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[DLP-Photos.com]

Dear Nicolai,
thanks for your very fast replies!! Read you (your report)  tomorrow ;-)

Awesome, thanks! And no problem. That is what the forum is for

[littlemermaid83]

Fantastic report so far, your photos are beautiful!

[i love main st]

i have just come online and saw your report was on so made a brew and biscuits and read the first installment (should be doing the house work..haha) and loved it carnt wait for the next part ,i have not been for over two years when we go in november and reading your report has just made me even more excited   ...your photography is awesome , loving the pics , your water ones are stunning ... =D>   :thumbs:

[mickeyspal]

Hi Forza_United, I have enjoyed reading about your trip so far, looking forward to the next installment. Your photos are lovely and colourful; I like your water theme. Nice to hear that the Disney store is being transformed into a Christmas shop, I love Christmas especially a disney themed christmas. :minnie:
Only a few more weeks before we arrive home to Disney. /

[DLP-Photos.com]

Fantastic report so far, your photos are beautiful!

Thank you very much

i have just come online and saw your report was on so made a brew and biscuits and read the first installment (should be doing the house work..haha) and loved it carnt wait for the next part ,i have not been for over two years when we go in november and reading your report has just made me even more excited   ...your photography is awesome , loving the pics , your water ones are stunning ... =D>   :thumbs:

Haha that's brilliant! Thank you very much - especially regarding the water photos!

Hi Forza_United, I have enjoyed reading about your trip so far, looking forward to the next installment. Your photos are lovely and colourful; I like your water theme. Nice to hear that the Disney store is being transformed into a Christmas shop, I love Christmas especially a disney themed christmas. :minnie:
Only a few more weeks before we arrive home to Disney. /

Thank you. It is only the part of the Disney Store closest to Anette's Diner that is now the Christmas Store. As far as I am aware the other part of the store will be a rethemed version of the Disney Store!

And awesome regarding your trip - will there be a trip report for me to look forward to?

I could look at your pictures all day Nicolai. Simply amazing. And as always it's a real pleasure reading your reports. I can't wait for the rest. And your next trip. And the one after that. And the one after that....

Thanks - and I cannot wait to see your photos again when you go next time! I am all ready for a 5 day trip report of the second trip and still 3 installments to come on this one!

[DLP-Photos.com]

Dreams of Memories - Part 3

After a very good night's sleep - and a much needed one for that matter we were up around 6.45 in order to get to breakfast at 7.30. We had been told that the Club Manhattan was the best of the breakfast restaurants so when we got to choose between this and Parkside Diner, we obviously chose the Club Manhattan and we certainly didn't regret it. The club has got a great atmosphere of a New York Jazz Club - of course you rarely would eat your breakfast in a jazz club , but still the atmosphere was awesome with a piano in the corner of the circle room.

The breakfast itself was very delicious and a lot better than the breakfast I have been used to at Santa Fe. To be honest it will be a bit difficult for me to be satisfied with choices available at Santa Fe when returning. Here we had 5 tastes of yoghurt, 4 brands of cereal, 4 types of juice (including and excuisite freshly pressed juice), 7 types of bread, fresh fruit/fruit salad, 3 jams, honey, cheese and finally hot breakfast with bacon, eggs, sausages, potatoes and pudding! You could really get a great start to your day with the breakfast buffet - almost worth the extra price of HNY in itself!





After enjoying this brilliant breakfast we quickly went back to the room to get ready for the last 80 minutes of EMH. Walking to the parks I noticed that my stubbed toe actually hurt quite a lot because of the way I had taped it! So I stopped for a second in Disney Village to remove the tape and immediately I walked a lot better!

All ready now we entered the park at 8.45 - it didn't feel like EMH as a lot of people had already found their way to the park! I wanted to queue up for the Studios (Crush) this morning, so we only walked down Main Street /Discover Arcade with Buzz as our goal...







When we arrived at Buzz the queue was surprisingly short considering the amount of people already there and after queueing up outside the inside queue line was a walk on. All ready and buzzing (pun intended) for the first inter-galactic fight of the trip, I got in my XP-41 Space Cruiser only to be very disappointed! My gun didn't work - no laser or light at all and no points... So why my mum enjoyed finally being able to beat me, I enjoyed the ride and looked for my targets for the inevitable second ride due to the malfunction! And indeed, as soon as we got off we decided to take an extra spin, so I could get my revenche. The queue was now bigger outside, but still almost a walkthrough inside! I got a working gun, but after a good start I failed to gain as many points as wanted until I hit the light tunnel where I got it up to a decent, yet unimpressive score of 262.000!

Safely down to earth again we found our way down Main Street U.S.A to get to Walt Disney Studios...



... and our timing could not have been better! Because as we arrived at the entrance of the studios they had just opened the turnstiles and let people enter 30 minutes before park opening. I headed for the Crush queue, while my mum tried to find something to drink. I was in the queue right behind a british family (mother, grandmother and two daughters), who said something we have all thought when it comes to Crush. The youngest daughter and the grandmother clearly had their doubts, but the mum said "it'll not be that wild.. It is Disney and it is Nemo!"... Now the grandmother left the queue during, but the youngest daughter did go on and I shared a shell with them. She clearly didn't like it - there definetely is a problem of having one of the wildest rollercoasters in both parks "disguised" as a family coaster with beautiful Finding Nemo scenery! I, however, enjoyed the ride as much as ever - it really is funny!





I wanted to try Tower of Terror so I went for a fastpass as the queue line was already 70 minutes!?! I got fastpasses for around noon, so we planned to get Cinémagique seen before that and depending on the lines I wanted to give RC Racer a second ride! As it turned out we ended up in Toy Story Playland at first planning to catch the Cinémagique at 11...









For once the single rider line wasn't the quickest option though, so after another funny - yet short - play time with RC it was clear that we couldn't get to Cinémagique in time for the 11 showing. In stead we opted for some atmosphere strolling/photography and a little shopping - always nice ways to spend some extra time in both parks! Though a walk through all of WDS still makes it clear that this park isn't a "finished product". It lacks that final touch in some places, that final coherence in theme, quality and detail between the lands! I don't know if a DCA style refurb is the right answer, but it is very intriguing to see the WDI plans that should be ready for our dear WDS!





















It was time for the 11.45 showing of Cinémagique. As a big cinema/film lover it is always with delight I find my seat in the theatre, but this time it was also with a nervous excitement surrounding the new scenes. In general I was pleasantly surprised! [spoiler:2rqhe77r]The Jack Sparrow and Gollum door scenes were brilliant, while I was sad to see Sulley being replaced by The Incredibles. Monsters Inc. has already seemed like a perfect match for the door scene!

The rest of the new scenes are added in the goodbye and kisses montages. They all work quite well and especially the Toy Story 3 and Black Swan scenes actually made us both emotional![/spoiler:2rqhe77r] All in all I think the additions are clever and with a deep respect for the original, which is one of the best original WDI attractions of this century! The additions simply help this attraction become more relevant for a new audience

Relived and delighted by this ever so wonderful 30 minutes in the company of Martin Short and Co. I went for Tower of Terror to use my fastpass. Once again I noticed a lot of people waiting outside the fastpass queue, because they showed up before time. In all honesty it is nice to see this being followed this strict - if not, the whole idea of fast pass loses it's value

The drop was as funny as ever, although for me the attraction is just as much everything leading up to the drops. It simply is amazing and true WDI magic like we only know from a few of the original Disneyland attractions! We finished the studios off by taking in the last bit of atmosphere and taking the last photos, as we pretty much knew that we wouldn't return during this stay











We were starting to get hungry - for food, but also for one of our favourite rides: Big Thunder Mountain! Before heading for that for fast passes we simply had to enjoy the beautiful sight of Hotel Disneyland in the middle of the blooming, green and sunlit Fantasia Gardens  











Entering through the turnstiles we quickly went for Big Thunder Mountain only to see that the fast passes had already reached 9.15 in the evening :O This wasn't good as I wanted to photograph Disney Dreams this evening and for that purpose camp up in front of the castle quite early. For "security" reasons we decided to collect the fastpasses anyway - maybe we could just get to use them! After all the BTM FP is the most effective in the parks!

Our stomaches were roaring louder than Mufasa at this time, so after having been disappointed on sunday evening, we once again headed for Restaurant Hakuna Matata. It was lunch time again, so the place was packed but open nonetheless! I do not know how we got this lucky but my mum picked the perfect line (it only took 15 minutes to get the food) and we also got a perfect table by the water. With the sun shining, we were not having dinner in a parisian theme park. We were having dinner at the very shores of the nile!





Having once again given up on BTM due to 80+ mins waiting time, we decided to save this for tuesday morning when we would queue up outside Frontierland in order to beat the worst queues. In stead we opted for the mysterious manor reigning over Thunder Mesa from it's once so majestic hill. It was time to revisit another WDI masterpiece in what was clearly becoming the trip down memory lane that we wanted. With the queue line stretching all the way to the gazebo we were given plenty of time to enjoy the mysterious gardens of the manor...









... I had recently heard the original Vincent Price spiel in english so when standing inside the stretching room I put this on my inner imaginary iPod and enjoyed the ride even more. In the name of Melanie Ravenswood, please, please, please bring him back! We boarded our doom buggie for a pleasant tour of the house that reveals new secrets and details every single ride you take



Afterwards we paid tribute to the many people once serving the manor and the Ravenswood family by visiting their graves on Boot Hill:









I'll never ever grow tired of this ride - pure brilliance! I did, however, find the speed of the doom buggies almost too slow at times during this visit. It was almost as if they could go up the hills! :?

On our way to explore our beautiful castle, we noticed that The Lucky Nugget now served a special menu with the choice of three main courses - among those Fish'n'Chips! We had thought of eating at Walt's this evening, but had decided not to on sunday due to the available time slots and our packed programme. The Lucky Nugget came as a blessing! Another table service restaurant that we had never visited (!?!?! :O), but without the need of making reservations. We knew where to have our dinner!

Last summer the castle was nearly all done with it's refurbishment, but still missed the very last details, so this was the first time I got to see the final "product" and words cannot describe it... We really are blessed with the most beautiful, most spectacular and most magical castle of all Magic Kingdom style parks in the world! The open, flower filled Central Plaza was the final icing on the cake! I will not say much but let the photos do the talking:























After taking our time to enjoy this beautiful sight, we wanted to finish the first part of the day with a final classic! It's a small world! Now, it's been a long time since I have seen the entire queue line being used. Actually I cannot remember the last time (and that includes two high peak trips and a Christmas trip, where the queues haven't been as long!) Mainly the state of the attraction was good, however, a couple of dolls missed their instruments and one of the dance groups were "on strike" But the attraction was still as lovely as always. It tells the story that you really need be told every day in this world we are living in - far too many people tend to forget that in the end we are part of one big family! We have our differences but we can all join each other when needed. Much like we do at Disneyland where you see people of every culture, colour and religion. All gathered together to celebrate our imagination

We returned to Hotel New York after having enjoyed a credit card burning shopping spree in World of Disney finishing on Starbucks enjoying a refreshing Refresha Citron Vert in the afternoon sun!



I will finish this part of the trip report with a little review of Hotel New York. Adding to what has already been said about our room and the breakfast, I must say that the general atmosphere of the hotel is very appealing! Perhaps especially to us as grown ups - it is filled with cool New York details around every corner and you could use ages to explore it. It all helps create the illusion of being "in New York". That being said I am sure that families travelling with children will enjoy this hotel just as much. You can still meet your favourite characters, buy your favourite souvenirs and have fun. It is just done in a way that oozes quality and luxury. In my honest opinion this is my new favourite hotel and I have now tried them all (except Davy Crockett). You actually get a lot for the extra money you pay making it better than Hotel Disneyland which is still too expensive (it is still an experience not to let pass by, should it be given to you.) But for me, Hotel New York will be "my" new hotel! Finally some various photos from around the hotel:















I am currently in Copenhagen taking photos... I hope to be able to make the next installment tomorrow evening, but otherwise you will have to wait until sunday for the next installment, which will feature a bunch of Disney Dreams photos and my view on the scenes in Disney Dreams. Until then, ENJOY!

[fraffstar]

I am absolutely loving your photos! They are wonderful!! What lenses have you used? :thumbs:

[DLP-Photos.com]

I am absolutely loving your photos! They are wonderful!! What lenses have you used? :thumbs:

Thanks! Besides a standard Nikon 18-105mm lens, I use these two - the first was the almost used for all photos in this report! The 70-200 was only used for Stars'n'Cars and Disney Magic on Parade

AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED:



AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II:



They are all mounted on my Nikon D90, which I hope to replace with a Nikon D800 soon

[fraffstar]

I'd absolutely love a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens but I'm a canon user  :lol:
Stunning shots though, I keep coming back and back and looking and wondering if I can recreate with my basic collection but I think probably not. Thanks for the info though, maybe for the next trip  :thumbs:

[DLP-Photos.com]

I'd absolutely love a 14-24mm f/2.8 lens but I'm a canon user  :lol:
Stunning shots though, I keep coming back and back and looking and wondering if I can recreate with my basic collection but I think probably not. Thanks for the info though, maybe for the next trip  :thumbs:

I'm sure Canon have such a lens too, but you know just change to Nikon!

Thank you - I am sure you can recreate them! If you have the ideas it is not as much about the camera as it is about the photographer and his/her ideas In my opinion 70-80 % of a good photo is the photographer, so just go for it and I'm sure you'll get loads of awesome shots!

[DLP-Photos.com]

Dreams of Memories - Part 4

After a quick visit to the hotel, changing into a bit warmer night-friendly clothes and collecting my tripod, we once again headed towards the parks. We weren't going to watch the parade this night, so decided to head straight for dinner hopping to be able to get some rides done during the parade time.

As planned in the afternoon we went for The Lucky Nugget - a restaurant that we (despite 10 previous trips together) still hadn't visited!!! My mum recalled that her and my dad always wanted to take us back when it was the saloon with a show, but me and my sister never wanted to spend the time needed. How stupid I was back then! This time I would have killed to be able to see the show - this place is built to host live entertainment!







It really is a beautifully detailed restaurant and even though the food was still "fast food" it was definetely better than the counter service restaurants and had an touch of class added by steal cutlery and real glasses for your all-you-can-drink drinks. The price of a couple of euros extra compared to the regular menu options was definetely worth it - I will recommend a visit to this restaurant to everyone. It was a nice, relaxing difference from the packed counter service restaurants and the fish'n'chips was delicious and so was the lovely dessert





Positively charged with new energy and a great new restaurant experience, we quickly went to check up on BTM, but as expected it was still 70+ minutes.. With our fastpasses still being a bit too late for our Dreams plans, it was clearer than ever for us! The attraction we both find the funniest had to wait until our very last day, before we got to try it! We promised ourselves that it would be the first ride of the day on our last day - then it had to take the time needed!

In stead we went towards Adventure Isle, which we really loved walking around in the sunny, warm evenings - an atmospheric walk towards Blanche Neige et les Sept Nains - our main goal for the evening before Dreams. Adventure Isle has really never looked more beautiful than on this trip - so green, so welcoming and with the refurbished Pirate ship as the leaf making the tree just a bit greener than normally. This of course also presented me with the opportunity to take a couple of more shots in my "moving water" theme of this trip









My mum was sure that this was the first time she had walked the caves of Adventure Isle. If she was right about that, it certainly was about time I showed her these. A dark labyrinth of adventurous wonders containing some awesome details within!





We had hoped to be able to board the pirate ship, but unfortunately it was closed as we arrived at the bridge... However, we got a chance to really gaze upon the fresh exterior - finally Hook has got his ship back! It is no longer a ship wreck, but a proper ship fitting the surroundings perfectly... It has certainly underlined the Adventure in Adventure Isle.





And gives you the opportunity to once again take this photo:



Remember, this evening I had my tripod so it was a lot easier to get the photos for my "theme"





Seeing Pirates as a near walk-on we couldn't resist and filled with the adventurous atmosphere having walked through caves, jungles and waterfalls we had to take another cruise down the troubled caribbean seas...

... Continuing through the Disneyland classics we tried Snow White as planned. We now only missed Peter Pan's Flight and Big Thunder Mountain for this trip to be completed! Snow White was such a good experience and really showed that Disneyland is not only for children. Our vehicle was filled with adults - no children at all and never has I tried the attraction like this! The others in front of us were almost acting along really living the ride

It was a bit early to get in place for Dreams, so we decided to walk the great little shops of Fantasyland - namely La Chaumière des Sept Nains and La Confiserie des Trois Fées, which had opened out to the courtyard of Auberge de Cendrillon! I took the chance to visit this place I otherwise wouldn't get to..





It was about time to get ready for Dreams - I mean, come on, it was only 2 hours until it started haha... Nah, as previously stated I had decided to take photos of dreams this evening... I found a place with a flowerbed right in front of me on the same side of Central Plaza as we had stood in on sunday evening. As you can see my spot was as close to perfect as one would think:





Clear sight of the castle and with a flowerbed in front of me I wouldn't get any people in front of me... At least not in a height that could distract my view... At least so I thought!

Because the closer we got to the start of Fantillusion the clearer it was that some guests' respect for the fenced off flower beds was very little. Actually I doubt they had any! Children started playing in the flowerbeds - running around on the grass and eventually in the flowers trashing them... We actually tried stopping them, by kindly saying that this was not a playground, but that task was impossible! Especially when the parents' don't mind this behaviour... It got worse when we discovered that grown-ups started to enter the flowerbeds too - first of all to pose for photos though. It only got worse until Dreams started when it was completely stupid. People jumped into the flower bed standing up - not children, but grown-ups. people climbed benches and lampposts... Eventually making my spot quite bad - especially for taking photos of the castle projections! I really think Disney should offer the cost of just one guest flow cast member to be placed by each of the four flower beds preventing people from playing in them, sitting in them and eventually destroying the beautiful flowers! That would be a cost worth paying and I do remember guest flow cast members doing the same job last year when it was only fields of grass surrounding the stage!

Well as Fantillusion began it started to rain (!?!)... Come on, here we were. Having stood there for one hour already and then the rain came and sky looked pitch black! I covered the camera, which was all ready... Truly as a lightning from a clear sky the rain suddenly stopped once the final floats of Fantillusion passed by and the sky went clearer for every second. NOW we were ready for Dreams!



It began! Now as promised I would give my view on some of the scenes... For me the best scenes were "A Friend Like Me", The Villains part and the grand finale. The Genie part really is a show-off scene - what they do to the castle is amazing and it seems very fitting when Genie keeps asking you "Can your friends do this? do that?" and so on... No, Disney all other theme parks cannot recreate this! Add to that some impressive pyro technics and the brilliance of Robin Williams and you have a very memorable scene. The villains is parts is brilliantly original - when they transform the castle into the big machinery you don't really believe your eyes - the fire part of this scene is sooo immersive! The finale speaks for itself - it simply has to be experienced! It cannot be described or done justice in photos or on film - if that doesn't make you smile, cry and appreciate the wonder of dreams in general nothing in a Disney park will!

Talking about emotions, Dreams is filled with emotional scenes. Apart from the opening and the finale - "One Day" from Hunchback and "I See the Light" from Tangled really hit the spots. Goosebumps all over the place.

I wouldn't say any scene felt indifferent to the story or bad in any way... Though, when they in the future need to update it - the scenes with Remy and Mary Poppins would seem like good choices to replace. But for now nothing can ruin this magical show - we really have a show to be proud of now thanks to Steve Davison and his entire team.

I took loads of photos - quite a lot of them can be seen here and the rest can be seen later:















































































Wow, quite a lot of photos... Well, I'll continue in just a bit, because I have a whole bunch more from this evening... One of the bad things about summer season is that you barely get to see the parks at night (well WDS is impossible with the 7 closure). The parks really are even more magical by night with all the lights coming on, so bringing my tripod I took some time exiting the park to shoot what shot could be... We had done all our shopping in the afternoon, so it was really all about the photos this evening. I will let the photos speak:































Back in the hotel well after midnight, we decided to do most of the packing tuesday morning... After all didn't have that much to pack.

Going to bed after a brilliant full day in the parks, we could really DREAM of the day to come, where we had to take in all the magic possible before another 20 hour bus trip waited in the evening.

The next and final installment of this part of the trip report will follow later tonight or tomorrow

Enjoy!

[norhel]

Very good report and pics at always :-)
My favorite pics are those from Frontierland and Main Street :-)

[ulak]

Great report and pictures!!

(peoples on benches and gras...grrr...)

[petals]

why would anyone think it's ok to climb into a fenced off flower bed and stand on the flowers or let their children play in there! Some people have so little respect it's unreal!

Love all your photos btw

[esmeralda]

Great report as expected!!  
 I will also try Lucky Nugget for the 1st time this year. I would have loved to watch the Show that was running years ago... Did you have dinner there? At what time approx.?
I'm also always very annoyed by people climbing over fences or on things and destroying flowers etc!  :evil:  I'm glad to read i'm not the only one!! Nevertheless i can't wait till my trip, which is coming closer... /
Will you let us now what souvenirs you exactly  bought??