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The Wife Stayed Home Trip Report

After spending a fair amount of time on these boards I figured it was time for me to try my own trip report. My daughter and I love being at Disney. My wife is not the enthusiast that we are, so when she decided to spend the weekend wit her sister for her birthday, it opened the door for a hastily planned trip for Dad and daughter. This is the 4th time my 7 year old girl has been in the last couple of years, but the excitement level never goes down. Eventhough the event was planned in about a week and a half, she wanted to know why we couldn’t leave immediately.

It worked out that we could go on the second weekend in August. We had gone the same time last year and found the park not to be overly busy with some schools having already started. It works out to be the weekend before she goes back to school, so we call it our last summer blowout before she starts the schoolwork.

It also doubled as a photography trip for me to play with all the new toys I have acquired since re taking up photography. At this point, I must acknowledge someone on this board whom I have never met or even talked to, but in seeing his work on the boards, it motivated to pick up a hobby I really love. WDWFigment (Tom Bricker), hat's off to a great photographer.

For a 7 year old, my daughter is a true Disney junkie and a warrior in the parks (you’ll see what I mean a little later). We took off on a Thursday afternoon and got to Orlando around 6:00 pm and made a quick jaunt to our hotel, The Swan. We normally do stay on the monorail, but this time with the short lead in, The Swan fit the bill. Significantly less than the Contemp and readily available. I really wasn’t sure what to expect and really was pleasantly surprised. The hotel is nice and the rooms were large. We quickly dropped the luggage off and headed for Hollywood Studios. My daughter is an adrenaline junkie like her dad and for the last 8 months we have been charting height with the hope that she could ride the only rollercoaster she hasn’t on the property, Rock N Rollercoaster.

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Right before the moment of truth


Before we left we had measured and I knew it would be close. We hurried our way over and up to the measurement area and…………… nope, missed it by a hair. While a little disappointed, we were still with in eye site of another favorite, Tower of Terror.

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Wait times were almost non-existent and it only took about 7 minutes to have the miss on height forgotten. Now while I love Disney, this trip was extra fun as I was able to test out a good bit of photo gear including some new lenses. What better test than the ghosts on TOT.

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With the lines nice and short and an excited 7 year old, we did TOT 3 times in a row. After that it was off to Star Tours. The new show is really good.

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Once out from Star Tours, it was time for my daughter’s other favorite at Disney………..Shopping. As it was 9:00, I knew it wasn’t going to be bad on the pocketbook. As we headed for the shops on the way out, it allowed me to run around for some pictures of the park at night. It ended up being a great first night.

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fractal

Premium Member
I love your pictures and I can certainly relate with spending quality time at WDW with a daughter.

Looks like she had a great time.
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2

Day 2 started with an early morning breakfast at Tusker House. In all of our previous trips, I never could get a reservation for this one. Our reservations was for 8:25 and we got there a little early. Food was pretty good and it didn’t take overly long for all the character greetings.

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Once done, it was a mad dash to my daughter’s favorite ride, Expedition Everest. Since we were able to get in and out relatively quickly at Tusker House, there were not many people in the que. A quick stop for fast passes and into the line. Our wait was about 8 minutes and we were riding. In all of our previous trips, we never really made it into the parks at rope drop and I’m glad we did on this one. It was really cool to get on Everest this early with the sun coming up over the mountain. We ended up riding 9 times with our longest wait about 15 minutes. Needless to say, we had been spun backwards so many times, we started exiting the ride backwards. We did manage to get a few other things in also, but my little girl was excited to do Everest so many times.

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The only real drawback to a second week in August trip is the heat and this Friday morning was bad. By about 1:00, neither one of us was too full of energy anymore. After about 90seconds of convincing, my daughter was all for heading back to the hotel for a little rest and re-energizing for Magic Kingdom extended hours that night.

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Trying to stay cool

We headed back and relaxed in the room while watching a pretty vicious afternoon rainshower. We both agreed it was nice not to be caught in it. The rain started tapering off about 5 and we decided to catch a meal in the Sushi restaurant in the Swan. The rolls were ok and the tempura was really good. So now with a meal in, it was off to the park. We got in about 7:30 and it looked a little busy. My plan was to set up and try out some long exposures of wishes, but upon entering the park and seeing Main Street, that plan changed. With never trying the setup and not really knowing where I would setup, I figured it was a little too crowded to try. I knew we had a few more nights for me to do this and we decided tonight was going to be the ride night. There has been an ongoing joke with me and my daughter about the first ride we do at MK. As much as she loves roller coasters, there’s only one we always start with, Pirates of the Carribean. We tend to judge the crowds by how long it takes us to get on. This night was good. We didn’t stop walking from the entrance to the boat. Right in and our extended hour ride fest was under way.

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We quickly figured out that all the people were on Main Street and our wait times were relatively short all night. From POC, we headed over for Big Thunder and Splash Mountain. We bounced between the 2 for a while and it was really neat to be on Big Thunder during Wishes.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2 Continued

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From there we headed Haunted Mansion. This was another photo stop for me as Em really is not into the mansion. Her own opinion of it is, “it creeps me out”. Go figure, the drop on Everest gets laughs and the ghosts at HM gets creeps. The new que is actually pretty cool with all the interactive stuff. Well a quick change of lenses and it was on the ride to try and get the pictures I had planned for months.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 2 just keeps going

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The moon from the HM

Once the creeps were done, it was off to Tomorrowland for more thrill seeking. Space Mountain has always been the weirdest ride for my daughter. As has been noted, she loves coasters, but has never been overly impressed with Space. I think a lot of it has to do with the wait times. It seems that no matter what the sign says, the actual is always longer. This time we had about 40 minutes, but a few games on my iphone made the wait tolerable. I really do like Space and its one of my favorites. Once we finished, Em looked at me and said she thinks she really likes it too. While walking around, we hit Buzz which was a walk-on.

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From there it was back across the park for the Big Thunder/Splash rounds and then to a visit with Capt Jack.

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As we were making our way back to the hub, I stopped to get a few pictures of the castle and its reflection in the water. We really took our time on the way out taking pics and talking about the night. There really is something about the park once it has started to clear during magic hours that me and Em love. We get to enjoy our time together at our favorite place without the craziness.

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I made a comment earlier about Em being a warrior in the parks and as I glanced up at the clock, I realized why. It was 3:10. We wandered out to the buses and realized how late when there was nobody standing in line and the guy out there told us he would get us off to the hotel as soon as he found a drive that wasn’t punching out and going home. We finally got back to the hotel about 4:15 and the day was officially over.
 

PolynesianPrincess

Well-Known Member
Wow, she made it til 4:15am?! Kudos to her!! I have a hard time making it til 4:15am now and I'm 28!! lol

Love the pics. I really love the ones from HM..

Em is adorable! Cant wait to read more!! :wave:
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 3

Now Disney can be full of surprises. After rolling in after 4:00, I fully expected the Saturday morning to kinda be a wash. I normally get up early due to being at work at 6:00 am everyday and this day wasn’t much different. After a couple hours of sleep, I was up and thinking about editing some of my pictures from the night before. At 8:15, Em popped up and asked where were we going today. With the extended hours and knowing we would be sleeping in, I really hadn’t planned to be anywhere early. After we talked about it, we decided Epcot was on tap for today. We got dressed and headed down to catch the boat. With us normally staying near MK, this was neat for us to see.

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Once at Epcot, we headed over to Soarin. It was about 9:45 and I figured we would get fast passes and head over to Test Track. I got the fast pass and looked at the stand-by time and it was only 20 minutes. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen the Soarin time that low and we decided to jump in. From there we headed over to Test Track and then Mission Space. From there it was back over to use the fast passes we had gotten from Soarin. We then headed over to Nemo.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 3 continued

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My sister in law was in town visiting my niece, who is a cast member and they agreed to meet us in the afternoon at MK. We met up with them and after a quick meal at Casey’s it was back into the park.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Day 3 keeps going

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I had told them I passed on Wishes the night before and they said they would entertain Em while I went scout out a spot and set up. The crowd wasn’t huge but I decided since this was a first run that I would set up off to the side and found a couple of other photographers set up near Casey’s. Not long after, my sister in law joined me and Em and my niece took off to Space Mountain. After seeing numerous examples of long exposures on this site, I had been wanting to give this a run. I did get some shots of the parade passing and of the castle show. I had never seen the show and was really impressed.

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There will be better pictures of the castle in day 4.

With that completed it was time for Wishes. I was a little nervous in what I was going to get. With the way I was planning to shoot, I knew I would only have about 10 pictures of the entire fireworks show and being I had never tried this, I sat wondering if it would be worth it. After it was all done, I was pretty happy with the first attempt.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Wow Day 3 seems like it may never end

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After Wishes we hit the rides one more time and started working our way down main street to the exit. Our third night of closing the park.

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everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Fractal- Thanks for the comments and we are lucky to be able to spend quality time with our daughters in a great place.

Derelicte19- She has always been a trooper in the world. I really can't remember a bad run in the parks. I know she has to get tired with the long nights, but she always wants to stay to the end.

Blackthidot and Nngrendel- Thanks for the comments on the pictures. (wow its kinda nice to hear your pictures are good from the guys stomping my rear in the photography contests :lol:) That includes you too Fractal:wave:
 

plaz10

Well-Known Member
Your pictures are really fantastic!

(im not going to copy the pics here...that takes up so much space.) but the ones I loved most are:

I personally LOVED the YETI picture. One of the best non professonal photos I've ever seen on these boards of that scene. You never really notice the details when you're wizzing through!

I also really enjoy the inside of Mission:Space. It's a different picture than normally found on these boards. The inside of a ride like that really makes me miss Disney. It's little things like that that you don't see everywhere on the boards that are just awesome.

And fantastic HM pictures too - all of 'em.

Really loving this TR. keep it up!
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Plaz10- Thanks for the comments. It's funny, the last few trips every time we ride Everest, I try and get a picture of the Yeti as we go screaming by. With that you would think I would know when to fire the camera, but that was one of 2 that actually came out. Considering that we rode it 9 times, I do have some lovely pictures of the inside of the cave minus any Yeti. If I didn't know he was there, you would have thought Disney had pulled him completely out. I was so frustrated I finally put the fisheye lens on and told myself you can't miss.

The mission space one was kinda the same thing. I really love the different look of the fisheye. I kinda got strange looks from the other 2 folks on the ride with us but my daughter covered when she told them "don't worry he does this all the time":ROFLOL:

Once again thanks for the comments!
 

everestnut

Active Member
Original Poster
Princess.Dayna- Thanks for the comments and I'm working on the rest. Unfortunately, it was a short trip:(.... So not much more
 

TheMouseFan

Well-Known Member
Your daughter is adorable! I'm jealous that she is able to make it for all the late nights. I can't wait until mine are all old enough to stay out with us.

I'm really enjoying your photos!
 

nngrendel

Well-Known Member
The mission space one was kinda the same thing. I really love the different look of the fisheye.

I was going to ask you what kind of fisheye you were using for this shot. It was awesome. However I didnt want to hijack your thread by asking photo questions.
 

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