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

[tjl1388]

Thanks, Mark. (I might be having trouble because I have right click and links protection.)

If your logged in to your account it won't matter.

Also, in the top right of the gallery in smugmug you will see a "share" button. Select link then size and proceed from there.

 

[luvsmickeymouse]

I love the video! I showed my kids, they also thought it was great!

 

[Michele]

If your logged in to your account it won't matter.

Also, in the top right of the gallery in smugmug you will see a "share" button. Select link then size and proceed from there.

This is the way I do it from my SmugMug account and it works.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Great pics of Splash Mtn! That's one of my favorite rides. What kind of water camera did you use for the Typhoon Lagoon pics and videos? I might borrow a few if that's ok? Thanks!

I used a Canon G9 in a waterproof shell. You are welcome to borrow all that you want.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

We started the morning at the Magic Kingdom. We were tired from our late (by our standards) night at Epcot, so we didn't make the early entry park.

I made the mistake of not resetting my camera after shooting hand-held night shots. My wife tends to just shoot with the camera as-is. This first shot is of some ducklings on the bridge by the Castle. I wouldn't recommend these settings. 1/4000s, f/22, ISO 3200, 24mm, -2 EV, program mode, IS.

We took an early morning spin on the Astro Orbiter. It's one of those rides that you either hit right away or you don't bother with at all. My mistake was letting my wife and younger son sit in the car behind me rather than in front of me. Sure, it meant that I was able to get their faces, but it was a tough shot. I don't contort well, so I wasn't able to twist around enough for the shot. I actually just leaned back, held the camera upside down, and shot them that way. Then I flipped it in post production. I was rather surprised that it worked.

1/320, f/13, ISO 200, 24mm, program mode, significant cropping

I don't know who these people are. I just got tired of trying to shoot my son sitting essentially in my lap or the rocket behind me. This shot was done in shutter priority mode. I like it as an example of shooting something that is moving in sync with me and letting the background blur. I should probably watermark the kid so that the Brazilians don't get him, but I'm just too darned lazy.
1/50s, f/22, ISO 200, 90mm

I tried to get some shots on Buzz Lightyear and play the game at the same time. The result is that I didn't do either well.
1/80, f/4, ISO 3200, 50mm, -1 EV, program mode

The kids got in trouble on the ride, so we had to lock them up. I always chuckle at this part. People are so conditioned not to cross barriers. I always see people taking pictures of their kids in front of the bars. I thought it was obvious that the bars were wide specifically so that people could get in jail with Zurg.
1/30s, f4, ISO 800, 28mm, -1 EV, program mode

The Carousel of Progress is still there. I love the concept, but it is definitely aging. I would absolutely love a book written on the same concept - discussing typical life for a typical (OK, slightly upscale) American family through different periods of time. Why can't you take pictures on this ride? You used to be able to.

We eventually wound up over at Peter Pan again. I made a few more attempts but never caught anything spectactular.
1/40s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure, moderately cropped

The danger in shooting at f/1.8 is the shallow DOF. Here I got the youngest boy (Michael?) in focus and lost Pan.
1/40s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure

I always have much better luck with wildlife on the Jungle Boat ride than I do on the Safari Ride.

Other pictures from that day are here.

 

[WDWFigment]

I think whether you can take pictures of CoP all depends on the Cast Member working at the time. We went twice in November/December, and once they said "no photography" and once they didn't say anything. Perhaps the gov't contacted WDW management, concerned that the Brazilians might take photos of the futuristic Virtual Reality gaming device?

 

[MarkBarbieri]

After spending the morning at the Magic Kingdom, we went over to Blizzard Beach to cool off. The kids loved our time at Typhoon Lagoon, but they most stuck to the wave pool and the lazy river. Because Blizzard Beach is much more focused on water slides, I didn't think they would like it as much. I was wrong. They missed the wave pool, but they loved the Family Slide, the kids play area, and Red slides. It's hard to say which park they liked more. Probably Blizzard Beach.

At this point, I would be posting pictures, but Smugmug is loafing along at a snail's pace. I hope I didn't load too many pictures on it.

Hmm..hmmm....hmmm....waiting, waiting....still waiting.

Here is a shot of the backside of Everest. Not too well themed from this angle. This view is from on top of the Blizzard Beach mountain.

Here is a shot of my wife and son on the family slide. When we tried to ride it again later, they wouldn't let me on with my camera. Of all the stupid rules. I had to walk all the freaking way back down the mountain with my camera while my wife and kids took the ride. @#$! Thank goodness no one was killed when we went down with it the first time. I'm betting that they would have let me take it if I had a UV filter on it.

Here's a shot of me on the same ride. Check out the ultra cool sunglass goggles. Didn't think I could look any cooler than normal, did you? And no, there are no Disboard rules against posting a picture like this...I checked. Next time you'll know better than to check my threads while you're eating.

Here is a view down one of the toboggan slides. It was a race of sorts. I lost.

Here's a view from the mountain looking at the older kids play area. My kids loved it. On the left were some zip lines that they enjoyed. In the middle was a ropes course that they loved. On the right were some short tube slides that I liked.

OK...Smugmg has totalled pooped out. I'm just writing these as place holders.

Cute sign.

My youngest on the ropes course. I bet him a buck that he couldn't make it. He didn't even break a sweat.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

After we got back from BB, the kids were exhausted. After they went to bed, I decided to head back to the Magic Kingdom for some night shots. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I bothered. I wake up regularly before 5:00 AM every day and haven't set an alarm clock in well over a decade. I wake up at 5:00 AM on the weekends and I wake up happy. I'm a morning person. Night is not my game. Even worse is when it is still hot and humid and I'm going to someplace very crowded (I don't like crowds). Well after midnight there was still a 40 minute line for Peter Pan. Who are these people?

Oh well, here's what I came back with:
4s, f/16, ISO 200, 47mm, manual

1.6s, f/8, ISO 200, 17mm, manual

1s, f8, ISO 200, 35mm, manual

Not sure which I like better.
1s, f11, ISO 200, 35mm

HDR f/5.6, ISO 800, 105mm

HDR, f/5.6, ISO 800, 50mm

 

[MarkBarbieri]

It was another beach day. The surf was really weak, but we made the best of it. We only had two days at the beach and neither had surf bigger that what we get down in Galveston. The boys had fun, but I was disappointed. I was hoping for some better wave action.

 

[Todd_H]

Here is a shot of the backside of Everest. Not too well themed from this angle. This view is from on top of the Blizzard Beach mountain.

This has always bothered me. It's so unlike Disney to not complete theming when it's in plain sight (I know you can only see it from the parking lot of AK or from Blizzard Beach, but it's still in plain sight).

 

[jann1033]

Here is a video of me going down a waterslide. The camera is pointed head of me during the run. You can also see my kids and wife coming out of the slide at the end. Click on the picture to go to the video.


Here is a video of me going down a similar slide, expect this time I have the camera pointed back at my face. It's a rather frightening video and is not recommended for small children or those with weak stomachs. Click on the picture to go to the video.

mark these are hilarious we never go to the water parks( since we go in winter and it can be 30 or 80 who knows) so it's nice to go down the slides vicariously...except if it were me in the second one all you'd see was an enormous mouth screaming hysterically these are priceless though

 

[tink too]

Great photos as always, Mark. I'm sure I will be borrowing some of your shots to help me complete my April '09 scrapbook. Thank you for sharing your great pics with us, so us not-so-fortunate photographers can still have great ways to remember our trips.

This has always bothered me. It's so unlike Disney to not complete theming when it's in plain sight (I know you can only see it from the parking lot of AK or from Blizzard Beach, but it's still in plain sight).

The plain theming of the "backside" of Everest has something to do with the view of the ride from either Epcot or DHS. I remember having it explained to me by a CM, but the exact details are escaping me right now. As we would say here in Scotland "Auld age doesn't come by itself."

 

[MarkBarbieri]

mark these are hilarious we never go to the water parks( since we go in winter and it can be 30 or 80 who knows) so it's nice to go down the slides vicariously...except if it were me in the second one all you'd see was an enormous mouth screaming hysterically these are priceless though

Too much spray. If you open your mouth to scream, you'd be guzzling slide water.

In all honesty, it was pretty darned hard going down that thing while holding the camera. It took away what little control I normally have on slides, so I was flopping and banging around more than usual.

 

[goopysolelady]

MarkBarbieri ... THANKS for posting pictures of Cocoa Beach! We love that place. Got me to thinking how long it's been since we had a chance to drive over. Couldn't believe our last trip was in 2000! That was when our daughters were teenagers and couldn't go to Florida without going to the beach. Now oldest DD has 2 adorable little girls of her own and they're just interested in Mickey Mouse ... which is okay with me ... but I sure do miss that beautiful beach. Can't remember the name, but our trip wasn't complete without eating at this wonderful little restaurant on the Banana River. Would always see dolphins in the river and food was sooooo good! Thanks again for bringing back some wonderful memories and if you have anymore beach pictures ... post them!

Oh ... almost forgot ... my nephew is a junior high coach in The Woodlands and loves it there. Been there a couple of years now and asked his girlfriend (a fellow teacher) to marry him at Walt Disney World during Spring Break!

 

[goopysolelady]

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.


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.


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

T-sip? Guess ya gotta be from Texas to understand T-sip! GIG 'EM

 

[MarkBarbieri]

With a few days left to go on our trip, we started letting the kids drive the park choices. They decided that they wanted to spend the day at the Magic Kingdom.

Getting from the tent to the MK meant walking to the front of our camp loop (may 100 or 200 yards), catching a bus to the back of Ft Wilderness, and then riding one of these non-air conditioned boats to the front of MK.

We hit Big Thunder Mountain early that morning. It's a bit rough for my tastes (I prefer the smoother coasters), but the boys loved it.

I tried to get a bit "artsy" with some long exposures on the ride. This was 1/50s, f/22, ISO 200, 24mm, shutter priority.

1/160s, f/13, ISO 200, 24mm, shutter priority. The settings were "left over" from my long exposure shots. I just set the shutter speed at something a bit more reasonable.

After playing around in Frontierland, we went over to the motor cars so that we'd get their when they opened at 9:00 AM. Along the way, we passed a bubble machine. This odd looking shot was a result of the bubbles acting as floating prisms. 1/320s, f/8, ISO 200, 90mm, program mode

On the driving, I opted for shutter priority and a fast shutter speed. It's not a smooth ride at all, so I wanted the higher shutter speed to avoid image shake. 1/1000s, f/4.5, ISO 640, 105mm, shutter priority.

I finally got on Snow White. During an earlier visit, the Kathy and the boys road it while I went on a fast pass run. As dark ride challenges go, I think it is somewhere between the easy rides like IaSW or the GMR and the hard rides like HM and PP.

1/25s, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, program mode

We took another spin on the Mad Tea Party. I think my older son had a bit too much spinning. He managed to keep everything down, but he couldn't walk a straight line for a while afterward. 1/60s, f/4.5, ISO 400, 35mm, shutter priority.

On our way from their to the Haunted Mansion, we ran into DVCJen and her girls. Still dazed from the tea cups and the heat, I didn't recognize her. Actually, I was looking at their cameras rather than their faces. At first I saw her daughter carrying what looked like a 24-85mm zoom, which was a popular, well thought of lens in the film days but rarely seen today. Then I noticed an L lens (distinctive red ring) on a 5 series body and thought, wow, this family must really be into photography. Like a dope, it didn't occur to me that they might be people from the forum. Fortunately, Jen had more wits about her than I did and called out to me. Anyway, it was a delight getting to meet Jen and her family. I wish we'd had more leisure time to chat. Maybe we can meet up for a Texas shoot sometime.

I didn't really break any new ground with HM shots. 1/30, f/1.8, ISO 6400, 50mm, manual exposure

After that, we hopped a raft over to the island. The boys had fun running about and causing trouble. It was that day that my cell phone started dying. It would drain the battery in about 2-4 hours with no use and the phone would get darned hot. I fixed it by doing a complete reset once we got home. For the rest of the trip, I had to keep it completely powered down (not just in standby) and only fire it up on an as-needed basis.

We road Splash Mountain again as our final MK ride of the day. We got stuck for about 10 minutes right near the very end. Here was the scene we were stuck at:
1/40s, f/1.8, ISO 1600, 50mm, program mode

The rest of the Day 11 MK photos can be found here.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Tuesday night we decided to hit Fantasmic! Of our remaining nights, it was only showing on Tuesday and Thursday and we didn't want to miss it. We arrived at the park early and went to Star Tours and the Muppet Vision 3D to fill our time before the show.

When we left the Muppet Show, it was pouring. An evening thunderstorm settle on the area.
1/20, f/4, ISO 400, 36mm, aperture priority, -1 EV, flash

We stuck around in the exit area of the show. After another show let out, it was packed in there, so we went back in and watched the movie a couple of more times until the rain stopped.

1/15s, f/2.8, ISO 6400, 200mm, -1/3 EV, aperture priority

1/20s, f/2.8, ISO 6400, 70mm, -1/3 EV, aperture priority

Fantasmic! was canceled for the evening (or at least the 8:00 PM showing was), so we decided to come back on Thursday. The boys were tired and fell asleep on the way back to camp.

We had our first major camping problem when we got back. One of the flaps on the rain fly was not snapped in place and so we had water penetration in the tent. It wasn't too bad, but two of the sleeping positions were wet. We left the kids sleeping in the van while we rested on the remaining two spots. In the middle of the night, we got up and did laundry to was and dry the wet bedding. After that, the kids woke up and joined us in the tent.

The rest of the Hollywood Studios shots for that day are here.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I never did finish this darn thread. I'm uploading pictures for day 12-14 now.

Here are a couple from day 1 taken with my cell phone.

Notice the window AC on the side of the tent. We spare no expense for luxury living.

That was our cheapo screen tent. It was destroyed by a storm near the end of the trip.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

It's been so long that I can hardly remember this trip, so I need to get this thread finished. Besides, I want to start a thread about the two Colorado trips I've taken since then and it wouldn't do to have two active trip threads at one time.

The second-to-last day of our trip was an Epcot day. We finally visited one of my favorite areas - The House of Innoventions. It's been getting lamer over the years, but I still like it for ideas.

Dante enjoyed playing on the electronic drum set. I'm OK with drums that have a volume control.

I liked the Gladiator paneling in the garage. It seemed like a really good idea until I got home and priced it. I need to do something about our garage, but that's a bit out of my price range.

As an oil industry employee, I was pleased to see that my kids really enjoyed the Universe of Energy.

I even took the time to take a self portrait.

After a few more Future World attractions, we finally made our way to the World Showcase. On the way, we stopped off and got our Kim Possible assignment. It told us to go to the bridge between France and England.

Our first stop along the way was Canada. We watched the 360 degree movie. Those are cool, but I'd prefer 180 degrees and a comfortable seat to standing and watching 360 degrees. That's especially true when the temperature outside is hovering between 180 and 360 degrees.

1/6s, f/4, ISO 3200, 24mm, significant exposure decrease for the movie parts of the picture using Lightroom

The movie showed the real Butchart Gardens. The gardens outside were inspired by them. If you are ever on Vancouver Island, you really should see the real ones. We were there in 2007 and it was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. You can see photos from that outing here.

Here is the Disney version. 1/200, f/10, ISO 200, 17mm

The kids stopped at the Kidcot Fun Stop and made masks. My younger son has been reading the Harry Potter books, so he made a "Death Eater" mask. It had the word "Death" in large letters across it. That got some surprised looks as we walked around the park.

For the Kim Possible thing, we got a cell phone like device that gave us tasks and clues. It had us running all around France. It was a nicely done adventure and worthwhile for people with kids. I wouldn't make a special trip just to do it.

Following that, we went over to the American Adventure, which I enjoy but it bores my wife.

We did a lot more that day, but I didn't get any other interesting pictures, so I'll just wrap it up. The full set of pictures for the day can be found here.

 

[KCmike]

Can't wait for your Colorado trip reports not that I don't enjoy these....it's just that we are thinking of driving to Colorado Springs over the extended Labor Day weekend. Thinking of going to Pike's Peak. It's about a 9 hour drive for us.