May 2018 Trip Report – EPCOT!

Tuesday, 5/22

Big crowds. Security CM’s did a pretty good job at bag check. Moved us through pretty quickly. Shot a few monorails and topiaries on our way to the Norway pavilion. Kind of yuck overcast day, which resulted in mostly washed out skies and bad light for shooting topiaries. Ironic since it’d be our only day at EPCOT, and my only chance to shoot Flower and Garden this year. But hey, I’m with my wife and kids at Walt Disney World. I got over it, but there were times during the day that I was like “man why couldn’t the sky cooperate today?”

Sticking to our usual touring plan strategy, I had the Lines app all ready to go and follow it, but we just don’t do that. We change our minds a bunch, and while it may seem frustrating, we all just go with it, and we have a lot of luck getting in most everything we want to do. I use the Lines app and My Disney Experience to monitor wait times, then we just jump around. Chaotic, I know, but it works for us.

First headed back to Frozen Ever After, our first time seeing it. I was skeptical about how Frozen Ever After would turn out – hadn’t watched videos or anything, but between the queue details and the ride itself, I was really impressed. I used this as a chance to work on dark ride photography – thought I’d get a lot of great shots with the Sigma 30mm f1.4, but the autofocus doesn’t do really well without the camera’s built in Autofocus Assist (which is like a flash in some ways since it bounces a light off nearby objects to try to focus). Since there’s NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY, I turned off AF assist for the whole trip, but sometimes the camera couldn’t find the focus. So a recurring theme this week would be crummy dark ride photos with few keepers. A shame really, since I love dark ride photography, and I’m TERRIBLE at manual focus. I would try on other attractions, with almost all of my shots being trash. But we all loved the ride, and the highlight was our 6 year old screaming (not in terror!) during the drop. Standby for the attraction was only about 15 minutes at this point. I was a bit surprised by that, but hey, I’ll take it.

On a side note, I’ve long been afraid the Helly Hansen gear would disappear from the Norway gift shop, but was super pleased to see it’s still there. I love Helly Hansen outdoor gear, and only discovered it as a result of going to World Showcase. My family has bought me many Father’s Day gifts, etc. from there, so it’s a big time sentimental favorite of ours. And my wife and girls love the fragrances. Definitely worth a stop if you’ve never been.

From there it was time to head for Soarin’ and our FP+ window. Also our first time on the redone attraction, and I’d not watched any videos, etc. from the new version. We all loved it. I miss the old version, but I’m good with seeing it only on YouTube from here on if they never bring it back for any extended period.

And then a quick visit to see Nemo and Friends, a favorite of all of ours. Finding Nemo was the first ever in-theater movie we took our oldest to see, and now she’s graduated from high school. I can’t believe how time has flown by, and love the fact that even as our kids grow up, they haven’t yet (and I hope never do) grown out of loving nostalgic, so called kid stuff. During this trip I would spend a considerable amount of time just watching my wife and kids, amazed at how much has changed in the blink of an eye, but also realizing how blessed I’ve been all along. For whatever reason, the wait for Nemo was considerably longer than Frozen Ever After. I think it’s because Test Track was down, and a lot of those people made their way over to Nemo.

On to World Showcase, where we had a lunch reservation at San Angel Inn. I know there are lot of people who don’t like this restaurant, but it’s a favor of ours, mainly because of the overall setting, with a pretty realistic indoor version of an outdoor, nighttime setting in an old Mexican town. While waiting for your table, you can wander around and shop, or a favorite of ours, watch the glass blowers work. I can’t believe what those artists can create, and at the same time not burn themselves to a crisp like I would. In my opinion, anything you buy from that shop is money well spent. Anyway, we had a great lunch, and mixed in a visit to the Gran Fiesta Tour.

Then it was on around World Showcase, with stops to get the 2 younger girls’ passport stamps. This was great, because we spent a good bit of time walking around each pavilion, rather than just blowing through World Showcase, which is what we usually do.

Meeting Anna and Elsa was next. Again, not a long wait at all. Maybe 10 minutes. And yet again I love how my older kids still want to meet characters. I haven’t yet looked at the Photopass shots, but I got some great ones.

We didn’t do much in China or Germany, except for a quick snack from China – the eggrolls are awesome! And in Germany our main activity was meeting Snow White, and by this time it had warmed up some, but once again worth it to see her and the girls. And I got to make a quick stop to look at the model train, always worth at least a few minutes. If you look at some of the scenes you see a story there, not just little buildings and train cars. I hope they never remove the train set. Ever.

Italy was great fun – we watched Sergio the mime and shopped in Il Bel Cristalo. Talk about some nice stuff in there. I got some great shots of my girls sitting outside the nice perfume shop they have. I’d largely given up on any great outdoor shots due to the harsh lighting, but managed to get a few good ones. I’ve never eaten in any of the restaurants, and that has to change someday.

At the American Adventure pavilion, we found a large character meeting spot and got to meet Rafiki, Chip and Dale, Pluto, Mickey Mouse, and Goofy. We just missed Eeyore, because he was leaving for a break. It’s as if it’s hot in those costumes or something.

On to Japan, where we had fun wandering through the Mitsukoshi Department store. Talk about some different stuff in there. Between the gardens near Katsura Grill and the Hidden Mickeys located there, it’s a great place to kill some time.

Morocco was cool because we’d never really wandered around in there. I did 2 years ago late one night. Not sure if any of my legacy photos survived to this version of the website, but you can see some photos I got back then. Or – wait for the upload since I shot another spot again – but that’s covered later in this installment. My kids got a kick out of the souk, where the passport station is. It was funny to watch the group in front of ours because they kept talking away, which I get, but also you have to realize there are other people waiting on you. My 12 year old was very composed but you could tell she was dying for those people to move along.

It was getting late into the afternoon, and we made it to France. We saw Impressions de France for about the billionth time, but you know what? Between the stunning images and music that never gets old for me. We usually get a snack, but the line was crazy long, so we kept moving. At the bridge leading to the U.K., I’d hoped to get a better shot of the sunset that I’ve shared before. But it wasn’t to be – the skies were about to dump some rain on us, and the scene looking back toward France was not a great shot at all. Maybe next time.

We browsed the shops in the U.K. pavilion (and ducked some rain), and squeezed in some red phone booth photos – always a fun thing to do. We pretty much skipped Canada besides the passport station. It broke my heart to not shoot the gardens and cottage out there, but the light was just awful.

From there we went to Living With the Land, which was great this time because the 6 year old was pretty much in awe of the whole thing, especially the Hidden Mickeys. Spaceship Earth was fun because the whole family likes it, and I got a few decent shots from in there. But the most fun we had was from the video they make using your facial shots – if you know the animation of how the people walk with the exaggerated arm motions, you know what I mean. So now the kids and I have a new way to walk in a funny kind of way, just to lighten the mood. Funny what strange little things you take away from an attraction.

Sadly, we never made it to Test Track – it went down a couple of times and the waits were high. We just ran out of time.

From there, we grabbed a quick dinner at Electric Umbrella. I don’t get the hate this place receives. Granted, it’s not the greatest food, but I never expect an overly awesome meal at any quick service place, ball game concession stand, whatever. And I also know many times those places are greatly overpriced. Having said that, I thought our food was really good, it was fast, and not too terribly expensive. We sat outside and enjoyed a brief rest. From there, my wife and kids left for Animal Kingdom Lodge, which meant……………….

Nighttime photography!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I started by making my way to where I could shoot looking toward the Imagination Pavilion, waiting for a monorail to hit the beam. In the meantime, I shot one bracketed set, hoping to make the best of a not so great sunset. I’ll let you all judge the shots, but one cool shot I got was a long exposure as the monorail passed, causing the monorail to blur, an effect I like sometimes.

My next problem, if you want to call it that, was where to shoot Illuminations. I wanted to shoot from somewhere in Japan, or probably should have picked the bridge between U.K. and France, but since I planned to shoot some after dark photos in World Showcase, I really just didn’t feel like walking that much – shocking I know, since I’d walked quite a ways already.

So I picked a spot between Norway and China, and setup. I took some test shots, which had the added benefit of some “blurred crowd” effect photos as I got dialed in for Illuminations. Then it was a waiting game. I was near a smoking area, and boy were there ever some people smoking away. I’m not the smoking police, but it’s just not my thing, so now when I’m in an area where there’s a lot of it going on it’s really noticeable.

But it was fun to people watch and wait for Illuminations. Seems to me the pre-show music has changed. Maybe I’m wrong but sure didn’t seem to follow the set I’m used to. Then the fireworks started, and I shot away. Nothing too sophisticated – tripod, 10 second shutter speed, f/11, ISO 100 for all you camera geeks out there. I know the framing/composition isn’t the most awesome with the Torii Gate or Spaceship Earth in the frame, but I got what are for me some good shots. I’ll have those shots uploaded soon. I was happy. Finally some good fireworks shots.

From there, I waited a few minutes for people to start clearing out, which didn’t happen as quickly as usual since 9-11 pm EMH. But I managed to get shots in Germany, Italy, Morocco, Japan, France, and the U.K. That made up for the crummy daytime skies (almost).

When I came back around, I made my way to the Imagination Pavilion area and setup in front of the monorail beam that runs in front. I didn’t have to wait long – soon a monorail came by, and with the camera settings I used, I was able to get a light trail monorail image that’s semi transparent in front of the Imagination Pavilion. I love this shot.

Then I had some more fun – I switched to my 8mm fisheye lens and shot the lit pavers near Spaceship Earth, hoping to get the starburst effect from the little lights in the pavers, shooting close to the ground, and then a bit higher. And then I moved to the fountain, where the long exposure blurs the water and ghosts some of the people, and managed to get another light streaking monorail.

Not the greatest shots ever, but for me these are gold.

After that I made my way to the exit, stopping to shoot near the main topiary, but instead of waiting for people to clear out – there were a TON of people snapping away, plus Photopass Photographers, I moved to the side and shot. First, I caught a monorail going in on one beam, then out on the other. Later I’ll combine these 2 to show the same monorail on each side at the same time, but that’ll come later. Again, some pretty neat shots.

I could’ve stayed a good bit longer, but honestly, I was out of gas. And this was the first of 4 park days. I was worried I’d have to wait a while for a bus back to Animal Kingdom Lodge, but as luck would have it, I waited all of 5 minutes. I got back to the resort and I think I was asleep within 30 seconds of my head hitting the pillow.

Final total from Apple Watch – over 26,000 steps covering 11.52 miles. Not sure how accurate that is, but it sure as heck felt like it.