a bit scary to finally have a look at the photos you've taken on a trip, isn't it? You always know there will be some gems in the bunch, and then there will inevitably be some clunkers too! You just have to hope that the photos you thought were going to be gems don't turn out to be the clunkers!

I know how you feel. I'm almost afraid to look, always fearing I've missed something important. I did look at the photos I took of Katie in her Sleeping Beauty gown on our last day. I was happy and relieved to see those came out well. I took some of her in a Sleeping Beauty gown in front of the castle in 2006 and was really hoping to have a bookend set.

Finally, today I was going to load the photos from the camera to the PC, and then begin the laborious task of transferring them to Photobucket headache. I don't use a card reader. I typically just use the software that came with the camera to get the photos from the camera to the computer.

But...I got a "communication error" message when trying to download the photos this morning. After momentarily panicking, upon further investigation I can see that the software probably only "recognizes" my camera/memory card up to a certain point, and when I get past a certain number of photos on a card it won't recognize the camera or the card. There are over 5000 photos on this one card, and maybe 2200 of them are from this past week's DLR trip.

I tried a blank memory card to see if that one was recognized and it was. So the issue is definitely that I have too many photos on this one card! If I had only taken 500 photos, or even 1000 photos, I might not be having this problem right now. I overloaded the card!

The simple solution would be to clear off some of what's on the memory card. However, I don't do that. I leave 98% of the photos on the cards as back-up -- because I don't trust any other method of storage 100% (and I store them on flash drives, on the PC, on Photobucket, etc.), and if all else fails I can always go back to the original card and retrieve something. You can never have too many back-ups when dealing with photos or precious documents.

The next simple solution is to get a card reader, or go somewhere and pay them to copy my photos from the card to a CD. I will get a card reader. I will most likely need it again in the future because...as we all know...I take a lot of photos. It's just that, in the past, I used memory cards with less storage space on them so I never exceeded a certain number of photos on the entire card like I have now, on the card with more space! (Note to self: Go back to using cards with less storage space on them!)

So my photos are trapped until I get a card reader, which may not be for another couple of days. And then I have to download the photos to the PC. And then I have to upload them to Photobucket.

In any case, the good news is that I finally went through all 2000+ photos on the camera itself, just to see what it was that I got photos of! Some of them are totally useless, and came out worse than I thought they would come out. On the other hand, some of the photos came out much better than I expected and are quite good (at least, they are quite good in my own warped mind!) and quite festively holiday-ish. I am eager to share a small sampling of them in this thread -- hopefully I can do that while it is still the holiday season! Otherwise, they are destined for a trip report of some sort...and for the 2014 Theme Week Countdown!

Oh my! I would have had a heart attack! I'm so glad you know what the issue is and can address it fairly easily.

I have heard lots of people keep all their photos and never delete them from their cards, sort of like keeping a digital negative. I should do this, but just take too many. And since I shoot in RAW, they just take too much space. I do try to keep my Disney photos on the cards as long as possible, in case I hit any computer issues, but usually end up erasing them when we take our family's summer vacation. By December when we head back to Disney, I delete everything and reformat all the cards.

Thanks Janet so much!! Really excited to see and hear about your trip.



Thanks czmom. I was so happy to get this shot this time around. I will take the tripod with me everywhere now!

Thanks Mike! I'll let you know when I get a TR started. I still need to finish up 2012, but I hope to get going fairly soon.

What tripod did you end up getting?

 

[blue888]

One week until we leave!!!! Woooohooo!

We are telling the kids today! So excited for our 1 week countdown!

I think we have everything taken care of, just waiting for our Photopass+ to arrive. Started packing last night and got the kids stuff mostly packed.

All the pictures look great! I cannot wait to see it in person!

 

[funatdisney]

I'm sorry to say I don't remember the name of the person I chatted with over by Blue Bayou when you guys were meeting up to head for Club 33. But I enjoyed the chat and wish the best of luck to your daughter on her college selection process!

Janet, that was me. I really enjoyed chatting with you, too. And the pleasure is all mine.

That is what I love about DISboards.The DIS creates a Disney community of sorts. When I went on our Disney Cruise trip last September, meeting up with other DIS'ers made our trip extra special. We had meet and greet the first day of sailing and it was great to keep running into fellow DIS'ers on board or dining with a few of them. I had the same experience at the D23 Expo this year. I have found folks on DISboards are easy to talk to and are a great bunch of people.

 

[mom2rtk]

Janet, that was me. I really enjoyed chatting with you, too. And the pleasure is all mine.

That is what I love about DISboards.The DIS creates a Disney community of sorts. When I went on our Disney Cruise trip last September, meeting up with other DIS'ers made our trip extra special. We had meet and greet the first day of sailing and it was great to keep running into fellow DIS'ers on board or dining with a few of them. I had the same experience at the D23 Expo this year. I have found folks on DISboards are easy to talk to and are a great bunch of people.

Thanks for helping me link up your real life face with your DIS face! It was great meeting you.

 

[Phoenixrising]

Sherry I had a problem a couple of years ago trying to develop pics at Costco with my then 4 GB memory card. The card kept crashing their system until after much hassel we discovered that one of the pics was corrupted, and once I deleted it off the memory card it worked fine, and I was able to download the pics into their system for developing. However, once we discovered the corrupt file, I downloaded everything into the computer and wiped the card. DH reformatted the card, and now it works fine with no further problems. So there is a possibility that one of your files is corrupted, but if it is it's a royal pain to find out which one it is and deleting it. However if it keeps crashing at a certain point it might be easier to track it down.