Disneyland at Christmas/Holiday Season Superthread #4

[funatdisney]

Hi everyone! I found this on the bottom of page two. Not sure if Sherry E would like to keep this on page one, but gonna bump the thread anyway.

Get pics, KCmike, mvf-m11c and Pinup Mommy. I still have to download mine onto the dreaded Photobucket.

Instead, I have been pretty busy making my ADRs and itineraries for our WDW trip this July (hit the 180 day mark this week), but I have been following along on the DISboards app.

 

[KCmike]

Hi everyone! I found this on the bottom of page two. Not sure if Sherry E would like to keep this on page page, but gonna bump the thread anyway.

Get pics, KCmike, mvf-m11c and Pinup Mommy. I still have to download mine onto the dreaded Photobucket.

Instead, I have been pretty busy making my ADRs and itineraries for our WDW trip this July (hit the 180 day mark this week), but I have been following along on the DISboards app.

Thanks Liza!! If I were you I would switch to Flickr. Its so much easier.

 

[funatdisney]

KCmike, I am going to check into Flickr as soon as I have moment lol.

 

[lucysmom]

Well, I am a bit disappointed in this. Last year it was a super deal. I guess it was still a good deal this year, but not as good.

First of all, there were not as many photo pass people in the parks when we were there from December 18-23. As a matter of fact some key spots last year, like in front of IASW, were absent this year and we made several sweeps of the area looking for the photographer.

Also, even though I had 180 photos taken many, many of them were repeats. There were eight of the same pose for instance.

The gallery disk of holiday park shots was extremely limited. The photo pass people won't take photos of just the tree, for instance. You have to be in the shot as well. So the gallery disk shots are very important to round out your trip memories. they didn't have a single holiday Carsland or IASW light shot on the whole disk.

In addition, the lines for the photographers were long because there were so few of them available. Last year, they had multiple photographers in front of the castle at night. Not this year.

Finally, one of my most anticipated shots of the snowman car in Carsland was ruined. It had a big orange splotch in the bottom corner, from the sun, I guess. I was worried that the photographer was in the wrong spot and questioned if the shot was good. She said it was. Well.....

We were at the parks over the same days as last year. The service should have been comparable. This must have been one of Disney's cost cutting measures.

 

[NewbieMouse]

We were there on the Sunday before Christmas this year. We had a blast, but we were in line thirty minutes before extra magic hour began. We chatted with other guests and soaked up the magic. Once we were in we hit the big ticket rides before having brunch around 10:30. By noon the park was getting crowded so we headed back to the hotel for our mid afternoon break. Then we went back for dinner and shows in the evening.

That was our basic plan for the whole trip and we never waited more than ten or fifteen minutes for any ride. Actually, I waited longer for a corn dog from the Main Street corn dog truck than I did for any ride. If you stay on property and get to rope drop early, you will be fine. Have a plan to ride rides in the mornings and just enjoy Disney the rest of the time.

Thank you, lucysmom - that's encouraging for the Sunday as a plan.

Anyone been there on Christmas Day? I'm not sure if it's not busy or a nightmare...

 

[siskaren]

Thank you, lucysmom - that's encouraging for the Sunday as a plan.

Anyone been there on Christmas Day? I'm not sure if it's not busy or a nightmare...

If it's like the MK at WDW, it's a nightmare.

 

[funatdisney]

Taking KCMike's advice and using Flickr. Here is my first photo:





My second photo:




And third photo:




So far so good! And I am getting the hang of it, too.

 

[KCmike]

Congrats on the switchover Liza. Did you find it any easier? BTW your pictures look great.

 

[funatdisney]

Congrats on the switchover Liza. Did you find it any easier? BTW your pictures look great.

Thanks KCmike!

I did! The only thing I had trouble with was figuring out how to post different size pictures. I'm good at poking around a site and soon learned to pick the size by using the pull down bar before copying the URL. I am very pleased at how fast and easy it will be to quickly post a picture.

A few questions: Can you do more editing features like changing a picture into a black and white one (or sepia)? Or do you have to make the creative editing on a PC before you upload the picture? i haven't gotten that far yet.

 

[NewbieMouse]

If it's like the MK at WDW, it's a nightmare.

Great news! Maybe we'll stick with Sunday, or Christmas Even then.

I really appreciate everyone's pictures. I take so few pictures because I am terrible at it, and it is so nice to see the little details.

 

[Sherry E]

Very nice pictures, Liza! The nighttime IASWH picture is very crisp!

Your WDW July trip should be wonderful (though...why I am I envisioning crazy humidity at WDW in July?)!

I'm glad that Flickr seems to be working for you. I know that's what Bret uses as well, so if he can load and store as many photos on Flickr as he does (thousands, I'm sure), it has to have some benefits.

I don't know if Flickr has its own editor like Photobucket does? There are so many ways to edit or post-process photos now that you can find a wide variety of options without even spending a dime. You could buy software, or you could use some of the free sites like Pixlr or FotoFlexer to edit and apply different effects.

I will have to -- at some point, when there is time, which there never seems to be -- try to upload a few test shots to Flickr just to see how it all works. I usually apply the black and white or sepia effects at the time I take the photos if I am going to use those effects at all, but if I want to slap an extra border on a photo then I may wait to apply the B&W or sepia with Photobucket's editor at a later time.

If I didn't already have (literally) thousands upon thousands of photos stored on Photobucket (in 2 different accounts, one of which is a paid account) I could make a transition to Flickr or another photo hosting site much more easily. But at this stage of the game it would be way too much work for me to move everything or re-upload everything to another site. I couldn't do it using my current PC, that's for sure. I just had a heck of a time dealing with the stupid calendar that I was making, as I uploaded more than 400 photos to Shutterfly to have a good assortment to choose from for my layout. That was bad enough.

​

I was going to reply to at least a couple of the other posts that have come in during the past several days because I had specific comments to make, but I just have not had the time. It's been a hectic week and I've been preoccupied. Hopefully I will be able to do that soon (before 2015 ).

I also have to eventually revise/tweak page 1 and remove any of the links that are now dead due to 2013 being over. It's good to do that kind of tweaking and revising during 'down time' on the thread, when it's not active or busy.

In a way, I'm sad that the holiday season seemed to zip by so quickly and that all of the merriment (Hallmark's Countdown to Christmas movies, peppermint ice cream, 24-hour Christmas music on radio stations, decorations everywhere, Rankin-Bass TV specials, the Twilight Zone marathon on New Year's Eve & Day, etc.) is over for now.

On the other hand, I really don't mind the "break" from holiday stuff for a while, just to kind of build up my excitement for it again this year. As much as I am not a summer person at all, I think that summer's existence for me is merely to be the vessel that leads the way to the "fun months" (September through December), and to make me so miserable from the heat that I cannot wait for the first signs of autumn's merciful relief to appear.

It kind of feels like this whole year will zip by too, and the next holiday season will be here before we know it -- maybe it will even feel sooner than we are ready for! Thanksgiving may be late in November again, but my holiday season (the one in my mind!) unofficially starts when the first "harvest" decorations, uncarved pumpkins and white chocolate candy corn M&M's begin to pop up in the seasonal aisle at the store! That will be in August!

As Jamie said not long ago, the fact that the Theme Week Countdown starts in early August (or perhaps slightly sooner than that) will make the time pass by even more quickly between August and November. So, essentially, once we get to late July-ish/early August-ish it will be a non-stop Yuletide train ride through the rest of the year. And we will probably get little bits and pieces of info or news trickling in even before August, as we did last year, so there will be things to discuss along the way.

By the way, Bret/mvf-m11c is currently working on his November 2013 holiday Trip Report (he recently posted some great Club 33 photos) in the Disneyland TR forum. And PHXscuba also has a holiday TR (with more great Club 33 pictures!) in the works in the Disneyland TR forum. So if you still want an extra dose of Christmas-at-DLR magic, you should check out their reports!


Oh, I almost forgot to comment on the winter weather here in SoCal! While other parts of the U.S. are caught in the horrible Polar Vortex (the TV meteorologists have been having a field day throwing that term around for the last week or two), we have been having unseasonably warm temperatures here in SoCal...not to a crazy extreme, but unusual. Keep in mind, we are not even one full month into winter yet. We're not even close to the start of spring, and yet the temperatures have been averaging in the 83 degrees-to-85 degrees range, which is warm (even for SoCal) in the middle of January. In fact, those are the temps we'd see in July, not January!

Remember that just over one month ago the temperatures were in the 50's or 60's in the daytime out here, and in the low 30's (or even 29 degrees!) at night? Remember I was saying (in the previous Superthread) that a suspicious lady on the news was asking "Why IS it so cold? What's really going on," as if there were some conspiracy to make us cold?

We went from a cold snap (cold for this area, not Polar Vortex cold) to a heat wave. (Where is the Conspiracy Lady now? Why isn't she asking why it is so warm, and what's really going on?) Rain has been non-existent for a while. Sometimes we get hit with a lot of rain in February but that is hard to imagine at this point, as I hear people turning on their air conditioners to keep cool! So at one point last month, we Los Angeles folks had colder weather than New York and other East Coast states for a short time.

One month later, look at the difference. Eighty-three degrees out here and a Polar Vortex everywhere else. Strange. Very strange. Dare I ask..."What's really going on?"

​

 

[mvf-m11c]

That is nice to hear that you are using flickr Liza and the pictures looked very nice.

A few questions: Can you do more editing features like changing a picture into a black and white one (or sepia)? Or do you have to make the creative editing on a PC before you upload the picture? i haven't gotten that far yet.

There is an editing on flickr called Aviary where you can do editing on your original pictures. Since I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I never use the feature since I want my pictures to be original without editing. Some of them I did editing like B&W, antique, etc. I tried Aviary and it works well.

Sherry - As you know that I use flickr to upload all my pictures that I have taken during my Disney trips and other events. I don't use the Aviary on flickr since I use Lightroom but the Aviary is a great editing program if you have flickr account and upload pictures.

Here are some pictures from "Believe...In Holiday Magic" fireworks

 

[Sherry E]

I think that the current editor that Photobucket uses is a version of Aviary (maybe not the same version that Flickr uses?). It is not as good as the previous editors they used, which were FotoFlexer and Pixlr. In fact, most of Photobucket's customers complained when the contract with Pixlr ended and they picked up Aviary (or whatever the current editor is).

Like you, Bret, I rarely -- if ever -- edit photos after taking them. That includes cropping.

If I am going to apply a sepia, B&W or vivid effect, I usually use that setting in the camera and do it that way, as I'm taking the photo (which is what deejdigsdis did with the one-touch color effect, or whatever it is called). If I am going to take photos of flowers or sunrises/sunsets, I will often (but not always) switch to the foliage and sunset modes in the camera, respectively.

Occasionally, if I know I am going to create some sort of project like a calendar, a Christmas card or a similar thing, I may slap a fun border on some photos or apply a sepia, B&W or other effect to photos after-the-fact. Or, maybe if I want something that's just a tad more than B&W, I will use an editor to enhance the B&W or give it an extra bit of retro zip.

Most of the time, though, the photos I've posted in any of my threads (and in my former TR thread) are untouched, in their original formats, as they were taken with the camera. I think 'a good eye' speaks for itself, and the person behind the camera either has a good eye or doesn't have a good eye. Also, there are some days when anyone who takes a lot of photos is just 'off' and nothing is really coming out all that spectacularly, I think. So, to that end, some of my photos will be winners and some will be clunkers but I try to come up with a few fresh, original ideas here and there!

Originality, creativity and a good sense of composition are important, no matter what kind of camera one has! This is why I always want to make sure that people feel free to share their photos during the Theme Week Countdowns, no matter what kind of camera they use. Any camera -- Point & Shoot, 35 mm, disposable, camera phone, DSLR, etc. -- can capture a memory and take a priceless photo! Heck, these days I see more people taking photos with phones than I see with actual cameras.

Patience is also crucial -- sometimes we can't just aim the camera, snap and be done, as I'm sure Bret, KCmike, Janet, etc., will attest to. Sometimes we might not even get that perfect shot in 3 tries, or in 5 tries, or in 8 tries! Sometimes we have to stand there, crouch down, climb under things, wait for 10 million people to get out of the way, wait for the light to shift just a bit, etc., etc., just to get one really nice photo.

One of the photos I posted on page 3 -- a close-up of a pointy ornament on the Goofy's Kitchen tree -- required me to get between the ornament and the wall. I had to step behind the ornament, lean against the wall and bend my knees just a tad to get to the level I wanted for the shot, and to get the colorful, wacky carpet in the background -- and I wanted to show the carpet in the background because the colors were complementary to the ornament on the tree!


Bret -- fantastic, breathtaking fireworks photos, as always!

I think we need to have a photographer emoticon on this forum, don't you? We need a little smiley dude with a tiny camera. There is a smiley for this - -- which is nice, but not exactly the same. Don't smilies take pictures too?

​

 

[funatdisney]

Very nice pictures, Liza! The nighttime IASWH picture is very crisp!

Your WDW July trip should be wonderful (though...why I am I envisioning crazy humidity at WDW in July?)!

Thanks, Sherry E. That IASWH picture isn't my favorite. I don't like the people in the shot. This was taken on one of my day trips and before my December weekend trip with Hubby. During my weekend trip, I had planned to go back with a tripod and take some really nice shots late at night when (hopefully) the crowds were less, but I had a tummy ache (too much good eating) on my last night. I felt it was better to just stay in. Hopefully I will get to do that this year, since I am planning a longer stay.

Yes I know it will be humid in WDW, and I am not looking forward to that aspect of the trip. But July is the only month the four us can get together with one DD starting college and the other DD's volleyball schedule. Maybe the last trip the four of us can take together in a long time.

That is nice to hear that you are using flickr Liza and the pictures looked very nice.


There is an editing on flickr called Aviary where you can do editing on your original pictures. Since I use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I never use the feature since I want my pictures to be original without editing. Some of them I did editing like B&W, antique, etc. I tried Aviary and it works well.

Thank you, Bret for the compliment and the information. I sometimes like to "play" with my pictures so I do edit them sometimes.


I love your pictures! This one is my favorite:

Here are some pictures from "Believe...In Holiday Magic" fireworks

I like how you captured the red and green fireworks which captures the Holiday theme so well.

 

[KCmike]

Thanks KCmike!

I did! The only thing I had trouble with was figuring out how to post different size pictures. I'm good at poking around a site and soon learned to pick the size by using the pull down bar before copying the URL. I am very pleased at how fast and easy it will be to quickly post a picture.

A few questions: Can you do more editing features like changing a picture into a black and white one (or sepia)? Or do you have to make the creative editing on a PC before you upload the picture? i haven't gotten that far yet.

Looks like you have gotten your answers. Great shots once again!




Wonderful fireworks shot Bret!!

 

[mvf-m11c]

Thank you Sherry, Liza and Mike. The firework trail pictures were okay. Not the best one's that I have done so far but they are okay. It was a long wait during that trip. I would never wait 3 hours for "Believe...In Holiday Magic" fireworks that trip but it was for my other party members to see the fireworks in front of SB Winter Castle. I have waited for long periods to see the fireworks like 2 hours. But it is always a gamble every time I see the fireworks at DL for which they can be canceled anytime due to weather or technical issues. Luckily, I have never waited in front of SB Castle and spent all that time waiting for the fireworks to hear that they are canceled due to the weather or technical issues. I wasn't lucky during the November and December trip when watching the fireworks at IASW Plaza. I understand that it can be frustrating to wait all that time and find out when it is time for the fireworks and to hear the announcement that they are canceled.

Sherry - I can understand when you take pictures by using the settings on the camera when you are taking pictures in person without using editors when you are a computer. As you know that I have used the settings on my DSLR when I am at the parks. But since I have been using programs to enhanced the pictures, I don't have to go and use the settings. But every once in awhile, it will be fun to use the B&W, one touch color, etc. without editing the pictures.

Originally when I post my pictures on flickr, they are originals when I took pictures with them. The pictures can be huge which are around 4-8MB a picture as the original they take awhile to upload to flickr (unless you have a fast internet). Now I am using a software to enhanced the pictures and save the space size so it would be easier to upload to flickr.

You are right about that it does takes patience to get that right picture. I have stayed in one spot, crouched, waited, etc. to get that right picture. It can take a lot of time but it will be worth it when you get that picture that you want.

The firework trail pictures were okay. Not the best one's that I have done so far but they are okay.

Like you said that Smiles do take pictures.

Thank you, Bret for the compliment and the information. I sometimes like to "play" with my pictures so I do edit them sometimes.


I love your pictures! This one is my favorite:


I like how you captured the red and green fireworks which captures the Holiday theme so well.

Your welcome Liza. I will look to see what pictures you will have on flickr.

The finale at the end of the fireworks is the best when there are a lot of fireworks in the sky.

 

[lucysmom]

Oh goodness! We mustn't let our holiday spirit die. I will bump this back to the first page.

 

[Cheshirecatty]

SOOOOOOO Excited for the new Christmas Thread---THANK YOU Sherry!!!!!!!!!

I just got a look at your pics on page three---Gorgeous!

We spent the week of Christmas at the Resort, and felt it was quite a bit busier than last year, but not enough to keep us from planning our trip for the same week this year!

Looking forward to any and all updates and tidbits of info. which we always pick up on this thread!

 

[Sherry E]

Thank you, lucysmom!

I appreciate that others love the thread and want to keep it from sinking into oblivion! It's okay if it drops for a while, because it will ramp back up again soon enough.

​

Cheshirecatty -

I'm glad you finally made your way over here to join us! Christmas week sounds like a great time to be at DLR!

The crowds were interesting last year. It seemed like there were many cases in which people reported crowds being substantial during weeks that had previously been not so crowded, and the usually crowded weeks were less crowded. I think there was a big shift in the crowd patterns. But your week -- the week of Christmas -- is a week I would have ordinarily expected to be crowded. So I am surprised that it was even more crowded than usual, as you said!

My December week was busier than it had been in the past but it was not that bad, in my opinion. There were lots of what I call "pockets" of time when Main Street was not packed or other specific spots were not packed (POTC only had a 10-minute line when I got in it), and when I could find a table right away at a restaurant (even Plaza Inn!). Earl of Sandwich didn't have a line when I went in.

So, in my experience, the second-week-of-December crowds did not affect me all that greatly, though I noticed there were more people milling about than I was used to seeing. However, other folks reported that it was packed every day during that same week I was there, so they experienced something else that I didn't really experience -- either that or we just have totally different ideas of what is packed and what is not packed!

Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate the compliment on the pictures. I spoke in the last Superthread about how I wasn't exactly thrilled with the photos I got on my December trip, for a variety of reasons. They didn't meet whatever expectations or 'visions' I had in mind. The first set of photos that I posted on Christmas day and the other ones that I posted on page 3 of this thread are some of the shots I like more than others. But, what sometimes happens is that certain pictures will grow on me over time, and as I comb through them more often I begin to like them more. So I may find more shots that I like somewhat as I look over them. Some of them I am simply not posting here yet because I will wait until it's time for the next Theme Week Countdown to post them.

As for the new Superthread -- I know that a lot of casual observers on the DIS may think that, because of the timing of this new thread, it was started because it is a new year. However, we were at the page limit in the previous thread so there was no choice but to begin a new thread. If we hadn't hit the page limit, we'd still be in the same thread that we were in last year. But I'll always be here unless I become incapacitated or something. You couldn't drag me away from my Superthread if you tried! I created it. It's my baby! Plus, I think I am the biggest champion of not only the holidays at DLR, but the holiday season in general! I am leading the charge to the peppermint ice cream and Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas every year (speaking of which...I can't wait for November 1st)!




I have kind of been trying to let this thread quiet down a wee bit recently, though -- just because we are freshly done with the 2013 holiday season and it's a good time to take a break before we ramp up to full speed again. Also, I have some revising and tinkering to do on page 1, but I have to do it in increments and I have been busy the last few weeks. It will get done, though.

​

As for tidbits and bits of info rolling in, I am especially interested to eventually find out what the "official" start date of the holiday season will be this year. Will DLR go with 11/12 again, even though it's a Wednesday? Or, will they just move it to Friday, November 14th? Might they start the season the day before Veterans Day, on Monday, November 10th?

I was told by a CM that DLR tries to avoid starting the holiday season on Veterans Day (11/11 every year) if at all possible, and in looking at the start dates over just the last decade I saw that DLR has not begun the season on Veterans Day in about 8 or 9 years or so, which supports what I was told.

But...I can totally envision some sort of scenario in which DLR begins the season on 11/10, getting IASWH up and running and maybe Santa in place at the JJJ and in DCA. And then they could begin the fireworks, parade, Winter Dreams, Viva Navidad and the ice rink in DTD on Friday, 11/14. I don't know if that is what will happen or if it will be handled that way, but I can see some sort of scenario like that taking place. I prefer for everything to start on the same day, instead of different things beginning on different days, but DLR may feel that starting the season on 11/14/14 would be 'too late.'

I will also be interested to see if DLR can get the hotels decorated really early again, even if Santa and the carolers do not appear until Thanksgiving. In 2013 the first reports of trees going up at the hotels (including the PPH tree with all of the clunky surfboards and stuff underneath it) came in 9 days before Thanksgiving! Let's hope that happens again this year, since Thanksgiving is on 11/27!

One thing of which I think we can be 99.9% certain is that the Candlelight Ceremony/Procession will take place on Sat., 12/6 and Sun., 12/7. Even if other nights were suddenly added in (wishful thinking on my part) those dates should not change, and if there are only 2 nights of the CP, as usual, those nights will be the nights for it!

One other thing I am really curious about for this year's holiday season is what will be taking place at the Jingle Jangle Jamboree. Now that Billy Hill is gone, will DLR put some new musical entertainment in that location to keep the holiday mood going? The crafts, characters and cookie decorating are fun but they need music there too, I think.

 

[KCmike]

I just finished watching Billy Hill and the Hillbillies final performance on youtube. I immediately thought how much I'm going to miss them playing here...


The Golden Horseshoe Saloon by KC MikeD, on Flickr