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

[MarkBarbieri]

So do you call it Hollywood Studios or is it still MGM? I'm having a hard time making the shift. Heck, my parents still call Downtown Disney "Disney Village" and that name was changed about 10 years ago.

Our final full day at the parks was spent at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

Our first ride that morning was the Rockin' Roller Coaster. My short 7 year old wanted to ride it, but he was 2 inches too short. We tried to sneak him in with some 2 inch tall Hannah Montanna sandals, but they weren't fooled. Instead, we just went back to the Tower or Terror.

1/13s, f/4, ISO 6400, 105mm

The crowds seemed unusually bad that day. I suspect that it may have been because of Fantasmic. Since it was rained out on Tuesday and they didn't do it Wednesday, tonight was the first showing in several nights.

We hit most of our favorites that morning - ToT, the Midway ride, the playground. We finally found our way over to Indiana Jones.

1/30s, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 200mm

I wasn't able to take pictures during the show because I was in the show. I got selected as one of the extras. For some reason, when they need to pick people from the crowd, I am almost always selected. My wife says that I have the "pick me" look.

1/200, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 200mm

1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 320, 195mm

Later that afternoon, we wandered over to Blizzard Beach. I didn't bring my camera on that outing. As hard as it is to believe, sometimes I like to just play rather than take pictures.

Our plan for the evenign was to attend Fantasmic after which Kathy and the boys would go back to camp and I would go over to Epcot to meet Kyle (Handicap18). Things didn't go as planned. We were chased from Blizzard Beach by a worse than usual afternoon thunderstorm. When we stopped back by camp, our site was completely flooded. I pushed most of th ewater off with a boogie board. The tent interior wasn't too bad. We figured it would be fine by nightfall. We headed back to DHS thinking everythign was OK.

When we got back, it was raining, but not too hard. It didn't look like waiting for Fantasmic would be pleasant, but I had a poncho and Kathy and the boys had umbrellas, so I figured we'd be OK.

1/250s, f/3.5, ISO 200, 148mm

We sat down for Fanstasmic a little over an hour before showtime. We had really good seats. Then the storm came. It started thundering right near the park. The made all of the umbrella people exit the theater and wait until shelter. I sat alone under my poncho in the pouring rain holding our seats. After a few minutes of that, a bolt of lighting appeared directly over the theater. I watched it split the sky from one side to the other. I didn't need the park people yelling at us to evacuate the theater to know that it was time to leave. We decided not to wait and headed back to camp.

While we were gone, it rained hard and flooded the camp again. We left the kids in the car for an hour while we made things livable again. I should point out that we were just unlucky. Almost all of the campsites were well graded and were not flooding. Ours was just special. Anyway, I knew that we weren't going to have fun that night, so I called Kyle and cancelled our rendezvous. We put the kids to sleep and laundered a lot of the stuff that got wet.

All-in-all, it wasn't the best way to end a trip and I dreaded packing up a wet tent in the morning for the drive home. Wet tents need to be unpacked and set up to dry once you get home or they'll get mildewy and nasty.

You can see the rather unexceptional pictures for that day here.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

On our final morning, we asked permission to check out later than the usual 11:00AM checkout time. The best they could do was noon as the campground was going to be full again that night. We used that extra time to let the tent dry while we played at Blizzard Beach (again without a camera) for the final time. The park was quiet in the morning but the kids didn't really want to spend much time on the slides. They mainly wanted to play tag in the lazy river.

After too short of a time, we rushed back to the campsite to tear down the tent (fortunately now dry). On our way out of the campground, we spotted a good sized turtle roaming the area.

After that, we drove off for home.

Overall, itw as a good trip. It was definitely too hot. The parks were much more crowded than I'm used to. I was amazed at both how hot it was late at night and how many people (including kids) were still in the parks after midnight.

I'm not sure if I'd do it again. I like going during the off season, but with the kids in school, that's not much of an option. At this point, I don't know when we'll be back. I suspect that it will only be for conferences for the next couple of years unless the kids get a real strong hankering to return. We'll see.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

As is my custom, I put together a slideshow of our trip. I did it in a bit of a rush, so I dont' think it is up to my usual standards. I'm hurrying to get to the pictures from my Colorado trip, so I've been cutting corners here.

I haven't down a streaming video slideshow yet. The only version I have is one that can be downloaded and watched on a PC running Windows. You can download it here.

Looking back photographically, I don't think that I really improved much since my 2006 trip. There are several reasons for that. First, I took a lot of the shots I wanted on the 2006 trip so shots on this trip were either repeats or shots were I skipped the obvious good shot and lamely tried something creative. I was also more familiar with my camera in 2006. This was one of the first big outing swith my new camera and I frequently struggled to make it do what I wanted (although the image quality of the new camera waas noticeably better. My kids are also older and, while still cute, they've lost that pre-school cuteness. Finally, it was hot. The heat, particularly combined with camping, sapped my motivation and energy. I just got lazy.

I did improve in some areas. I exploited the better low light capability of my new camera to do more dark ride shooting than I had in the past. I did a lot more playing with slower shutter speeds to capture more of a sense of motion.

I guess I'm OK with my shots overall, but I think I could have done much better.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

I wasn't able to take pictures during the show because I was in the show. I got selected as one of the extras. For some reason, when they need to pick people from the crowd, I am almost always selected. My wife says that I have the "pick me" look.

1/200, f/2.8, ISO 3200, 200mm

1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 320, 195mm

 

[WDWFigment]

Hilarious that you got picked for Indy. You definitely do have that 'pick me' look. I can only imagine how 'into it' you got. Funny shots.

 

[tink too]

I love the fact that you are front & centre in the Indy crowd scene.

 

[SC Mouse Fan]

My kids are also older and, while still cute, they've lost that pre-school cuteness.

Just wait until they are teenagers. Try taking a "cute" shot of a 17 year old boy with a 3 day growth of facial hair because he is too lazy to shave everyday. We went to WDW once when they were fairly small (5 and 9) but didn't go regularly until they were they were 10 and 14. They were already past the cute stage but we have fun anyway.

 

[DisBride2009]

We tried to stop by Innoventions, but it was already closed when we got there. The kids did play by the fiber lights in the sidewalk. They're cool. I'm guessing that they must be expensive because they didn't do too much with them.

When did Innoventions close? I thought it closes when the park closes. Thats pretty interesting. Oh well. Great pics by the way. I added one to my background on the computer. The one where you were at MK and took a pic of the castle at night where the people were waiting for Spectromagic. It came out really well. Thanks