Florida Recap Post – The Fifth

I was going to make this post everything from our first day at Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately there are about 10 million pictures from that day so I am just going with Hollywood Studios before sunset. I don’t know what that means for the next post, but frankly I don’t care right now.

I started with the film camera and switched to digital when we got to Galaxy’s Edge. I swapped back and forth a couple of times, but it was mostly digital from that point on. Here we go… there are going to be a lot of pictures here.

The entrance to Galaxy’s Edge is on the lower left corner of the picture

I think that after this masterpiece I started using Auto mode again.

Kylo Ren was probably in there eating breakfast

First Order Stormtroopers. Don’t worry if they are aiming at you. Worry if they are aiming at the guy next to you. Am I right?

None of us rode Slinky Dog this time. I have never ridden it at all because I am old and roller coaster mess with my head now. We did see these lights lit up on our second visit to Hollywood Studios, but I think I had the camera in my backpack on that occasion.

Toy Story Mania is the best ride in Disney World that doesn’t have Star Wars or Splash in it’s name.

DSCN2943 — We returned to Galaxy’s Edge to ride Rise of the Resistance which is the best ride on Earth or any other planet.

DSCN2947 — I took a lot more pictures the second time we rode Rise but that comes a few days later.

We did not see Muppet Vision on this trip and that is a major over sight. Next time.

And that’s where we’ll leave it for now. The next post will be after the sun went down, and our breakfast with Mickey the next morning. Also, maybe some more Magic Kingdom as well. We’ll see.

Florida Recap Post – The Fourth

This one is going to WAY over do it. You’ve been warned.

Our first visit to Magic Kingdom was first thing in the morning and we were shocked at how packed it was. We stayed for a couple of hours and then went back to the hotel for a while. My picture taking plan was to start with film and switch to digital when I burned through one roll. As it turns out, we weren’t in the park long enough for me to take 36 pictures on film so I don’t have any digital pics from that morning.

When we went back after dark though… I really went nuts. My YouTube schooling has taught me to keep the ISO setting as low as I can when using manual mode. I was struggling a little at night so I said screw it and set the ISO to auto, and then eventually just switched to auto mode and WOW can this new camera handle lights at night. It was crazy, so I went crazy with it. I took soooo many pictures. Here are mountains of them.

It was January 7th and the christmas decorations were still up. That was disappointing. Worse, they were still playing christmas music.

Another example of an utterly mobbed theme park.

I think this is my favorite picture from the trip. I haven’t seen any of the film yet, but I can’t see anything I took topping this one.

We rode Pirates and got wet and it was under 60 degrees out so it was not the most comfortable experience.

Shooting through windows sort of became a thing on this trip. There are a lot like this from both Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios.

There was another night visit to Magic Kingdom and there will be a ton from that visit. Next up though will be Hollywood Studios. We got there early and stayed until they closed so there will be a ton of pics, including a bunch at night. I think. I might do something else instead, but that’s what I’m thinking right now.

Florida Recap Post – The Third

This installment of the Florida Recap Post series isn’t terribly exciting. It’s just a few spots around The Riviera hotel, the Skyliner, The Caribbean Beach resort, and the Art of Animation resort. In short, it started with us just hanging around, and turned into us riding the Skyliner and just getting off at random spots.

I just liked the light here by the bus stop

Our room was on the right but on the back side of the building

The Skyliner runs direct from the Riviera to Epcot, but to go to Hollywood Studios you have to change cars at Caribbean Beach

I think this is at the Caribbean Beach but I’m not sure

Art of Animation has an arcade. Maybe next time we’ll stay here.

A fountain at the front entrance of The Riviera

We were waiting for a ride to Magic Kingdom. That will be the next post.

Florida Recap Post – The Second

Here is the second in an open ended series of Disney trip recaps. This one will cover our one stop at Animal Kingdom where we discovered that our least favorite park can be pretty fantastic when the temperatures outside are in the 70’s instead of the high 90’s. It made a huge difference.

I took a lot of pictures that day so… here’s a shit load of them. There is little actual significance to any of these.

The park was insanely mobbed that day. I tried to shoot over people’s heads when I could, but it wasn’t always possible.

Almost all of my safari pics were garbage. It was the only time on the entire trip that I wish I had a zoom lens. I actually had a zoom on my film camera, so maybe there might be one or two from there that are okay, but I doubt it.

We need to go back at night so we can see all of these lights when they are lit.

As shitty pics of the tree of life go, this is one.

Oh my god does the f2, 40mm prime lens do the portrait thing well!

I think I posted this already, and I think I said the same thing in the caption, but there is a film shot of two bikes that I am sure was in a different location, but I am also equally sure that it’s the exact same two bikes. We’ll see when the film comes back.

The next post is either going to be from the resort, as well as a brief little resort hopping jaunt that Jen and I went on, or it will be Magic Kingdom at night… or both.

Florida Recap Post – The First

I know I posted a few pictures of the trip here and there while we were still in Florida, but I did it sort of haphazardly and I really don’t recall what was or was not posted… so here’s the first post-trip recap post and there is a good chance that I’ve already shared a lot of this.

The first post will be our first evening in Epcot’s World Showcase. We rode the new Remy ride in France and as a result we spent a ton of time in that country, and all of the digital pics were taken there. I think most if not all of the film pics were in France too.

Here’s a bunch in random order……

Depth of field, babie! Bokeh for days! I love my f2 40mm prime lens!

This whole section of France did not exist the last time we visited Epcot.

I eventually switched to Auto mode at night. That would have helped this.

Epcot’s back door is literally one of my favorite things about the whole park.

We were hoping January would lead to smaller crowds. Yeah… right.

I think the next post will be from Animal Kingdom, but who knows.

Home

We made it home last night. Barely. It was after 11:00pm. We drove for over 17 hours yesterday alone. There were two major traffic jams in Virginia that messed up our scheduling in a huge way, but we pushed through and made it home.

I feel like a total mess today. I slept through the night without issue, but today my eyes are so tired I can’t focus without effort. I have body aches and a headache and a rash on my right elbow and another rash on my left hand. I woke up with those yesterday. Maybe I was allergic to the sheets on the bed in Thursday night’s hotel room? That would be lovely.

It’s cold here, which sucks after a week plus in Florida, and we got a little sprinkle of snow over night. Hooray.

We’ve already started unpacking, and I’ve already started all of the laundry. I did a lot before we left, so it’s not the end of the world, but there’s still quite a bit left to do. I want to have actual food for breakfast, but I’m not sure if anything in the fridge is still good. I’ll check that next.

Pretty sure today and tomorrow are going to be sucky days, but at least the four of us are home safe and sound. That’s all that matters.

In closing…

Sad

I’m sad.

I’m sad because we are leaving Disney World today.

I am sad because the Grand Floridian hotel canceled our breakfast reservation this morning.

I’m sad because I have to live in a world that doesn’t have Jeff Beck in it and I never saw him live.

I’m sad because I spent my last night in Disney World in bed with what might have been a migraine, my second of the trip, and I missed out on an evening with the kids.

I am not sad though that the trip was pretty fantastic and we all had a great time.

Star Power

Hollywood Studios

Splitting Up

Today is our last full day in the parks. We are going to split up for the first half of the day. The kids are going back to Epcot and Jen and I are going back to Hollywood Studios. After 2:00pm park hopping becomes an option so the kids are going to join us in Hollywood. We’ll blitz our way through the two Star Wars rides and the Toy Story Mania ride and the new Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad ride, then watch the fireworks show and call it a night. We’ll probably eat in there somewhere too.

Tomorrow is the real split up day. Tomorrow we’re going to have breakfast together, then the kids are going back to Magic Kingdom for a while before getting an Uber (or a Lyft, which seems more the thing ’round these here parts) to the airport. After breakfast Jen and I will hit the road home. Will we get there in 48 hours? Will we get close and then need to finish the last few miles on day three like we did coming down here? I’ll tell you when I find out for myself.

Before we worry about any of that though, one more epic day followed by one more epic morning.

Just noting that we still have not seen Tim Tracker or anyone from Disney Food Blog or any of the Disney travel YouTube channels we follow regularly. We’ve seen a few people shooting video or live streaming or whatever, but no one we recognize. Hopefully today we’ll see the Tim Tracker gang and get to say hello.

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