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.
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Love the pics! Next trip I am definately not going to be as shy using a tripod.

Great job with the Yeti!
Thanks. This was only the second time I travel with the tripod and the first with this one. Its one that collapses down to very small and its very lightweight. I find you do have to be a little more conscious about you footprint with a tripod, but I've gotten better at not getting in other peoples way, lol.

The yeti and I have an ongoing feud for pictures. I swear, one day it will be the picture I have in my head.
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Great pics of Illuminations! I've got my tri-pod all packed up to go and while it's not super small (It is 22 inches long but it came with the camera bag I got and I don't feel like shelling out money for a new one right now) it's very lightweight and Mom and sister both offered to carry it in the parks for me. So that's good. Can't wait to try my hand at Illuminations and Wishes! :)
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Great pics of Illuminations! I've got my tri-pod all packed up to go and while it's not super small (It is 22 inches long but it came with the camera bag I got and I don't feel like shelling out money for a new one right now) it's very lightweight and Mom and sister both offered to carry it in the parks for me. So that's good. Can't wait to try my hand at Illuminations and Wishes! :)
Can't wait to see the pictures. I'm sure they will be great. Don't forget that shutter release.:)
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
I ordered it last week! Gotta play around with it when I get it so I know what I'm doing!! lol I don't wanna be standing there as Wishes starts going "ok, now how do I use this thing?!" o_O
lol, that would be kinda funny.:) I know the language I would be using probably wouldn't be well accepted at Disney.
 

Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
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Holy Cow, even if you didn't have your ND filters these pictures turned out really well. I can't wait to see what you are able to pull off on your next trip. Did you do any post processing on the pictures?
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Holy Cow, even if you didn't have your ND filters these pictures turned out really well. I can't wait to see what you are able to pull off on your next trip. Did you do any post processing on the pictures?
Some yes and some no. The second Illuminations is processed due to it being blown out on the original raw file. The others have some adjustments to color (China Pavilion) and pretty much all of my pics have a small amount of sharpening.
 

Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
Some yes and some no. The second Illuminations is processed due to it being blown out on the original raw file. The others have some adjustments to color (China Pavilion) and pretty much all of my pics have a small amount of sharpening.

Not bad, not bad at all. Mind me asking, what are you using for post processing?
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Thats great to hear. I have just recently purchased Lightroom 4 myself so I am excited to see what you can accomplish with a little teasing here and there.
I think you will be happy with it. To me it was much easier to learn than photoshop. Something about having all the sliders just to the right of your picture made more sense to me. There is a book and cd combination that I got at Barnes and Noble that serves as a really good tutor to get started. Highly recommended.
 

Joshua&CalebDad

Well-Known Member
I think you will be happy with it. To me it was much easier to learn than photoshop. Something about having all the sliders just to the right of your picture made more sense to me. There is a book and cd combination that I got at Barnes and Noble that serves as a really good tutor to get started. Highly recommended.

What was the name of the book? I can hit the Barnes and Noble on my way home this evening after work.
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Well, our final day of vacation was the day none of us really looked forward to. Not so much in that we didn't want to get home, but that we had a long drive ahead of us. This was a longer trip than we had originally planned at 6 days. Our normal trips are usually 4 day over a weekend, but since we were driving we extended it. My hats off to the folks that spend the whole week or even longer. All of us were ready to be home. The drive home was pretty uneventful for the 12 hours we were driving and I can't really say the drive is all that bad. The one portion of the drive that to me is the worse is the distance between Tallahassee and Pensacola. Wow it seems that part never ends, lol. We got home around 3 pm and started the really fun part of unloading and unpacking. Its funny, packing for the trip is always more fun.

Overall, we had a great trip with alot of things that made it special. My wife rode all of the rides again and it was so much fun to have her involved with the fun. Me and Em got our late night run at MK and laughed and had a blast. I had plenty of time for pictures and got to shoot new things. All in all, a super trip.

Now............. when's the next one.:)
 

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