Brandi and I are back from our 3rd trip to Disney World. I really love this place, its expensive but worth it, great theming, friendly staff, great shows, good looking girls every where.
On our first trip I took a DSLR but I only used it one day, and felt it go in the way more than it was useful, our second trip I only took a point and shoot and felt that I really missed a lot of great shots. This year I decided to carry an SLR with me all day every day and see what I could shoot while I was there. I left the camera behind one morning while doing a tour that took us through the tunnels "under" the park (no cameras allowed) but it was with me the rest of the trip. Next year or next time I think I am going to do a photo only day, there are so many things going on and so many awesome things to photograph, especially at the Animal Kingdom Park.
Enough talk, here are some images, all of these are from the Finding Nemo musical, I will post some other shots later on.
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The messageboard is now in read-only mode and no new posts or topics can be created. We will leave the messageboard up for historical purposes, but you will not be able to make new posts or comment on existing ones.
We have started a Discord server and hope that you all will join us on there. Technology has changed over the years and maintaining the messageboard has become somewhat of a pain in the butt and Discord offers many features for users, the main one being a very polished mobile app.
We really hope you all will join us on Discord and think you will like the platform. Use the invite link below to join.
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Walt Disney World TR
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afrobigfoot
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@TheGnar 224014 wrote:Great pics. WDW is the thing I miss the most about living in Orlando/Florida. The locals know how to do it cheap so it's a viable option for fun year round.
We did the spiel for the Disney Vacation Club (clever name for a time share). Trying to decide if its really worth it not. The big question is, if we go every single year will we begin getting bored with it? Of course we could stay at the Disney motel and go do Universal or Sea World.
We did the spiel for the Disney Vacation Club (clever name for a time share). Trying to decide if its really worth it not. The big question is, if we go every single year will we begin getting bored with it? Of course we could stay at the Disney motel and go do Universal or Sea World.
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afrobigfoot
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@KneeDeep 224024 wrote:Those are some pretty great shots in clearly horrible lighting. What kind of ISO were you shooting at?
1600 the whole time. Mostly at f/2 and f/2.8 with shutter speeds varying between 1/125th to 1/1000th depending on how direct the light was on them and the aperture used.
1600 the whole time. Mostly at f/2 and f/2.8 with shutter speeds varying between 1/125th to 1/1000th depending on how direct the light was on them and the aperture used.
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TheGnar
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@afrobigfoot 224039 wrote:We did the spiel for the Disney Vacation Club (clever name for a time share). Trying to decide if its really worth it not. The big question is, if we go every single year will we begin getting bored with it? Of course we could stay at the Disney motel and go do Universal or Sea World.
Did you guys do any park hopper tickets or just individual day tix? There are some pretty nice independent hotels within Disney property that may be cheaper than the Disney timeshare with way more amenities. Most of those hotels are around the Downtown Disney part of the property. Depending on how long you vacation for, in my opinion, you could go to Disney for 10 years and not see everything. On that note if you go for a week or more at a time then I could see yall getting bored with it after a couple more years. There's plenty for adults to do but without kids there you might run out of things to find/do soon. If you go earlier there's also the waterparks to explore.
Of course there's always City Walk at Universal. When we went before we moved in '08 they were really aiming torwards adults and moving away from the teen themed boardwalk. Universal/IoA is needless to say a lot smaller than Disney but as theme parks go they're both on par with what they have to work with. Plus Universal/IoA is geared torward the teen/young adult from the get-go so some people actually enjoy their time there more.
Did you guys do any park hopper tickets or just individual day tix? There are some pretty nice independent hotels within Disney property that may be cheaper than the Disney timeshare with way more amenities. Most of those hotels are around the Downtown Disney part of the property. Depending on how long you vacation for, in my opinion, you could go to Disney for 10 years and not see everything. On that note if you go for a week or more at a time then I could see yall getting bored with it after a couple more years. There's plenty for adults to do but without kids there you might run out of things to find/do soon. If you go earlier there's also the waterparks to explore.
Of course there's always City Walk at Universal. When we went before we moved in '08 they were really aiming torwards adults and moving away from the teen themed boardwalk. Universal/IoA is needless to say a lot smaller than Disney but as theme parks go they're both on par with what they have to work with. Plus Universal/IoA is geared torward the teen/young adult from the get-go so some people actually enjoy their time there more.
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afrobigfoot
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@TheGnar 224045 wrote:Did you guys do any park hopper tickets or just individual day tix? There are some pretty nice independent hotels within Disney property that may be cheaper than the Disney timeshare with way more amenities. Most of those hotels are around the Downtown Disney part of the property. Depending on how long you vacation for, in my opinion, you could go to Disney for 10 years and not see everything. On that note if you go for a week or more at a time then I could see yall getting bored with it after a couple more years. There's plenty for adults to do but without kids there you might run out of things to find/do soon. If you go earlier there's also the waterparks to explore.
Of course there's always City Walk at Universal. When we went before we moved in '08 they were really aiming torwards adults and moving away from the teen themed boardwalk. Universal/IoA is needless to say a lot smaller than Disney but as theme parks go they're both on par with what they have to work with. Plus Universal/IoA is geared torward the teen/young adult from the get-go so some people actually enjoy their time there more.
We do the park hopper. We only had one day where we did only one park, that was because of the halloween party we went to. I love being able to do 2 or 3 parks a day. We stayed in the park at a value resort this year. We enjoyed the "perks" of being able to stay inside, including a free meal plan because of when we booked, extra magical hours which we took advantage of most days, and their bus service (which we didnt really use too much). But we also got to park for free at the parks so we saved $140 because of that. Those benefits are the main reason im looking into the DVC but the upfront cost seems a little high to me. It averages out that we could stay in a $500-600 a night room for about $90 a night. But it would take about 5-10 years before we really saw any true savings from it.
We might look into some of the non disney resorts and see what we can find. The bride and groom from the wedding we photographed a few days before going to Disney also went to Orlando/Disney and their resort was only $499 for a week, two bedroom condo with all the ammenities. That sounded pretty nice to me! The Contemporary Resort (where I want to stay next year) is about $440 a night for a nice room.
Is the Universal City Walk any fun? I want to go to the Hardrock Cafe at some point.
Of course there's always City Walk at Universal. When we went before we moved in '08 they were really aiming torwards adults and moving away from the teen themed boardwalk. Universal/IoA is needless to say a lot smaller than Disney but as theme parks go they're both on par with what they have to work with. Plus Universal/IoA is geared torward the teen/young adult from the get-go so some people actually enjoy their time there more.
We do the park hopper. We only had one day where we did only one park, that was because of the halloween party we went to. I love being able to do 2 or 3 parks a day. We stayed in the park at a value resort this year. We enjoyed the "perks" of being able to stay inside, including a free meal plan because of when we booked, extra magical hours which we took advantage of most days, and their bus service (which we didnt really use too much). But we also got to park for free at the parks so we saved $140 because of that. Those benefits are the main reason im looking into the DVC but the upfront cost seems a little high to me. It averages out that we could stay in a $500-600 a night room for about $90 a night. But it would take about 5-10 years before we really saw any true savings from it.
We might look into some of the non disney resorts and see what we can find. The bride and groom from the wedding we photographed a few days before going to Disney also went to Orlando/Disney and their resort was only $499 for a week, two bedroom condo with all the ammenities. That sounded pretty nice to me! The Contemporary Resort (where I want to stay next year) is about $440 a night for a nice room.
Is the Universal City Walk any fun? I want to go to the Hardrock Cafe at some point.
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afrobigfoot
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@waynecash 224059 wrote:Tell me you didnt buy a time share?
I can see doing the seminar for a free vacation (been there, done that) but never buy into a time share. I do enjoy their free lunch too. I stayed at RonJon's for 3 days for free and had a free dinner for sitting through a 2 hour spiel, they tried everything to sell me one but I said "No". After 3 different people and rates they gave up and gave me what I came for, the free stuff.
Didn't buy anything.
We didn't get much free. I went and listened to the spiel and took a tour because I wanted to learn more about it. Everyone including the person that booked our appointment said there was no pressure and that the tour guides doing it would not pressure us but our guy got pretty angry when I kept telling him no. He actually slammed some drawers when he was going through his desk and threw some stuff around in the room while we were in there. IF we did buy their time share it would not be through him.
Disney's is a bit different than others that I have seen. You buy points and can use the points to stay at Disney Motel's as well as several other hotels across the world. But I am kind of skeptical because it sounds like something where there will be some kind of hidden cost, or the "maintenance fees" will keep increasing every year. But at the same time, the initial cost is about equal to what it would cost us to do 3 stays at the hotel I really want to stay at (but haven't yet). ]
I can see doing the seminar for a free vacation (been there, done that) but never buy into a time share. I do enjoy their free lunch too. I stayed at RonJon's for 3 days for free and had a free dinner for sitting through a 2 hour spiel, they tried everything to sell me one but I said "No". After 3 different people and rates they gave up and gave me what I came for, the free stuff.
Didn't buy anything.
We didn't get much free. I went and listened to the spiel and took a tour because I wanted to learn more about it. Everyone including the person that booked our appointment said there was no pressure and that the tour guides doing it would not pressure us but our guy got pretty angry when I kept telling him no. He actually slammed some drawers when he was going through his desk and threw some stuff around in the room while we were in there. IF we did buy their time share it would not be through him.
Disney's is a bit different than others that I have seen. You buy points and can use the points to stay at Disney Motel's as well as several other hotels across the world. But I am kind of skeptical because it sounds like something where there will be some kind of hidden cost, or the "maintenance fees" will keep increasing every year. But at the same time, the initial cost is about equal to what it would cost us to do 3 stays at the hotel I really want to stay at (but haven't yet). ]
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afrobigfoot
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A few more from some other shows, Brandi likes these shows, im not a big fan but the camera kept me entertained.
This was the first, and probably only time I will ride the Kali River Rapids, very lackluster ride.
This was the first, and probably only time I will ride the Kali River Rapids, very lackluster ride.
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TheGnar
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City Walk is way more fun than Downtown Disney. Actually there's a lack of quality clubs/bars in downtown Orlando so most locals go to CW every weekend. I think Universal also open up the park in the middle of the night for resort guests but not too sure. I agree, the perks of staying with a Disney owned property is worth staying there alone but if you're looking for a really nice room like at the Contemporary you could easily spend half that for a 4-5 star room just outside the property or even on I-Drive.
Did you guys get out to I-Drive to check out all the stuff to do or just stick to the "Disney Compound". A lot of people get caught up in the Disney wonder too much to realize that within a 20 minute drive are just as good or better restaurants and stand alone attractions for half the price.
On a side note next time yall go to Disney if you haven't ever been to DisneyQuest I highly recommend it. For $20 you get unlimited play the biggest baddest interactive big kid arcade ever. So awesome.
Did you guys get out to I-Drive to check out all the stuff to do or just stick to the "Disney Compound". A lot of people get caught up in the Disney wonder too much to realize that within a 20 minute drive are just as good or better restaurants and stand alone attractions for half the price.
On a side note next time yall go to Disney if you haven't ever been to DisneyQuest I highly recommend it. For $20 you get unlimited play the biggest baddest interactive big kid arcade ever. So awesome.