Photo Trip Report: Two Trips To Walt Disney World

[ginzo]

Liz & I made two separate trips to Walt Disney World in the past few months.

 

Our first excursion was a quick visit to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party on the Thursday before Christmas. I can't say enough good things about MVMCP. The event sold out that night, yet everything had minimal queues. It was like Magic Kingdom exclusive park time. The "free" cocoa and cookies were a nice bonus. Though I still think Christmas in Florida is unnatural. If you're wearing shorts, it ain't Christmas. The event costs roughly $20 less than a single day Disney ticket and is an excellent deal for anyone looking for a quick visit to the Magic Kingdom.

I monkeyed around for a while trying to get a decent shot of the castle with the Christmas lights on it. Not exactly Ansel Adams-like results. Anyway, they do an outstanding job. Go see it IRL.

I could stay on TTA all day.

I love these things. The best part is how they beep like trucks when they go in reverse.

"Yes, I'll have the creme of sum yung guy."

I'm glad there are no racial stereotypes here.

First stop. We had to wait about 30 minutes because it broke down. Disney did a great job with the rehab.

Of course we waited for the front compartment. Do they ever wash that windshield?

A monorail picture for Scott. Granted it's not the EPCOT monorail, those pictures will come later.

Someone get me a keytar, please.

[RIP Psyclone]

 

By him I mean it, by it I mean this PTR. I thought this deserved a bump!

[BeemerBoy]

Dude, how did I COMPLETELY miss this report?

 

I really like that shot of Gold, with the Contemporary in the background!

 

And yes, they do wash the windshields. I'm not sure how often, but since they're made of plexiglass, they don't permit Rain-X...which would certainly help keep them cleaner with all the Florida rain.

[ginzo]

Yeah, I have a lot more photos. I just kinda forgot to finish this. I'll try to get them up within the next few days.

[TheRapidsNerd]

Someone get me a keytar, please.

Granted!

 

I really did laugh out loud when I read this at work today. This is the start of some good stuff. Would love to see the rest.

 

Don't worry. It's cool.

Looking for this?

[ginzo]

So our second trip to WDW was in January. We spent 5 days at the resort and stayed at the Wilderness Lodge. This was quite a nice hotel. The lobby area was especially impressive. The boat service to the Magic Kingdom was great as driving to the park is a big pain IMO.

 

Anyway, here is the first round of pictures:

I took like 300 pictures of this thing and still failed to get a great shot. The mountain from EE is cooler anyway.

Is that a 69?

The red birds decided that the green birds don't get to have all the fun.

Doggie style.

More bird porn!

Hey, get a room you two!

Nobody told these birds that Animal Kingdom is a family park.

Liz & Pal Mickey. WTF happened to her hand?

Since we didn't get to see B'rer Rabbit at Splash Mountain, here's a substitute rabbit from back at the lodge.

Splash Mountain was closed for all of January for maintenance. This is why they call it "value season". I was disappointed about this as this is probably my favorite WDW attraction.

This is the dock behind the Wilderness Lodge with boat service to the Magic Kingdom and the Polynesian. The wilderness theme holds up quite well here as it looks like you're in the middle of nowhere. As you can see, there was no line of people waiting to get on the boat because WDW is pretty dead in January.

[TheRapidsNerd]

Glad to see another update. Looking good.

[Moose]

Was Liz Waving or saying "Stop with the &*%@$ing pictures?"

[ginzo]

Was Liz Waving or saying "Stop with the &*%@$ing pictures?"

 

Definitely the latter. I have a habit of taking stupid pictures of her in queue because I'm bored. Though this one wasn't in a queue.

[ginzo]

Here are a few more shots:

This is where they should throw the parents who turn their savage children loose on the nicer WDW restaurants to ruin your $200 dinner while they chug 5 bottles of wine.

Living with the Land.

Coming in at something like 800 pounds this pumpkin could get a free lifetime membership to ACE.

The John Holmes edition.

Our tour guide. She was a professor at some area university, but I forget which one. This was a very informative tour, but a bit on the nerdy side. It's not going to be fun for the regular theme park attendee.

Not-so-hidden Mickey inside the Land.

Liz holding a Mickey-shaped pumpkin during the EPCOT Behind The Seeds tour.

I love the long monorail run from the TTC to EPCOT so much that I took it in lieu of just making a quick drive from the lodge over to EPCOT. This turned out to be poor timing because we wound up being late for our tour at EPCOT.

This baby elephant was a lot cuter in person. I know Disney is all about themed attractions, but I think the story about poachers going after the baby elephant is really lame. Why not just settle for having a really awesome safari ride? Maybe throw in a little bit of educational stuff about the species you're encountering.

This tree looks sinister to me. Like there should be several hundred carnivorous birds perched on it ready to eat your eyeballs out.

I don't know what it is with me at the birds at WDW, but I thought these guys looked cool.

This was my first ride on the Animal Kingdom safari ride. It was very nice, but the bumps made photography a challenge.

[Rafcoaster]

nice pictures!!!

i love disney land i've only been in paris (14 times in 10 year )

and i cant wait to go to disney orlando! it looks so, beautiful and..... BIG!!!!

hahaha

well done

[BeemerBoy]

This tree looks sinister to me. Like there should be several hundred carnivorous birds perched on it ready to eat your eyeballs out.

Crazy, I thought the exact same thing even before I read your caption!

 

Nice to see some behind-the-scenes stuff of EPCOT.

[ginzo]

This tree looks sinister to me. Like there should be several hundred carnivorous birds perched on it ready to eat your eyeballs out.

Crazy, I thought the exact same thing even before I read your caption!

 

Nice to see some behind-the-scenes stuff of EPCOT.

 

Yeah, I was going to take a bunch more pictures, but my camera's battery died about halfway into the tour.

[ghost007jas]

Great pictures, and captions! Definitely an enjoyable read .

[Lenaapple1974]

thats the goods! making me wish i found my way to epcot the last few times down to Orlando! Thanks for sharing the pics - and the captions were great!

[ginzo]

We wound up doing two character breakfasts in our 5 days at Walt Disney World: Crystal Palace and 'Ohana. Crystal Palace was definitely the better meal as it was a surprisingly fresh and comprehensive buffet. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera to that. I did, however, take a few shots at the 'Ohana character breakfast, which I remember most for the excellent OJ blend that I now forget what it was exactly.

And here is the train. I'll post the final update soon.

Big Thunder Mountain as seen from the Liberty Square Riverboat.

A bridge at Tom Sawyer Island.

A raft at Tom Sawyer Island as seen from the Liberty Square Riverboat. I still need to actually go over there some day.

FAIL! Call me a nit picker, but what is the excuse for this?

A nice little tribute to the man who actually built Walt Disney World.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as seen from the Walt Disney World Railroad. Call me crazy, but I really enjoy this ride. It has a never ending amount of details to notice as you ride it again and again. I actually prefer it to Expedition Everest.

Liz and the Captain.

Help! I'm being attacked by the worst attraction in all of WDW. Actually, I don't really know that because I haven't even tried the Stitch attraction.

Stitch attacks Liz.

Stitch attacks my brother.

[jamesdillaman]

Wow your brother looks a lot like you, Joe. Great pics. In case I don't talk to you before then, have fun at Holiday World next week.

 

-James Dillaman