Groucho? 11 days? Beach Club? 4-year & 8-month-old? Tons of pics? Yes! (finally done)

[Groucho]

Groucho - thank you!!! It seems to be a problem that gets increasingly worse as the years go by. It wasn't nearly as big an issue back when we did our first trip back in '92 but the past few years, it seems as though there's not a dark ride I go on without someone happily snapping away with their flash on. Highly annoying for those of us trying to enjoy the ride along with the 'darkness' that the Imagineers intended. I realize that the canned announcements don't necessarily cover all the language barriers, but it's just common courtesy! OK.. I'll get off my soapbox now... back to the TR - more pics and narration, please!

The worst for this trip was Pirates - we rode it twice in a row a couple times, and the first trip we actually had someone come over PA system and remind you not to take flash photos (someone in front had taken a picture of their companion with flash just after loading, right in front of the observation window for the actual ride ops)... which made me very, very happy! Then we rode it again, someone else did the same thing (only pointed backwards so the flash went right in my eye, at which point I yelled out "oh JEEZ!" but they took no notice), and the same person took a fair number of photos during the ride. Fortunately, even then, he didn't take too many. I supposed this is another benefit of going when the park is quiet - you're less likely to run into "those people!"

I'm so adamant that I have asked people to stop (much to the embarrassment of my wife!), and I even emailed someone from Allears when they posted HM pictures with flash after the big rehab, reminding them how rude it is, whether you're putting them on a website or not. Unsurprisingly, I never got a response.

Enjoying the report and love the pictures.

I've heard about the haircuts, so it was good to see what they look like. Looks pretty cool but curious if it washes out easily or not (OK, my wife asked me to ask how easily it washes out).

Heheh, I think I wrote about that as you were entering that message. It was kind of a pain - we're used to a showerhead on a hose at home which makes washing the kids a breeze, but no such luck. I just used one of the cups and kept filling it with water to rinse, then would put on a bunch of kid shampoo and lather it up with my hands. Initially I tried to keep all the sprinkles separate but I gave up and just let them go down the drain after a bit - I don't really see any practical way to avoid that! It took maybe 3-4 of these cycles to get his hair completely clean.

 

[DisneyDaddio]

LOL. Yeah, my wife was afraid of that. Not sure if I'll be able to talk her into this.

 

[Groucho]

Ehhh, it's still worth it.

 

[DisneyDaddio]

Oh, I'm all for it. Maybe my wife will warm up to it... or forget about the clean-up (not going for another year or so, so ya never know).

 

[RachelNinja]

I made it a point to ride some of the rides without taking photos at all. (Which actually means that there are probably a number of holes in the trip report!) This is especially important when using manual-focus lenses where you are really concentrating on getting the focus just right... but even with autofocus, I find that I enjoy the rides a lot more when I can just concentrate on the ride and ignore the camera. If your DBF hasn't been there in a long time, I think you're definitely right - enjoy the ride on its own merits before distracting yourself. If he still resists, remind him that this will help him learn what to try to get a shot of the next time! It goes without saying that he shouldn't use a flash on the dark rides... it is extremely distracting and annoying to the other guests.

For longer shows, I try to minimize the camera time. It helps that I've seen most things several times by now. Still, IMHO it's worth trying to concentrate on the show rather than fiddling with the camera too much for most of the shows, like Indiana Jones, Lights Motors Action, Lion King, Finding Nemo, etc.

Haha, I linked your response to DBF because he very much respects you as a photographer. If he tries taking his camera out during these rides, I'm going to say, "Hey! Groucho said!" I already told him that he shouldn't even TRY getting pics on the dark rides especially just because the experienced photographers are always struggling to get good photos, and if he's a newbie ... much rather enjoy the ride! Haha, and to be mushy ... to hold my hand instead of hold the camera

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you got a picture of the reel for the ViewMaster! I've seen a pic of the whole thing from far away, but I really wanted to see the actual pictures that are shown in the reel.

 

[DznyFan]

I have a few observations in general on the trip that I'll put in here and there. I'll mention the most disturbing tread I saw on this trip - guys launching snot rockets into the sinks in the bathrooms!

ewwwww. Just EWWWWW.

I LOVE this!!!

I'm so adamant that I have asked people to stop (much to the embarrassment of my wife!), and I even emailed someone from Allears when they posted HM pictures with flash after the big rehab, reminding them how rude it is, whether you're putting them on a website or not. Unsurprisingly, I never got a response.

I don't blame you.

I will admit that I have shot a flash shot after boarding a ride vehicle but before we have gone into the attraction. (not proudly, mind you, just admitting...). My daughter, the CM, has gotten on to me! Good for her, though.

 

[Groucho]

Haha, I linked your response to DBF because he very much respects you as a photographer. If he tries taking his camera out during these rides, I'm going to say, "Hey! Groucho said!" I already told him that he shouldn't even TRY getting pics on the dark rides especially just because the experienced photographers are always struggling to get good photos, and if he's a newbie ... much rather enjoy the ride! Haha, and to be mushy ... to hold my hand instead of hold the camera

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Seriously though, I'm no master of the dark ride photos but I do find it pretty distracting when I'm trying to take photos, so I try to force myself to leave the camera down sometimes. Especially for HM, my favorite ride of all time, and Pirates.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE that you got a picture of the reel for the ViewMaster! I've seen a pic of the whole thing from far away, but I really wanted to see the actual pictures that are shown in the reel.

I LOVE this!!!

Thanks! I'm actually not really happy with the framing but I like the way the rest of it turned out. I also have the shot with the light directly behind the picture but that makes the picture itself unevenly lit - having it just to the side seemed to work the best IMHO.

I will admit that I have shot a flash shot after boarding a ride vehicle but before we have gone into the attraction. (not proudly, mind you, just admitting...). My daughter, the CM, has gotten on to me! Good for her, though.

That's not such a huge deal, except when I'm the one getting blinded by the flash like happened on Pirates.

 

[NateNLogansDad]

Groucho, I've been dying to get enough free time to read your TR uninterrupted and it's been so worth the wait. Your pictures are incredible and are bringing back that funny feeling some may call symptoms of NAS. Can't wait to see more!

 

[Snappy in OK]

Ehhh, it's still worth it.

I agree 100%. DD had her 1st haircut at WDW in Sept, and DS got some pixie dust & colored gel. His favorite color is red, and he had some "racing stripes" in the front of his hair and a "hidden Mickey" in back - it was adorable!! It did take a long time to get the hidden Mickey out though - DS has very blonde hair, and the red really stuck around. It was a noticable, but not really obvious.

 

[WillowBelle]

So glad we're not the only parents who "forget" to feed the kids while we're at Disney. At least now they can talk to us and tell us when they're starting to get hungry. Time can get away from you fast there in the world!

 

[Groucho]

Jeepers, what a busy week! I've hardly had any time to work on the pics.

Hey! Nobody told me that I repeated a picture in the last round of pics! Oops... it has been corrected now. Sorry about that!

So glad we're not the only parents who "forget" to feed the kids while we're at Disney. At least now they can talk to us and tell us when they're starting to get hungry. Time can get away from you fast there in the world!

I'll say! It really is amazing how quickly the time passes by and you forget that it's time the feed the baby again... meanwhile, you're wondering why she's so cranky and making your life miserable!

OK, here comes the rest of day three!

When we last your faithful crew, we were in the AFI area after the backlot tour.

We walked over to the Star Tours area and my wife and Jack went on it together. I hung around outside with Leila and happened to catch the Jedi Academy show, which I hadn't seen all the way through before. If this had existed back 1977 when I was a kid, I probably would have thought that it was the greatest thing in the world. As an adult who still has a love for the "holy trilogy", it's still pretty darn cool. For these shots, I used my Carl Zeiss 135mm F3.5.

I pointed out over in the Photography Board that we're all been overlooking an essential tool for Disney photography... a lightsaber!

Next, we stopped in for our reservations at 50s Prime Time Cafe. I love this place, it's always fun and the food is great. Here's Leila eating some goldfish for the first time, brought out by our waitress who was completely in love with her! This was shot with an Auto Takumar 35mm F3.5 and yes, is misfocused...

Next stop, the Indiana Jones show. Jack loves Indiana Jones despite never having seen any of the movies. This shot's a little blurry - but c'mon, it was a heavy 300mm lens handheld at 1/15th of a second!

I pointed out in my live TR that the stuntman playing Indiana was the same guy who we saw playing the "fruit shirt" guy last year. I guess they switch the roles around. Here he is as Indiana this year...

...and as "fruit shirt" last year.

Back to this trip.

This one was terribly overexposed but I kind of like it anyway.

After this, we walked past Star Tours and the rest of the family caught some more of Jedi Academy, then we went on to Muppetvision 3D, always a favorite. We wandered the gift shop a little...

Does anyone know what this sign is supposed to mean?

At this point, my wife and Jack used some Toy Story fastpasses that we'd gotten earlier and I went through One Man's Dream with Leila. I always enjoy going through the preshow area.

Afterwards, my wife took the kids so I could ride my favorite thrill ride at Disney...

...as well as Rock 'n Rollercoaster - which is good, but I really love ToT and my wife rode it once ever and refuses to ride it again! Jack was too scared to ride it - hopefully soon he'll be brave and give me someone to ride it with. I actually rode ToT twice (gotta love short lines!) and on my RnRC ride, I befriended a woman who had never ridden it before and was terrified when she found it that it went upside down! She was with a couple who was also a bit nervous, much to the amusement of the little girl who was next to us. She was almost shaking by the time we got to the front and we rode together. When it came to the takeoff, it did the countdown... and nothing happened! I felt bad for her as the tension built; after a minute or so, a CM came out with a flashlight checking our harnesses, then we got the countdown again and we were off. She survived but I'm not sure she'll be riding it again.

Continued...

 

[Groucho]

DHS was closing so we hopped on a bus and headed back for Beach Club. We had enough time for me to grab the tripod and run over to Epcot, just in time to find a spot to set up and watch Illuminations. Not a great spot, with some stuff in the way, but not bad.

I was overlooking a wedding reception so I watched them a little while doing a couple 300mm tripod shots.

This was kind of an experiment... the 300mm paired with a cheapie 2x teleconverter, for 600mm - or equivalent to 900mm on a 35mm! Close enough to clearly see the security camera hiding up there.

Here's the same shot at 300mm, for comparison. I don't know what the streak is - it was only in this shot of the four that I took. Probably an airplane?

I headed back to our hotel and stopped at the food court. I hadn't paid much attention before but they do have some great-looking muffins.

We had skipped dinner so I grabbed a ham & cheese, which was served hot and was much better than I expected! I stopped back to our room, emptied the memory cards, charged the batteries, and hit the sack!

Next up... day four, with Epcot and the real fastest ride in WDW!

 

[mom2rtk]

...as well as Rock 'n Rollercoaster - which is good, but I really love ToT and my wife rode it once ever and refuses to ride it again! Jack was too scared to ride it - hopefully soon he'll be brave and give me someone to ride it with. I actually rode ToT twice (gotta love short lines!) and on my RnRC ride, I befriended a woman who had never ridden it before and was terrified when she found it that it went upside down! She was with a couple who was also a bit nervous, much to the amusement of the little girl who was next to us. She was almost shaking by the time we got to the front and we rode together. When it came to the takeoff, it did the countdown... and nothing happened! I felt bad for her as the tension built; after a minute or so, a CM came out with a flashlight checking our harnesses, then we got the countdown again and we were off. She survived but I'm not sure she'll be riding it again.

Continued...

What..... no pictures on Rock N Rollercoaster???? What a lightweight!!!

 

[Groucho]

What..... no pictures on Rock N Rollercoaster???? What a lightweight!!!

Nope, just a couple shots of the ceiling in one of the queue rooms that didn't turn out great. I've done shots from it on previous TRs...

 

[mom2rtk]

Nope, just a couple shots of the ceiling in one of the queue rooms that didn't turn out great. I've done shots from it on previous TRs...

I was only kidding. I meant DURING the ride! You know.... like mid-inversion....

 

[jerseygirl81]

I'm enjoying reading your TR your kids are adorable and I love your pics! Linda

 

[Queenofallthings]

fantastic pictures

 

[DisneyDaddio]

Simply stunning pics! I keep going back to the Illuminations photos.

 

[WDWFigment]

Excellent pictures from the TSM area.

 

[Groucho]

Thanks everyone! I'm glad you like.

On to day four... we got going and walked over to Epcot. (This is the best part of staying at Beach Club!) I decided to try my new Lensbaby Composer a little bit. I had bought it just before the trip and it's very intimidating!

We stopped over to The Land for some breakfast at Sunshine Seasons... pretty much the de facto place for breakfast at Epcot. Once everyone was full, we wandered over to The Seas and hung around for a little while.

I had called the Richard Petty Driving Experience (hereafter RPDE) earlier in the morning to make sure they were doing ride-alongs today and now I called once more to make sure nothing had changed... it was looking good so we headed out front and waiting for a monorail.

We got to the TTC and I saw the Petty shuttle waiting at the kennel... and was very glad that it was still there by the time we made our way over there! We headed for the speedway with our gaggle of kids, gear, and stroller, and headed into the building. It was fairly busy, and after a little bit, we filled out the appropriate paperwork, were handed a USB flash drive, selected a proper-sized suit, and headed out to the pit area. My wife went first. She just loved climbing through the window to get inside but she had a good time. Next, I went. First thing is some sort of hair cover, then the helmet, then a HANS device. The next few shots are, you guessed it, shot by my wife.

I climbed in and talked briefly to the driver, then we were off. Acceleration is fast but not earth-shattering, but the impressive part is the actual turning. The g-forces generated in the turns are enough to keep your attention, and the three laps are over pretty quickly (just over two minutes.) While I was out there, Jack was sad that he was too small to do it...

...and Leila didn't seem too care much either way.

Dorky alert!

We got out of the coveralls and hopped back in the shuttle to the TTC... as we were packing up, a Lamborghini pulled up and we were trying to decide if it was a rental or actually owned by the driver. Back at the TTC, we hopped on another monorail to return to Epcot. We'd promised Jack that we'd ride Spaceship Earth as soon as we returned, so that was our first stop...

By now, we had to hustle to get over to the UK for our reservation at Rose & Crown, with a side trip to grab some Test Track fastpasses. It'd been a few visits since we'd been to the R&C so it was definitely time for a return. I'm a real "meat and potatoes" guy so I love getting the cottage pie.

Jack had been dying to try the Kim Possible game, so after lunch, we started towards Future World to get a ticket to play. Along the way, we stopped and listened to Off Kilter for a few minutes - always a fun show (especially since we missed them last trip!) We got the ticket then stopped at the KP station near the International Gateway and got a Kimmunicator. First stop was UK, where among other things, we got clues from a toy soldier...

...unfortunately, ours locked up about 2/3rds of the way through the mission. Fortunately, a quick stop at the KP station got it all fixed up and we were back in business.

Then it was off to France for our next mission. Meanwhile, my mission was to get a treat from the bakery.

There was yet another stop for my son to the "toilette messieurs"... and my version of everyone's favorite instructional tile.

It was close to closing time for Future World so we headed back there to use our fastpasses, and were able to baby swap as well. Jack and I went first...

I think it was probably a mistake to use the 31mm for this ride, because I was trying to get shots of Jack. I've had success with my fisheye in the past but the low light made me mount the 31mm. As a result, the shots aren't wide enough and thanks to blind focusing, usually weren't focused on him. Oh well... I'll try again next time!

Continued...