FancyNancy
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I love reading about all the different tours people go on. The steam train tour was one I had never seen reported. Thanks for sharing!
Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho. It's off to the Grand Floridian We Go! June 2014 (Update: Video)
- Thread starter MarbleBob
- Start date
Day 10 - Thursday the 12th - Part 3 - Pickle and Me
Thursday morning was early entry to MK, and Matt and Buddy headed off early for the steam train tour. The original plan was for Princess, Pickle, and I to get to MK very early; however, Princess decided that she didn't want to deal with the crowds and waiting for the park to open, so at the last minute she decided to stay at the GF and come to the park later in the day with Mimi. So, Pickle and I had a mommy/daughter morning, which was a lot of fun.
We arrived at MK quite early, probably 45 minutes before park opening, and there was already a decent crowd gathered. The CM's let everyone enter through the "turnstiles," and we were held up before the tunnels under the train station.
Here's Pickle while we were waiting in line to go through the turnstiles.
We were camped out near the left hand tunnel. There are some things that tug at my heart when I see them, and make me appreciate all that Walt left for us:
The blue Mickey flag looks just like the orange one we saw in Marceline.
While we were waiting, I chatted with a great family from Indiana. The crowd was really building up, and by the opening show it looked like this.
I didn't realize at the time that Matt and Buddy were just on the other side, watching and listening to the opening show too. (We probably passed right by them at rope drop, but neither of us knew it at the time.)
Since it was just the two of us, I asked Pickle what she most wanted to do. She said 7DMT. Once rope drop happened, it was a mad dash, and we just couldn't compete since we had a stroller. By the time we got around to 7DMT, the line seemed very long--over by the tea cups. I made the executive decision to skip it! We'd already ridden it twice and still had one more FP+ for this trip, so let's use the extra magic hours to do other stuff. Before our trip, I had asked Pickle what she most wanted to ride, and her answer then was Autopia. So, I cruised the stroller on over to the Tomorrowland Speedway.
This was a good call, because the sun was low in the sky and not blazing above us, and there was no line.
Look at all the empty cars!
Pickle was excited to get behind the wheel again; although, she missed the awesome pink car she got to drive in Disneyland.
We were sad that the People Mover was closed for refurbishment this trip.
But at the moment, I don't think Pickle really cared.
We thought we'd head to the Astro Orbiter next, but a kind cast member overhead us talking and let us know it was closed. Whew! He saved us quite a few minutes of our precious early entry time. So, next up was tea cups. It was now 15 minutes past rope drop, and I was amazed at the line for 7DMT. This was our view of it from the tea cups.
And looking towards Storybook Circus. Wow!
Well, while everyone else was lining up for the Seven Dwarfs, we had no wait to hop into a tea cup. And while there weren't pink cars at the Tomorrowland Speedway, we had no problem finding a pink tea cup to ride.
We decided to go under the sea again. I know I keep mentioning it, but the line for 7DMT was unbelievable. We were walking past at 8:25, and the line had gone past tea cups and the entrance to storybook circus, and was back in New Fantasyland over by the DVC kiosk. This was the longest I saw it the whole trip. Later in the morning it had gone back down to about the entrance to the tea cups.
Again, we had no wait to go on the Ariel ride. Pickle and I were getting a lot done, and having a great time doing it. She was having a blast spending time with just me and getting to choose whatever she wanted to do. And I was soaking up every minute of it, too.
Thursday morning was early entry to MK, and Matt and Buddy headed off early for the steam train tour. The original plan was for Princess, Pickle, and I to get to MK very early; however, Princess decided that she didn't want to deal with the crowds and waiting for the park to open, so at the last minute she decided to stay at the GF and come to the park later in the day with Mimi. So, Pickle and I had a mommy/daughter morning, which was a lot of fun.
We arrived at MK quite early, probably 45 minutes before park opening, and there was already a decent crowd gathered. The CM's let everyone enter through the "turnstiles," and we were held up before the tunnels under the train station.
Here's Pickle while we were waiting in line to go through the turnstiles.
We were camped out near the left hand tunnel. There are some things that tug at my heart when I see them, and make me appreciate all that Walt left for us:
The blue Mickey flag looks just like the orange one we saw in Marceline.
While we were waiting, I chatted with a great family from Indiana. The crowd was really building up, and by the opening show it looked like this.
I didn't realize at the time that Matt and Buddy were just on the other side, watching and listening to the opening show too. (We probably passed right by them at rope drop, but neither of us knew it at the time.)
Since it was just the two of us, I asked Pickle what she most wanted to do. She said 7DMT. Once rope drop happened, it was a mad dash, and we just couldn't compete since we had a stroller. By the time we got around to 7DMT, the line seemed very long--over by the tea cups. I made the executive decision to skip it! We'd already ridden it twice and still had one more FP+ for this trip, so let's use the extra magic hours to do other stuff. Before our trip, I had asked Pickle what she most wanted to ride, and her answer then was Autopia. So, I cruised the stroller on over to the Tomorrowland Speedway.
This was a good call, because the sun was low in the sky and not blazing above us, and there was no line.
Look at all the empty cars!
Pickle was excited to get behind the wheel again; although, she missed the awesome pink car she got to drive in Disneyland.
We were sad that the People Mover was closed for refurbishment this trip.
But at the moment, I don't think Pickle really cared.
We thought we'd head to the Astro Orbiter next, but a kind cast member overhead us talking and let us know it was closed. Whew! He saved us quite a few minutes of our precious early entry time. So, next up was tea cups. It was now 15 minutes past rope drop, and I was amazed at the line for 7DMT. This was our view of it from the tea cups.
And looking towards Storybook Circus. Wow!
Well, while everyone else was lining up for the Seven Dwarfs, we had no wait to hop into a tea cup. And while there weren't pink cars at the Tomorrowland Speedway, we had no problem finding a pink tea cup to ride.
We decided to go under the sea again. I know I keep mentioning it, but the line for 7DMT was unbelievable. We were walking past at 8:25, and the line had gone past tea cups and the entrance to storybook circus, and was back in New Fantasyland over by the DVC kiosk. This was the longest I saw it the whole trip. Later in the morning it had gone back down to about the entrance to the tea cups.
Again, we had no wait to go on the Ariel ride. Pickle and I were getting a lot done, and having a great time doing it. She was having a blast spending time with just me and getting to choose whatever she wanted to do. And I was soaking up every minute of it, too.
AAshleySEG
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I just love that quote!! "Here you Leave Today..." I love it so much I have it tattooed on me...LOL I am seriously a Disney dork. 
A while back I got the outline of the castle with that quote underneath it 
Yeah, that SDMT line was crazy!
We were able to get so many things done in the time that we would have been in that line! I am glad that you two were able to get lots of things done too!
I just love the Minnie Mouse outfits! Too adorable!
A while back I got the outline of the castle with that quote underneath it Yeah, that SDMT line was crazy!
We were able to get so many things done in the time that we would have been in that line! I am glad that you two were able to get lots of things done too!I just love the Minnie Mouse outfits! Too adorable!
Day 10 - Thursday the 12th - Part 4 - More Pickle and Me
Pickle decided we should fly to Neverland next.
Then we made time for the Happiest Cruise that ever set sail.
Next Pickle decided she needed to spend a little bit of money and get a Bibbity Bobbity Boutique pressed penny.
Now that she had ridden quite a few rides and gotten a souvenir, Pickle decided that she really needed something to eat. She wanted a snow cone and knew exactly where to buy them. I would have had no clue where to get one, but I guess this is the type of thing that kids pay attention to.
g So we made our way back over to Ariel's.
When we spotted the best marketing idea for healthy food, ever!!!
Yep, you can eat Olaf's nose right in the Magic Kingdom.
Pickle was happy. (Although I think she was more than done with having her picture taken. Hah!)
I wheeled Pickle over to Storybook Circus to eat her snow cone, because we had FP+'s for Goofy's Barnstormer coming up. Once she was finished, we still had about ten to fifteen minutes to wait, so we decided to get in the stand-by line and use our fast passes to get a second ride afterwards. We had a lot of fun looking at the queue.
Soon we made it to the front of the line and Pickle got to ride Barnstormer for the very first time.
We used our FP+'s to ride again, and getting off the second time we ran into Mimi, Papa, Aunt Cassie, Dewey, Louie, and Princess. The kids all decided to get wet, but us grown-ups stayed dry.
Louie was munching on a delicious-looking apple.
The girls decided that they were hungry, too. So, Princess, Louie, Pickle, and I headed over to Cosmic Ray's for an early lunch.
While we were eating, I heard from Matt that he and Buddy were finished up with their tour and were eating lunch over at Casey's. I got one of those awesome 20% off your purchase before 1 or 2 (?) pm coupons on my receipt from Cosmic Ray's, so I quizzed Matt to see if there were any purchases he wanted me to make.
Princess and Louie decided to ditch us and headed off on their own, while Pickle and I headed over to Main Street to see if there was anything we just "had" to have. We started off in the Emporium by Casey's and worked our way through towards town square. When we got to the far end, we heard the Dapper Dans, and Pickle was entranced, so of course we stopped.
The Dapper Dans had unusual instruments with them that looked like metallic pan flutes. I don't think I've seen them play instruments before during their set. (I can't remember if they played them with their mouths or with their hands--iirc hands)
Pickle was loving the Dapper Dans!
Thanks, Dapper Dans! I think you just made this little girl's day.
Pickle decided we should fly to Neverland next.
Then we made time for the Happiest Cruise that ever set sail.
Next Pickle decided she needed to spend a little bit of money and get a Bibbity Bobbity Boutique pressed penny.
Now that she had ridden quite a few rides and gotten a souvenir, Pickle decided that she really needed something to eat. She wanted a snow cone and knew exactly where to buy them. I would have had no clue where to get one, but I guess this is the type of thing that kids pay attention to.
g So we made our way back over to Ariel's.When we spotted the best marketing idea for healthy food, ever!!!
Yep, you can eat Olaf's nose right in the Magic Kingdom.
Pickle was happy. (Although I think she was more than done with having her picture taken. Hah!)
I wheeled Pickle over to Storybook Circus to eat her snow cone, because we had FP+'s for Goofy's Barnstormer coming up. Once she was finished, we still had about ten to fifteen minutes to wait, so we decided to get in the stand-by line and use our fast passes to get a second ride afterwards. We had a lot of fun looking at the queue.
Soon we made it to the front of the line and Pickle got to ride Barnstormer for the very first time.
We used our FP+'s to ride again, and getting off the second time we ran into Mimi, Papa, Aunt Cassie, Dewey, Louie, and Princess. The kids all decided to get wet, but us grown-ups stayed dry.
Louie was munching on a delicious-looking apple.
The girls decided that they were hungry, too. So, Princess, Louie, Pickle, and I headed over to Cosmic Ray's for an early lunch.
While we were eating, I heard from Matt that he and Buddy were finished up with their tour and were eating lunch over at Casey's. I got one of those awesome 20% off your purchase before 1 or 2 (?) pm coupons on my receipt from Cosmic Ray's, so I quizzed Matt to see if there were any purchases he wanted me to make.
Princess and Louie decided to ditch us and headed off on their own, while Pickle and I headed over to Main Street to see if there was anything we just "had" to have. We started off in the Emporium by Casey's and worked our way through towards town square. When we got to the far end, we heard the Dapper Dans, and Pickle was entranced, so of course we stopped.
The Dapper Dans had unusual instruments with them that looked like metallic pan flutes. I don't think I've seen them play instruments before during their set. (I can't remember if they played them with their mouths or with their hands--iirc hands)
Pickle was loving the Dapper Dans!
Thanks, Dapper Dans! I think you just made this little girl's day.
I just love that quote!! "Here you Leave Today..." I love it so much I have it tattooed on me...LOL I am seriously a Disney dork.
Yeah, that SDMT line was crazy!
I just love the Minnie Mouse outfits! Too adorable!
That's awesome about your tattoo! I love that the Dis is a place for us, Disney Dorks.
I like the Minnie outfit, too, and I'm glad Pickle got some more use out of it, as she's beginning to outgrow it. I'm also seriously glad we weren't waiting in the Seven Dwarfs line. It's great to have an early morning because you can get so much done in that first hour.
MarbleBob
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Hi Thomas, nice to see you here. (From my Disnelyand TR last fall, I remember that you shared the panoramic photo from your room at the Disneyland Hotel that was a floor or two above ours.)
It was interesting hearing your experiences (and I followed your link to see the cool photos.) I guess it makes sense that things would need to be a bit different for days with Extra Magic Hours vs. days without it. It starts at 7:30am regardless of the day... so a non EMH day has 1.5 hrs before the park opens vs. the 30 minutes that we had. In hindsight, I think it would have been better if we had gone on a non-EMH day like you did, but oh well, we had a lot of fun anyway.
Yes, it sure was a memorable visit. It's fun to think that each kid had some sort of special treatment on at least one of the days. Including me, when my parents treated me to the day at Star Wars Weekends.
The steam train tour looked so fun! Ever since we took Keys to the Kingdom, we have been reading more about all of the other tours! We wanted to try the Steam Train Tour but it isn't being offered on our next trips, I don't know what we are going to do with the Railroad being closed for refurb!
I would have thought the CM giving the Steam Train tour may have been a little bit of a train enthusiast, the CM who did our KTTK tour sure was, she said that was her favorite job she ever had with Disney! Oh well! I am glad you guys had fun!
Love the photos! I should get Jeremy to take more shots with our GoPro since I don't have a fisheye lens for my camera, the shots they take are so fun, especially at Disney when there are so many options to shoot! The GoPro at least takes a really wide angle!
I would like to do the KTTK tour some day. It sounds like a great one. Stephanie and I did the Walking in Walt's Footsteps tour in Disneyland a few years back. It was fun too. But I guess the Disney tour guides rank in all sorts of levels of knowledge/enthusiasm. The lady who did the Footsteps tour kept calling Sleeping Beauty Castle "Cinderella Castle". She was so sweet, I didn't have it in my heart to correct her. Hahaha
Wow, the train tour looks really neat - and how cool to be on the first train of the day - which isn't even really the first regular train but a special train!
And to see them change trains and all the controls up close - too cool! I also just loved the look of all the trains and train tracks and then the monorail lines above it - like multiple generations of train travel together
Do you think Buddy was a good age for the tour? Obviously every kid is a little different but as I can definitely see this tour in our future (way out at this point) just trying to gather intel
That's great that you were able to give Buddy his own special time and just to have some 1:1 time with him - and hitting up Space and Big Thunder Mountains along with another trip on the train sounds pretty great.
Buddy was actually a great age for the tour. He really enjoyed it, and didn't seem to ever get bored. He had fun seeing the trains up close, but also learning things like what the different patterns of the whistle mean and how the traffic patterns work. He asked a lot of questions and even though the guide wasn't an "expert" she was very friendly and interacted well with him. You should definitely plan on doing it when your kids meet the age requirement
Cool! Glad that you enjoyed reading out the train tour
MarbleBob
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Seeing Pickle and Stephanie riding in the Tomorrowland Speedway car together reminded me of the following photos of Stephanie and her own mother cruising the speedway back in '81.
How cool!!!!
(It's awesome that Stephanie's dad takes as many photos as I do on a typical vacation. Last summer when I was bedridden for a few days after foot surgery, I scanned in about 600 photo slides from the trips that Stephanie took as a kid.
)
disney meema
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Super Fun EMH with pickle and lots of rides!!! I'm with you on the awful line with 7dmt ... It might be a heigh Ho ride but that line was very heigh No! Pickles dress is adorable and I loved seeing her watching the dapper dans. We've never done the EMH at least on the morning since we tend to stay up late and do the parks with evening magic hours. This November trip the parks generally close earlier so we need to get on Florida time pronto so will experience the morning hours or at least the opening hours for the first time.
Love the picture of you on autopia as a child : )
Love the picture of you on autopia as a child : )
MarbleBob
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TheMaxRebo
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that is so great that you got some 1:1 time with Pickle, Stephanie - you can tell how much she was enjoying it ... and how seriously she takes her driving!
I love the Olaf noses ... "Do what Sven couldn't!"
I love the Olaf noses ... "Do what Sven couldn't!"
annegirl
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Ooh so many updates!
First- the train tour looks very interesting. How fun to do something so special with Buddy
Those 7DMT lines are crazy!! I think you made the right decision to go ride so many other things rather than get in that line!
I just love those pictures of Pickle with the Dapper Dans! She looks so happy!
First- the train tour looks very interesting. How fun to do something so special with Buddy
Those 7DMT lines are crazy!! I think you made the right decision to go ride so many other things rather than get in that line!
I just love those pictures of Pickle with the Dapper Dans! She looks so happy!
guinness408
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Joining in a bit late... Great report so far! Love hearing about grand Floridian, as it's one we haven't stayed at yet. Hate that you're in a cast for your trip! Gotta keep reading!
I'm definitely a morning person, and I don't think I've ever done the EMH at night! It's fun that you're opposite. That's one of the great things about going to Disneyland instead of WDW--the time zone change really works in our favor for getting to the park at opening. (btw, I hope you had a great trip!!
) Thanks, Phil. We had a good time, and if we had been in the mood for giant carrots, that would definitely have been the place to go.
I'm glad we didn't wait in the crazy long line, either. It might have been faster than I would have thought if we had jumped in right away, but who knows. And, we were able to do so much that first hour. I like the Dapper Dans photos, too.
Glad to have you along! I think Matt's got some more Grand Floridian photos coming up, so stay tuned.
Buddy and Pickle each got a couple of one-on-one times. Princess didn't, but was old enough to take off with her cousin and enjoy some freedom. All of this splitting up was a first for us at WDW, but worked out pretty well.
-Stephanie
Day 10 - Thursday the 12th - Part 5 - Beauty and the Pickle Beast
Pickle and I headed back into the Emporium to do our shopping. We had already looked, and now it was time to buy. Matt didn't really want anything, and I didn't see anything I thought I needed, but Pickle got two things: a pajama set for Duffy and some pink, princess Minnie Mouse ears.
As we were finishing checking out, we heard music start up on Main Street, and Pickle headed out to see what was going on.
She had a blast watching the singing and dancing. I think we lucked out to see and hear so much fun entertainment during our shopping detour.
At this time, we were about 20 minutes away from meeting up with Mimi, Princess, and Louie for Enchanted Tales with Belle. However, there was something we needed to stop and see first.
Right outside of Casey's...
...ducks!!!
Pickle was enjoying herself too much, so we stayed and watched the ducks until we really had to meet up with everyone else.
Pickle traded out her black and red Minnie ears for her new pink princess ears, and we met up with the big kids. Mimi sat this one out so Louie could use her FP+. (Grandmas really are the best, aren't they?)
Once we were inside, we were rather amazed by the magic mirror.
It transported us to Beast's castle, where we met up with Madame Wardrobe.
Who would like to take part in telling the story of Beauty and the Beast? Pickle would! She was chosen for the best part...she got to be the beast.
How about you, Princess and Louie?
Nope, they'd rather not. Pickle needed to practice, though, because practice makes perfect.
We made our way into the library where we met Lumiere and Belle.
First Belle led all the young actors and actresses around the library in a parade. (Princess and Louie were happy to be sitting on the bench, instead. Hee-hee.)
Now it was time for the show! Pickle was being coached in the finer points of Beast acting; although I really don't think she needed any special instruction.
Now imagine the loudest, scariest roar that a tiny, seven year-old girl can give:
I mentioned earlier that the Beast is the best part. Here's why: who gets a special dance with Belle? The Beast, of course.
Good job, Pickle! You made for one cute, sweetheart Beast.
Well, we were having one awesome day! It was time, however, to head back to the resort and meet up with Matt and Buddy.
Yeah, that is more rain headed our way. But that's okay. We had enjoyed an awesome morning and early afternoon. It was so much fun to spend it with my sweetie, Pickle.
Pickle and I headed back into the Emporium to do our shopping. We had already looked, and now it was time to buy. Matt didn't really want anything, and I didn't see anything I thought I needed, but Pickle got two things: a pajama set for Duffy and some pink, princess Minnie Mouse ears.
As we were finishing checking out, we heard music start up on Main Street, and Pickle headed out to see what was going on.
She had a blast watching the singing and dancing. I think we lucked out to see and hear so much fun entertainment during our shopping detour.
At this time, we were about 20 minutes away from meeting up with Mimi, Princess, and Louie for Enchanted Tales with Belle. However, there was something we needed to stop and see first.
Right outside of Casey's...
...ducks!!!
Pickle was enjoying herself too much, so we stayed and watched the ducks until we really had to meet up with everyone else.
Pickle traded out her black and red Minnie ears for her new pink princess ears, and we met up with the big kids. Mimi sat this one out so Louie could use her FP+. (Grandmas really are the best, aren't they?)
Once we were inside, we were rather amazed by the magic mirror.
It transported us to Beast's castle, where we met up with Madame Wardrobe.
Who would like to take part in telling the story of Beauty and the Beast? Pickle would! She was chosen for the best part...she got to be the beast.
How about you, Princess and Louie?
Nope, they'd rather not. Pickle needed to practice, though, because practice makes perfect.
We made our way into the library where we met Lumiere and Belle.
First Belle led all the young actors and actresses around the library in a parade. (Princess and Louie were happy to be sitting on the bench, instead. Hee-hee.)
Now it was time for the show! Pickle was being coached in the finer points of Beast acting; although I really don't think she needed any special instruction.
Now imagine the loudest, scariest roar that a tiny, seven year-old girl can give:
I mentioned earlier that the Beast is the best part. Here's why: who gets a special dance with Belle? The Beast, of course.
Good job, Pickle! You made for one cute, sweetheart Beast.
Well, we were having one awesome day! It was time, however, to head back to the resort and meet up with Matt and Buddy.
Yeah, that is more rain headed our way. But that's okay. We had enjoyed an awesome morning and early afternoon. It was so much fun to spend it with my sweetie, Pickle.
FancyNancy
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Oh my goodness Pickle makes the cutest beast ever! My DD is 10 now but still loves the Disney ducks. We used to give the first ones we saw names and she was convinced that we saw the same few ducks at every park
TheMaxRebo
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Aw, Pickle as Beast is the definition of Scary Cute ... that is a great shot of her trying to shard to yell she is jumping and Belle is running away
KelleyK75
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The train tour looks awesome! Definitely something my nephews might love when they reach 10. 
The time spent one-on-one with the kids looks like so much fun for the kids. And yay for Pickle getting to be the beast! It looks like she made a great one! Love the pictures of Stephanie from when she was a kid on the same ride as Pickle is now.
The time spent one-on-one with the kids looks like so much fun for the kids. And yay for Pickle getting to be the beast! It looks like she made a great one! Love the pictures of Stephanie from when she was a kid on the same ride as Pickle is now.
MarbleBob
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Day 10 - Thursday the 12th - Part 6 - 360° Panoramic Photos
So Buddy and I arrived back at the hotel about 30 minutes before Stephanie and the girls. Our plan was to relax at the resort for the afternoon, and then head over to EPCOT for dinner and to explore some more.
I decided that I wanted to spend some time making 360 degree panoramic photographs of the resort. I made a few of these on our last trip to Disneyland and they turned out pretty cool. I would have done more on this trip, and even got some inside the parks, but they require a tripod and a special mount (Nodal Ninja), which turned out to be very awkward to do with a broken wrist. But, I'm happy to say the ones that I did get turned out pretty well. And I've been really looking forward to sharing these, as I'm quite excited about them
I'm going to take a minute to explain the concept and then see below for links to the panoramas.
The goal is to make a fully immersive 360 degree panorama that you can "move around in" with your mouse. Sort of like Street View on Google Maps. To make the panorama, I use a fisheye lens on my camera and take 6 overlapping pictures by spinning the camera 360 degrees on the tripod. And then one photo straight up, and then one straight down.
The Nodal Ninja keeps the point where the light enters the lens in the exact same spot.
Then you move the tripod 8 inches or so, and take another shot straight down.
(When you overlay the two "down" shots over each other, you can mask out the tripod entirely as if it was never there.)
So you end up with 9 shots in different directions from the exact same point of view. From their, I use a free program called Hugin to stitch those photos into a single panorama (like the pictures below).
From there, I use a program called Pano2VR that breaks the stitched panorama into tiles that can be used on a webpage. It builds the web page in HTML5 so that it can be viewed on a phone/tablet, but will fall back to Flash if the web browser is old and doesn't support HTML5 (which is rare these days.) The other cool part is, that the panorama viewer can leverage the gyroscope in a phone/table to make the panorama move. So for example, if you load one of the links below on your phone, then when you point the phone up to the sky, you look up in the panorama and when you tilt the phone to the left or right, then the panorama on the phone spins in the corresponding direction. Pretty darn cool!
So here are the panoramas.... If you click on the images below, they will open up in a new window and you'll be able to navigate the panorama by using your mouse, keyboard arrows, and or gyroscope on a phone/tablet. (Noting that these links take you to my personal website, which is more of a playground for me to experiment with web development technologies/techniques than it is about being a real blog or anything with meaningful content.)
Main Lobby
Beach Pool
Big Pine Key Lobby
Main Pool
Sidewalk Outside Main Lobby
Beach Pool Entrance
Second Floor of Main Lobby
Kids Pool
Fountain
So anyway, I probably walked around the resort for an hour taking photos for the panoramas. When I finished up, I decided to go back out and get some "regular" photos too. Unfortunately, by the time I got back outside, the it was about to rain so most of those photos are dark from the dim lighting. Stephanie's photos from the day before turned out much better than most of mine did. But before it did get too dark, I found Randy and Huey down by the pool.
Splash fight!!!
I think it started to rain again soon after the next photo.
So, then I headed back to our room to find the others watching TV, reading books, and playing on their iPads. And a little while later, we were hungry and ready to head over to EPCOT for dinner.
.
So Buddy and I arrived back at the hotel about 30 minutes before Stephanie and the girls. Our plan was to relax at the resort for the afternoon, and then head over to EPCOT for dinner and to explore some more.
I decided that I wanted to spend some time making 360 degree panoramic photographs of the resort. I made a few of these on our last trip to Disneyland and they turned out pretty cool. I would have done more on this trip, and even got some inside the parks, but they require a tripod and a special mount (Nodal Ninja), which turned out to be very awkward to do with a broken wrist. But, I'm happy to say the ones that I did get turned out pretty well. And I've been really looking forward to sharing these, as I'm quite excited about them
I'm going to take a minute to explain the concept and then see below for links to the panoramas.
The goal is to make a fully immersive 360 degree panorama that you can "move around in" with your mouse. Sort of like Street View on Google Maps. To make the panorama, I use a fisheye lens on my camera and take 6 overlapping pictures by spinning the camera 360 degrees on the tripod. And then one photo straight up, and then one straight down.
The Nodal Ninja keeps the point where the light enters the lens in the exact same spot.
Then you move the tripod 8 inches or so, and take another shot straight down.
(When you overlay the two "down" shots over each other, you can mask out the tripod entirely as if it was never there.)
So you end up with 9 shots in different directions from the exact same point of view. From their, I use a free program called Hugin to stitch those photos into a single panorama (like the pictures below).
From there, I use a program called Pano2VR that breaks the stitched panorama into tiles that can be used on a webpage. It builds the web page in HTML5 so that it can be viewed on a phone/tablet, but will fall back to Flash if the web browser is old and doesn't support HTML5 (which is rare these days.) The other cool part is, that the panorama viewer can leverage the gyroscope in a phone/table to make the panorama move. So for example, if you load one of the links below on your phone, then when you point the phone up to the sky, you look up in the panorama and when you tilt the phone to the left or right, then the panorama on the phone spins in the corresponding direction. Pretty darn cool!
So here are the panoramas.... If you click on the images below, they will open up in a new window and you'll be able to navigate the panorama by using your mouse, keyboard arrows, and or gyroscope on a phone/tablet. (Noting that these links take you to my personal website, which is more of a playground for me to experiment with web development technologies/techniques than it is about being a real blog or anything with meaningful content.)
Main Lobby
Beach Pool
Big Pine Key Lobby
Main Pool
Sidewalk Outside Main Lobby
Beach Pool Entrance
Second Floor of Main Lobby
Kids Pool
Fountain
So anyway, I probably walked around the resort for an hour taking photos for the panoramas. When I finished up, I decided to go back out and get some "regular" photos too. Unfortunately, by the time I got back outside, the it was about to rain so most of those photos are dark from the dim lighting. Stephanie's photos from the day before turned out much better than most of mine did. But before it did get too dark, I found Randy and Huey down by the pool.
Splash fight!!!
I think it started to rain again soon after the next photo.
So, then I headed back to our room to find the others watching TV, reading books, and playing on their iPads. And a little while later, we were hungry and ready to head over to EPCOT for dinner.
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