clearskies
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2007
- Messages
- 666
We were on our way to see our favorite Galactic Hero but my wife asked if we could stop for some laughs with Mike Wazowski first. She loves the Monsters Inc characters. We did our part to help fill up the container during the show. Hmm. that sentence sounds kinda strange. I guess you have to have experienced the show to understand. Mike needs to fill a container based on the audience laughter.
For some reason I had put a my photography on hiatus so I don't have anything to show here.
We got off and we headed to Infinity and Beyond. I had grabbed FPs earlier but it was not really needed. The ride was basically a walk on. This meant we had to take at least 3 spins around. My competition on this ride is my wife. She will not admit it but she is the competitive one. On Buzz, I am no expert but I am the leader of the pack in our family. One again I outscored the rest of the field this day. Oh, she'll make up for it later in the trip and teach me who's really boss when we get to TSM but the Space Ranger Spin didn't let me down.
After Buzz I wanted to make it back to finish up Fantasyland before we stopped for Dinner. You can't spend an entire day at Magic Kingdom and not see the best 3D experience in all of Disney. I don't think our family will ever tire of Philharmagic.
We were going to hit Small World next but something was not right. The wait was 30 minutes. They may claim it is the "happiest cruise that ever sailed" but if I am waiting more than 10 or 15 min for this ride there will be a lot of grumbling.
It soon became evident that we were getting tired and cranky. It was hot, my kids were fighting with each other and I was getting irritated after getting asked for the 5th time where we were eating dinner that night. It was about 5:30 PM and even though it was not that late we had a long tiring day. This was not going to work. I decided we needed to find a cool place to go sit down, get some drinks and relax for a bit. We needed to put the brakes on running around from one attraction to the next. So, we stopped at Columbia Harbor House and just sat to unwind. We had 6:30 reservations at Crystal Palace and I figured we were done for the day with attractions until possibly after dinner and we were just going to take it slow until then. We sat with some beverages in the AC and it certainly did me some good. After sitting for a while my son wanted to look at a gift shop so we headed over and browsed for a bit as we slowly made our way over to Crystal Palace. We ended up checking in 15 min early at CP and sat on the porch waiting. Luckily we got some seats on the bench. I decided to head to the locker to get my tripod out since after Dinner I wanted to get shots of the castle and wishes. I took a couple of photos on the way back on Main St.
I got back and my son was sitting with my wife and he was crying. On no, now what's going on. He had a headache and was not feeling well. This brought back a flood of bad memories from our last trip when he had a meltdown on our day at MK and spent dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern crying and miserable. I think he just gets over stimulated at MK and we pushed too much at him for one day. I decided then and there that we need to take it slower for the rest of the trip otherwise we are all going to be miserable. Sadly, as it turns out, I don't think we were cut out to be members of the elite rope drop club after all. It was a valiant effort on our part and I am proud of the family forgiving it the old college try but it does not seem right for us.
We got called in to the restaurant and my son was still not well. He sat wit his head down on the chair with me until a Chef came by to run me through the buffet to tell me what I can and can't eat. When I got back to the table I found that I missed Piglet. I had left my camera at the table and all you had to do was press the shutter button but no one tried to take any pictures so I was a bit disappointed. I sat with my son a while longer as my wife went to get some food for him and herself. My wife came back and he started to eat so I finally had a chance to get some food. However, while waiting on line my wife came by to tell me that Pooh was coming. Throwing around the word Pooh at a buffet doesn't sound quite right but at the Crystal Palace you can get away with it. Once again my food would wait as I headed back to the table and got some pictures. By now my son was starting to at least be in a better state of mind. I think eating helped. Now if I could only get some myself. Finally I was able to make my way through the buffet line and sit down to eat. Tigger came around and saw my son was wearing a Tigger shirt. Tigger made a big deal of it and I was so grateful to see my son smiling again. Thank you Tigger!
My quick review of Crystal Palace is that I would rank it as #2 of the 4 buffets that we ate at this trip. Most of the food was good. Not outstanding but good. There were a couple things I did really enjoy though.
After Dinner my wife said that she was going to take the kids back to Pop to rest and I should stay to take pics. I am very lucky since she is very good that way. I think she was pretty much done for the day herself so she was not sorry about leaving. In my grand plans I was going to have my son help photograph wishes with me but after all that has occurred it seemed best to get the kids back to the resort to rest. So, we went our separate ways and I headed over to Main street while the rest of the family headed back. I had a great spot next to a garbage can and I was going to get ready to set up my tripod for some castle pics when a came to a terrible realization. There is a
connector plate that I need in order to attach my camera to the tripod and it has gone AWOL. It should have been either on my camera or in my pocket. I had left it on the camera but earlier in the day I took it off so that I could use a monopod. Now it was nowhere to be found. I checked through all my pockets about 5 times. One would think after 2 times it is not going to show up but I kept checking as if it was going to magically appear. Ok, if it is not there it must be in my camera bag. I went though every compartment in the bag at least 5 times as well. Nothing. Now, I do have another device called a gorrillapod which I can use propped up on the top of the garbage can but my camera is a little too heavy for it and it is painful to adjust. Since you may not know what I am talking about here is a picture of the gorillapod.
I have used this in the past but when I did it was with my tripod head so that I could adjust it easier. This was not going to happen without my escaped plate. I figured I would try without the tripod head and I played around with the gorillapad for a bit while waiting for Spectro and took some pics. I was hoping for nicer late day skies. Last trip I was lucky to catch some beautiful skies at dusk with the castle but it was not to be this trip. Here are a couple pics I took.
While taking pictures I decided this gorillapod setup was just not going to work for me once Wishes started. It was too frustrating trying to make adjustments without a tripod head. so I decided I would stay and take pictures of Spectro and then move on. One would not typically use a tripod for Spectro so I was at least good to go for that.
Spectro is one awesome parade. I think it is the best parade they have in WDW with the possible exception of their special ticketed event parades which I had never seen before. I was going to catch the MNSSHP parade later in the week though so we'll see what that was like later in the trip.
I took this just before the parade started.
Now for the parade. Sorry if this is too many pictures for you but I do love this parade.
I am going to hit my limit for posting pics so I will finish the post-Spectro portion of the night in the next post...
For some reason I had put a my photography on hiatus so I don't have anything to show here.
We got off and we headed to Infinity and Beyond. I had grabbed FPs earlier but it was not really needed. The ride was basically a walk on. This meant we had to take at least 3 spins around. My competition on this ride is my wife. She will not admit it but she is the competitive one. On Buzz, I am no expert but I am the leader of the pack in our family. One again I outscored the rest of the field this day. Oh, she'll make up for it later in the trip and teach me who's really boss when we get to TSM but the Space Ranger Spin didn't let me down.


After Buzz I wanted to make it back to finish up Fantasyland before we stopped for Dinner. You can't spend an entire day at Magic Kingdom and not see the best 3D experience in all of Disney. I don't think our family will ever tire of Philharmagic.
We were going to hit Small World next but something was not right. The wait was 30 minutes. They may claim it is the "happiest cruise that ever sailed" but if I am waiting more than 10 or 15 min for this ride there will be a lot of grumbling.
It soon became evident that we were getting tired and cranky. It was hot, my kids were fighting with each other and I was getting irritated after getting asked for the 5th time where we were eating dinner that night. It was about 5:30 PM and even though it was not that late we had a long tiring day. This was not going to work. I decided we needed to find a cool place to go sit down, get some drinks and relax for a bit. We needed to put the brakes on running around from one attraction to the next. So, we stopped at Columbia Harbor House and just sat to unwind. We had 6:30 reservations at Crystal Palace and I figured we were done for the day with attractions until possibly after dinner and we were just going to take it slow until then. We sat with some beverages in the AC and it certainly did me some good. After sitting for a while my son wanted to look at a gift shop so we headed over and browsed for a bit as we slowly made our way over to Crystal Palace. We ended up checking in 15 min early at CP and sat on the porch waiting. Luckily we got some seats on the bench. I decided to head to the locker to get my tripod out since after Dinner I wanted to get shots of the castle and wishes. I took a couple of photos on the way back on Main St.


I got back and my son was sitting with my wife and he was crying. On no, now what's going on. He had a headache and was not feeling well. This brought back a flood of bad memories from our last trip when he had a meltdown on our day at MK and spent dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern crying and miserable. I think he just gets over stimulated at MK and we pushed too much at him for one day. I decided then and there that we need to take it slower for the rest of the trip otherwise we are all going to be miserable. Sadly, as it turns out, I don't think we were cut out to be members of the elite rope drop club after all. It was a valiant effort on our part and I am proud of the family forgiving it the old college try but it does not seem right for us.
We got called in to the restaurant and my son was still not well. He sat wit his head down on the chair with me until a Chef came by to run me through the buffet to tell me what I can and can't eat. When I got back to the table I found that I missed Piglet. I had left my camera at the table and all you had to do was press the shutter button but no one tried to take any pictures so I was a bit disappointed. I sat with my son a while longer as my wife went to get some food for him and herself. My wife came back and he started to eat so I finally had a chance to get some food. However, while waiting on line my wife came by to tell me that Pooh was coming. Throwing around the word Pooh at a buffet doesn't sound quite right but at the Crystal Palace you can get away with it. Once again my food would wait as I headed back to the table and got some pictures. By now my son was starting to at least be in a better state of mind. I think eating helped. Now if I could only get some myself. Finally I was able to make my way through the buffet line and sit down to eat. Tigger came around and saw my son was wearing a Tigger shirt. Tigger made a big deal of it and I was so grateful to see my son smiling again. Thank you Tigger!

My quick review of Crystal Palace is that I would rank it as #2 of the 4 buffets that we ate at this trip. Most of the food was good. Not outstanding but good. There were a couple things I did really enjoy though.
After Dinner my wife said that she was going to take the kids back to Pop to rest and I should stay to take pics. I am very lucky since she is very good that way. I think she was pretty much done for the day herself so she was not sorry about leaving. In my grand plans I was going to have my son help photograph wishes with me but after all that has occurred it seemed best to get the kids back to the resort to rest. So, we went our separate ways and I headed over to Main street while the rest of the family headed back. I had a great spot next to a garbage can and I was going to get ready to set up my tripod for some castle pics when a came to a terrible realization. There is a
connector plate that I need in order to attach my camera to the tripod and it has gone AWOL. It should have been either on my camera or in my pocket. I had left it on the camera but earlier in the day I took it off so that I could use a monopod. Now it was nowhere to be found. I checked through all my pockets about 5 times. One would think after 2 times it is not going to show up but I kept checking as if it was going to magically appear. Ok, if it is not there it must be in my camera bag. I went though every compartment in the bag at least 5 times as well. Nothing. Now, I do have another device called a gorrillapod which I can use propped up on the top of the garbage can but my camera is a little too heavy for it and it is painful to adjust. Since you may not know what I am talking about here is a picture of the gorillapod.

I have used this in the past but when I did it was with my tripod head so that I could adjust it easier. This was not going to happen without my escaped plate. I figured I would try without the tripod head and I played around with the gorillapad for a bit while waiting for Spectro and took some pics. I was hoping for nicer late day skies. Last trip I was lucky to catch some beautiful skies at dusk with the castle but it was not to be this trip. Here are a couple pics I took.


While taking pictures I decided this gorillapod setup was just not going to work for me once Wishes started. It was too frustrating trying to make adjustments without a tripod head. so I decided I would stay and take pictures of Spectro and then move on. One would not typically use a tripod for Spectro so I was at least good to go for that.
Spectro is one awesome parade. I think it is the best parade they have in WDW with the possible exception of their special ticketed event parades which I had never seen before. I was going to catch the MNSSHP parade later in the week though so we'll see what that was like later in the trip.
I took this just before the parade started.

Now for the parade. Sorry if this is too many pictures for you but I do love this parade.













I am going to hit my limit for posting pics so I will finish the post-Spectro portion of the night in the next post...