WDW 2011 Day 5 - Part Two - DisjointedImages

After heading out of the Crystal Palace I stop for a few shots of the Main Street entertainment:

Then headed off to the Haunted Mansion.

Mom had picked up her handicap card previously – which details what her restrictions are so that she can enjoy more of the rides. While I won’t get into the list of medical complications (I’ve got the technical terms memorized in case of emergency but it’s a personal and complicated issue) she deals with, suffice to say she requires a scooter to travel and while she can transfer from it, even short periods of standing or walking completely wipe her out. Even walking a completely empty queue line (those things can be LONG!) would do her in.

So it’s not about jumping ahead of people. It can be a touchy subject – but please if you see someone moving ahead of the queue, know that it’s justified and that they have a specific pass issued by Disney to do so. Just setting the record straight.

She showed the CM her pass, and we were taken in the employee entrance straight to the stretching room. How cool is that? Even this area was fully themed. The lights being held by little hands were perfectly creepy:

Even in this short area there was tons to look at, but I didn’t want to hold up the group and just grabbed the single quick shot.

Into the stretching room:

Down the hallway to the Doom Buggies:

Madame Leota:

It’s the first time at Disney since getting my fancy DSLR and so I had my settings as best I could for the ride – but the shutter speed was a bit slow and I got a fair bit of blur on most of my shots. For those who know what I’m talking about, I didn’t want to bump the ISO any more than it was, to reduce noise, but sacrificed shutter speed instead. All that – and I end up with a WAY creepier picture of the “Bride” I think:

So who says your pictures have to be perfect to be good?

My hitchhiker:

One other thing of note: This was the only other ride that I had trouble with for my size. They now require the bar to lock to a certain position for safety and unlike nearly every other ride it locks at a rather small point instead of locking at the point where it stops against you. It just won’t lock if it doesn’t close enough. Thankfully I had a very kind CM who requested authorization to allow me to go through since there were no children in my buggy and I agreed to keep the bar tight to me and Chris rode in the buggy behind me.

We cut through Frontierland to do BTMR next.

Pausing to look wistfully at the currently dry (down for maintenance) Splash Mountain:

Mom wasn’t sure about riding this one – as it’s pretty rough – so she sent Dad on by himself to check it out. Chris and I rode separately for comfort – and ended up a train behind Dad.

I didn’t want to take my camera on – felt it was way too risky and left it with Mom. I didn’t know that she’d be taking photos with it, or else I would have set it up for her. As it was she did really good just pointing and clicking. The shutter was left slow from my last shot, and the train moves fast. She had to pan with it a few times to get a clear picture. Go Mom! The photos below are courtesy of her, with my Canon 30D:

Yes, Chris was video taping the whole time:

We then headed into the Hall of Presidents:

I was really impressed with the new animatronics they developed for President Obama. He really moved a lot – gesturing both arms, right down to moving the fingers to point around, and blinking.

We then walked to Fantasyland for a few more rides. Passing Cinderella’s Fountain:

Hmm – think I can get a discount? My name is on the building!

A Castle needs a king right? Alas, tis not to be…

First we hit Peter Pan. (I kind of need a hood… haha)

Try as I might, I didn’t get a single good shot inside this ride. I was somewhat relieved to read online after getting home that this is one of THE most challenging rides to get a good picture on. I will be armed with some tips and a different lens for my next trip.

My parents then insisted we do one ride of It’s a Small World. All right… but if I have even one bar of that song humming around my brain afterwords I’m holding you responsible for my therapy!