Why can't I get a decent photo on that blasted Peter Pan ride?

[inkedupmomma]

hey thanks for posting that pic to my TR! Went perfect Speaking of pics..omg, you are a very skilled photographer! I just recently bought a DSLR, but shamefully have NO clue how to really use it..shameful, I know

Thanks for sharing your pics!

 

[eeyore7360]

Just read through your entire report. Great pics!! I can totally understand where you are coming from in regards to the lack of a photographer with Snow White and friends. That was my main goal for the night and the CM did not even get all the dwarves in the picture.

 

[clearskies]

hey thanks for posting that pic to my TR! Went perfect Speaking of pics..omg, you are a very skilled photographer! I just recently bought a DSLR, but shamefully have NO clue how to really use it..shameful, I know

Thanks for sharing your pics!

You're welcome Jenn. I was hoping you would enjoy the picture.

Thank you for the kind words on my photography. I lug around a lot more equipment than your average sane person would be willing to carry but I was happy with my results so it was somewhat worth the hardship to my back. Keep at it with your DSLR and you will continue to improve over time. I can see dramatic improvement with my pictures over time.

Just read through your entire report. Great pics!! I can totally understand where you are coming from in regards to the lack of a photographer with Snow White and friends. That was my main goal for the night and the CM did not even get all the dwarves in the picture.

Thank you very much!

OMG, now I don't feel so bad about getting a my arm cut off from the shoulder. At least I got all the characters in the picture they took. After all you have to go through to get a picture with these headliners one would hope they could get a real photopass photographer there.

Oh, I have enjoyed some of the pictures you have posted. I liked the castle picture you posted from the Top of the World. Nice shot!

 

[Tribilín]

I can envision something like the following when the person who wrote this presented it to his boss

Writer: "I came up with a great song for the Halloween Parade". Give it a look
Boss: Reading..."Um, do you realize you are just repeating the Words 'Boo' 'to' and 'You' over and over again ad nauseum."
Writer: "Trust me. It's pure gold"
Boss: "Oh no. I thought you put the booze behind you. Are you having problems at home? Is there something I can do to help?"
Writer: "I'm serious with this. Look at the refrain for Small World"
Boss: "Ok true, you've got a point there." Long Pause "Alright, I'll give this a short leash but I'll take it to a focus group"

and the rest is history.

You really made me laugh out loud! That was great!

Although I bet the real story should have been the other way around with the boss demaning the song to be more catchy and simple, tough.

Your "not so optimal" pictures are amazing!

 

[clearskies]

You really made me laugh out loud! That was great!

Although I bet the real story should have been the other way around with the boss demaning the song to be more catchy and simple, tough.

Hi Triblin...Hmmm..Perhaps you have a point. I often experience my boss asking for things that make me scratch my head

Your "not so optimal" pictures are amazing!

[/QUOTE]
Thank you very much. I obviously would prefer some more castle in my shots but sometimes you need to adjust.

 

[MeMom]

I went outside and watched this guy for a while as my wife was trying to make contact. He was fantastic!!

That guy has been playing for a long time. Wonder how many DIS pictures he has been in? One day, I'm going to stop and 'interview' him for a trip report, since he's sort of famous!

We saw Snow White and all of her seven men at MNSSHP in October, but we didn't wait for pictures. One of these days, we will make it a point to do that, because that really is a rare opportunity.

 

[praisehisname]

I know you're not thrilled with your HalloWishes shots, but I think they're spectacular! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your night!

 

[norybell]

Writer: "I came up with a great song for the Halloween Parade". Give it a look
Boss: Reading..."Um, do you realize you are just repeating the Words 'Boo' 'to' and 'You' over and over again ad nauseum."
Writer: "Trust me. It's pure gold"
Boss: "Oh no. I thought you put the booze behind you. Are you having problems at home? Is there something I can do to help?"
Writer: "I'm serious with this. Look at the refrain for Small World"
Boss: "Ok true, you've got a point there." Long Pause "Alright, I'll give this a short leash but I'll take it to a focus group"

and the rest is history.

Now it is time for my version of the Boo to You song dedicated to this man. If you have never heard the real Boo to You song you may want to listen to it Youtube but be very careful it can get stuck into your head and don't say I didn't warn you.

Boo
to you
You've Blocked
My view
I have no Luck
and now I'm Stuck
With no great Wishes Pictures
due to you

Oh I just might scream

Boo
To You
You Need
A Clue
I Just might Cry
Oh why, Oh Why
Did you have to walk right
into my View

Welcome to the world of TR songwriting!

Your Hallowishes pics are amazing, unsurprisingly! My view for it ended up blocked, too...it sure is frustrating (even when you don't have photo-related aspirations).

 

[kdzbear]

Wow! Your Hallowishes shots are amazing! You have a great eye!

 

[Missus Toad]

Okay, I'm back! Very cool night shots all around. Especially love the first and last castle shots, although I do have a certain partiality to the Jack Sparrow parade shots... I can almost feel how frustrated you were with the interlopers during Hallowishes.

LOL at the Boo to You song. Is that a new song? I don't remember it from my last Halloween trip, which was like 2 years ago.

 

[Phil'sFrontier]

Great pictures.
If you cold only take 2 lenses with you which 2 would you take?

 

[clearskies]

Hello, I just got back from a great long Thanskgiving break away from home. Sorry I have been a little delinquent with TR updates.

That guy has been playing for a long time. Wonder how many DIS pictures he has been in? One day, I'm going to stop and 'interview' him for a trip report, since he's sort of famous!

Hi MeMom! I wish I had more time to sit and listen to him. I did hear 3 songs from him and he was incredible!! I play a little piano but I am not not even near the same league as he is. I'll keep an eye out for that interview

We saw Snow White and all of her seven men at MNSSHP in October, but we didn't wait for pictures. One of these days, we will make it a point to do that, because that really is a rare opportunity.

It did take up a larger chunk of our party time than I wanted but I was excited to get this chance. Now, if only they had a CM that could take a good picture it would have been even better.

I know you're not thrilled with your HalloWishes shots, but I think they're spectacular! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your night!

Thank you Denise! I wanted more of the castle in the shots but I am not as displeased with the results as it may have seemed in my writing. I was just being over dramatic.

Welcome to the world of TR songwriting!

Hi Nory! This will be my only foray into TR songwriting so I will spare you for the rest of this Trip Report. I most certainly don't have the creativity that you have to come up with so many amusing aong adaptations that you have in your TR

Your Hallowishes pics are amazing, unsurprisingly! My view for it ended up blocked, too...it sure is frustrating (even when you don't have photo-related aspirations).

Thank you Nory. I have been blocked in the past and now it is not as frustrating as the fist time time happened since it is not unexpected. For the most part I move past it and try to make the best of it or else I just stop trying and stand and enjoy the show. You have some nice photos yourself so don't sell your photo asiprations short!

Wow! Your Hallowishes shots are amazing! You have a great eye!

Thank you very much kdzbear Nice of you to say.

Okay, I'm back! Very cool night shots all around. Especially love the first and last castle shots, although I do have a certain partiality to the Jack Sparrow parade shots... I can almost feel how frustrated you were with the interlopers during Hallowishes.

LOL at the Boo to You song. Is that a new song? I don't remember it from my last Halloween trip, which was like 2 years ago.

Hi Missus Toad! I think the first fireworks shot I posted with the castle is my favorite. Well, not the one with the man and daughter. The one after that but I guess you could figure that out

Ok, I don't quite have the same excitement from Jack Sparrow but I can get where you are coming from based on swooning from others. Since you are a fan, here is something that I thought was amazing. Kdzbear resported in her TR that Johnny Depp actually appears sometimes as Jack Sparrow in the parade and he was there the night that she attended in Mid Sept. That is very cool.

This was my first time seeing Boo To You but I don't think the song changed. The first lyrics I posted were not from the very beginning of the song. I took them from an old post on this board where someone wrote out the lyrics of the entire song. Now, if you meant my modified lycrics then oh yes that is indeed a limited edition version

Great pictures.
If you cold only take 2 lenses with you which 2 would you take?

Interesting question. This could have many answers. First of all since I am a canon shooter I have lens choices limited to my cameras and I have not researched other brands so my answer is limited to canon lenses. Your mileage may vary.

If you mean which 2 lenses that I currently own then it would definitely be my 24-70 f/2.8 as the first choice and as my second I would first think that I would choose my 70-200 f/4 lens but looking back at my pictures I used my 300 mm f/4 more often so perhaps I would choose that as #2.

If however, I could be in my dream world and choose any 2 lenses irregardless of cost then I would probably opt for something very versatile like the 28-300 f/3.5-5.6 lens for #1 and then add as #2 a 50mm f/1.2. These 2 lenses would set me back over $4000 though so I don't see that happening though in any non-fictional trips of mine.

Any other hypothetical choices would be determined based on budgets. So the 2 choices could vary depending on how broke I hypothetically would want to be.

 

[clearskies]

We last left off at the end of Hallowishes. After the show ended, I called my family to see where they were and found they were back in Fantasyland so I quickly joined up. They had watched the show from back there and said it was amazing from there as well. I am pretty sure it was better from Main St though. They wanted to hit a couple more attractions but my son wanted to do more Trick or Treating. Since I am a model parent that would not think of getting in the way of pumping more sugar into my kids I told the rest to go ahead and I took my son off to some of the trails to collect more of the wholesome goodies being distributed.

We saw this guy along the way. This was another first encounter for us so we had to stop for a greeting.

After filling our bags up some more, I got a call that the others were done with the rides so we made our way back to them. Yikes, what was I thinking? I lost track of time and it was getting late and we didn't have a lot of time to get a spot for the parade. At this stage we were not going to try to attempt Main Street since we would be unlikely to find a decent spot there so we headed to Frontierland. Once again we were too late to get a really good spot but at least the kids and I were able to secure a spot by the rope so there were no people in front to block our view. I was a little bummed that we had already missed the headless horseman and since I could not see him on the first parade I was shut out on that front. Also, remember how I said previously that there were 2 nights I was praying there would be no rain and this was one of them. Up until now the powers that be held off but come on, did you really think I was going to get out of this night unscathed? There is no way that Mother Nature was going to let me go the whole night without some "rain on my parade" so she let loose the waterworks just before the second Boo to You started. It was a little more than just a sprinkle but at least it was not a hard rain.

I wanted to try pictures both with and without the flash during the parade and I attempted that for a while but it was far too much work for me to attempt to change my various camera settings back and forth. So, I ended up sticking with the using the flash. This second viewing confirmed to me that this is just one awesome parade! Dare I say perhaps even better than Spectro. The choreography, costumes, decorations and catchy music all add up to first rate entertainment. It was a heck of a lot of fun. And now without further ado I present Boo to You.

These guys were my favorites from the parade. The picture is not as good with the flash though.

I am reaching my picture limit so will finish up in the next post.

 

[clearskies]

Once the parade passed us by our group was ready to head out. I would have stayed longer myself but I was willing to go along with everyone. So we made our way to main street and realized we were following the parade. We got to the end of Main Street at the front of the park and realized that there was no escape route evident from our side of the street with the parade still running. So we got to see the end of the parade one more time. It was certainly not a heartbreak for me to see it one last time. This time I turned off the flash.

Once the parade passed us by the second time, someone in our group gave the "let's mosey on" command and we started heading out. after walking a bit I realized our son was not with us. Ugh, now we are caught up in a whole lot of people are heading to the exits and we have no idea where he is. Ok, after some slight panic based on fears of him getting lost in the streams of people heading out I did my imitation of a salmon and made my way upstream to where we were watching the parade and I found him there. Whew, good thing he stayed put there. Now we all make our way out.

Once we got back to the room my son dumped his treasure onto the bed. I assisted in this sugar overload by dividing whatever I had collected between the kids.

My kids are not actually huge candy eaters. I figured this loot will be around for a while once we get home and sure enough between this and the actual Halloween haul there is a big bucket of candy still waiting to be eaten.

We have now come to the end our day. All in all MNSSHP was an awesome event. I wish we could go when the crowds are not so large but school starts for us the Wed after labor day so that opening weekend is probably going to continue to be our only shot at it in the future assuming they keep to a similar schedule. I can see how some people actually spend 2 nights at this party. There was a lot more to see that we did not have a chance to get around to catching. We only had one character meeting, we did not go to any of the Character Dance Parties or the Villains Mingle and our crew only did a couple of attractions. The Parade and the Fireworks alone were incredible though and made it worthwhile. I did not feel we spent a lot of time Trick or Treating but the amount of candy at the end of the night seemed to suggest otherwise. Personally I would skip that and instead buy the kids some candy so that we could spend more time with other things there but I don't think the kids would sign up for that. I guess it is not the same when you don't earn it. So, even though there was a lot more we could have done I think the party was one of the highlights of our trip and I would absolutely do this again in a future trip.

 

[praisehisname]

Sounds like an awesome night, despite missing the Headless Horseman. I really want to do the MNSSHP party, and I'm pretty sure you've convinced me to add the MVMCP to this coming trip!

 

[Missus Toad]

Peeking out from under the weather to say how much I love your parade shots, both with and without flash. Amazing how the tone changes with/without. Gorgeous!

Your kids sound like mine with the candy-- more hoarders than eaters.

 

[clearskies]

Sorry I have been delinquent on this TR. It has been an awful week at work. I am actually on vacation today but working most of the day. Anyway I have a short update to post but first some replies.

Sounds like an awesome night, despite missing the Headless Horseman. I really want to do the MNSSHP party, and I'm pretty sure you've convinced me to add the MVMCP to this coming trip!

Our whole traveling clan truly enjoyed MNSSHP. I'll hopefully be able to attend the party on a future trip and will catch that Headless Horseman then. I am envious that you are heading down to see the Christmas decorations. I have never seen them but I would love to some day. I have no experience on MVMCP so I can't say whether it is good but I hope for your sake that you have a great time if you attend!!

Peeking out from under the weather to say how much I love your parade shots, both with and without flash. Amazing how the tone changes with/without. Gorgeous!

I am sorry to hear you were under the weather Missus Toad. I hope you are feeling better. I usually prefer to have no flash and it sure does make a difference. The lighting was not good enough though to keep it off and capture everything I wanted to. I was good to get a chance to do both.

Your kids sound like mine with the candy-- more hoarders than eaters.

Oh yes, they are definitely like yours in that respect. I have no problems with this. I can't say I had the same discipline when I was younger. I would usually overdo it on the holidays and then feel awful after the fact.

 

[clearskies]

Sorry but this is going to be a very uneventful day for you. Remember way back on Day 2 when I said there were 2 days in our trip where I would be spending time away from the Mouse. Well, we have arrived at the second such day. So, I don't have a heck of a lot to write about that will interest you for Day10. Today my SIL's family is checking out of the resort and both our families are driving up to Gainesville to visit some family. We won't be headed back to Pop until late at night and my SIL's family will be spending the night in Gainesville and then hitting the road for home the next day.

We had some time on our hands in the AM since we were not heading out until after lunch. It was good to let the kids sleep in since we just had a long and eventful night out with MNSSHP. SIL and BIL spent a fair amount of the AM packing all their things up for check out. I do not recommend that anyone who is not leaving but are approaching the end of their own trip spends too much time witnessing the departure of others. Watching them pack up and load the car caused the depression of the impending reality of our own doom to now hang over us. We only had one more full day of WDW entertainment left ourselves on Sunday and then the bell will be tolling for us as well. How does the time go so quickly when you are there? When you are first arriving and you see people leaving it is no big deal. You are thinking, "Shucks, too bad for you but we have plenty of fun ahead for us". Near the end of the trip this attitude changes dramatically to "oh no, you pour souls, that's soon to be us". Unfortunately with thoughts of heading back home came some extra baggage to me that I was going to have to face a tough week of work when I got back. The very next day after returning I was going to have to hop back on a plane and fly across the country for a set of meetings on the West Coast and I was not looking forward to it. I had our Disney vacation booked well before this business trip came up and had I known I would probably have cut the vacation short a day or two earlier just to give myself time to decompress at home before getting on a plane again. My Wife was also partially ready to go as well at this point since she had many things to do to get ready for the start of school. Don't get me wrong, we absolutely love our Disney time but now that the dread of the real world that was waiting to clutch hold of us again was looming heavily down on us, we started to think it may have been good to be heading out ourselves this day. Ugh, see how dangerous it is to your vacation psyche to watch people leaving as your time is drawing near. What the heck are we talking about? We still have a full day in the parks and Hoop De Doo Review coming. We can still shake this off and get ourselves back into vacation mode for one more day.

After the kids were up and SIL's car was packed they were not quite ready to hit the road yet. My BIL had promised their kids some arcade time and we had not checked that activity off the list yet. This is something I would not usually spend time with on vacation but this was a lost day anyway so I was 'game'. I spend most of the time reading though while the kids went off playing.

After getting some arcade time in we hit the road but we were going to stop for lunch first. Everyone else wanted to go to Pepper Market. I was not as keen on it but led the way over. This time I am sure they messed up one of our orders and it took me forever to get all the food. It was a lot more crowded given that it was a Sat on Labor Day weekend and they changed shifts with the cooks at one of the food stations after our order had been placed and I am pretty sure things got all mixed up as a result.

After lunch my SIL went to the gift store to cash in on her remaining snack credits. Since we had a ridiculous number of snack credits left ourselves (somewhere in the order of 30 snack credits for our family), my wife used a most of our credits up in the gift store as well to give loads of snacks to her sister to take back home. There was no way we were taking all that on a plane. Since they drove it was easier for them to schlep all this back.

Here is a pic of Panchito's (the gift store)

While they were emptying out the store I took a walk around the grounds get a better look at CSR. I figured we may need to stay here one trip since my wife likes the Pepper Market so much. It was very nice but boy it seemed spread out. I only took a couple of pics.

I am not going to go subject you to the rest of the day away from Disney. We had a very nice visit though. I am going to fast forward to late at night when we were returning back to Pop. This is where something scary happened for us. After the long drive back as we were getting close to the resort my son really had to hit the bathroom. We pulled into the lot at Pop that was the closest distance to our building and since it was late there were no spots open where I usually parked. My son asked if he could be left off while I looked for a spot to parked the car so that he could head to the room. I was reluctant and asked if he was sure he knew where he was going and to go straight to the room. He is 11 now so getting to a stage of more independence but I still have problems always accepting that. He assured us that he knew where to go so I gave in and handed him the room key. I parked and carried my daughter (who was sleeping) back the room with my wife by my side. When we got to the room and opened the door there was no one to be found. Immediately adrenaline kicks in and our parental alarms are blaring. I put my still sleeping daughter down into her bed and my wife and I proceed to run around like maniacs trying to locate our son. This seemed to go on for what seemed to be forever and the longer this goes on the more and more awful thoughts are popping into my head. Let me tell you, I can do a pretty darn good job with my imagination running rampant when stressful times arise. I headed back to the room to see if he was there and he was not but my daughter was now awake and worried about what was going on. So then I grabbed her and ran around some more like a madman with her in my arms. At least I was getting a lot of good exercise in. Eventually my wife came walking up with him and a wave of relief came over me. Here is what happened. When we let him out he thought he went to the right bowling pin building but he was one building short of where we were. They all do look the same, especially late at night. Since we always took the bus and not the car this trip we were coming from a different direction than what he was used to and he got confused. He kept trying to get into the room in the other building but could not get in with the key. Eventually one of the occupants opened up the door and told him this was not his room. We must have timed our running around oh so perfectly so that we just missed where he had been. He was making his way to the front to come from the direction that we usually traversed from the lobby when my wife found him. Nothing like a tremendous amount of stress before you head off to sleep!

OK, that's our day 10. Sorry I did not have too much to show. Coming up is our last full day (snif snif).

 

[praisehisname]

How scary! Glad your son was ok. That was pretty smart for him to go to the front of the resort and find his way.

 

[Lizziejane]

Lovin' your report and pictures! Can I ask - you mentioned on the previous post that you "turned the flash off" when shooting the nighttime parade. You did a great job on balancing flash with ambient, so that leads me to ask - did you use the built-in flash, or a speedlight? And if a speedlight, did you dial it back? We only go to WDW every 3-5 years - so I have to get it right first try!!