Friday, September 17, 2010

Pictures Taken by Pros

At most theme parks these days, it seems, they have their photographers wandering about taking pictures, and distributing little code cards to find your photos online later. An excellent idea, to be sure, another stream of revenue, and keeps people from having to lug their own cameras around and finding someone to take a shot of the whole family.



Here's what we got (even though, with the exception of the water parks, I had my own camera with me) submitted for your approval!!!











One of the better days we had was the day we went to the Disney Studios Park. If memory serves correctly, it was the 4th Disney park we visited. By that time, my wife & the younger boy were pretty worn out, so they stayed at the resort while the older boy & I went. This was coupled with the fact that the remnant of a tropical depression were blowing through that day. The day was mostly overcast & occasionally drizzly.



That made for many of the lines being pretty short. We pretty much walked onto the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror twice, and at the end of the evening we rode the Aerosmith coaster twice. Also, my older boy has patience for and even an interest in some things that my wife and younger boy would quickly find boring, and he's like me in that he'll stay as long as possible to get the most out of a park. We got to go through the museum-like area and the film of the Walt Disney story. The only ride I would have liked to visit that we didn't get on (due to the over an hour wait time) was the Toy Story shooting gallery ride, doubtless a clone of the one at California Adventure, one of my new favorites.







As opposed to last time, we actually made it on a few of the rides we missed out on last time. At Magic Kingdom, we made it onto Splash Mountain and Space Mountain (both much better than West Coasts'), although we didn't have time to visit the Heritage Square or whatever it's called area we missed last time, too.



At the Animal Kingdom park, they'd shut down the Expedition Everest coaster due to lightening last time, so that was our first stop this time. Made it on after a considerable wait, but also got fast passes to return later that night. Last time we'd gone, we'd seen a show on the in room programming that had that coaster as the best Disney coaster. It's pretty good, but I still like the Aerosmith one better. Got to ride the Dinosaur! ride, too, similar to the Indiana Jones ride out here, but differently themed. Got to take a good look at (and about a zillion pictures of) the Tree of Life. Oh, and the river raft ride that we waited for probably an hour or more last time was pretty much a walk-on. Rode it probably 3 or 4 times in a row.



At Epcot, they had Spaceship Earth open this time, so I got to ride it again, for the first time since 1983. They've added video screens to the cars, and at the end they use a photo of you taken at the beginning of the ride on a an interactive cartoon. Pretty hilarious. Rode it again later to take a video of that. Got to ride the Soaring, another California Adventure clone, and Maelstrom, which were both closed by the time we made it to them last time. Mission: Space we got to ride again, and the boy found someone's dropped fast pass for the GM Test Track ride.







The last few shots here are taken at Typhoon Lagoon, which is where we got the famous free shirts.

Other People's Pics

I had hoped to find more for this post, but here's what I was able to get.



At most theme parks these days, it seems, they have their photographers wandering about taking pictures, and distributing little code cards to find your photos online later. An excellent idea, to be sure, another stream of revenue, and keeps people from having to lug their own cameras around and finding someone to take a shot of the whole family.



However, many people don't really want to bother with all that and end up discarding their codes. I figured I'd pick up all I could & see if there was anything good!!!



On two of the occasions, the photog had us holding our hands out for an effect that would be added in later. One of these pictures never appeared on our code (someone must have blinked) and the other they hadn't added anything in. So, one of the codes I found did have this added in, so I got to see what they've done.



At the Blizzard Beach water park, there was a huge quantity of the cards dropped on the mountainside under the chair lift. I would have loved to have gotten all those!!!

There you go!!! Pictures of random other park guests!!!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Cowboy-Ninja-Pirate-Knight

A little something I found on the desktop of my desktop from a while back... Hardly ever use the desktop now that I've got the laptop!!! Isn't the test title enough to make you want to try it out???

Your result for The Cowboy-Ninja-Pirate-Knight Test...

a Pirate

You scored 6 Honor, 4 Justice, 6 Adventure, and 8 Individuality!


Arr matey. You may belive in honor, and justice, and you certainly have a sense of adventure. But mostly, you play by your own rules. Your code is your own and you are flexible in most situations.

Dress flamboyant and look into a parrot. I think you'll do fine.

Take The Cowboy-Ninja-Pirate-Knight Test at HelloQuizzy