Just Back -What Worked, What Didn't

[walkdmc]

The hand sanitizer is a great idea. I really like the holders Bath and Body Works has on their 1/2 price sale, now. I have one on my purse, at all times. The name of their sanitizer is PocketBac and I love it.

 

[mom2rtk]

Actually, all you need is the number from your Photopass card since that is what you input on the website to retrieve your pictures. We always copy the number into our phones so that we have the number even if we lose the card. Customer services can also retrieve pictures on occasion if you know the time & place of your missing pictures and can describe what you were wearing at the time.

This happend for us once. We were running late for a CRT breakfast but still stopped for a quick photo on empty Main Street. We were sort of frazzled for running late, and didn't get our card back. It also had photos from the prior day.

We contacted customer service, I uploaded one of the photos I had taken on my own camera, told them when and where we were..... and we got them all back. They do a great job of this.

 

[blondietink]

Re: lost photopass issue. Once when we went to MVMCP, I lost the photopass afterwards and had not written down the number (before the scan codes were put on the back). I was devastated as we had had our picture taken with the real Santa. UGH! I emailed the photopass people when we got back, had my other photopass number, explained the situation, the date of MVMCP, what we had on and where we had the pictures taken. VOILA! Within 2 days, they had found our pictures and we were able to add them to our photopass order!

Moral of the story: we write down those photopass numbers on a piece of paper as soon as we get them. Sometimes on two pieces of paper.

 

[DexLabDeeDee]

This happend for us once. We were running late for a CRT breakfast but still stopped for a quick photo on empty Main Street. We were sort of frazzled for running late, and didn't get our card back. It also had photos from the prior day.

We contacted customer service, I uploaded one of the photos I had taken on my own camera, told them when and where we were..... and we got them all back. They do a great job of this.

Same here. I lost the card somewhere and I went to the Kodak picture store at DHS and the CM asked when I remembered taking a photopass picture. I knew that we had taken one around 4:00pm in France at Epcot the day before. He brought up the Epcot France 4:00pm pictures on the screen in the counter and he just quickly flipped through pictures until we saw ours. After that, he brought up the rest of our pictures and ~ voila! ~ disaster averted!

I have never heard of a photopass card being attached to your KTTW card. Does anyone know how this works?

 

[Pembo]

I write the pp card # in the autograph book. We always use the 2 things together.

 

[FigmentChick]

Ok, ok....I'm putting hand sanitizer on the list! lol I will admit, this is probably where I went wrong last trip. All three of my kids (the one not even a year), ended up sick....throwing up sick, poor things. And it was in the middle of our week, so I know they caught it somewhere after we left home.

I'll just have to make sure I'm extra cautious this trip....we won't have Mom Mom to stay in the room with the sick one while we go to the parks.

And thanks so much for your mini-trip report! You found out about a lot of little things I love, especially Akershaus. I really enjoy dining with the variety of princesses it offers as well as the breakfast. Yummy!

 

[Becc1]

5. One time I was running late for an ADR, at which DH and boys were already waiting. DD and I were going to be the next in line for Aladdin and Jasmin, when a CM said another group was going ahead of me. (No clue what the circumstances were.) What!! I was already sweating it. The CM didn't speak good English and said we'd be the next group/ in the next group...something like that. I wasn't sure what he meant. But typically two people aren't considered a group. So I thought he might have meant first in line for the next show. He might have meant next in line for this show. But even that made me nervous as the line was going slowly and I was already late. I probably wouldn't have been upset if I wasn't in a hurry. But it didn't feel good to be waiting all that time for an autograph and be trumped. If it was a ride, not a big deal. They're always moving. But for a M&G, that could cost me another couple of minutes. Why didn't they just arrange for the character to greet them just before or at the end of their sessions? I guess I don't know that answer. It just didn't feel like a good experience.

To my knowledge the only people that get front of the line access to character M&Gs are children on a Wish trip. This happened to us while waiting for Marie in France. We were at the front of the line, my very excited DD was all set to see her favorite character and we were told they had to let this other family go first. Having a special needs DS I knew about Make a Wish trips and had no issues with this. I bet those people would trade anything not to have to be on a MAW trip and would be more than happy to wait in a long line if it meant their child was healthy. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, it's just we get a GAC for my DS that allows us to either go through the FP line or in a special entrance for rides and attractions and you wouldn't believe the looks we get from people sometimes even though it's clear we have a special needs child.

 

[POB14]

To confirm what others have said about Photopass: go to this link, and give them as much information as you have. They found ours (although "big fat white guy with two Chinese pre-teens" may be easier to find than some!). Note: you need to do it as soon as possible -the site says they can only find pics from the last 30 days.

 

[princesscharming]

Thanks for the responses! If it helps any with the pp issue, I was actually sent a paper type pp in the mail, from Disney before our trip. It wasn't a plastic card. It gave instructions to register it, etc. Since I was going to do this anyway, I thought it was pretty convenient. Along with the card was the letter/instruction sheet which also had the card number on it. So glad I kept all that info in my Disney file. But if you show up and decide then to purchase the pass, then I think taking a pic or writing the number someplace else, would be a great idea.

For the poster wondering if you can get your money back, if you preorder, yes, you can. But read the fine print. I want to say you need to contact them within a week, or some fairly short window of time.

Also, when you go through your photos, after your trip, there will be several from the same shot. I mean three or so of the exact same pic. Then you'll probably find some cute borders, and ty a few different ones for the same pic. That all adds to your total. I had over 350 pics by the time I was done. In order to make it more manageable, I started deleting duplicates. Even at that I still had about 300.

 

[TGaines107]

All in all that sounds like a fantastic trip full of good memories. Well done!

 

[princesscharming]

Ooops. Double post. Not sure how that happened.

 

[Granfan]

I really liked the format of your trip report! So much information all at once without scrolling through replies! Thank you for sharing!

 

[katrina1122]

Great report.

photopass fyi, you can have 10 photopass cards and still use your prepaid cd. As long as you have the number on the back you just type it into your photopass account online and it pulls them all together, so when you get one take a picture of it, that's all you'll need.

We managed to forget them a few times and just got new ones each day, it's not a problem.

Call me clueless but what is HISTK?

 

[TiffanyA]

For all of you buying hand sanitizer - I too love hand sanitizer, but please get an alcohol-based sanitizer like Purell (at least 62% alcohol) and not the antibacterial ones.

 

[BLLB]

13. RD worked super well at MK. The other parks, getting there early helped, but it didn't seem to flow quite as easily as MK. And HS, if it wasn't for TSM and JTA, I wouldn't find RD to be necessary.

OP, what is "JTA"?

 

[sam_gordon]

13. RD worked super well at MK. The other parks, getting there early helped, but it didn't seem to flow quite as easily as MK. And HS, if it wasn't for TSM and JTA, I wouldn't find RD to be necessary.

OP, what is "JTA"?

Not the OP, but 'JTA' is "Jedi Training Academy" where young guests (4-12) become Padawans, learn some Jedi moves with a lightsaber and "fight" Darth Vader (or other members of the Sith on Star Wars Weekends).

 

[KCSherri]

Call me clueless but what is HISTK?

I believe it's the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground at Hollywood Studios.

 

[EvilQueenT]

i too liked the quick and simple way you did your trip report. easy to follow/read. i've learned over the years as well that who you go with greatly changes your disney experience not just the focus of your vacation but the pace as well and they're all great but can be really different. once we had kids and now that i have a granddaughter i like doing an adult trip once a year (that we basically lie about where we're going to those to little to understand why they're not invited lol) and a separate one with various family members.

 

[princesscharming]

i too liked the quick and simple way you did your trip report. easy to follow/read. i've learned over the years as well that who you go with greatly changes your disney experience not just the focus of your vacation but the pace as well and they're all great but can be really different. once we had kids and now that i have a granddaughter i like doing an adult trip once a year (that we basically lie about where we're going to those to little to understand why they're not invited lol) and a separate one with various family members.

You don't know how tempted I am to do that. Every once and a while DH and I would say, "Imagine how much fun we'd have if we came here alone." (Not that we didn't thoroughly enjoy watching the kids completely take in their very first trip.)

Oh, and on that note. I defintely noticed our 5yo had more magic and wonder in her eyes than our 9yo and 8yo boys. Part of it might have been our 5yo is a girl (and there is something about the princesses...) But our kids are not that far apart in age, and I suspect there is something around 6-8 years of age that the kids grow up just enough to lose a bit of the wonder. (I guess around the same age they might lose the magic about some other favorites. )

 

[princesscharming]

Not the OP, but 'JTA' is "Jedi Training Academy" where young guests (4-12) become Padawans, learn some Jedi moves with a lightsaber and "fight" Darth Vader (or other members of the Sith on Star Wars Weekends).

Yes, and to add, I was always under the impression that most of the crowd went to TSM out of the gate, only a few headed to JTA. (That might be true.) But I found that the race to JTA was plenty big for me. We were kind of close to the front of the pack, well before half way back. We ended up in the 10:50 show. I'm not sure where that fell. But it might have been the third show. I knew there was one at 10am, and assume there was at least one before. For as early as we went, I was surprised to get in so late, not that it was a bad time for us.

Also, be warned, for kids intersted who haven't done it before, please prep them first. Maybe look at youtube, etc. DS9 who loves to act out Star Wars at home, had some stage fright. He would train at the beginning with the other kids, but never got the nerve to fight Darth. So sad. I thought I'd prepped him. But maybe I could have done more. I think he still enjoyed the experience, though. So all is not lost.