Trip Report *Food Update* The Get Out of My Way, Watch Your Child, Turn Your Flash Off & SHUT UP Trip Report!!!

Food Update here *Food Update* The Get Out of My Way, Watch Your Child, Turn Your Flash Off & SHUT UP Trip Report!!!


Wow, so I am just digging in here on this thing. Picture editing, camera issues, and pure laziness has had this on delay.

Before I get started though I want to say thanks to Tom (WDWFigment). He really has helped me in so many ways with camera questions, photoshop, lens stuff. Anything I asked he has been great and always willing to take a phone call from a disgruntled "photographer". Pretty much any great or good pictures you see...he knowing, or unknowingly had a hand in there some how. So in all seriousness...thanks bud.

Now a little bit about my upcoming trip (that already happened)...

Travel Dates were August 25th through September 7th.

We have a 6:30pm flight to leave Pittsburgh.

The stars of this show will be my fiance Colleen, and myself. There will be some guest appearances but you guys only are here because of me so screw them. HAHA no we will get to them once their spot come up.

Leading up to this trip the time FLEW BY. 1 year went by so fast that it's pretty crazy when I sit back and think about where all that time went. It seemed like 180 days was here in an instant. Then 100 days, then before I know it my Magical Express and Vouchers are in my mail box. Then I am on the airplane...

The flight was pretty interesting to say the least. I am not the most relaxed person so to speak when on an airplane. It's not my most favorite thing in the world to take part in...flying, that is. We were flying down as the Hurricane was flying up. So winds in Orlando were pretty wild, and the flight was pretty bumpy. Nothing CRAZY but still...the more smooth the better. With that said the captain kept giving us weather updates for Orlando saying it was windy and raining. We flew right in and touched down and there was no wind or rain. I was very happy about that.

So we exit the plane and walk over to the tram and this greets me...

Yeah so now I am pretty amped up at this point and I am starting to get that feeling that "Okay...we are here"

So off the tram and down to the Magical Express area. Now anyone who "knows" me or read my trip before you know that I am a huge fan of taking pictures of people who are doing weird things, wearing odd clothes, or speedos. Some of you are fans of it and some of you are not. I have said time and time that I do not look for this, if it presents itself I will snap it and so on. Well we are not even in line yet and something crazy presents itself...

Yeah this lady was dragging her child around on her luggage through the whole first level of the airport. Aint that like half a mile, or does it just seem like it? Anyways for the most part that is pretty much the only "people pics" I got. There are 2 or 3 more so I am sure that will have some of you on the edge of your seat biting your toe nails...

Anyways back to the adventure...

We are on the bus!!!

We arrived at All Star Sports and Nick was waiting for us at the front door. I quickly said what's up and ran to check in before everyone else. Online check in this time was pretty shocking. I walked up to the counter and everything was ready. Dude basically handed my packet and room keys and basically was like "peace dude". I was like ummm is that it?

Our room was located right on the first building outside the cafe on the left. Touchdown something...I forget. But to my surprised the football field was all fenced off. I am immediately ed. I go look and they have new turf down, painted plays all over the field. It looked pretty much like it was almost finished so I calmed down a bit. So we went to our room, put our carry on bags down and headed out the door to go to Planet Hollywood and to meet up with a buddy! We got to Planet Hollywood where we met up with Karen (MillerPoppins) who just happened to be hanging out in Orlando while we were there! Prior to leaving she messaged me and told me she would be down there for a good portion of our trip and she wanted to try The Crunch Chicken. I agreed to meet up with her after careful review. Turns out she was okay. My review was dead on and we are very happy to have got to meet her/know her.

After Planet Hollywood we said out goodbyes and discussed meeting up again and that was that. Nick dropped us off and I dragged Colleen back to the lake at Sports that I wanted to fish at. First we stopped at "The Tennis Court" because I wanted to get a picture of Donald with a new friend next to him...

After seeing the lake we walked back through the lobby for some stupid reason...

Here are a few room shots...

That concludes the first night....

More to come!

 

[blackthidot]

Day 2.

On our agenda today is the same thing we ALWAYS do. We eat somewhere in Epcot then hop the monorail to The Magic Kingdom. It's like a silent tradition we have or something.

We went outside and I was pretty pumped that I had a decent blue sky to get some photos with. This would NOT be a trend this trip. I could not wait to start popping with my new camera...

So now we are on the bus headed to the the other All Star Resorts and our bus is pretty full. We pull up to the first stop and the line is LONG. We were able to fit 2 people on the bus and the doors were closed and we were off to Epcot without even going to the third resort. Still think it's a better idea to stay at any All Star Resorts other than Sports? This happened ALL trip.

Finally we pull into Epcot! It's so awesome when you can first hear the entrance music. It's like...well....music to my ears!

We had an ADR at Via Napoli so we figured we would make our way around World Showcase and I could take some pictures as well...

This family could have probably found a better shirt color and logo to identify themselves to everybody with.

 

[LeafsFanNL]

Hi,

This should be a good TR. That was the day we flew down as well. What time did you get in. From your picture I'd say the evening. We landed at 7:30 pm and it was a choppy flight indeed. Looking forward to more

 

[goonie007]

Oh I know its going to be a good day when Black's TR comes up on my screen

Not going to be productive today and cant wait for more :wave:

 

[blackthidot]

Epcot was not really too crowded today. It was pretty hot out so it was good that Morocco was coming up because I have actually NEVER been inside any part of this place at all. I was looking forward to getting into some AC!!!

Morocco was actually pretty enjoyable. It was cool to go inside that little hut or whatever the heck it is and see artifacts and what not. It was also nice to be in there alone because 99.9% of the people who are at Epcot probably have no idea that you can go in there. I sure did not.

Okay over to Italy now...

I love it here. Anytime I come here I think about how much my Grandfather would have loved to have seen this. Before he passed and was in the hospital I gave him a picture of Colleen and I standing in front of Italy in Epcot and he really thought we were in Italy. So either he was in bad shape at that point, or WAY TO GO EPCOT! Ha.

Germany is awesome and it sucks at the same time if you like taking pictures. There is SO much to photograph which is good. The sucky thing is that once you're done you have like 33,984 pictures of trains, and a fake town, and a whole bunch of other stuff. Haha

 

[blackthidot]

Hi,

This should be a good TR. That was the day we flew down as well. What time did you get in. From your picture I'd say the evening. We landed at 7:30 pm and it was a choppy flight indeed. Looking forward to more

We landed at like 8:45pm I think...

 

[blackthidot]

Oh I know its going to be a good day when Black's TR comes up on my screen

Not going to be productive today and cant wait for more :wave:

Ha! Glad I can attribute to the down slide on productivity!

 

[blackthidot]

Now China is something I was looking forward to seeing. It would mark the first time we saw the movie here and I was pretty geeked to get some god pictures of the Tomb Warriors. I think I had success in that area...

I love the guy who looks like he is yelling something, or maybe he is singing..."How do you dooooooooo"

Mexico...

Test Track...

We LOVES us some Spaceship Earth so before we bounced we decided to get on it!

I have TONS more pictures of SSE from other trips to Epcot...Don't "worry"

 

[mickeysshoes]

Great report so far and the pictures are just awesome!! And yes, no work getting done here either!!:lol:

 

[blackthidot]

Great report so far and the pictures are just awesome!! And yes, no work getting done here either!!:lol:

I am on my lunch break now so you can do a bit of work! Haha

 

[WDWFigment]

My favorite part of this trip report is when you admitted how awesome I am. I'm betting it's all downhill from there...

 

[blackthidot]

My favorite part of this trip report is when you admitted how awesome I am. I'm betting it's all downhill from there...

Yes...I am REALLY going to have to make up for that at some point of this trip.

Maybe I am just a little emotional today or something? Either way it is true that you are awesome, and a dork at the same time though.

 

[LuLaSue]

Wonderful pictures! Thanks so much for sharing your trip, looking forward to more!

 

[LeafsFanNL]

Sigh..... as you folks read my TR, look at these pics instead of mine.

 

[blackthidot]

Haha LeafsFan I would not fre that much bud come on...

 

[mamamouse]

awe no pic with u guys n Karen,awesome report so far

 

[blackthidot]

Once we got to Magic Kingdom I stepped out onto Main Street to view The Castle and let "that feeling" (we all know what I mean) take over me. From an outsiders view of what I looked like I will try and describe it as what should have been going through a strangers head while glancing at me standing there...

Wow, dude looks like he LOVES life right now. He really looks like he has waiting so long to stand in that spot and feel this moment.

And that is how I felt for like 4 seconds and I will explain why it lasted about 4 seconds in a minute here. But yeah when you walk under that tunnel you anticipate SO many things. You can't WAIT to see Town Square. Most of all you can't wait to catch first glimpse of The Castle. The rest of your visits on your trip don't compare to seeing it for "the first time" of your trip. It seems so distant, so surreal.

Well as I am sitting there trying to take all of that in and control my emotions to a point I can hear from behind me "Can I help you"

Now as I am turning around I am thinking to myself this HAS to be someone I know. But when I turn around its a photopass guy. So I said no man I am good just soaking this up right now. "Oh okay that is good because you looked like you needed something" Ha no thanks man...I am just having my first view of The Castle moment of this trip. "I see, I see. So you have been here before" Now at this point I want to beat the snot of out him because I nicely and as polite as possible I told him I was having a moment and to pretty much leave me alone and he kept going on and on. I just kind of looked at him with a look like I was looking at someone and thinking to myself Wow you really just said THAT to Mike Tyson? So that whole part of my trip...a part I really look forward to was pretty much beat.

After that I had one thing on my mind. Haunted Mansion. Few reasons. 1 it has some new stuff that I was able to not accidentally or purposely see or watch on youtube or anything. 2 I could not wait to try this lens on my new camera. So here we are...

These two are pretty freaking creepy...

The endless Hallway...

Now not to toot my own horn here but this next photo of the Hitchhiking Ghosts is a pretty good one, and here is why. Once I uploaded it to my iPhone I sent it to Tom and he seemed really impressed with it and told me it was a tough picture to get. I shot one picture of it, on my first ride and got it. So I am thinking I can do that like 40 more times. Between this photo below and the next one I post later on it took about 40 more shots to get another good one. That is something I learned all trip with this camera is that just because you have a VERY expensive camera in your hands you still have to work hard to get good pictures. It won't just do it for you. That said here are the ghosts!!!

 

[blackthidot]

awe no pic with u guys n Karen,awesome report so far

Karen refused to wear clothes when we all hung out so I am pretty sure I would have got banned for posting those pictures...but I DO have them! You should see guests in the background faces...

 

[blackthidot]

I really do not have a great recollection of all the things we did and said in between that Haunted Mansion ride and getting ready for Wishes. That is pretty much going to be a theme with this trip report. I did not keep track of anything except our food costs. So I remember stories and some other stuff that happened but for the most part I was concerned with my picture taking!

I DO know we rode Splash Mountain in between HM and Wishes though!

After that we headed to Main Street for Wishes and I stopped to take a quick picture of the Castle from the bridge leading to Liberty Square...

You see the most fantastic magical things can happen and it all starts with a wish...

Pretty happy with how my first shoot of Wishes went. I learned on some screw ups that I had and I promise it will be better at some point in this report!

 

[ProjectGemini]

Great Pictures and great report so far! Can't wait to see the rest....Do you guys always use the bus system at All Star Sports, or do you rent a car as well?