Daddy and Daughter trip again with Mom This Time

For those of you who remember us from last year, you know that my daughter and I are true Disney nuts and it has become our end of summer, before school starts, blowout time together. Last year, my wife decided to stay home. I didn’t go into any great detail as to why, but it was due to her having horrible bouts of vertigo. It was to the point, she couldn’t ride anything. As this year progressed and the plans for this trip started to take shape, my wife decided she wanted to come this year and went to see her physician for something to help with her issue. She was able to get a plan from the doctor which ended up working great. Another twist to the trip was that we would drive down to Disney. This was a huge stretch for me as I’m not a huge fan of long drives, especially not 12 hour ones. I’ve had a lot of people tell me it wasn’t horrible and I figured I would at least give it a try. Our home away from home was going to be the Boardwalk and all of us were pretty excited to go. A week before the trip we added some extra folks with my sister in law and her niece meeting us there.
So after a Thursday night of loading the car up and a few hours of sleep, we began our journey at 2:00 am. This was well planned on my point as I thought my wife and daughter could sleep for a good portion of the trip through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Well, that was the initial thought. As we drove from one side of Louisiana to the other, I would look in the rear view mirror to see my daughter watching movies on my Ipad. Luckily, by the time we reached Mississippi, she dozed off and for the next few hours it was very quiet and the time and miles actually passed pretty quickly. By the time we reached the Florida border everyone was back awake and we pushed on until we reached Orlando. The total drive time ended up being right under 12 hours and we pulled into the Boardwalk about 3 in the afternoon. We checked in and got to see the 1 bedroom DVC that would be our home for a week. If you have never stayed at the Boardwalk, the rooms are truly amazing.
The original plan was to rest for a few hours and then head to Magic Kingdom for the evening and extra hours. As you can imagine, an 8 year old back at Disney after a year was ready to go. So off we went to the bus stop to catch a ride to the kingdom.

 

[joanna71985]

Can't wait to read more

 

[Dawg4Mickey]

great start to your trip. Can't wait to see what happens next.

 

[everestnut]

So we left off at heading to the Magic Kingdom. As some may know, I picked up photography again once we started going to Disney again and my plans on this trip, along with riding everything my daughter wanted to ride, was to reshoot a lot of the parks. I normally travel pretty heavy with gear and this was no exception having countless lenses, 2 DSLR bodies, tripods and miscellaneous gear packed in a large backpack bag. Once there, I pack a smaller sling bag with the gear I’ll be using that day. I knew MK was going to mean several dark rides so I made sure to pack a 50 1.4 lens.
It has become a tradition with my daughter and I to always start a visit to MK with pirates, so we quickly maneuvered through the crowd on main street and over to pirates. The posted wait was 15 minutes, but it was pretty much a walk-on. We loaded up into the boat and were off. One of the first pictures I always try to get is the fog screen and as we rounded the bend, I raised my camera and started to focus when I heard the most awful grinding sound and realized the focus ring on my lens wasn’t working. To describe how loud the sound was, my daughter even leaned over to me and said, “that doesn’t sound very good daddy.” At the time I did not find a great deal of humor in that statement, but now it is kinda funny. I did manage to get the lens to focus on a few shots. I do try to find different things in the rides so that I don’t always have the same shots and got a few shots of some new things.

After we left Pirates, It was off to the first real rollercoaster that got my daughter hooked, Big Thunder. The wait was a little longer for it, at 45 minutes and Splash was a hefty hour. We grabbed fast passes to splash and jumped into the que at Big Thunder. Believe it or not, we really hadn’t had long wait times on the previous trips, so I never really had a chance to shoot out from the que. The wait provided a few cool shots.

 

[PolynesianPrincess]

Love the TR so far! We made the 24 hour drive in May so I can relate to the long hours in the car!!! lol

I pics are great! I got a Nikon D3100 for Christmas plus a new 50 1.8 lens before we went. I'm still not fully used to it yet, got a lot to learn!!

Can't wait to read some more!!

 

[disney1077]

Great pictures!

 

[joanna71985]

Love the pictures! I need to get me a few more lenses, so I can have them for shooting around the parks

 

[everestnut]

Love the TR so far! We made the 24 hour drive in May so I can relate to the long hours in the car!!! lol

I pics are great! I got a Nikon D3100 for Christmas plus a new 50 1.8 lens before we went. I'm still not fully used to it yet, got a lot to learn!!

Can't wait to read some more!!

24 hours........ NO WAY. I can't imagine twice as long as we went. While it wasn't bad, I don't think I would have made it much more.

My nephew has the D3100. Its a great camera. Just keep shooting.

 

[everestnut]

Great pictures!

Thanks. More to come.

 

[everestnut]

Once finished with BTMRR, we headed over to splash, but the ride was down. No worries, the next up was one of my favorites, Haunted Mansion. Now I really like the ride and the photo opportunities are great but my daughter always tells me it creeps her out. She was a good sport and through the line we went. Oh and from the earlier post, my wife did great on BTMRR with her vertigo and she was good to go for the rest of the trip.

I love to shoot in Haunted mansion as it is always a fun challenge.

There is one scene that I try everytime we ride and never quite get it, the gravedigger. This time I got a little closer, but not quite there.

 

[fractal]

Great start to the TR! and Wow! wonderful pictures - I can truly appreciate how good the Pirates and HM photos are.

Looking forward to more!

 

[everestnut]

Great start to the TR! and Wow! wonderful pictures - I can truly appreciate how good the Pirates and HM photos are.

Looking forward to more!

Thanks. Enjoying your trip report also. Just haven't had the time to post on it.

 

[everestnut]

After a couple of more rides, it was time to make our way to see Wishes. My goddaughter works at Disney and was able to get us a seat in vip area and that worked out absolutely great for all of the family. Not crowded, great view for the kids. I had wanted a different view of wishes than I got from over by Casey’s the year before. I also wanted to try and shoot the show up close with a fisheye. This seemed like the perfect opportunity. I had emailed Cory Disbrow and asked if he had shot Wishes with a fish before and he helped me get a plan together to make sure I didn’t miss the bursts by being to close. (Gotta take a minute to give a shout out to Cory and the guys for the Disney Photography Blog. It is an absolutely great resource for shooting at Disney) Once I go the girls set up, it was off to the hub to set up my camera gear. I don’t know the fireworks shows by heart and usually have a script for shooting. Thanks to all of the youtube videos of Wishes and Illuminations, it is actually pretty easy to set up a shooting script. I normally just use my iphone as a stopwatch. I put this in because as soon as I got to my spot, I realized I had left the script in the room. No problem, I thought, I’ll make do. Then I realized there was something else missing, my remote shutter release. I guess I could try and blame both of these on the long drive, lack of sleep, etc, but the reality is I just forgot them. At this point I just figured I would leave the camera set to bulb and hold the shutter open on the camera and take my chances with motion. With about 10 minutes left before the start of Wishes, I realized my plan wasn’t going to work to well. The hub was packed and after four different people running into my tripod, I figured I should relocate. I shuffled through the crowd to the area my family was in and got set up just as the show was starting. I thought about switching my lens from the fisheye but with the show starting, I just figured I would crop the ones that came out. Definitely not my best Wishes shots as you can see the motion from me holding the shutter open, but with everything, I was pretty happy.

 

[disney1077]

I think the pictures came out beautiful! The last picture is my favorite!

 

[LizC]

Wow amazing pictures! You are getting me excited for my upcoming trip! Looking forward to the rest of your trip report.

 

[everestnut]

Under normal circumstances, this would have been just the beginning of the night for us. We have always taken full advantage of the extra magic hours in the evening at MK. My daughter and I had every intention of repeating last years full run until they threw us out, but getting up for 2 am and the long drive put a damper on those plans. It was also extra magic hours in the morning at Hollywood studios the next morning and it was pretty easy to tell that it was going to be a pretty busy time at the parks. We stayed around Fantasyland for a little while longer and left right after the second parade. While we always get a lot done in late hours, I have to admit, it was really nice to hit the bed when we got back to Boardwalk. Here are a few parting shots from the first day.

 

[wiigirl]

Love the pictures....espeically the fireworks!

 

[everestnut]

Our second day began with an early morning wake up for Hollywood Studios. My daughter and I would head in for opening and my wife got to take her time and not be rushed to come with us. One of the benefits of our location made it very easy for her to meet up with us. We jumped into the boat and were off to the Studios. As has been professed before, my daughter and I are complete roller coaster junkies and last year with high expectations of finally being tall enough for RnR not working out, (She missed it by the width of my little finger) our first stop was……… yes you guessed it……….

The whole area is really fun to shoot, and after looking at my pictures, I really wish I would have shot more. Of course, now I have a reason for the next trip.

Em’s much anticipated first time on RnR did not disappoint. From nervous terror to uncontrollable laughing in about 90 seconds. That’s what keeps me going back.

 

[everestnut]

The wait for ToT was at about 70 minutes so we grabbed fast passes and headed over to Star Tours. The wait time was only about 10 minutes so I only snapped a few on the way in. While we ridden a few times we had never seen the Darth Vader opening and as luck would have it, that’s exactly what we got.

After we got out, my wife texted me to let me know she had gotten to the park, so we picked up mom and headed back to Sunset. My wife had never ridden RnR and we figured it would be a great test to see if her vertigo was fixed. She did great and ended up riding a few more times. In the short time, we had been there, I found it funny that my daughter actually went from nervous terror to now doing poses for the picture.

While we were walking down Sunset, I snapped a picture of Tower of Terror. In looking back over the pictures, I just kinda blew right by it because it really looked like a bunch of others I had already taken. When we got back and I was able to sit down, I decided to play with this picture in Lightroom 4 and see what I could come up with. I changed it to a black and white and adjusted a few other things and came up with this.

We left the park about 4 and went back to the room to rest up a little and more importantly...... cool off.
Our next stop would be Epcot later to watch Illuminations.

 

[everestnut]

After resting up in the room, we walked over to Epcot with more than enough time for me to set up for Illuminations. This was my first time to try and shoot the show and I had planned to set up in Japan. I had seen a lot of pictures from this location and felt pretty comfortable. While we were waiting for the rest of the family, I got a text from my goddaughter to tell me she had set up for a special viewing are next to Mexico. While it changed my plan, I do realize that while my wife and daughter like to see fireworks, they don’t particularly like the wait while I set up. We strolled down to Mexico and found the spot. It was a floating boat dock and I knew that wouldn’t work for me, so I set up back away from the dock. I had only seen the show once before a couple of years ago and it was really cool to experience the it again. The site was a little close for my lens set up, but I knew I could come back before we left to try from Japan.