Mark Barbieri's Disney Trip Thread (All 14 days + slideshow)

[donaldduck1967]

Great shots Mark

 

[Experiment_626]

I never really got my photography mojo going. I think I got a few nice shots, but nothing really stunning or exciting. I'm blaming the heat. Really good photography requires putting out extra effort to think things through and get things just right. When I get really hot, I just want to muddle through things and get them over with.

We went to WDW last Friday and got back around 3 am Tuesday morning after closing Animal Kingdom the night before. It was a fun trip -- but the heat was insane, and I had the same problem. I took more snapshots than I usually do, but the stuff I really like -- breaking out the tripod and shooting HDR of ride facades and other landscape-type scenes -- just required more ambition than I could muster, at least much of the time. It is hard to stand there and take long bracketed sequences, making sure you've got everything set just so (in the dark of night, more often that not), when you literally have trouble seeing due to sweat in your eyes and because you're thinking it has been 30 minutes since you last drank a quart of water and you're sure you've lost that already.

I've lived my entire life in Florida; you'd think I'd be used to the heat after 41 years. Not so much -- I think the people who lived here before air conditioning were probably insane, or at least were driven so by the experience.

SSB

 

[annnewjerz]

Here is a shot of me and the boys getting read for the Aladdin attraction. Those things on are head are the washable parts of the VR helmets. They snap to electronic parts on when you sit down that the machine. 1/10, f/1.8, ISO 3200

Here is my older son at the controls of his "flying carpet." 1/40, f/1.8, ISO 3200

We have a long history with this attraction. Back in January of 1995 (I think), they had it set up as a prototype next to Innoventions in Epcot. They had four machines set up and they would pick four people out of the audience of roughly 50 to 100 people. Those four would play the game while they talked about the technology. Surprisingly, the game was much better back then that it is today, despite more than a decade of computer advancement. In the original, you flew freely over the city in search of a scarab. In the new one, you are primarily constrained to a few paths. The aural affects are also greatly diminished.

I "rode" the original attraction several times. As a child, I discovered that I had the "pick me" look. When they want to pick a few people out of a crowd, I almost always seem to get picked. My poor brother tried three times and wasn't picked. I finally had to go with him and when they inevitably picked me, I asked them to use my brother instead.

WOWWWW!!! I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw this. I can't believe the Aladdin game is at Disney Quest!!!! On my first trip to Disney (probably back around 1995 since I was only 10) I was picked to play this also. It was amazing---VR was something I'd never experienced and it was by far one of my coolest Disney experiences as a kid. I was beat by some adult, our mission was to find either a gold or blue domed building by flying our carpets around town and I wasn't able to steer myself down to it in time. Regardless of losing to an adult (who knows, maybe it was you!!), it was still one of those Disney things I won't ever forget.

Now I might have to pop into Disney Quest in October...hmmmm....

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Don't get too excited. The ride is a pale shadow of the Epcot exhibit. The graphics don't seem to be as good. You have far less control over where you fly. The story is much more scripted. The audio isn't as interesting. I would have expected improvements over time rather than a decline, but that's what happened. I loved the original and it left me longing for the day that it would be a real attraction. There was very little wait for the DQ version and I still didn't bother to go on it twice.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I've lived my entire life in Florida; you'd think I'd be used to the heat after 41 years. Not so much -- I think the people who lived here before air conditioning were probably insane, or at least were driven so by the experience.

I was chatting with a Photopass Photog at Blizzard Beach. She hates air conditioning. She said that by mid-June each year, she can get accustomed to the weather, but only if she stays in the heat most of the time. If you spend too much time in AC environments, you just don't acclimate. It may have also helped that she had far fewer layers of insulation on her body than I have on mine.

The heat while we were there wasn't painfully bad. It's gotten hotter since we left. It was just hot and humid enough to sap your energy and enthusiasm. I was definitly in "just do it" mode rather than "take your time and do it right" mode.

It's been worse since I got home. It hit 104 here yesterday and that's not a dry 104. We haven't had any rain in weeks. Everyone's lawn is turning brown even with watering. Our pool was 91 degrees last night and it only cools down to about 87 in the morning. I've got to work on that, but I don't have time right now.

We're bailing out tomorrow and heading north for a week. I've got to work on a project in Denver next week. My wife owes me big time. I turned down a seat on a private jet to drive all the way up there (18+ hours) with her and the boys in the van. With our Disney trip, by the end of 4th of July weekend, we'll have spent 16+ hours in the car on each of 4 out of 5 weekends. If you wonder why we have Kindle's, iPod touches for the kids, and a movie server in the car, it should be a little more clear now.

 

[Todd_H]

If you wonder why we have Kindle's, iPod touches for the kids, and a movie server in the car, it should be a little more clear now.

Oh yeah... how did your car pc work out on the WDW trip?

 

[william4192]

Mark,

Any chance you can do a small explaination of the panning on Test Track?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Oh yeah... how did your car pc work out on the WDW trip?

It worked out reasonably well. When we picked the kids up from school to start the trip, we gave them iPod Touches. Those captured most of their attention on the trip.

The car PC worked as designed and the kids enjoyed watch several movies and shows on it. I can already see a lot of room for improvement.

1) I need to wire it up properly. Currently, it gets all of it's power from the car's accessory system. When you shut off the car, the PC loses all power. When I wire it correctly, shutting off the car will result in the PC powering down gracefully. That will mean that when it restarts, it will not have lost its place in the movie being watched.

2) I found myself wanting to use it as a music server at times. Do to that, I connected to it using a VNC client on my iPhone. I don't have a screen up front, so that was the only way I could see what I was doing. I then opened iTunes and played music that way. I need to build some play lists to make that work better.

3) It is currently hard wired into the car. I want to configure it to use modular plugs so that I can move it between cars and so that I can run it from an AC adapter in the house. It's a pain to run the car when I want to work on it.

4) I'd like the ability for the kids to load movies from the car PC to their iPod Touches. ITunes is the most frustrating app that I've ever used. I haven't figured out how the kids can use their home PCs AND the car PC to load songs and video on their iPods. Every other MP3/Video player I've used makes it really easy to drop a new song/video onto the player. With the iPod, I've got to first put it into iTunes. Even worse, I can only sync it with ONE copy of iTunes. That seems pathetic. Even when you use iTunes to load video, the UI is scary bad. They appear to have assumed that you'd only have a handful of videos, not thousands. If anyone knows a better way of loading videos onto an iPod Touch, I'd love to hear it.

5) While using the iPods touchscreen as a mouse pad to control the video player worked, the UI could be better. I'd like to experiment with voice recognition. It would be much cooler if the kids could just say the name of the video or playlist they wanted and have that start.

 

[scoot241]

It worked out reasonably well. When we picked the kids up from school to start the trip, we gave them iPod Touches. Those captured most of their attention on the trip.

The car PC worked as designed and the kids enjoyed watch several movies and shows on it. I can already see a lot of room for improvement.

2) I found myself wanting to use it as a music server at times. Do to that, I connected to it using a VNC client on my iPhone. I don't have a screen up front, so that was the only way I could see what I was doing. I then opened iTunes and played music that way. I need to build some play lists to make that work better.

4) I'd like the ability for the kids to load movies from the car PC to their iPod Touches. ITunes is the most frustrating app that I've ever used. I haven't figured out how the kids can use their home PCs AND the car PC to load songs and video on their iPods. Every other MP3/Video player I've used makes it really easy to drop a new song/video onto the player. With the iPod, I've got to first put it into iTunes. Even worse, I can only sync it with ONE copy of iTunes. That seems pathetic. Even when you use iTunes to load video, the UI is scary bad. They appear to have assumed that you'd only have a handful of videos, not thousands. If anyone knows a better way of loading videos onto an iPod Touch, I'd love to hear it.

Suggestion for #2: put iTunes on the car PC (if it's not already) and install Remote on your iPhone. Remote allows you to control iTunes to play music (no video streaming) over a wifi network.

Apple has limited iPods/iPhones to sync with one iTunes library since the beginning. I found this support doc from Apple that might help:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1202

There are other options out there I found from Googling including jailbreak apps and hex edits, but I'd start with the Apple doc above.

 

[Michele]

I am really enjoying seeing all the pictures. Thanks

 

[steery1]

Great report and some lovely photos. Thanks.

Looking forward to seeing some more.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm going to out of town for a week, so days 6-14 will have to wait. I've got day 5 loaded (it was not a good photography day), so I should get to that soon.

I thought I'd take a little time off to discuss the equipment.

First, I shot much less video than I'd planned. I wanted to do interviews with the kids back at camp, but we were too busy in the mornings and it was too hot in the afternoons. I used the audio recorder for a few things on day 1 but pretty much quit using it after that. I never used the video light either.

I never did any off-camera or multi-flash work. I used the flash some days and I went without it on other days. When I didn't have it, I found myself wishing that I had it for fill-in. When I did have it, I didn't use it much. I'm tempted to get one of the smaller flashes just for fill-in use.

I was never in the mood to do pano work, so I didn't bother with the leveling base or the focusing rail.

I haven't run the numbers on the lenses, so I can't say with precision how much I used each lens. In general the 24-105 f/4 IS was my default lens. I had it on the camera for almost every outing. I think I switched to the 24-70 f/2.8 for one outing but I can't remember why at the moment. The 24-70 has better IQ, a better hood, and a wider aperture, but the 24-105 has more range, IS, and is noticeably smaller and lighter. I occasionally used the 17-40 f/4, but I'm not much of a wide shooter.

I used the 70-200 f/2.8 IS probably second most while walking around. I like close-ups of signs, people, and stuff in general. I also like relatively shallow DOF. This lens works well for those things. Many people consider it absurd to carry such a large heavy lens at the parks, but it has never bothered me.

On the dark rides, I used the 50mm f/1.8. It's definitely a cheapo lens, but it does OK. The next step up is the 50mm f/1.4 and I've used the 50mm so infrequently that I've never felt compelled to buy it. If I wanted to become a hard-core dark ride shooter, I'd probably buy it or the 50mm f/1.2. I might get the 85mm f/1.8. I rented the 85mm f/1.2 and liked it, but not enough to spend $1,800. I think I'd rather have the 85mm f/1.8 at the extra $1,400 in my bank account.

I can't recall if I use the extender. I think I put it on for Fantasmic, but we never saw the show, so I may never have shot with it.

I rarely used any filters. I really should have used a polarizer on many of my outdoor shots, but I hate taking the time to get it out, put it, adjust it, take a shot, and then take it off and put it away again because we're going somewhere inside. If I was doing a photo tour of WDW, it would probably be on my lens a lot. Running around to rides and shows with the family, it just didn't get that much use.

I played around a bit with my variable ND filter. It's overkill for photography. It's cheaper to buy a couple of different regular ND filters and switch them out as needed. I bought it for video use so that I could smoothly adjust the exposure during shots. I didn't use it for any video on this trip. I ignored my normal ND filter. With the variable, it's kind of superfluous unless I really, really want a long shutter speed. I could combine the two and get something like 13 stops of reduction. That's dark.

I did a few play shots with the blue/gold polarizer. I bought that primarily for future outdoors trips and didn't plan on using it much at Disney. It's new to me, so I couldn't resist playing a bit.

I never used the closeup filter. I brought that in case I wanted to do some flower or bug shooting around FW. I didn't.

We brought three other cameras. My oldest son brought his JVC Everio video camera and never unpacked it. My younger son brought his Pentax W30, but it died after its first outing. We also brought a Canon G9 and a waterproof shell. It got plenty of use at the beach and waterparks.

Incidentally, I climbed all the way to the top of the Blizzard Beach mountain only to be told that I couldn't take it down the relatively tame family raft ride (despite having done so earlier). I had to walk all the way back down with it. What a pain.

I didn't use any of the cleaning equipment. I've seen a few dust spots at narrow apertures, but nothing too bad. I continue to clean my lenses with my shirt. Don't buy used equipment from me.

I loved the Black Rapid strap. I doubt that I'll ever go to Disney with a regular strap again.

I lost a lens cap, so the spare came in handy. There are a lot of benefits to having a standard size for your lens filter threads. For Canon and Nikon, most of the higher end lenses use 77mm filters and caps.

The 32 gig memory card never filled up. I dumped it to a pair of external drives each night so that I could start empty the next day. I think I had about 100 gig of shots and video by the end of the trip. I had a 16 gig card in my strap just in case, but I never used it.

I didn't use the hoodman loupe. I love it when I'm out on a shoot, but it got cut as I paired down my gear for trips to the park. It's nice, but I can live without it.

I wore the equipment belt on most days. I never used the vest/harness. On a few days, I went with just the camera, the 24-105 lens, and the flash...no extra gear at all.

I brought the tripod on my two night trips to the MK. Like a dolt, I forgot to bring a strap for it, so I had to hand carry it. I also brought my remote shutter release on those days. To be honest, I was hot, tired, and lazy and often didn't bother to use it. I didn't bother with mirror lockup either. I cut a lot of corners and it shows in the shots I got.

I never used the Expodisc. Given all of the purposefully colored lighting at WDW, proper white balance is an art rather than a science. Besides, I almost never use the Expodisc for photography. I use it primarily for video.

With the power of hindsight, what would I have done differently in terms of gear? Brought the tripod strap. Left the 24-70 at home. Left the audio recorder at home. Probably the biggest difference would be that I'd set my expectations lower so that I wouldn't feel so lazy. A summer tent camping trip (with the heat and crowds that implies) with a family is not an ideal situation for photography. I think I balanced it reasonably well while I was there, but I struggled with the thought that I should be doing more. With distance from the situation, I now realize that I did all that was appropriate for the circumstances and that taking the extra effort to get better shots would have been a bad trade-off with having an enjoyable family vacation.

 

[Fran98765]

Wonderful photos Mark, thank you for sharing.

 

[steery1]

I'm leaving for WDW tomorrow and I'm taking........

Sony A100
Tamron 11-18 f4.5-5.6
Sony 18-250 f3.5-6.3 (Specifically bought for this trip and replaces Sony 18-70 and Sigma 70-300 so I carry one instead of two)
Minolta 50mm f1.7
Lightweight tripod
Gorillapod
External Sony flash (Probably wont use this but I'll take it anyway)
4 X 4 Gig memory cards
All wrapped up in my Slingshot A200

All above pretty basic cheapo stuff.
I dont have high expectations and dont usually take many photos but when I do I try to set aside photo time away from the family, really take my time over each and every shot and do a lot of "chimping". I would find it impossible to take as many shots as some of the guys on here take. I just cannot walk around clicking. I probably spend too much time over each shot.

I totally understand Marks dilemma ove spending time with the gang and photo time. Its a toughie we all deal with in our own way. A lot of days the only gear we'll bring is DS's Sony DSCP-100 pocket size 5year old P+S

Great, honest and insightful report Mark, well done and keep posting.

 

[DVC Jen]

Here's a shot of me ant wrangling. We have real ants that are almost this big back in Texas. They aren't scary. It's the tiny little fire ants that you learn to watch out for. You can see my equipment belt in this picture. It was my primary means for carrying gear in the park. I usually wore one or two lens pouches and one or two pouches for random gear (filters, phones, etc). 1/125s, f/4, ISO 100, 70mm

LOLOL I LOVE this one. After looking through all of your photos you have inspired me to finally get serious about going through my own. We got home late Friday afternoon and I have barely touched them.

I know I said this to you before - but I really did love meeting you and your family - even if it was only for a second. So sorry I missed out on epcot with you and Kyle.

That will teach me to ignore my email while on vacation.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

OK, I'm back from Colorado (after driving 1,100 miles yesterday) and am ready to continue with my pictures.

We spent the morning of Day 5 at Epcot. It was the only part of the day during which I carried my camera (I actually do take it off sometimes). I really wasn't in a picture taking mood that day anyway, and it shows in the pictures.

I took a bunch of sign photos. I use these to introduce new sections in my slideshows. I have also found that scrapbookers love them. I don't put a lot of time and effort into them. I usually just stop for a second in front of a sign and shoot it.

We played for a while inside The Seas. Who doesn't have a picture like this one?

We also hit Journey Into Imagination. That used to be such a fun ride. It seems like they water it down more every time they revamp it. Maybe I'm just nostalgic, but I preferred the original. And I liked the "True Colors" slideshow before Honey, I Shrunk the Audience better as well.

I caught a water snake.

My youngest love the sodas from around the world exhibit. He created a concoction of various sodas in different proportions that actually tasted reasonably good. I suspect he went really light on the Italian soda (Beverly).

The kids were getting a little low on energy, so we pumped pure suger into them to rev them up.

For lunch, we wandered over to the Mexico Pavilion.
1/8s, f/4, ISO 3200, 24mm, -1 EV

We also took in the Norway ride. Anyone have any good pictures of the this guy? I might make him a project next time I'm there and it isn't mobbed and 150 degrees.

1/10s, f4, ISO 3200, 105mm, -1/2 EV

The farthest that we went was China. Like everyone else, I also pointed shot the ceiling.

My kids love the gift shops. We give them $5 a day to waste on useless junk or food. While they were adding up how many days it will take before they have enough money for a samurai sword that their mother wouldn't let them buy anyway, I took pictures of random stuff.

Those really were the highlights of day five. I had fun that day, but it wasn't much of a photography day. The rest of the pictures are here.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

On our sixth day, the kids finally got to go to the Magic Kingdom. From our campsite, we took a shuttle bus to the Fort Wilderness dock area. From there, we took a boat to the Magic Kingdom. We had to start out early so that we would arrive for rope drop at 8:00 AM.

On the way over, I noticed that the stage a lot of boats in the quiet section of the Seven Seas Lagoon. Here is an empy ferry boat:

Along the way, we passed the ruins of River Country. It's a shame that is closed. It would have been great to have that while camping at Fort Wilderness. My oldest son first learned to drink from a straw while we huddled under an umbrella in a brief rainstorm there.

One of our first rides was Peter Pan. I took a few shots on the ride, but didn't get anything like what Todd has shown.

1/30, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure

After our Fantasy Land fun, we headed over to Frontierland. I shot some video of BTMR, but accidentally deleted it later. It wasn't very good, so I wasn't too upset about it. I was more upset that I wasted time shooting video on it instead of pictures.

After that, we went to my favorite attraction at the park - Splash Mountain. The kids enjoyed it so much that they almost wanted to sit through the movie (Song of the South) again. Aside from being a really fun (and air conditioned) ride, it is a good place to practive not too dark Dark Ride photography. We did the ride twice in a row, so I got the learn a few things from the first round.

1/100s, f/1.8, ISO 3200, 50mm, -1 1/3 EV, aperture priority

1/50s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure.

1/40s, f/2.4, ISO 6400, 50mm, -2/3 EV.

Next up was the Pirates of the Carribean. I remember when this ride was so unloved that there was almost never a wait for it. Not any more. It wasn't bad, but it sure wasn't empty.

It's a fun ride to shoot because it provides more challenge than SM or IaSW, but it isn't insane like PP or HM. The downside is that I don't find the resulting pictures to be very interesting. I love the ride, but without the atmosphere of the boat, the music, and dank, it just doesn't seem interesting to me.

1/30s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, program mode, -2 EV

I'm fond of this scene because it reminds me of when I met my wife at the courthouse. This is a good example of a shot that will probably get more time spent post processing if it makes it into the slideshow. I want to protect the highlights on the redhead, but the others are just too dim. I'll probably also selectively increase the exposure of the sign to make it more noticeable. 1/50s, f/3.2, ISO 6400, 50mm, -2 EV, program mode

From there, we went back to Haunted Mansion. I guess we were having a run of dark rides. I tried for a few extreme dark shots.
1/15, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manul exposure, prayer

Same as above. Basically, I set up my camera with the slowest shutter speed that I think could possibly work while moving, the widest aperture, the highest usable ISO, and took what I could get. I don't even remember seeing this guy on the ride.

We followed that with IaSW and then the Pooh ride. The pooh ride has some radically different looks. I'm glad that it is a really good ride because I miss Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

We followed that with the teacups. I had wanted to go back and do some night shooting with a flash on the teacups. We never went back on it, so I didn't come away with any good shots. It's fun because you can get really good motion blur for your background just by holding the camera still. If I had it to do again, I'd have preferred to use my 17-40mm lens, but I didn't have it with me.

1/60s, f/4.5, ISO 400, 24mm, shutter priority, fill flash

After that, we decided to stop by the Jungle Boat and head out. The Jungle Boat was a little disappointing in that our captain was t-sip. I thought Disney had better standards than that. I used it as a teaching example for the kids, telling them that if they went to UT, they would wide up with a job driving a boat around in circles all day telling really bad jokes.

I find that I get better wildlife shots on this ride than I do on the Safari ride.

The kids wanted to go to Downtown Disney to see the movie Up, so we hitched a ride on the monorail over to the Polynesian Village and caught a bus from there.

We went back that night for the light parade. We set up about an hour early (8:00 PM) on Main Street. The park was still bussling with activity. Here's a photopass photographer standing her ground while a sea of humanity flowed passed.

4s, f/22, ISO 50, 45mm, AV, vari-ND set to "pretty dark"

The pavement was still smoking hot, so my wife I and took turns holding our position vs taking the kids around to the shops. I tried some product photography, but it's just not my thing.

Nothing made me more nervous that day than looking through the glass shop with my "touch everything" 7 year old. He did enjoy watching the glass blowers for a few minutes.

1/50s, f/2.8, ISO 250, 59mm, program mode.

Here is another attempt to catch the flow of people up and down Main Street. For this shot, I zoomed the lens during the exposure (try that with a prime).

0.3s, f/20, ISO 50, 24mm (at the start), aperture priority mode

Closer to parade time, the street was lined several rows deep with people.

1/80s, f/2.8, 70mm, ISO 2500, program mode

I had my kids pop out into the road a few minutes before the parade started. I didn't want to set up and take down my tripod, so I decided to see what would happen with a long exposure, hand held, flash shot.

0.6s, f/8, ISO 400, 43mm, aperture priority

I also thought it would be fun to take a few crazy shots with the camera moving. If I was thinking, I would have found a three light pattern that I could have made a Mickey out of. 2s, f/8, ISO 200, 70mm, aperture priority.

My Spectromagic shots were OK, but I certainly didn't break any new ground with them. Like everything, I rushed the post production on them, so they could stand a little more attention.

I've never figured out how to shoot these types of performers. If you don't use your flash, you lose the person. If you do, it looks funny. Here's an attempt with the flash.

There's Ariel. She's still the prettiest of the Princesses (although it may just seem that way because she is the only one with a bikini top).

As you can see, I had more photography fun on Day 6 than I did on day 5. The Magic Kingdom really is the most photogenic of the parks. Well, maybe Epcot is. I guess it depends on my mode. Anyway, I had a lot of fun taking pictures that day.

You can see the rest of the shots from that day here.

 

[annnewjerz]

After that, we went to my favorite attraction at the park - Splash Mountain. The kids enjoyed it so much that they almost wanted to sit through the movie (Song of the South) again. Aside from being a really fun (and air conditioned) ride, it is a good place to practive not too dark Dark Ride photography. We did the ride twice in a row, so I got the learn a few things from the first round.

1/100s, f/1.8, ISO 3200, 50mm, -1 1/3 EV, aperture priority

1/50s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure.

1/40s, f/2.4, ISO 6400, 50mm, -2/3 EV.

All great shots, Mark. Splash Mountain is my all-time favorite ride and these are the next best thing to being there riding it right now.

Thanks for posting the EXIF along with these as well. I'm glad to see that shooting indoors will be much more easily done than HM and PP.

One quick question---were these shots cropped down much (if at all)? I know you used 50mm on a full-frame and I like the look of these shots, so if they were cropped I'm wondering if 50mm on a DX would be a better focal length for SM than 30mm to avoid any excessive cropping once I get home.

Looking forward to more!
Ann

 

[oregondaddyof2]

The kids wanted to go to Downtown Disney to see the movie Up, so we hitched a ride on the monorail over to the Polynesian Village and caught a bus from there. As usual, the kids asked to sit in the front of the monorail (First Class, as my oldest calls it). Our monorail driver was a very nice young man named Austin. I was very saddened to see that he was killed over the weekend in the monorail crash. We were only in his care for a few minutes, but he seemed like a wonderful person. What a sad loss.

That is an amazing shot of Austin... It is very sad what happened... I think that the family would love to have that picture... I wish there was some way to get a hold of Disney and forward them the picture... May be worth a phone call or 2...

 

[Groucho]

Same as above. Basically, I set up my camera with the slowest shutter speed that I think could possibly work while moving, the widest aperture, the highest usable ISO, and took what I could get. I don't even remember seeing this guy on the ride.

It's hard to see in the pic, but the character on the right is using an ear trumpet. You can hear the exchange of these two characters pretty clearly in most Haunted Mansion "full ride" MP3s. The mummy is singing Grim Grinning Ghosts and becomes exasperated as the other fellow says "ehhhhh? ... louder!" during it. I find 'em pretty amusing. While Gdad goes for the caretaker, the shot I've been trying to get is the arm coming out of the brick wall at the very end of the graveyard scene - which is especially difficult as the Doom Buggies are rotating so you only see it for a moment.

The Jungle Boat was a little disappointing in that our captain was t-sip.

T-sip?

Jungle Cruise is always a little hit or miss. Last trip, we had one skipper who was merely OK but our second ride was perhaps the best ever. It's also a lot of fun at night.

There's Ariel. She's still the prettiest of the Princesses (although it may just seem that way because she is the only one with a bikini top).

I don't know if she's the prettiest but she's definitely the sexiest!