DIS Dads The DIS Dad's Club VIII - The Online Mancave

[Rental01]

I totally agree. Im in a contract now at IBM. Praying the other shoe doesnt drop.

At least you can post on the DIS Dad's site from work. I can't even do that.

 

[IamTrike]

Behold - the DIS Dad's 404 page:

Nice

 

[prattpak]

Ian I was looking at your website. You have some amazing pictures on there. I love the Spaceship Earth shot. Nice catch on that one. My vivitar or blackberry cant do that!!

 

[wasnotafan]

I surrender. Didn't even make the top 30 for posts last thread and you are already more than 10 pages deep in this one. Or deep in something at least

 

[Rental01]

Don't let the crowds scare you, but realize that if you don't take the proper steps you'll either be waiting in a lot of lines or you won't get to do much.

Also remember that in all of the parks, people tend to go counter-clockwise. Start on the left and work your way around - it'll help you a lot.

 

[Rental01]

Ian I was looking at your website. You have some amazing pictures on there. I love the Spaceship Earth shot. Nice catch on that one. My vivitar or blackberry cant do that!!

Thanks! I really appreciate that. If you want to buy them you can. I don't make any profit on it - all of my pictures are available at cost.

 

[Rental01]

I surrender. Didn't even make the top 30 for posts last thread and you are already more than 10 pages deep in this one. Or deep in something at least

I doubt I did - busy month for me.

 

[afwdwfan]

Making your way to the World today
Takes everything you've got
Sunscreen, gas, and cheeseballs all
Sure do cost a lot

Wouldn't you like to own a page?

Sometimes you want to post

Where everybody knows your (screen) name
And they very rarely flame
You wanna post in the thread the most
But stopher1 wins that game
You want to go where everybody knows your name

Instant classic!!! Think you just wrote the official DIS Dads theme song!

I'm thinking summer is going to be the best and only time that we'd be able to swing a week at WDW that we wouldn't be fighting everyone else to enjoy our stay.

Well, growing up, my parents would never let us out of school for vacation, so we ALWAYS went during the summer months. We typically went end of July into the first week of August, but one year we were there over the 4th of July. Our last trip was The last full week of July in 2008 for a family trip. My mom planned it as kind of a wedding gift to my wife and me and a graduation gift for my sisters before they left for the real world. It really didn't feel crowded at all and with smart FP use, we rode everything with a very limited wait. We did stand in line for Soarin' for over an hour one afternoon and TSM another day but quite honestly, we had FP's, had nothing better to do and well... A/C in July.

This fall will be my first time going during anytime that isn't peak and in the heat of summer. Honestly, I don't know what off peak is like, so I can't really compare, but aside from the heat, I don't get the fuss. We always do rope drop with an afternoon break. We've never stood in line for anything for hours at a time, I've never felt overly rushed and we always seem to do everything we want to. I guess if you're not used to the crowds trying to get around the parks that could be a little bit bothersome, but if you can take the heat and humidity and have a good touring plan I don't think it is any big deal to go during the summer. I wouldn't hesitate to do it myself. I'm sure when we have kids in school, we'll just go during the summer as opposed to making them miss class.

 

[IamTrike]

Also remember that in all of the parks, people tend to go counter-clockwise. Start on the left and work your way around - it'll help you a lot.

That's a great general rule. It works well in MK, but not as well in Epcot (I think most grocery stores are also designed based on this principle). Soarin is to the right and if you don't get their early it can be a pain. TT and MS are to the left and its good to hit them early, but their lines don't seem to grow as fast.

I'm really impressed with your pics too. The adventureland pan and the one from the park exit at night are great.

 

[AJRitz]

Use the logo instead! Then you dont have to worry about it.

That's part of the plan, but I also want a theme that will give us more flexibility working with Pages. The rigidity with which our current theme handles Pages is turning into quite the PITA, as the site develops. I think I have a good alternative already. I just need to work on the logo-based banner graphic. One of the things I love about WordPress is that the transition to the new theme should be virtually painless.

 

[prattpak]

That's part of the plan, but I also want a theme that will give us more flexibility working with Pages. The rigidity with which our current theme handles Pages is turning into quite the PITA, as the site develops. I think I have a good alternative already. I just need to work on the logo-based banner graphic. One of the things I love about WordPress is that the transition to the new theme should be virtually painless.

Virtually painless? That means there still might be pain involved.

 

[AJRitz]

Virtually painless? That means there still might be pain involved.

I won't know for sure until I trigger the transition. There are always a few minor issues - one I noticed immediately when I previewed the theme was that the Wordless Wednesday photo I posted for today was too wide, and messed with the right-column formatting in the new theme I'm looking at using. It's not a big deal, just have to resize the picture. But it's little things like that that need tweaking after a theme transition.

 

[IamTrike]

We always do rope drop with an afternoon break. We've never stood in line for anything for hours at a time, I've never felt overly rushed and we always seem to do everything we want to.

Agreed

 

[scott2997]

Well, growing up, my parents would never let us out of school for vacation, so we ALWAYS went during the summer months. We typically went end of July into the first week of August, but one year we were there over the 4th of July. Our last trip was The last full week of July in 2008 for a family trip. My mom planned it as kind of a wedding gift to my wife and me and a graduation gift for my sisters before they left for the real world. It really didn't feel crowded at all and with smart FP use, we rode everything with a very limited wait. We did stand in line for Soarin' for over an hour one afternoon and TSM another day but quite honestly, we had FP's, had nothing better to do and well... A/C in July.

This fall will be my first time going during anytime that isn't peak and in the heat of summer. Honestly, I don't know what off peak is like, so I can't really compare, but aside from the heat, I don't get the fuss. We always do rope drop with an afternoon break. We've never stood in line for anything for hours at a time, I've never felt overly rushed and we always seem to do everything we want to. I guess if you're not used to the crowds trying to get around the parks that could be a little bit bothersome, but if you can take the heat and humidity and have a good touring plan I don't think it is any big deal to go during the summer. I wouldn't hesitate to do it myself. I'm sure when we have kids in school, we'll just go during the summer as opposed to making them miss class.

Well compounding things is that, during our Spring Break week, we always have been vacationing with my in-laws and sister-in-law. And that being said, my in-laws aren't the "gung-ho", do everything disney people. Which means we tend to go at a slower pace. This isn't very conducive to playing the fast pass game.

Also, I only receive 2 weeks of vacation each year...which lately has been meaning 1 week of vacation with my in-laws and the other with my parents. I think that one of these years I'm going to have to put my foot down and choose to do our own family vacation so we can do Disney for a week and do it like we want to do Disney.

I love having both families so involved in our lives...but I think it's time we take a vacation just the 4 of us!

 

[AJRitz]

Well compounding things is that, during our Spring Break week, we always have been vacationing with my in-laws and sister-in-law. And that being said, my in-laws aren't the "gung-ho", do everything disney people. Which means we tend to go at a slower pace. This isn't very conducive to playing the fast pass game.

Also, I only receive 2 weeks of vacation each year...which lately has been meaning 1 week of vacation with my in-laws and the other with my parents. I think that one of these years I'm going to have to put my foot down and choose to do our own family vacation so we can do Disney for a week and do it like we want to do Disney.

I love having both families so involved in our lives...but I think it's time we take a vacation just the 4 of us!

That's pretty much what we did this past year. My parents are local, but my in-laws are out of state as are many of our relatives on both sides. Until our Disney trip this past October, we hadn't taken a vacation other than to visit family (in Minnesota or Chicago or New York or Baltimore) in nearly 10 years. (There was one long-weekend in St. Louis that was just us, but I'm not sure that counts). When we decided to do the Disney trip, we just said, "sorry. You all are welcome to come and visit us. It's cheaper for you to travel anyway, since there are more of us than there are of you. We'd love to have you and we even have a guest bedroom you're welcome to stay in. But we won't be traveling for a while."

We will probably still end up doing a trip this summer to visit the in-laws, largely because they will probably have just moved to somewhere within about 4 hours of us by car. But at a certain point, it was just a matter of putting our own nuclear family and what worked best for us first.

 

[IamTrike]

And that being said, my in-laws aren't the "gung-ho", do everything disney people. Which means we tend to go at a slower pace. This isn't very conducive to playing the fast pass game.

Are you comfortable spending time apart from them on vacation or will they want to be with you all the time. If they aren't gonna be with you all the time, you could have Gung-ho mornings, then hang out with you at the resort in the afternoon and come back with you to the parks in the evening for the less rushed activities.

 

[afwdwfan]

I love having both families so involved in our lives...but I think it's time we take a vacation just the 4 of us!

Agreed!

My parents want to take Disney trips every few years or so with their kids/grandkids (not that I'm complaining in the least bit ) and my wife's parents want to do the same with their family every 2 or 3 years (except to Gatlinburg instead of Disney). I love both trips, it is a LOT of fun, but we need our own family time too. We're doing our own thing this year, but next year might be a tough one because 2012 would be the year for my wife's family trip and my parents want to do a Disney trip for their anniversary. There goes my 2 weeks.

 

[Rental01]

That's a great general rule. It works well in MK, but not as well in Epcot (I think most grocery stores are also designed based on this principle). Soarin is to the right and if you don't get their early it can be a pain. TT and MS are to the left and its good to hit them early, but their lines don't seem to grow as fast.

I'm really impressed with your pics too. The adventureland pan and the one from the park exit at night are great.

That's when the fast pass runner is great to have. This year we're employing my son in this task.

 

[stopher1]

Agreed!

I love both trips, it is a LOT of fun, but we need our own family time too.

This is so very true.

The first 4 years of our marriage were spent basically on a ping-pong schedule of back and forth between her family and mine. Layer in double divorce and suddenly you have 4 sets/gatherings to deal with. Then were the little getaways (we really didn't take vacations then) - with her side or mine... and whammy we had no free time to bond as a family of our own... especially after son #1 came along. Then I became the dev_l in carnate by up and moving my wife and son away to a far flung state in the midwest and suddenly it all stopped... til they quickly started to travel to see us. Then I had the audacity to procreate yet again, and have another son ... 2400 miles away from anyone. Horror of horrors.
When I was laid off from the job that took us up to MI, and we moved back to CA - suddenly everything was right with the world again. EXCEPT....

...we had had a taste of life without them, and traveling without them - and liked it. We were forced to become our own family unit, and depend on each other - and suddenly we could say no to this, that and every other gathering, function or trip they wanted to include us in/on/or go to.

Fast forward a couple more years and - BAM - we're up and moving again... this time taking both grandsons along... another 2200 mile separation... but it was different, and somewhat okay. We had become our own family unit, and had been creating some of our own traditions by that point.

Fast forward another 9 years - and yeah we enjoy seeing both sides - and we've now invited THEM along on trips or for visits, and if they can make it great - if not - that's okay... and the same holds true when they invite us. If we can make it great - if not, the world is not going to end because of it. We have spent 11 years building our own family unit - and have some very solid traditions, experiences and memories sans grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Not that there is anything wrong with including them... but we were forced to do so, and actually feel very good about it all. Sure we miss having them around from time to time - but we've lived away & apart from them longer as a married couple then we did the other way around....and it just makes those visits and times together that much sweeter than if they were to take each other for granted because we all saw each other every weekend. (I can say that because I grew up 1 mile from my grandparents on my mom's side - and 30 mins from my dad's side - and yeah, absence does make the heart grow fonder!

 

[IamTrike]

That's when the fast pass runner is great to have. This year we're employing my son in this task.

In our family that's my job now, but I can't wait to pass the torch to DS.