October 2011 Disney World Trip Report, Pt I

I met them there right as they received their food, and just in time to snap a couple photos of Sarah’s salad. Besides the cool lighting, I’ve never really been all that impressed with the Electric Umbrella. I’m not really sure why, but it strikes me as a little dated and not in the best condition. The food is okay, and we’d probably eat there more if it were in Disney’s Hollywood Studios. In Epcot, though, there are much better options.

Epcot had Evening Extra Magic Hours this evening, luckily for us, so we had a little while longer to explore the park. We were so close to Spaceship Earth, and I had a sour taste in my mouth from the other unsavory attractions we had experienced, so I pushed for a ride upon this, our spaceship earth. It wasn’t too hard of a push, as Sarah loves the attraction, too. As always, the first 2/3rd of the attraction were awesome. The descent always looks a little different. I have no idea whether tweaks are truly being made to it, or if someone in maintenance moves a random triangle around every now and then just because he likes screwing with internet fanboys.

After Spaceship Earth, it was getting late, so we headed to World Showcase to start taking some photos.

We started in Mexico, heading to the out of the way corners of the exterior to avoid other Guests. As I’ve mentioned before, the harsh lighting on the exterior of the Mexico pavilion makes it one of the most difficult (if not the most difficult) structures to photograph in all of Walt Disney World. Really, it’s deceptively difficult!

We continued onward, making stops in Norway and China along the way. Norway might be my favorite country in the World Showcase–I think Maelstrom has the script that will make it go down as a cult classic when it’s eventually replaced–but it’s incredibly difficult to photograph at night. It’s poorly lit, and nothing really stands out. The lighting improves at Christmas, but it’s still quite the task. China, on the other hand, is great for photography. We spent far more time there, in fact.

It had been a while since I had last photographed Germany, and an idea struck me. Unfortunately, like most of my ideas, I didn’t really vet it that well, and started “doing” before I had completely thought it through. The photos below of me looking like a dofus on the fountain are the result. Even worse, I was unable to get the photo I wanted because I couldn’t see through the viewfinder, nor could I see the LCD screen. It’s a cool-enough idea, so I think I’ll try again sometime.

After that, we headed towards Italy, where two Kim Possible Cast Members were standing. One asked me, “So are you…with Disney…or Guests..or…?” I quickly and politely responded, “Oh, we’re Guests, I just wanted to take a couple photos of the Italy pavilion.” For some reason, despite our total tourist appearance and lack of any credentials whatsoever, we are asked this question a lot. My absolute favorite was last year when we were asked if we were with the ABC parade filming crew. There was no one else even in the park (Guests or ABC crew), so it was pretty clear one hand didn’t know what the other was doing. To this day, I regret not just saying, “Oh yeah, we’re with ABC” as I think we probably could’ve stayed in the park all night. Actually, probably not a good idea (and I did NOT say that at the time). But I digress. This evening, the Kim Possible Cast Member cheerily responded, “Okay, have fun!” We were both a little shocked by the answer. Usually, when we answer that we’re not with Disney, we get herded towards the exit. I think I probably could have told that Kim Possible CM anything, and she would’ve said okay!

After a few photos, we headed back towards Future World, taking more photos along the way. We stopped to take a few more photos in Future World before heading out. We had a bus to ourselves back to Caribbean Beach Resort, and our driver took us right to Aruba.

At this point, it was “only” 1:35 am, and it was the first night of our trip! I had slept for about an hour and a half on the airplane, and for a good amount of time the previous night, so I still had plenty of energy (mind you, I normally go to bed at around 10 pm; how I have this much energy at Walt Disney World is beyond me). I escorted Sarah to our room, dropped off a couple pieces of camera gear and headed out to test a couple shots I had in mind.

Unfortunately, I got all the way over to Port Royale, set up my camera, and then realized I had dropped off one of the lenses I needed for my big experiment: star trails. I decided to make due with what I had, and after I had taken a few 90 second exposures, a security guard approached me.

If I were at Disneyland, lawless land of pioneer justice security guards, I would have been worried that he’d make up some reason on the fly to interrogate me. Luckily, since this was Walt Disney World, he was nice and genuinely interested in what I was doing. I showed him my star trails photos, and he seemed impressed. I showed him some other photos on my LCD, and we started talking about photography. He was a really nice guy. When we were done talking, I realized it was well after 2 am, so I decided to head back to the room and go to bed. I finally got to bed at 2:45.

And that’s a wrap on the first day!

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