Christmas At Walt Disney World

I can't believe it has already been over a month since my Christmas trip. I had wanted to write about it sooner, but life has been busy ever since I got back.

In general, this was one of my better trips to the World. I had a wonderful time with the MouseFest activities, and met so many nice people! I also got to take the "Behind the Seeds" tour at Epcot's The Land pavilion. The tour was just ok - I don't think I learned that much more than what I'd heard on the boat ride through the greenhouses, but it was neat being able to see the plants and growing methods up-close.

I managed to see every one of my "Must See's"! Here's what I thought about each:

• The refurbished Haunted Mansion: I got to experience this twice, and I must say, they did an amazing job on it. I loved all the new effects and the modified storyline.


• The new Golden Dream montage in The American Adventure: I saw this late in the trip, after several days with not enough sleep. I hate to admit this, but I slept through most of the show. I did wake up when Golden Dreams started. I'm not sure if it was because I had just woken up, but it seemed like there were just too many images coming at me too quickly. I'll have to try this again after a good night's sleep.


• "National Treasures," the new American Heritage Gallery exhibit: I was a little disappointed in this - there weren't many more items on exhibit here than what I'd seen in the online descriptions. And the lighting was very dim, making it more difficult to see what was there. I guess I was expecting more.


• The new "O Canada!" movie: I saw this twice, and really enjoyed it. Martin Short's humor made the experience much more fun, very different from its beautiful but more serious predecessor.


• The Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico Pavilion: I experienced this twice, too. Although I liked it, I still missed the original El Rio Del Tiempo theme song.


• The refurbished Spaceship Earth (maybe): It sounded like my chance of seeing this was slim, but they began holding soft openings during my trip, and I actually got to ride it twice! Without spoiling it, I'll just say I loved the improvements made to the first half of the ride, and was bored by the second half. We'll have to wait and see whether they do anything else to spice it up.


• The Harlem Gospel Choir at the Disney/MGM Studio's Theater of the Stars: I found it amusing that they kept calling themselves "world famous," like they were trying to convince the audience of that. But I did enjoy their energetic, heartfelt performance. Nice to see WDW making an effort to bring in some new acts during the holiday season!


• The Laugh Floor Comedy Club: I only saw this once. I love this technology they have developed for the Living Character Initiative, and found the show funny and fresh. But what I hated was that I felt nervous the entire show that I might get selected - I prefer to be entertained more than being part of the entertainment.


• The new Christmas parade (during Mickeys' Very Merry Christmas Party): I saw both runs of this parade durint MVMCP. It was good, but really didn't feel much different from the previous version. The new music seemed nice, but I don't even remember it now. I can't understand why they didn't have the music available for purchase, seems like pretty poor planning.


• Finding Nemo, The Musical (so I can take photos this time): I did get to see this and take pictures without getting yelled at. We were seated pretty far back, tbough, so I couldn't get any closeups of the characters.


• Dream-Along With Mickey (to see the new articulated faces): This technology is so cool! The characters with their moving mouths and blinking eyes look so lifelike! They were using these hi-tech heads in at least one other place as well, but I can't remember exactly where. It seems like it was during MVMCP, perhaps on the Christmas Parade floats, or Mickey's Twas the Night Before Christmas show?

And I almost forgot - here is a link to my trip photo gallery.

WDW Planning (Part 3)

The planning continues. Most important was finding Daniel a park hopper ticket for the week. I didn't want to wait and get a ticket at the parks due to the extra cost. My first thought was to buy the ticket at the local Disney Store, but then I read that the Borders Perks program offered tickets at an even cheaper price. All I had to do is join Borders Rewards and then sign up for Perks a week later. After shipping and handling, I only managed to save about $9, but what the heck, every buck counts!

I also called to get my Disney Dining Experience card, a discount card for Florida residents and annual passholders. $65 gets you a 20% discount for a year in many restaurants throughout the WDW resort. The card used to have to be ordered in advance of the trip, but when I called this time, I was told that the rules had changed, and I could now purchase the card at any WDW Guest Relations desk. So this todo item was moved to the "after I arrive" list. I did try to arrange an Advanced Dining Reservation for Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. The earliest seating I could get was 9pm! I hope this isn't a sign that we'll have problems getting table service meals all week.

My biggest disappointment was finding out that a newly-renovated Spaceship Earth would not open by the time I arrive. Apparently they ran into some difficulties with the renovations and have delayed reopening until early next year. I recently heard on Ricky Brigante's Inside The Magic podcast that Spaceship Earth might open for guest testing on December 5th, so I have a slim chance of maybe getting to experience it. I guess that's better than no chance at all, which is what chance I have to take a Segway tour. I called to sign up for one, but both the Epcot tour and the new Fort Wilderness tour were completely booked for my entire trip.

On the plus side, it was announced that the Harlem Gospel Choir would be performing in the Disney/MGM Studios in December. I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing them! I have also spent some time learning more about the various MouseFest activities. There are so many meets, but it does look like it could be a lot of fun. I recently joined the Tagrel community and have sat in on a couple of MouseFest-related chats. They seem like a fun, crazy group of people. I just hope I can fit in.

My updated "Must See's" (in no particular order):

• The refurbished Haunted Mansion;


• The new Golden Dream montage in The American Adventure;


• "National Treasures," the new American Heritage Gallery exhibit;


• The new "O Canada!" movie;


• The Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico Pavilion;


• The refurbished Spaceship Earth (maybe);


• The Harlem Gospel Choir at the Disney/MGM Studio's Theater of the Stars;


• The Laugh Floor Comedy Club;


• The new Christmas parade (during Mickeys' Very Merry Christmas Party);


• Finding Nemo, The Musical (so I can take photos this time);


• Dream-Along With Mickey (to see the new articulated faces).

iMac Musings

As of today, I have been an iMac owner for exactly a year - I bought a Core 2 Duo during the 2006 after-Thanksgiving Black Friday sale (online, from the comfort of a hotel room in West Atlantic City, NJ - no lining up at 2am for me!). I have to say that for the most part, I am pleased with this machine and its software. I honestly haven't used many of the applications and features it provides, but I do spend an awful lot of time sitting in front of it. Way too much time is spent surfing the Web using Safari. I really like using Mail to manage 4 e-mail addresses and iTunes for my digital music jukebox (one of these days I might actually own an iPod!). I have also installed PhotoShop for digital photo editing. I have played around with some of the other multimedia applications, but I really don't have much use for them, so have nothing significant to report.

My biggest disappointment with the iMac has been Safari. For the most part, it works; however, it has more incompatibilities than it should. I have come across a number of web sites that simply do not work correctly in Safari. Ironically, some of them have been Disney sites. With Steve Jobs sitting on the Walt Disney Company board of directors, you'd think that he might have some influence getting Disney to test its Web applications with Safari.

Since I am into digital photography, I did play around with iPhoto a bit. I was turned off by its insistence on organizing my photos for me, rather than honoring the directory structure I am used to using. There may be a way to turn that off, but I never took the time to figure that out. I do wish that IrfanView ran on OS X - it's a very simple way to quickly view photos within an existing directory structure, and to perform simple editing tasks. I have yet to find something comparable on the iMac. Any suggestions?

A Fraud-Filled Friday

A friend who is away this week asked me to make a major purchase for him, to take advantage of Apple.com's Black Friday Sale. So first thing Friday morning, I got online (from the comfort of my hotel room in South Jersey - no standing in line at 6am for me!) and completed the transaction using my Visa card. I didn't get an e-mail confirmation note by the time I had to leave, but I didn't think anything of it - other online retailers like Amazon often take a while before confirming my purchase.

It wasn't until I stopped for gas this evening that I found out something had gone wrong - my Visa card was declined at the gas pump. Suspecting it may have been caused by this morning's transaction, I checked my phone messages at home. Sure enough, the Chase Fraud Detector's computerized voice called to tell me some questionable charges had been attempted using my card. I returned to my room and got online, but didn't see a note from Apple reporting any problems. Not until I checked my Spam folder, that is. Apple did send a note to me this morning, but since I'd never gotten a note from this particular Apple e-mail address, my e-mail provider was kind enough to mark it as spam and hide it away from me.

Apple gave me a chance to update the payment information for my order, so I called the Chase Fraud Detector hot line to straighten things out. After confirming that the charges were OK, I was told that I would be able to use the card again in 30 seconds. I patiently waited 3 minutes just to be sure, and then tried to update my Apple order, but I continued to get "declined" errors.

Frustrated, I decided to switch the order to my Discover card. That one went through rather quickly, and within a minute I got an e-mail from Apple telling me the order was accepted. That was followed seconds later by an e-mail from Discover Card's Fraud Prevention service!!! So I'm back on the phone, this time with Discover, to see what happened there. Luckily, Discover had accepted the charge before warning me, so I didn't have to go back to Apple and correct my payment information again.

The whole incident left my very annoyed. I make major electronics purchases on my Visa card all the time. I have absolutely no idea what caused this one to be flagged. I realize these companies are just trying to protect me (and themselves). However, what should have been a simple transaction turned out to be very inconvenient. Between having the initial charge repeatedly declined, then having my Visa card itself disabled, losing the "Order Problem" e-mail in my Spam folder, and having to call two card companies to get everything straightened out, I really feel like smacking the heck out of the thieves and spammers who have helped get us to this point.

SquidWho?

Ever since Squidoo announced their SquidWho site, I have been thinking about who I could build a fanpage about. It finally hit me who I should start with: Mary Blair, Disney Legend and my favorite Disney artist. I spent a few hours scouring the web for information on Mary and samples of her artwork. I published the results here. It still needs a bit of work, but hopefully it points to some interesting web pages.

And while I was at it, I also added some information to my Walt Disney World shopping lens. It seemed to be popular earlier in the fall, but lately interest in it has waned. Maybe the Christmas season will stir up more interest in WDW shopping.

WDW Planning (Part 2)

I am continuing to look at what I can do during my December trip to WDW. I travel there frequently enough that I have done most of the common touristy things, and I am always looking for a couple of new activities to make my experience there more interesting.

I'll be there during the pre-Christmas season, so I'm looking forward to some of the Christmas activities, like the Candlelight Processional and Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party. I also enjoy the special holiday tag on Illuminations: Reflections of Earth, so I expect I'll be viewing that at least a couple of times. Sadly, I recently heard that the Country Bear Christmas Special will not be back this year. It wasn't there last year, either, and I really do miss this holiday attraction.

On the bright side, I will be there during MouseFest! In addition to attending some of the meets that they have planned, I am also hoping to meet some of the people that create the web sites and podcasts that I spend so much time with. I am a bit on the shy side, so I'm not sure how well this will work out. But how could MouseFest not be fun, hanging out with fellow Disney Geeks in my favorite place on Earth?

On a previous solo trip, I took Keys to the Kingdom tour in the Magic Kingdom, and enjoyed it immensely. I am looking at booking another tour or two this trip, perhaps Behind the Seeds or Around the World At Epcot. My friend Daniel will be with me this time for most of the trip, and he's not much into the tours. I'll have to try to schedule around him.

My updated "Must See's" (in no particular order):

• The refurbished Haunted Mansion;


• The new Golden Dream montage in The American Adventure;


• "National Treasures," the new American Heritage Gallery exhibit;


• The new "O Canada!" movie;


• The Gran Fiesta Tour in the Mexico Pavilion;


• The refurbished Spaceship Earth (including the new Project Tomorrow post show);


• The Laugh Floor Comedy Club;


• The new Christmas parade (during Mickeys' Very Merry Christmas Party);


• Finding Nemo, The Musical (so I can take photos this time);


• Dream-Along With Mickey (to see the new articulated faces).

Razzle Dazzle 'em in Zazzle?

I've spent the last week adding new cards to my own little product gallery at zazzle.com. (I call it "Poughtography", a word I coined by combining "Poughkeepsie" and "Photography". I know, pretty dorky, but that's exactly why I love it so much!) Most of the newest photos are from my April trip to Spain. I also added a couple of QSL card templates after a ham radio operator brought that concept to my attention and bought 100 copies of my Bannerman's Island Castle Ruins postcard.

Honestly, very few of my photos have actually been purchased, and I haven't had one sell since late August. It could be for a number of reasons:

• I've chosen the wrong photos to feature on my products - I'm still trying to figure out what photos people are interested in, but it is difficult to do on Zazzle because there are so many other products. And it is quite possible that my photos are just not good enough for people to want to purchase;


• I'm horrible at marketing - I've honestly done very little to advertise the existence of this product gallery. I have told some friends, and put a link to it from other sites where I have an on-line presence, but I'm not sure what to do after that. Print off a few postcards, and leave them lying around somewhere for advertising?


• No one buys cards anymore - with the Internet, I'm sure that people are not sending cards as often. This means I'm screwed no matter what I do.

Maybe things will pick up at Christmastime, as people start looking for gifts for their loved ones...