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

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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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.
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Now for the parade. Sorry if this is too many pictures for you but I do love this parade.
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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...
 
After Spectro I decided to head to the camera shop on main street to see if they sell any tripod heads. Talk about wishful thinking. When I got in I realized this was going to be fruitless but I asked a CM there anyway. No sir, we don't sell anything like that. I got out of the store and since I didn't already check my pockets and camera bag enough already I went through everything a couple more times. It was a goner. I can deal with missing wishes pictures tonight since I figure I will be back in the week but not being able to use my tripod for the trip was just not going to fly. I figure I am going to have to go out shopping over the next couple of days.

Since I was not going to attempt to photograph wishes from Main Street I decided to get away from the crowds and head to other lands. I stopped in tomorrow land first and took a picture

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Then I made my way over to Fantasyland. I have a picture of this later in the trip that I think I like better but here is the teacups.

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By the time I was in Fantasyland Wishes had started and I decided to just sit there and enjoy watching. This is an awesome place to watch the show if you want to get away from the crowds. It was quite empty. It is still not the same to me without the castle in front but it was still a great show. I eventually decided I may as well take out the gorillapod and take some pictures. Since I did not have to keep adjusting to avoid people's heads I could be more patient with it. I propped it up on a garbage can and took these.

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After wishes was done I was done also. I decided to head back to Pop. On the way out I took a couple more pictures.

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I got back to the Pop and was too tired to do much besides download my photos and charge my batteries. Then I went to sleep to charge my own batteries. I was excited about our next day at AK. We had a special event planned.
 
popcorn:: Subscribed! Beautiful pictures! I'm loving your trip report!! :goodvibes
 

Whoa, that was some update!

I know what you mean about the happy CMs-- I've only encountered one who was not happy with his job and he came out and said so. It was the strangest conversation ever, and it was with a monorail driver! During our May trip, we rode up front just about every chance we got, and uniformly, every driver was thrilled with his work. They just raved about it and you could see that they meant it. Then we met Grumpy. An older guy who was a straight up crank without an ounce of pixie dust in him. And it wasn't just a bad day because later in the week we got him again and he was still sour. We still laugh about him because he was such an odd duck.

So many great ride photos this go round, I don't know where to begin. Top three: the elephant, the Injun Joe sign, and teacups (can't wait for the other photo you like better).

The Spectro pics were awesome and the Wishes shots were great, especially for not having a fully functional tripod. I found that Fantasyland was a fun place to watch the show, but after a while I got tired of looking back and forth from the castle to behind Pinocchio's. I think the hub, crowded as it is does have its advantages as far as that goes.

Oh, and loved the saga of the contact lens-- too funny!
 
jjzmgailey,
Thank you. I am thrilled to have more people interested. I have some great picture still to show. I hope you hang in with me.

SingLikeAriel,
I appreciate your comments as well. I know what you mean. I am ready to go back again and it has only been a month for me :)

and My Friend MissusToad
You and I have similar tastes when you point our your favorite pictures.
I totally agree on watching Wishes from Main Street. It is not the same without the castle in front. I have some more Spectro pictures coming up that I really like because I had a better vantage point. I hope you like them as well.
 
Day 4 was going to be an exciting day. We have plans for something that many people aren't lucky enough to experience. We have a Grand Gathering Safari Dinner planned. We are going to get a slower and more informative tour of the Animal Kingdom safari. This is going to be so much better than the fly by shooting we are used to. Instead of being jerked around in my seat as I try fruitlessly to get pictures of animals as we bounce along the safari road I am going to have the opportunity to get some stellar pictures. The ride usually involves me putting one of my big white lenses on my camera to get it nice and heavy so that it hurts more when I bounce it into my face and we bump along our way. My eye socket will be so much more grateful after the Grand Gathering Safari event. It's also going to be late in the day so more animals are going to be out strutting their stuff. Well, these were at least all my thoughts when I woke up that day. We'll see what the reality was as we get into the day.

I was not going to rush to get anyone up early today. No need for a repeat performance of yesterday's show. I let everyone get up on their own terms. By the time we are up and ready to go it was a little after 9AM. Not too bad. We checked on our next door neighbors. My SIL and BIL were not ready to rumble yet but their kids were raring to go so we took them ahead with us and my SIL and BIL will catch up later. We make it to the park at about 9:45AM.

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Since we were not rushing I stopped to take some pictures of the Tree of Life.
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I wanted to hit the safari first. We'll be able to compare the experience that most people are constrained to endure to our special safari later. I tell my Wife to take the kids and I will meet them at the KS entrance while I go get FP for Expedition Everest. This central Fast Pass system near the tree of life is the best. I was able to get the FPs and make it over to the Safari in no time flat. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. I called my wife's cell phone but no answer there. She is just horrible with her cell phone but I have become accustomed to this. Her cell phone seems to only be a means for her to contact me not the other way around. I finally got a call but it was my SIL. They were in the park now. Wow much quicker that I thought. I told them to head on over to the safari and we'll wait for them (whenever the rest of our crew comes). Eventually I see my stragglers walking up. They have some drinks in hand. Apparently there was need of bathroom breaks and a refreshment stop. That's all good we are not rushing today. Then we see my BIL and SIL and we are all accounted for so we head in.

Here are some pics from this standard safari.

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Unfortunately the lion is sleeping. I am hoping he is going to be putting on a better show later in the evening
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After the safari, we decide to walk through the Pangani Forest trail. First I wanted to get a picture of the waterfall. This is where the scariest part of our trip occurred. Actually, make that the second scariest. We'll get to the scariest later in the trip. I took out that gorillapod (we talked about that contraption in Day3) and I attached it to my camera and proceeded to wrap it around a fence post. I was trying to get it stable when my son came by with my other camera which I gave to him to use on the safari. He didn't want to carry it around anymore and wanted to give it back. I told him to please hold it and I will get it later but he was done carrying it around and wanted to get rid of it. So I stupidly turned from what I was doing to get the camera from him when I heard a thud. My heart dropped because I knew what it was. My precious 5DMarkII camera that I was trying to set up using the gorillapod fell from the fence post down to the path. To make it worse, it had my favorite lens on it which also happens to be one my most expensive lenses. I got angry and told my son to go to his mom and move ahead and I'll catch up with him later. Then I thought better and walked over and told him it was not his fault and that I should have know better and I was not angry with him but at myself. This was so reminiscent of earlier in the summer. We were fortunate to be able to take a trip to Utah at the end of June. My son had one of my old camera bodies and at the time I had given him this same lens. On one of the trails in Arches National Park he was not wearing the camera strap around his neck (which is my number one rule for him) and he dropped the camera on the trail. The lens was shot for the rest of the trip. The glass was Ok but it had a filter on it that smashed and the filter threads were damaged on the main lens so it was done for the trip. The canon service center and I are going to be on a first name basis. I am in disbelief that this is happening again. I proceeded to pick up the camera and looked it over. The body did get some scratched up a fair amount up in one corner. The lens seemed to be ok. I played around with it for a while and it seemed to be working ok. I took a couple of pictures and everything seemed functional. Wow, it looked like there was no serious damage this time. I was extremely fortunate.

By the way, I highly recommend Utah or that area of the country if you want to be treated with breathtaking scenery. It is a photographers dream. The skies are also amazing unlike the August skies in Florida. Ok, this portion of the trip report was brought to you by the Utah Board of Tourism. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

So, here is the pic I was trying to get before my near tragedy.

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We then proceeded through the rest of the trail.

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This guy did not want to be social today
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After this, the crew is starting to get hungry already. It was not quite 11:30 but if they wanted to stop to eat I was ok with it. There is really only one CS choice for us at AK and that of course is the Flame Tree. My plan was to head to Flame Tree, get the food to go and bring it to Pizzafari were we can sit in the AC to eat. I tell the others I will go ahead and get FP for Kali and then meet them at the Flame Tree.

BIL: "Ok but how are we going to get food when you have all our tickets."
Me: "Don't worry, I'll be there before you get there"
Wife: "He speaks the truth"
and off I go.

I got the FP and was waiting at Flame Tree well before anyone else. I took a couple pics while waiting until my wife and SIL walked up. My BIL and the kids had already stopped at Pizzafari to sit and wait for the grub. We check out the menu but I already knew that I was getting. There is no other option, it has to be the ribs. There is no sauce on them so I can eat them and they are tasty. It is also a requirement that I get the onion rings. My cholesterol will probably double from this meal but hey it's vacation I am allowed to abuse my body. Last time we went I could get the rings as a snack credit but I was denied this time. No matter, they are still a must. The others get their orders in and we made our way over to the rest of our party.

It was nice to cool off and eat in Pizzafari. I had never been in there but I was impressed with the themeing.
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After eating we were going to head to the Lion King but the next show was not playing for some time so instead it was time to get wet. One slight problem though, my SIL and BIL are not signing up for that. Getting wet was not on their agenda. Their kids were all for it though. So, on the way over I checked the schedule and saw that Flights of Wonder is starting in 30 min. Ok good, we'll take their kids and meet them in 30 min at the FOW show. I am not about to bring my camera out for this adventure. So sorry, I don't have anything to show you. We all had a great time on the ride and I stayed remarkably dry. The kids wanted another go at it but we had to get to the show so I told them I would grab more FP and we'll come back after the FOW show. We made it to the show just as it was starting. My SIL and BIL were in the back section so we joined them. I would have rather have been up closer to the stage but I guess I could not expect them to save seats for all of us so I understand why they are there. It is not really at an optimal place for pics though. I still enjoyed the show though. After the show you can make your way down for a closer look. Here are some of the stars of the show.

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Next we are ready to Ride Kali again. Since SIL and BIL still want no part of it I directed them to Expedition Everest and we'll catch up after. This time we sat in the boat with another family all decked out in ponchos. You know how this story goes. The water gods keep them unscathed and they dumped all the water on us. Fortunately we had a change of clothes.

After Kali we meet up with SIL and BIL and asked how EE went. I have never been on this and I am determined to give it a try this trip. Remember, I am a big chicken. SIL says it was too intense for her and she threw up afterwards. Yikes, did you just say what I think you said!! Now, I am starting to get worried about this ride. She says she is not subjecting her kids to this and since her daughter is more of a thrill seeker than my kids I decide it is a no go for my kids as well. I am still going to brave it though with my wife. We send the crew off to the Boneyard while my wife and I head to find the Yeti. Sorry, there will be no photos on this either. This is my first time and I want the full experience. The ride was done in a flash. It was not actually as bad as I feared. It was pretty darned fast but I expected worse and the drops were not bad either. I actually did not mind going backwards either and I think it is easier than forward drops. I didn't think my kids would have fared well on this though so I am glad we did not take them.
 
Oooh-- AK Day! We skipped AK on our May trip, so I'm especially enjoying your photos, and wow they are nice! Top 3 this round? The giraffes and big-horned things, the elephant (I just love the light on his fuzzy head), and the fish. There are some amazing bird shots though, and I love the texture of them. Oh, and that sweet rhino! The waterfall shot was also great, although I can imagine the panic that ensued with the dropped camera! :scared1:

What is the central FP thing you referred to? Is this something new? I feel so out of it. I ask mainly because I am our family's designated FP runner too, and any info that saves a few hurried steps is gold. Glad you enjoyed EE!
 
Thank you again for your comments Missus Toad.

I love AK. Some people don't consider it full day park which is true if you are only interested in rides but if you take some time to explore the trails and attend the shows there is a lot to see. I only wish it did not close so early. It would also be great if they added some type of nighttime entertainment.

Of course I love taking pictures of the animals. BTW I believe the animals with the big horns on the safari are Watusi.

The central FP machine are a set of FP machines by the tree of life. Each machine will dispense FP tickets for one of the FP attractions in the park. Depending on where you happen to be at the moment it can save you a lot of time running around. The should put a set in every park.
 
After catching up with by BIL and SIL at the boneyard I tried to convince them to go to Dinosaur while we watched the kids. Actually our kids were off playing and we were just sitting by the entrance so we were really just watching other people's kids playing nearby not ours. Anyway, Dinosaur is one of my favorite rides in Disney World. Try as I might to convince BIL and SIL to go, they wanted to just sit and relax and watch other people's kids. I think the EE ride did them in and they were still recouperating. No need for all of us to sit and watch other people's kids so my wife and I headed over ourselves to catch an iguanodon. I figured it would be too scary for the kids so we left them playing in the Boneyard (Our kids as well as the ones we were watching). Now, I will whine like a ninny about Peter Pan being a tough Ride to photograph but that is somewhat because even though it is very difficult conditions I think that I should be able to achieve something decent. The problem there is that I am just too inept to capture it. When is comes to Dinosaur I have no pretense that I stand a chance. This ride is too dark, too fast and too jerky for me to think that I can come away with anything worthwhile. So, my Dinosaur pictures are limited to the outside of the ride.

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After the ride it is time to see our favorite clownfish and friends. The Nemo show is top notch in my book. The way they incorporate the puppets is similar to the Lion King on Broadway. The Lion king is much more elaborate but for Theme Park entertainment I think Nemo is outstanding. As we were about to go in, my son asked for a snack. I asked the CM by the entrance if food was allowed and he said no. Then to my surprise he said if I go get something and put it in my backpack then no one will be the wiser. Huh, is he trying to trick me? This was an older CM also and not a young kid. I must say after talking to him more he was an extremely nice man. I sent the family ahead and went on my stealth mission to Dinoland in search of contraband. I looked around but there wasn't anything good for me to smuggle in. There was popcorn but I was not about to take that in. I was running out of time so I headed back empty handed and unsuccessful. I found my crew seated in the very last row of the main seating section. I related to my family that I am an utter failure but they forgave me. Now on to the show. I was a little bummed to be so far back but you can still see well and as it turned out I put on my 300mm gem of a lens and got some great shots.

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This is one of my favorites
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As the show was ending we didn't waste any time to get out since we had to make it across the park to our favorite live show in WDW, the Lion King. We headed to Discovery Island and ran into a snag. The parade was going through. We started to navigate through the crowds but the kids wanted to get a better view of the parade. I checked my watch and we had some time to spare so we stopped to watch the parade go by. We were a little bit back in the crowd but I managed to get some good shots by balancing myself on the base of a light post. We had never seen this parade and I was glad that we stopped. I never really put this parade on my agenda but I came away thinking it was better than I expected it to be. I loved the colors in the parade. While tettering on the lightpost in between periods of falling off I fired off some good shots.


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We are off to the Lion King next...
 
It's funny how I keep happening upon your updates, and I'm glad because I'm enjoying this TR so much. The photos really put it over the top in my book.

I love the Nemo show. One of the very best things about AK. The puppeteers are so talented and expressive in every way, and the production design is wonderful. Your photos really captured that beautifully.

Those parade shots are terrific. The one of Pluto is my fave of the bunch-- it just makes me happy to look at it. :goodvibes

I don't blame you for not even trying on Dinosaur. That thing is a menace. I had never outright hated a ride until I got on that seizure machine. Of course, later I would experience the Tiki Room Under New Management and Stitch's Great Escape, and I became more familiar with the sensation of attraction loathing... (and yes, I know that could be taken as an oxymoron, but you know what mean) :lmao:
 
WOW!!! You are a fantastic photographer! You've done a great job with the fireworks and spectro. Can't wait to see what else you've captured!
 
You really are an amazing photographer! Wow! The Nemo Musical pics are truly amazing! :goodvibes I really love all your photos ~ they're awesome!
 
Hey, I learned how to use multiple quotes tonight :)

It's funny how I keep happening upon your updates, and I'm glad because I'm enjoying this TR so much. The photos really put it over the top in my book.
Thank goodness for you MissusToad. I have not sparked too much other interest. Thank you for letting me know someone is reading this.

I love the Nemo show. One of the very best things about AK. The puppeteers are so talented and expressive in every way, and the production design is wonderful. Your photos really captured that beautifully.
I was very pleased with the way these came out. I totally agree on the talent in this show.

Those parade shots are terrific. The one of Pluto is my fave of the bunch-- it just makes me happy to look at it. :goodvibes
I also agree on the Pluto shot. I wish I had a better vantage point for the parade. Next time I will plan time in for this.


I don't blame you for not even trying on Dinosaur. That thing is a menace. I had never outright hated a ride until I got on that seizure machine. Of course, later I would experience the Tiki Room Under New Management and Stitch's Great Escape, and I became more familiar with the sensation of attraction loathing... (and yes, I know that could be taken as an oxymoron, but you know what mean) :lmao:
I actually love the Dinosaur ride but not for photography. I am right there with you on Stitch though. I had to subject myself to it twice on my previous trip since my son wanted to see it again. I made sure to avoid it at all costs this trip.

WOW!!! You are a fantastic photographer! You've done a great job with the fireworks and spectro. Can't wait to see what else you've captured!
Kris74, thank you so much that is very kind of you to say. I think I have a lot more to show that you will hopefully enjoy. Stay tuned.
 
You really are an amazing photographer! Wow! The Nemo Musical pics are truly amazing! :goodvibes I really love all your photos ~ they're awesome!

Sorry, I did not see your reply jjzmgailey. Thank you again . The Nemo photos are probably my favorite from AK that day. I am so happy that others are enjoying the pictures.
 
Thank goodness for you MissusToad. I have not sparked too much other interest. Thank you for letting me know someone is reading this.

No thanks necessary. The pleasure is mine, and no doubt many more will join us as the TR progresses! Keep up the great work. :thumbsup2
 
Hi Missus Toad,
Sorry, it has been a busy week at work. I have an update coming up now though......
 
We left off last at the end of the afternoon parade in AK. As soon as the last float came through we immediately headed to the Lion King theater to catch the last showing of the day. The kids found a merchandise stand along the way that also had some small bags of snacks. Since I failed them as a provider earlier in my mission to get a snack before the Nemo show I wanted to get them something now. They opted for some small mickey pretzels so I got them a couple of bags while the others headed for a bathroom break before the show. It is somewhat a waste of a snack credit to get a 99 cent bag of pretzels but we have so many of these snack credits to use that there is no remorse in blowing through a couple of them on this. This meal plan throws an awful lot of food your way and we are not big eaters so I figure we are going to have a boatload of snack credits left over by the end of the trip. After we are all ready to head in, we made our way into the theater and it was not at all crowded. I guess that most people have seen the show already and the last show of the day does not get a big draw. Every single time we have gone to this show we get directed to the Elephant section and this time was no different. We headed on over to our usual section. I wanted to be close to the stage but the rest of the crew wanted to go up to the very last row. I decided to let them head on up and I sat a few rows from the floor. This is an outstanding show.


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After the show I wanted to grab my tripod out of the locker so that I would have it for after the dinner. I have admired late pics of the park when EE and the Tree are lit up and I was hoping to get some nice pics myself. Even though my tripod head plate was sadly AWOL I devised a way to I wrap my gorillapod around my tripod legs for a makeshift tripod head. I was going to be very careful with this though. We already saw what damage I can inflict on my camera through spectacular acts of stupidity on my part. My Wife wanted to dump some extra things into the locker as well so my wife, son and I headed off to the lockers while I sent the rest of our crew to the Maharaja Jungle Trek to kill some time before we needed to check in for the safari celebration. Since we had to check in at the Flights of Wonder Theater and the Jungle Trek is close by it seemed like a good place to go. On the way out of Camp Minnie Mickey We saw these guys along the way and I thought they waved hello to us so I had to take their picture.

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I think Donald has been on the trail too long. He looks like he needs a bath.
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We got to the locker and let me tell you, a Disney miracle happened. While taking some things out of the locker something fell out to the ground. I picked it up and it was my long lost plate from my tripod head. It decided life on its own was too harsh and it came back to me!! Ok, I know what you are thinking. Sure, I do. You think it was caught up in something else on a bag or clothing or something like that and then it got dislodged. ok, I can see how you might think that but let me tell you instead that it was pure and simple Disney magic that brought it back to me ;-)

By the time we caught up with the rest of our crew they were done walking through the jungle trek. My BIL and SIL told us it was a bit of a waste of time because all the animals were sleeping and there is nothing much to really see. We have nowhere else to go though before it is time to report in so my wife, son and I headed in while they sat and relaxed outside. Fortunately for us a lot of the animals must have woken up when they saw us coming. They couldn't resist the photo op.

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ok, perhaps he does look a little tired
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I love the this bat picture
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A CM along the path started talking to me about cameras and photography. We talked for a while until I realized it was time to check in. So we bid adieu to him and headed on over to the FOW theater where everyone else was collecting. They had created groups of people and named the groups after animals. We got put into the Giraffe group with 2 other families of 8. We still had to wait around a bit for other people to arrive so While waiting I walked to the water and took some pictures of the tree of life from a distance.

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We eventually were corralled into the theater in our tour groups and did some intros with our Guide. We were asked what we are celebrating. Um, do we have to be celebrating something? My daughter whose birthday was earlier in the month decides we are celebrating her birthday. Ok, sure why not. Then my niece adds that her birthday which was 2 weeks earlier than my daughters is being celebrated as well. yeah, why not. Then my son adds that we are celebrating his birthday. Um, isn't that in November? Ok, but we'll keep my late September birthday off the list. I think we got the celebrations covered at this point.

Next our hostess Mama Dacia comes out and welcomes us all and gives us an intro spiel. She gave us details of the course of events and gave a good build up to get us excited to start. She was an entertaining hostess.

Here is our mama for the night
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We all got a special Disney Grand Gathering pin. I had known this was coming but it was a good surprise for the rest of the crew. I have not been sucked into the pin trading craze but my wife and kids have a great time with it.

I took this picture afterwards to give you an idea of what the pin looks like. I imagine they had a different pin for each animal group since ours had giraffes on them.

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I am going to hit my picture posting limit so I will continue in the next post....
 
Now for the actual Safari. I have been building up excitement for this all day. We left the Flights of Wonder theater and headed off on our groups for the start the safari at around 7PM. I was raring to go. The same vehicles that are used for the daytime safari are used for this safari as well. As we are driving through I was thinking hmmm, this is not as leisurely as I was hoping. There were a few times where we were moving off quickly before I could get a decent photo off. We did pause a little longer than the daytime safari in spots but it didn't seem a heck of a lot longer. I didn't time the duration of this but afterwards I thought that I would look at timestamps on my photo files and compare the daytime safari to this one. I can't match up photo spots exactly but I figure our safari from earlier was about 17 minutes and this one was maybe 20 minutes. Good grief Charlie Brown. So we basically bought ourselves a few more minutes of time with this. I'll admit that I expected a little more. The other perk of having more animals out and about was not the case either. Instead of a sleeping lion from the AM we had a spectacular view of a rock and that was it. They were nowhere to be found. The rhinos also had ended their work shift and headed home for perhaps a cocktail and then dinner. I don't expect Disney to be able to control which animals are seen but it would have been nice if there was more. Perhaps they can plop down some fake animals that look like they are sleeping that we could ooh and ah at. This is Disney, they can do magical things. Now, I will say that one plus is that we did get the opportunity to get more info from the guide and ask questions and it was a bit more informative but only a tad.

Here are some of my pictures.

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Hey can one of you turn around please
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Thank you
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After the safari it was time to head to Tusker House for their celebration dinner. This was a buffet and I was hoping it would be similar to a scaled down version of Boma. I think Boma may be the best buffet that we have had in WDW and I have seen Tusker house described as a Boma-lite. Perhaps the grand gathering buffet is different from their normal buffet but I don't think it was even close to Boma. Actually, I would rank this meal as the worst we had on the trip. Don't get me wrong though. The food was certainly not bad or inedible. There was plenty to eat and it was all ok. So saying it is bad is doing it an injustice, It just was not as good as other meals that we ate on our trip. The others in our party agreed as well. Perhaps another factor was that after 3 consecutive days of eating at buffets we also were getting "buffeted-out". Good thing we will be taking a break from buffets for the next couple of nights after this.

They did have some music to entertain us and the kids enjoyed that.

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Also some special guests came to join the party and danced with the kids for a short time and then lined up for autographs and photo ops.

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Lastly, there were a couple of small animal exhibits (very small). One was spiders and the other was this animal but I did not catch what it was and I can't say it was captivating.

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Overall, I think this not-so-Grand Gathering event suffered from inflated expectations on my part and a subsequent let down when it did not live up to them. Looking back on what I wrote I think I sounded awfully negative on this and it was not at all a bad experience. I did not come away from this angry and cursing at Disney for duping me into a second rate event. Instead I was just somewhat disappointed. Had I paid $60 per person for this instead of giving up 2 meal credits I may have been singing a different tune though. However, the pin was a good benefit, the safari was indeed a tad bit longer and the party afterwards was nice even though the food was not spectacular, oh and another plus was that the tip was included. We probably won't give up 2 credits for this in the future though and I doubt I would ever lay out the cash for this.

While the rest of the family was finishing dessert I took off a little early in hopes of getting some of those late pics in the park. Unfortunately there were CMs manning the paths and directing people who had left towards the exit. I did stop to take a couple pics but it was not what I hoped for. No one gave me a hard time but I did not want to linger too long and I had to stay on the paths that led to the exit. There are better vantage points that I hope to one day see at night during a PM EMH on a future trip.

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Oh, one last perk was that they had busses waiting to transport us to whichever resort we were headed to. We had our own private bus back to Pop. Though we headed back to the resort, my night was not over. More to come..
 












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