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

[ksromack]

Just be warned when using bigger memory cards.....the tendency is to get big cards so you don't have to buy as many.....but if all your pics are on one card and something happens to that card before you get a chance to put them on your computer.....that's a sad sad day

I do like to bring my laptop so I can put the pcs on there as well....just in case of a malfunction

 

[Sherry E]

PHX --

You've got another entry into the random draw! I really like your two favorites as well!

​

Just be warned when using bigger memory cards.....the tendency is to get big cards so you don't have to buy as many.....but if all your pics are on one card and something happens to that card before you get a chance to put them on your computer.....that's a sad sad day

I do like to bring my laptop so I can put the pcs on there as well....just in case of a malfunction

Kathy --

Very good advice! You can never be too careful when dealing with precious memories. Back when I used film cameras I once had a photo developing place lose 2 rolls of my film, and I never got them back. I never even saw the developed photos. They were lost forever and I was livid because those photos could never be replaced, and the specific trip that the photos were from would not happen again.

There is something so terribly upsetting about losing photos, isn't there (by whatever means they are lost)? It just makes me ill to think about it.

The other benefit to using more than one memory card besides what you mentioned is if something happens to your camera! Malfunctions with the cards themselves aside, if -- for some horrific reason -- someone were to lose a camera while at DLR, the memory card will be lost with it! At least, if you have more than one card, you might have already stored some photos on a different card before the camera was lost-- so not all photos would be lost with it.

As inconvenient, impractical and counter-intuitive as it may seem, it is actually not a bad idea at all to spread out all the photos from one vacation/trip over a few different memory cards.

 

[czmom]

I finally had a chance to look at these on my computer instead of my phone and WOW....I am so impressed! I loved last week's shots but I am drooling over this week's pictures! They are all so gorgeous.

While Cinderella's Castle may be bigger, I am looking forward to seeing a different castle all lit up this year. And I honestly think that the DL castle is decorated prettier during the day than the MK castle. I love the snow!

 

[mom2rtk]

Just be warned when using bigger memory cards.....the tendency is to get big cards so you don't have to buy as many.....but if all your pics are on one card and something happens to that card before you get a chance to put them on your computer.....that's a sad sad day

I do like to bring my laptop so I can put the pcs on there as well....just in case of a malfunction

Lots of folks agree with you on this. I go the other direction. I'm really scared of dropping a card somewhere in the parks when handling them. So I prefer to have larger cards so I don't have to do that out in public, especially in the dark. But then I'm rather obsessive with my photo taking, and fill my cards pretty fast.

I don't bring a laptop, just a very extensive collection of memory cards. I actually keep a wallet of them in my bag, attached with a lanyard cord so I can't accidentally drop the case.

I finally had a chance to look at these on my computer instead of my phone and WOW....I am so impressed! I loved last week's shots but I am drooling over this week's pictures! They are all so gorgeous.

While Cinderella's Castle may be bigger, I am looking forward to seeing a different castle all lit up this year. And I honestly think that the DL castle is decorated prettier during the day than the MK castle. I love the snow!

I'm with you on that. This week is really starting to get me excited finally! I just can't wait to feast my eyes on that castle. I still remember my first view of Cindy's castle, all decked out. It was from the monorail. And it was just jaw-dropping.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I concur! Great photos by all who have contributed. I think we are very fortunate to have so many good photographers in this group. I'll be excited to see the castle lighting on video.....i must say my eyes got all misty last December at the lighting ceremony at MK.

How in the world did you get a picture with almost no one in the way? This will be my quest as well

I posted a video of the castle lighting last night. Just click on the picture. If that doesn't work, I also posted a direct link (just now).

 

[Sherry E]

Jamie --

I have to go back and watch your Castle video! I saw that you had posted it, but I haven't watched it yet. I think that when I do I will be even more anxious for the season to get here!

​

czmom --

I must admit that when I've seen photos of the MK version of the holiday Castle I thought that the DL version was prettier because it is more...sparkly, I guess. I haven't seen Cinderella's Castle in person, but it seemed less sparkly.

​

Lots of folks agree with you on this. I go the other direction. I'm really scared of dropping a card somewhere in the parks when handling them. So I prefer to have larger cards so I don't have to do that out in public, especially in the dark. But then I'm rather obsessive with my photo taking, and fill my cards pretty fast.

I don't bring a laptop, just a very extensive collection of memory cards. I actually keep a wallet of them in my bag, attached with a lanyard cord so I can't accidentally drop the case.

I'm with you on that. This week is really starting to get me excited finally! I just can't wait to feast my eyes on that castle. I still remember my first view of Cindy's castle, all decked out. It was from the monorail. And it was just jaw-dropping.

Janet --

While I totally agree with Kathy about the logical, smart reasons to bring smaller cards or more cards -- and I think it makes a lot of sense to do it that way for those 'just in case' bad occasions -- what I actually end up doing is what you do. I don't have any type of computer with me on DLR trips, and I like to have cards with as much memory as possible in my camera so I don't have to worry about switching the card in some awkward place (and undoubtedly dropping the card on the ground, in the dark or something).

I take a lot of photos and the cards are used up pretty quickly. I wish I could bring myself to do the sensible and safe thing and switch cards more often so that I don't have everything stored on one card, but having to switch the cards out at an inconvenient moment is a pain. When I did the Cars Land preview in June 2012 I found myself switching cards in the middle of that land, trying not to cause the cards to go flying off of whatever I had set them down on (because I am a klutz, as mentioned previously in this thread).

So I can definitely see valid reasons for not putting everything on one large card and using several different cards, as well valid reasons for using as few cards as possible to avoid klutzy accidents while trying to switch cards!

Are you finally, just now, starting to get excited for your DLR holiday trip?! It took long enough! It's a good thing I started out with some of the blockbuster, 'most-people-have-a-lot-of-photos-of-this-theme,' Theme Weeks so that a lot of photos could roll through. If I had started with one of the 'hardly-anyone-has-any-photos-of-this-theme' themes, it might take you at least 2 months before you started looking forward to your trip!

And here is the castle lighting from last year. The little intro part was cut off, sorry about that. (click on the image to play)



ETA: Here is a link, since it seems clicking on the picture on the iPad doesn't work
http://s1303.photobucket.com/user/DisneyJamieCA/media/DSC_7123_zpsc55cabbb.mp4.html

Jamie -

I was having some trouble viewing at first, but I think that was more of a Photobucket problem. Either that, or many people were trying to view it at the same time and it was causing it to cut short for me.

Anyway, the Castle is so pretty! And that music -- gotta love it!

 

[mom2rtk]

Janet --

While I totally agree with Kathy about the logical, smart reasons to bring smaller cards or more cards -- and I think it makes a lot of sense to do it that way for those 'just in case' bad occasions -- what I actually end up doing is what you do. I don't have any type of computer with me on DLR trips, and I like to have cards with as much memory as possible in my camera so I don't have to worry about switching the card in some awkward place (and undoubtedly dropping the card on the ground, in the dark or something).

I take a lot of photos and the cards are used up pretty quickly. I wish I could bring myself to do the sensible and safe thing and switch cards more often so that I don't have everything stored on one card, but having to switch the cards out at an inconvenient moment is a pain. When I did the Cars Land preview in June 2012 I found myself switching cards in the middle of that land, trying not to cause the cards to go flying off of whatever I had set them down on (because I am a klutz, as mentioned previously in this thread).

So I can definitely see valid reasons for not putting everything on one large card and using several different cards, as well valid reasons for using as few cards as possible to avoid klutzy accidents while trying to switch cards!

Are you finally, just now, starting to get excited for your DLR holiday trip?! It took long enough! It's a good thing I started out with some of the blockbuster, 'most-people-have-a-lot-of-photos-of-this-theme,' Theme Weeks so that a lot of photos could roll through. If I had started with one of the 'hardly-anyone-has-any-photos-of-this-theme' themes, it might take you at least 2 months before you started looking forward to your trip!

I know.... I know...... I'll blame you for not getting all these castle pictures out here sooner!

Actually, I doubt it's coincidence that my rising level of excitement comes about the time I feel my son is getting settled into college life. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief and starting to focus on some other things now that all seems to be ok with him.

And of course it doesn't hurt that we're into double digits this week, so it's starting to seem a bit closer.

 

[czmom]

czmom --

I must admit that when I've seen photos of the MK version of the holiday Castle I thought that the DL version was prettier because it is more...sparkly, I guess. I haven't seen Cinderella's Castle in person, but it seemed less sparkly.

Cinderella's castle is GORGEOUS at night all lit up. One thing I don't understand about the DL castle is why the lights are turned off and on. Am I correct that it is only lit up certain parts of the night? I would think they would have the lights off during the day, then a lighting ceremony when it gets dark and then the lights stay on all night.

I know.... I know...... I'll blame you for not getting all these castle pictures out here sooner!

Actually, I doubt it's coincidence that my rising level of excitement comes about the time I feel my son is getting settled into college life. I am breathing a huge sigh of relief and starting to focus on some other things now that all seems to be ok with him.

And of course it doesn't hurt that we're into double digits this week, so it's starting to seem a bit closer.

Janet-
Hooray for double digits!!! The fall always goes by fast, so December will be here before we know it!

Glad to hear your son is getting settled into college.

 

[mom2rtk]

Janet-
Hooray for double digits!!! The fall always goes by fast, so December will be here before we know it!

Glad to hear your son is getting settled into college.

Thanks Sherry!

Cinderella's castle is GORGEOUS at night all lit up. One thing I don't understand about the DL castle is why the lights are turned off and on. Am I correct that it is only lit up certain parts of the night? I would think they would have the lights off during the day, then a lighting ceremony when it gets dark and then the lights stay on all night.

I hadn't heard that! I better get cracking on more of my research.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Cinderella's castle is GORGEOUS at night all lit up. One thing I don't understand about the DL castle is why the lights are turned off and on. Am I correct that it is only lit up certain parts of the night? I would think they would have the lights off during the day, then a lighting ceremony when it gets dark and then the lights stay on all night.

They do the lighting ceremony a few times a night. After the last one (I want to say 8pm maybe) the lights do stay on for the remainder of the night. There will be the times in the times guide.

 

[czmom]

After each lighting ceremony do the lights stay on until the next lighting ceremony? Or are they on intermittently?

 

[Phoenixrising]

In light of the fact that on my solo trip to DL in Oct/10 during Halloween time at the parks, I took over 1700+ pics I've decided to get another 4GB memory card as backup. I know I'll blow through at least a couple hundred pics at the wedding in Edmonton, just before my solo trip. And at least 400+ at Knotts alone. The 2 cards combined should give me around 3300 pic's of memory space, and I'm hoping that should be enough. I did have problems with my 4GB memory card that I gave to DH. It had one bad pic, and I couldn't get pics printed off, until I discovered the bad pic. Once I deleted it the card was fine. However once we had the pics developed we downloaded the pics in the card into the computer afterwards, then reformatted the card. And it was fine afterwards.

 

[DBL101]

From 2007, 2011 and 2012 - Click for larger versions.

 

[ksromack]

Great pics, DBL!

How many of us are scrapbookers? I've been scrapbooking for 16+ years....I'm determined to scrap last december's trip before THIS December trip arrives!

 

[mom2rtk]

Great pics, DBL!

How many of us are scrapbookers? I've been scrapbooking for 16+ years....I'm determined to scrap last december's trip before THIS December trip arrives!

Scrapbooking is my favorite hobby. Pretty soon I'm going to have to add a wing onto my house just to store all the books. I've been at it since around 1999, when all they sold were crazy scissors and Mrs. Grossman's stickers!

I haven't started the December trip from last year, but will get to it. I did write the journaling for the scrapbook as soon as we got back. I did finish our 2011 trip and actually filled 3 books! I'm going to see if I can fit it in one this time!

 

[TinkLoverSam]

Great pics, DBL!

How many of us are scrapbookers? I've been scrapbooking for 16+ years....I'm determined to scrap last december's trip before THIS December trip arrives!

I recently started scrap booking I a currently attempting to scrapbook our wedding trip to WDW from August 2010... I still have the 2011 DLR/DCL trip and the 2012 DCL/WDW trip though I realized I wasn't keeping up with the scrap booking so I didn't get too much stuff on our last trip to scrapbook as I'm not sure I'll ever get there!

 

[Phoenixrising]

I'm an amateur photographer that has had some of my pics published over the years. I have been scrapbooking for around 8 yrs, and have been mandated by the kids not to stop, as they enjoy the scrapbooking I do. I've been told by them that they are more apt to look at my scrapbooks, than pics stuck randomly in a photo album. They like the scrapbooking as I give the date, where the pics were taken and some info about where the pics were taken. They won't let me quit, so I do it for the kids.

 

[I'm mikey]

WOW!! Fantastic pictures everyone!!

 

[CassieScraps]

Cassie --

Very clever! Use the May trip as an excuse for any Disney stuff that slips out accidentally! Just be sure not to mention the word "Santa" or anything like that, as that may be hard to excuse away!

I can't even imagine the budget involved in taking 5 kids (teenagers) to DLR for a Christmas trip, when considering food/snacks, souvenirs, PhotoPass, etc. I'm not even including the accommodations, park admission and transportation/travel. I know that planning a much smaller trip for myself (with no kids!) is expensive enough. It must be stratospherically high when taking a big group! I think that is definitely a great Christmas present for the kids.

Sherry,

The budget is ginormous, lol. But, I think it's money well spent! And bonus is there won't be a bunch of presents to keep up with. Just a couple of souvenirs and memories.

It's funny, but my DD2 will not stop talking about DLR so I think the other kids are on ignore. Just this morning, she was laying in bed with me talking about how "Mommy and Sissy and I had breakfast with Captain Hook. When can we eat with Hook again Mommy? That was fun." She says things like this all day, so I am hoping that if I do slip up again, they will think I'm talking to her about where we've been, not where we are going.

DH is placing bets on how long until I spill the beans. I said "Not until Santa tells them on December 21st!"

Great pics, DBL!

How many of us are scrapbookers? I've been scrapbooking for 16+ years....I'm determined to scrap last december's trip before THIS December trip arrives!

ME! ME! ME!

I am working on our mini album from May's trip and I have about $200 worth of saved shopping carts around the 'net stuffed full of new Disney stuff to make this upcoming trips album. I just need to wait for payday!

 

[egritz]

Just be warned when using bigger memory cards.....the tendency is to get big cards so you don't have to buy as many.....but if all your pics are on one card and something happens to that card before you get a chance to put them on your computer.....that's a sad sad day

I do like to bring my laptop so I can put the pcs on there as well....just in case of a malfunction

For our upcoming trip I purchased 2-32GB memory cards, plus 3-32GB flash drives (thank you to Costco for their sale this month on those items!)...we will also bring the laptop so I can dump pics from the memory cards to the hard-drive AND the flash drives as back up before I delete them from the memory cards. I'm so neurotic, but I've lost more than my fair share of data (meaning I've had to re-do accounting for a small business for an entire year, oops) so I back-up weekly to an external and don't delete from my memory cards until the original pictures are backed up in TWO places. I shoot in RAW and will weed out the really bad shots on camera, but RAW takes up lots of room, so I have the 2 32GB cards, 1 16GB card, and 1 8MB card for our vacation. I'm hoping that I only have to "wipe" the memory cards once (which is where my flash drives will help with the double back-up) for the trip.

Another thing I do for each memory card is that I printed out a piece of paper with "please return our family's memories" and our email addresses & cell phone numbers. I also include our mail box address (not associated with our home address, I don't want a crook knowing we are out of town & where we live). This is in case someone finds a lost card, or if the crook who steals from me has a conscious (I actually have a friend whose car was broken into and their $3,000+ camera equipment stolen, but the crooks left the memory cards on the front seat, so some crooks have a slight consious). Anyway, it is the very first picture on every memory card and I never delete it when I wipe the cards.

How many of us are scrapbookers? I've been scrapbooking for 16+ years....I'm determined to scrap last december's trip before THIS December trip arrives!

I not a real scrap-booker, but I am a kinda digital one with shutterfly's photo books. This trip I'm going to try and get some cool holiday scenery to use as the background for the pages of our vacation photo book. You can "fade" it out and put other pictures over the top. I did it with one two-page spread from our April vacation (a nice picture I got in Balboa Park) and I LOVED the way it turned out, so I'm going to intentionally take & compose pictures with that in mind come December. I'm hoping the entire book can be done this way, we'll see how I do.

It is hard for me to strike a balance between taking enough / too many pictures. I don't want to miss moments of amazement from our 2 yo daughter, or only see them through the glass. So I have to intentionally try to get some artistic pictures, and then put the camera down.

For those of you worried about damaging your camera/lens with SLR, I used the lens hood 100% of the time in April to help protect it. I just got some cheap polarizing lens covers too I want to start playing with as another way to protect my lens. I wear my camera cross-body but leave it in front of my body, not on my hip. I didn't have any problems in April and do not regret for one moment bringing the DSLR over my P&S.

All this said - I'm just an amateur, I'm drooling over these countdown pictures, hoping & praying I can get shots that are at least decent, if not awesome. I don't think I'll do well with my nightime pictures (not taking a tripod and I have no experience shooting at night so it will be trial and error).




Someone just posted a new thread on the main page that brought up this question for me:

They were advised to watch the Fireworks from BOTH the main hub & also in front of Small World. If you only have one night to view fireworks, which location would you choose? I'm guessing Small World....but want your 2 cents.

And on that note, for a mid-week viewing of the fireworks, the 2nd week of December, what time do we need to stake out our spot and should we bring a blanket to sit on? I have a 2 year old so it will be likely that she will be doing something with her grandparents while DH and I save us a spot. (we are planning on fireworks for Tuesday 12/10, but if that doesn't work out due to weather or something else comes up, our other options are Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday of that week.)

And I'll ask this again since it didn't get answered before (Sherry I know you tried to help draw attention to the question, thank you!) Any suggestions for fireworks and night-time photography without using a tri-pod, using a DSLR?