I have a stupid cold now (I tried to avoid getting sick, PHX!), but at least it waited until I got home from DLR. I am in the congestion phase right now (after a couple of days of having a bad sore throat). I'm hoping it runs a normal course for a cold and goes away soon, not lingering around and morphing into something worse over a 2-month span! I knew it would be unrealistic to think that I could get out of DLR without getting sick, as there seemed to be sick people running around
everywhere in the parks! I've never heard so much coughing and sneezing at DLR!
I'm not sure if I am at my peak of the cold (you know how you usually have one or two days where you are at your worst, and then it gets better after that) or if I still have an uphill climb, but I know I have to somehow get to the store and grab some juice and some decongestants (the 'good stuff' behind the counter - not the stuff sold on the shelves)! And if I see any 'real' peppermint ice cream while I am there (not that Slow Churned nonsense), I will grab it even if I can't taste it at the moment! I'd rather have it in my freezer than miss my chance to get it at all.
I finally got my pictures loaded to Photobucket, so I will post a sneak preview/highlight reel (to lure everyone in!
) before I start from the beginning with the TR.
I was going to post the sneak preview/highlight reel here yesterday (Friday) but I got caught up in watching the news (the terrible, tragic news of the Connecticut school shooting), and it just didn't seem like a time to be posting joyful TR photos. Many innocent, precious little souls were lost, for no reason at all - at a time when they should have been anxiously awaiting Santa's arrival or perhaps even planning a trip to a Disney resort during their break. They hadn't even gotten the chance to live their lives. Many families have now lost their babies, and their lives have been irreparably changed forever. I think that all of our hearts break for those families.
Sigh. Anyway, on to replies...
The CP looks just beautiful! Now I'll be looking at your pictures thinking 'is this one that Sherry thinks is great?'
I think all your pictures are great so that's easy.
I think you are right that finding the right mix of photos and prose is a talent. I think your TR have just the right balance.
Thank you kindly,
TK!
Most photos I will show even if they aren't great just because they fit into whatever segment of the TR I am covering, but some are much better than others. I guess I was just surprised that some of them looked much better in actual photo size than I expected. Sometimes things look much better in the camera's window/display, and when you actually get them loaded it's a whole different story and they don't look all that wonderful! I've also had the reverse happen - where something looked not-so-great in the camera window and when I looked at it in actual photo size it was better than I thought it would be! I think it's always kind of a mystery/surprise, discovering which pictures are winners and which ones are clunkers!
You're right - trying to have a good mix of narrative and pictures is a balancing act. Every trip to DLR (or anywhere else) yields different stories and different results. Certain trip reports I do have more narrative than others because there is more to tell. In other TR efforts I can get away with mostly posting photos...but not too many. People want to see pictures, but I think there is a limit. And again, I don't know about anyone else's TR - I am only referring to my own - but I think people tend to zone out or disappear when there are too many photos (just like they tune out if there is too much prose and not enough photos).
In any case, I was mainly thinking about the fact that I have a limited number of pages left in this thread and I wanted to fit whatever photos I took in here before it closes. Out of the 1100-ish or so photos that I took, many of them are similar or identical because I was often trying to perfect one particular shot, and if it didn't come out right the first 5 times I tried it I would try again until it looked the way I wanted it to look! So I will be able to cut out a lot of that redundant stuff because it will only be necessary to post one decent picture of something rather than my 5 pitiful attempts at the same shot!
I'll rustle up a highlight reel of pictures after I post this reply because I know you're headed to WDW very soon, TK, and you will be in the throes of preparing. You won't be able to follow this TR while you're gone, obviously, so I'll give you a sneak preview before you leave!
I think that 4 days are perfect for me too. I felt cheated my last trip with just the 3 days.
I love your photos from the CP!
Thank you,
Michele!
It's a crummy feeling when you leave and realize there was so much more you wanted to do! I feel stupid even saying it because there are many, many people who would love to be able to go to DLR for just one day, let alone more than that. It seems so silly and insignificant to even complain. But this is a Disney discussion board and we do discuss our trips!
So, yep, I don't think that 3 days, or 3 nights and a small part of a 4th day, is enough. You know, another part of it is that as I get older my DLR priorities shift and I simply just move more slowly and get less done in a day than I used to....thus, running out of time in the trip faster. I mean, I didn't feel like I had enough time at DLR just to do the things I wanted to do - I'm not even including rides in the mix!
If I were to try to go on dozens of rides too, in addition to the other things I did, I think I'd probably need the amount of time that
Mariezp needs when she and her family go to DLR (2 weeks)! That two-week time frame used to seem like too much for me, but now I can see where it would probably work for me.
Thankfully I got a big dose of Cars Land and Buena Vista Street in November. If I hadn't done the November day trip I would have had to sandwich more time in those two lands into this December trip somewhere, which would have resulted in bumping something else out of the trip. There just would not have been enough time for everything. There wasn't enough time for everything anyway, even without Cars Land and Buena Vista Street figuring prominently in the mix!
OK, Sherry, I don't know whether to thank you or grump at you -- now I have one more thing on my "bucket list" to try to do at
Disneyland: see the CP. My friend and I were actually there the CP weekend a couple years ago, but it was insanely busy and kinda cold. I didn't know until we were there that my friend (also raised in SoCal but in Torrance) was part of the CP as a high school choir student! Now I have to scheme some more to get us both back next year to see the CP if it is more accessible.
I love Christmas music so I think I would love the CP; whoever was narrating. I've seen Lou Diamond Phillips in a couple cable shows lately and he is still a handsome guy.
I admit I was really skeptical about the chaos the CP would cause, but everything I have read has said it hasn't affected things so much. Did you feel like it had a really snarly effect on the parks if you weren't watching it?
PHXscuba
PHX -
I really think you would enjoy the CP. There is a high possibility that it will relocate to the Hyperion Theater (with possibly even more nights or more performances of the CP than this year's 20 nights!) next year - I think that if Disney does this it will be because they are having an official Christmas party in Disneyland and will want to offer something in DCA for people to do if they don't want to attend the party.
Now that I've seen the CP, of course, and knowing that it has been held in Town Square for over 50 years, I can't imagine it being held anywhere other than in Town Square. There is something about that location that lends itself well to the intimacy and special feeling of it at DLR. It's very dramatic to see all of the wonderful choir members holding their candles and lanterns in front of the train station. I think it will still be a lovely ceremony if it moves to a theater in either park, but I don't think it will have the same vibe.
As for how the CP has affected things in the park - in my opinion, having the CP on multiple nights probably worked well for spacing out the crowds and averting a possible crowd nightmare if it had only been held on, say, 5 nights. Originally I wasn't sure how it would go and if the 20 nights were a good thing or a bad thing. Ultimately, I think they were a good thing. Fewer nights would mean more people coming out to try to see it and more people standing around in Town Square at one time, hoping to get seats.
Sure, it was a bit annoying that there were ropes up around Town Square and we were sometimes diverted to one side of Town Square to exit if we were not seeing the CP. I know people will complain about that (and exaggerate!) and say it was a massive nightmare. If I hadn't seen the CP and enjoyed it, I might be grumbling about the extra crowds shuffling out of Town Square but it was not the worst crowd situation I have experienced at DLR - not by a long shot.
Honestly, I was at DL on New Year's Eve once, many years ago, and those crowds were the worst I've seen. Those NYE crowds were what caused me to not want to go back to DL on NYE again!
This CP set-up - while a bit of a nuisance - really did not seem that bad to me (not compared to what was predicted or compared to what I imagined). Quite frankly, the crowds caused by the
parade tend to seem just as bad, if not worse, to me. And the parade on Tuesday night was delayed a bit (technical problems) so it happened very close to the CP, which meant that the crowds were just kind of stuck on Main Street in between events. A lot of folks didn't even know what the CP was - I heard many people asking their groups questions like, "Now what is this whole set-up for again? Is it a concert?" They were clueless.
But I've seen crowd gridlock that was just as bad - if not worse - when I've tried to move through Adventureland in the past. I've experienced worse crowds just trying to get through NOS or Frontierland after a showing of Fantasmic. I really don't think that the extra gridlock caused by the CP was any worse than those scenarios - and it may have even been not as bad as those scenarios. Of course, different nights will produce different crowd situations - a weekend might be horrible, whereas my weeknights were not too horrific.
I really think Laurie/DizNee Luver should see the CP (or should have seen it) while at DLR. The CP is right up her alley (especially because she is a person of faith and is not averse to the more religious things in life). Her whole family could have gotten seats if they had been there on the nights I was there, with only a few minutes of waiting. If she had seen (in person) how easy it was for me to get a seat, I think she would have been more motivated to do it. But because she didn't try for a seat, I think she had visions of it being a madhouse or a mob scene, or visions of having to stand and wait for hours to see it. I think she was more bothered by the Main Street crowds than I was. Again, those crowds were nothing worse than what I've seen in other scenarios at DLR, so I guess it's all a matter of how you look at it.
Plus a room upgrade - I'm so happy for you I need to do you know what!! 
I think we would have attempted the CP (after talking with you about it) if I didn't almost have a panic attack our first day there. The crowds on Main St once they rope off the walkways are just too much for me and I can't believe how many people would step over the strollers (while the girls were in them). The weather got cold and damp after you left (good timing on your part) so that played into our decisions on what to do and not do.
). THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! For some reason, it seemed to be hectic from the second Liza and I sat down at the table and I couldn't get a moment to think clearly.
I wish I had such skills. I live in the same small community that my husband and I both graduated from high school in, (probably about the same time as you) and when we run into people, I have learned to just put a nice smile on my face and be friendly. Walk away and ask Who the heck is that? DH then proceeds to give me details about said person from back in the day trying to trigger some semblance of memory. 
) 
Things seem to be staying on course for a normal illness and not morphing into a horrible 2-1/2 month-long mutant thing.
(I can hear the young'uns saying "huh?")
