Missouri to DLR - Take 2 - Oct 2013 - Updated: Trip Report Complete

[disnemimi]

I agree with PrincessInOz and KC Mike...it really has to be the photographer first. Look at your Dad, Bob....he has a great camera, but doesn't have the eye like you to take the best pictures. And being color blind doesn't help in Light Room (LOL) I will gladly assign you the job as family journalist with TR for our WDW trip in June. I will be spending all my time doing Magic Bands and Fastpass + for our group. That takes some major planning as I am learning for our upcoming WDW trip next week!! Love all your pictures and know you had such a fabulous time.
Hugs, Mimi

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 7 - Friday, October 18 - California Adventure continued....

So, after Mickeys Fun Wheel, we decided to ride California Screamin again. This is Buddys favorite ride and hed been pestering us to ride again, so lets do it! It was only a 5 or 10 minute wait. I rode it once with Buddy and Ninja, and then they rode it again by themselves.





In the meantime, Stephanie took Pickle over to King Tritatans again!





After Buddy and Ninja had their California Screamin' fix, we decided to head over to the Little Mermaid again. We stopped for a few photo pass photos on the way.





And then we made it over to the Little Mermaid. No line!!! We rode it once, and then they let us hop back on without going through the entire queuing area again. Cool!











Its funny, before we went on the trip and we showed Pickle what rides are available and asked what she might be interested in, she said that she didnt want to ride this one. Of course, we made her ride it anyway. Glad we did, because it turned out to be one of her favorites!!

One of our goals for the day was to try and get fast passes to Radiator Springs Racers after sunset that night. I had been watching one of the lines/wait times apps and a return time past 6:30pm was starting to get close, but we werent quite there yet. We decided to go explore the Wharf area while we waited.



We did the tour of the bread factory and then the group decided that they were ready for a snack. Since we weren't that far from the RSR fast pass distribution area, I cruised over there on my scooter to check the return times in person, and they were handing out passes to return around 5:45pm at this point. (It was probably about 9am when I checked.) When I got back, the rest of the group had just got their food. A bag of fresh sourdough bread and a bunch of bacon. (I think I already said how much my kids like Disney bacon )

Who cares about bacon, look at that bread!! Yummy. So. Good. !!





While the kids ate, Stephanie grabbed our tickets and headed over to the fast pass distribution. We timed it perfectly, she came back with fast passes for around 6:30 to 7:00pm. Yes!!! Go team!!!

We decided to walk through Carsland through the Wharf area again, just because it's so darn cool!!!







We pretty much walked through town this time, since we knew that we'd be back later in the evening. Passed the cool main entrance sign again...



We decided to head back to the Buena Vista Street area to get a few photos and explore a little. We stopped for a Photopass photo opp in front of the waterfall coming down Grizzly Peak on the way over. Turned out to be way too sunny for a good photo, too hard to keep our eyes open. Oh well....



Continued....

 

[MarbleBob]

Oh, and the comments about photography equipment are all right on. I have a fairly decent camera set up, and I'm getting the hang of using it, but it doesn't automatically take great photos!

I think one of the things that I struggle with the most is getting the focus right. I have a 20mm f/1.7 fixed length lens that I keep on the camera 90% of the time. I like keeping the aperture set at 2 or lower for the lower light shots, but that means a very shallow depth of field. If I have two people in the shot, often, only one of them is sharp. I'm still trying to get a better feel for finding the balance between aperture size and depth of field for the the current lighting scenario. Often the problem is that I just snap photos without having a lot of time to think about the best exposure settings.... (My food shots usually turn out pretty good, because I can take the time to tinker with the settings a little bit.) That being said, I feel like most of my shots are decent, and when I'm lucky, I can get some pretty darn good ones too

 

[disnemimi]

I can't believe you got Buddy to ride the Little Mermaid ride two times in a row. He was in so much pain when we made him ride back in April. What a funny little boy and how he loves his roller coasters!!! I am glad Pickle loved the ride and glad she will get to ride Little Mermaid again when we all go next year to Walt Disney World. I really enjoyed all your pictures. Did you buy the Photopass CD?
Man I loved that sourdough bread at the Wharf. Wish I had some now!! Keep the pictures coming. Going to be sad when you post you are going home.
Hugs, Mimi

 

[PrincessInOz]

Fantastic pics Bob. Seems like you managed to hit a number of the family favourites multiple times; which is always a good thing to do early on and set up a happy family for the rest of the day.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures of RSR at night.

 

[MarbleBob]

I can't believe you got Buddy to ride the Little Mermaid ride two times in a row. He was in so much pain when we made him ride back in April. What a funny little boy and how he loves his roller coasters!!! I am glad Pickle loved the ride and glad she will get to ride Little Mermaid again when we all go next year to Walt Disney World. I really enjoyed all your pictures. Did you buy the Photopass CD?
Man I loved that sourdough bread at the Wharf. Wish I had some now!! Keep the pictures coming. Going to be sad when you post you are going home.
Hugs, Mimi

Yeah, we bought the Photopass Plus CD. It was like $70 to purchase before the trip. I love that you are able to get ride photos with it. Also, I wouldn't be in too many photos without it! LOL

Fantastic pics Bob. Seems like you managed to hit a number of the family favourites multiple times; which is always a good thing to do early on and set up a happy family for the rest of the day.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures of RSR at night.

Thanks PIO! I hear you, we try and find balance between dragging the kids around to what we want to see, and letting them get to ride their favorites multiple times. I think when it was all said and done, Buddy and Ninja got to ride California Screamin' about 5 times or so!!!

 

[MarbleBob]

Oh, and a quick off topic post....

Earlier in the PTR, I posted that we went to the grand opening of the new Disney Store outlet in St. Louis back in August. We've gone a few times since and scored a few good deals last week and today.

The deal is that they often discount their clearance area by an additional 25% off the lowest marked price.

Last week, we picked up a larger Duffy Bear for about $13 (originally marked $40). It was the only one, so we were happy to grab it. This is the larger 17" one (not the one that you can get outfits for in the parks.)

Here's another iPhone snapshot....



We scored big a couple items this morning. They had a friends and family sale (open to anyone) today that was 25% off your total purchase, after any sale prices. So, clearance stuff was 25% off discounted price, then 25% off that.

Some of the best deals?

That Toy Story pen was 55 cents. The Perry shirt was $2.80. The Peter Pan figures were $2.81. The Lone Ranger Vinylmation set had been $30 and we got it for $3.37. Crazy! Marie doll for Pickle was $12 (not on clearance but a good sale price at $16 before additional 25% off.) And then we bought Pickle a new winter coat/hat from the Frozen movie. It wasn't on sale to start with, but we did get the 25% off, so it was still a pretty good deal.

They had lots of toddler/baby items on clearance and a full rack of halloween costumes on clearance. Some great deals, if you have little kids!

Not trying to gloat here as much as share the excitement and let our fellow St. Louis and Missouri DISers about the deals that can be found at this store

 

[PrincessInOz]

Congrats to you and the family. Those are GREAT prices!!!

 

[tksbaskets]

What a nice installment to start my Monday. I love your pictures, especially of Carsland! It's getting me even more excited for our upcoming trip when we see the completed BVS and CL.

I can get my family on the Little Mermaid ride once per trip....

 

[mvf-m11c]

Nice pics from DCA that morning. It is so important to take advantage of the morning when the park opens when the ride wait times are short. That is good that you got a later time that day to ride RSR so you can experience it at night.

Very nice update from DCA that morning.

I also agree with everyone else said that it is all about the photographer to get great pictures.

 

[jedijill]

Missouri native joining in! Fantastic report! Getting lots of idea for my trip that is still in the planning stages.

Jill in CO

 

[ksromack]

We did the tour of the bread factory and then the group decided that they were ready for a snack. Since we weren't that far from the RSR fast pass distribution area, I cruised over there on my scooter to check the return times in person, and they were handing out passes to return around 5:45pm at this point. (It was probably about 9am when I checked.) When I got back, the rest of the group had just got their food. A bag of fresh sourdough bread and a bunch of bacon. (I think I already said how much my kids like Disney bacon )

My husband found this bread tour on the disney site.....I had never even heard anyone talk about it! Was it worth the time? How long did it last? We also want to ride RSR at night so I figure we'll have to do like you did....keep checking for return times! You made bacon sandwiches?

18 days can't get here fast enough for me.....can you believe we could have some flurries tonight?

 

[ksromack]

Oh, and a quick off topic post....

Earlier in the PTR, I posted that we went to the grand opening of the new Disney Store outlet in St. Louis back in August. We've gone a few times since and scored a few good deals last week and today.

The deal is that they often discount their clearance area by an additional 25% off the lowest marked price.

Last week, we picked up a larger Duffy Bear for about $13 (originally marked $40). It was the only one, so we were happy to grab it. This is the larger 17" one (not the one that you can get outfits for in the parks.)

Here's another iPhone snapshot....



We scored big a couple items this morning. They had a friends and family sale (open to anyone) today that was 25% off your total purchase, after any sale prices. So, clearance stuff was 25% off discounted price, then 25% off that.

Some of the best deals?

That Toy Story pen was 55 cents. The Perry shirt was $2.80. The Peter Pan figures were $2.81. The Lone Ranger Vinylmation set had been $30 and we got it for $3.37. Crazy! Marie doll for Pickle was $12 (not on clearance but a good sale price at $16 before additional 25% off.) And then we bought Pickle a new winter coat/hat from the Frozen movie. It wasn't on sale to start with, but we did get the 25% off, so it was still a pretty good deal.

They had lots of toddler/baby items on clearance and a full rack of halloween costumes on clearance. Some great deals, if you have little kids!

Not trying to gloat here as much as share the excitement and let our fellow St. Louis and Missouri DISers about the deals that can be found at this store

OMGosh, I was at the Disney store yesterday too.....I went after church so that would have been about noonish, maybe a little later. I went right to the shirts, though....and I'm such a dunce. I didn't realize I could have used the 25% off on my purchase. I did place an order online and used it for that.......I can't believe I didn't use that coupon at the store. That place was pretty crowded! I got hubby and I 2 tshirts each, a thermal each, and a zip-up fleece each.

 

[MarbleBob]

What a nice installment to start my Monday. I love your pictures, especially of Carsland! It's getting me even more excited for our upcoming trip when we see the completed BVS and CL.

I can get my family on the Little Mermaid ride once per trip....

Thanks! I hope you have fun on your upcoming trip. I can't wait to go back

Nice pics from DCA that morning. It is so important to take advantage of the morning when the park opens when the ride wait times are short. That is good that you got a later time that day to ride RSR so you can experience it at night.

Very nice update from DCA that morning.

I also agree with everyone else said that it is all about the photographer to get great pictures.

As always, thanks for the input!

Missouri native joining in! Fantastic report! Getting lots of idea for my trip that is still in the planning stages.

Jill in CO

Awesome! Glad to have you join us

My husband found this bread tour on the disney site.....I had never even heard anyone talk about it! Was it worth the time? How long did it last? We also want to ride RSR at night so I figure we'll have to do like you did....keep checking for return times! You made bacon sandwiches?

18 days can't get here fast enough for me.....can you believe we could have some flurries tonight?

Wow 17 days!!! I bet you are getting excited. Hope you have an awesome time

The bread tour is what you make of it. They have all of the machinery behind glass walls. You can just walk through at your own pace and watch the dough being processed through the various stages. (You move from screen to screen.) This could take just a couple minutes at most. Or... They have televisions that explain how everything works (I think Rosie O'Donnel was the host.) We've watched the videos before, but skipped them this time. My guess is that it would take about 15 minutes to watch the videos (but I don't really remember). They give out some free samples as you enter the building, so if you aren't hungry enough to buy a whole loaf, make sure you at least grab a couple of sour dough slices from the cast member

OMGosh, I was at the Disney store yesterday too.....I went after church so that would have been about noonish, maybe a little later. I went right to the shirts, though....and I'm such a dunce. I didn't realize I could have used the 25% off on my purchase. I did place an order online and used it for that.......I can't believe I didn't use that coupon at the store. That place was pretty crowded! I got hubby and I 2 tshirts each, a thermal each, and a zip-up fleece each.

Cool! I'm sure that there will be more deals as the holiday season approaches. We got there around 10:30am and it wasn't crowded yet. We've started making it a habit to stop by the Disney store after church on Sundays too. We go to the early service at Windsor Crossing, which is literally just down the street

 

[MarbleBob]

Day 7 - Friday, October 18 - Continued....

After we stopped at for a photo by the waterfall at Grizzly Peak, we headed back to the Buena Vista St. area. The Red Car Trolley was just pulling up when we arrived...



...and we all looked at other with the same idea. Let's hop on!




We rode the "one way" line over to the Tower of Terror area. It was a nice relaxing ride and we enjoyed looking out at the people and "buildings"...







The trolley wasn't going to head back for 10 to 15 minutes. We had the option to get off and walk back, or to just sit and wait. We were all happy to stay seated for a little while longer and enjoyed the company of the trolley driver while we waited. Then, it took us back to where we got on.

We decided to explore around the fountain and the Walt/Mickey statue for a while. Really cool!! To be honest, I knew that they re-designed this area since our last trip, but I wasn't expecting much. I was sort of skeptical because I didn't like the idea of them removing the giant California letters in the esplanade and also removing the Golden Gate Bridge. It was 100 times cooler than I expected. Well done Disney!



We decided to get a few photos around Walt and Mickey







Time to act goofy!!!



We explored the area a little bit longer and then decided it was time to hop over to Disneyland (it was about 10:15am.) The walk across the esplanade was quick and we didn't have much of a wait at the turnstiles.

Ninja Potato had decided that she wanted to get Oswald the Lucky Rabbit hats for her and her cousin (who is also her best friend). We stopped at the hat shop to see if they had any, and to get their names embroidered on them. Turns out that they don't sell them in Disneyland. They directed us to Elias and Co. back in California Adventure. We knew that we'd return to CA later in the day, so no worries, we decided to move on...

As we exited the hat shop, Minnie appeared out of nowhere. Hey Pickle, look who it is!!!!



I guess Pickle was in a Minnie mood that day, because she had been carrying around a Minnie plush doll and had a Minnie shirt on. So cute!



And then we caught Goofy as we started towards Main Street.



LOL



Stephanie had hoped to pick up one of the newer music CD's that featured the theme park music, so we stopped in the music shop. She grabbed a CD, and we saw that they had some Disney Infinity Power Discs, so we grabbed a few packages of those too!



At this point, we hadn't really explored Adventureland on the the trip yet, and we really wanted to hit the Enchanted Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise, so we headed that way first. Luckily, they were seating just as we walked by, so there wasn't any wait. I truly love the Tiki Room. I love the nostalgia of it, the fun music, the relaxing atmosphere, dole whips, etc. The original one is so much better than what we had for so many years at WDW (with the "Under New Management" version)...



After the Tiki Room, we headed over to the Jungle Cruise. It was a fairly long line. 30 to 40 minutes. No one seemed to mind though. The line kept moving, so that was nice. Our tour guide was pretty good. Not the best we've ever had, but still lots of fun and bad jokes.









Hey look, the backside of water!!!



The ride exit into the gift/snack shop. Guess what Pickle decided that she had to have?






And Buddy too!



They both thoroughly enjoyed their Pickles!! The rest of us wanted something from Bengal BBQ and Dole Whips. Stay tuned....

 

[luulu1999]

Glad you mentioned Disney Infinity in that post...I have a question....black Friday they have the starter pack for $38.94? At wal mart so I am getting this for my kiddos....and I am going to try to get the 3 pack of the other characters that go with the starter pack (mrs incredible, the pirate guy, and Mike) so they can play together, but I seen where a tangled one is coming out if you buy the characters does it have the game in with it? Like if I just buy the tangled character would I have to buy some kind of tangled game also?

 

[MarbleBob]

Glad you mentioned Disney Infinity in that post...I have a question....black Friday they have the starter pack for $38.94? At wal mart so I am getting this for my kiddos....and I am going to try to get the 3 pack of the other characters that go with the starter pack (mrs incredible, the pirate guy, and Mike) so they can play together, but I seen where a tangled one is coming out if you buy the characters does it have the game in with it? Like if I just buy the tangled character would I have to buy some kind of tangled game also?

That sounds like an outstanding deal! So, here's sort of how it works. The game plays in two modes. Story (or whatever it's called) and ToyBox. In the first mode, you play through the game in the world that you've selected. Out of the box, it comes with Monsters Inc, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Incredibles. The game plays is pretty much what you might assume here. The Toy Box mode is free-play in an open world that you create and do what ever you want in.

Additionally, in "Story mode" you can only play with the characters that belong in that world. So you can't put Capt. Jack Sparrow on the base and then play with him inside the Incredibles world. On the other hand, any of the figures can play in the Toy Box world.

Getting closer to answering your question....

If your kids want to play together, then it's a good idea to get that extra 3 figure pack that you mentioned. This will give you the two figures needed to play cooperatively in each of the three starter games.

Finally to the point, they have created figures that only work in the Toy Box, since they don't have a corresponding game. Figures like Jack Skellington, Rapunzel, the Frozen Girls, etc. will work only in the Toy Box mode. (Which isn't a bad thing.) Also, they make power discs for Tangled in the Toy Box mode, that make the terrain and sky look like the items from the movie. (The similar Wreck it Ralph ones are cool too!)

I hope this makes sense. If not, let me know and I'll try again

 

[tksbaskets]

Great update. You got many great photopass pictures in DCA. I think you were able to capture the essence of the back side of the water. That made me laugh!

 

[ksromack]

Is Disney Infinity a game for Wii or what gaming consoles? When my oldest dd moved out I let her take our Wii because she used it to watch Netflix on....but that left us without a gaming system. DH is a gamer so maybe it's time we re-invest in one!

 

[luulu1999]

Is Disney Infinity a game for Wii or what gaming consoles? When my oldest dd moved out I let her take our Wii because she used it to watch Netflix on....but that left us without a gaming system. DH is a gamer so maybe it's time we re-invest in one!

They have them for Wii Xbox 360 and I think PS3....it looks REALLY awesome and I have read all good reviews minus the complaints of having to buy all the separate little characters....Xbox 360's are on sale on Black Friday...actually Thursday for $99 too at Wal Mart

MarbleBob...so I guess the toy box mode isn't hard to make your own world?? It sounds like it would be hard