March 16, 2010

FastPass.



FastPass., originally uploaded by iMachias.

The Cubster has been showing me some tricks to try out when taking photos. Here’s a demonstration of what he’s been showing me. This is my photographic depiction of Disney’s FastPass. One side of the line moves along at a rapid pace, the standby side of the line waits and waits.

Here we are waiting for “Soarin'” at Epcot.

Legacy.

Today we went to Epcot. As you enter Epcot, you’ll notice walls and walls made of granite with metal plates attached. On these plates you’ll find thumbnail shots of various Disney visitors who chose to contribute to “Leave A Legacy”. I believe the program ran from Fall 1999 to June 2007.

Here’s a blurb about it:

The Leave A Legacy program, first launched at Epcot in Fall 1999, has been discontinued as of June 16, 2007. The current display of more than 550,000 tiles at the main entrance of Epcot will remain for the time being. The Leave A Legacy Locator station will be relocated to the Camera Center underneath Spaceship Earth. If you need to get information about your Leave A Legacy tile from home, contact the following email address: WDW.EC.legacy@disney.com

Introduced for the Millennium Celebration! Granite and steel sculptures are being covered with engraved images of Guests from all over the world. Here’s how it works: Photo Capture Stations will take your photo digitally. It will then be etched onto a steel tile. Within approximately four days, the tile will become part of the stone sculptures.Leave A Legacy The cost is $35 for one image per tile, $38 for two images per tile, plus tax.

There are computers at the site to show you where your tile is located. Certificates will also be mailed to you so you can come back on a future trip to see your Millennium image. Also within about 2 weeks, your image will be posted on the Internet at Disney’s Leaving a Legacy page.

“The Leave a Legacy plaza was designed by veteran Imagineer John Hench, along with a team of Walt Disney Imagineering interns. Hench started as an artist with The Walt Disney Company in 1939, and went on to help design and build Disneyland. He was the original art director for Epcot, and chief designer of Spaceship Earth. The megaliths range from 3 to 19 feet high, and the heaviest weighs more than 50,000 pounds.” (Disney’s Press Release)

Earl, Jamie and I took the opportunity to find our two photos, from 2000 and 2007, amongst the thousands that are displayed. Should you go to Epcot, here’s where you can find us:

2000: East-2-F-14-11-33
2007: West-6-H-31-10-28

I think it’s important to Leave-A-Legacy. So we are going to do this for a while. If you send or e-mail us a picture of you pointing to either one of our photos on the Leave-A-Legacy walls, we will donate $25.00 to your favorite charity.

Since the program was discontinued, Disney is no longer able to print our pictures out but I did snap a photo off the screen when the cast member was looking up our information. Look who had the red beard back in 2000!

IMG_0486.jpg

Magic Kingdom.



Ominous., originally uploaded by iMachias.

So yesterday we spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. We have it in our head that if you’re going to spend some time at Walt Disney World then you have to spend the first day at the Magic Kingdom and we stayed true to form to our beliefs. Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Even though we stayed true to form by going to the Magic Kingdom first, we mixed it up and went clockwise around the park instead of counterclockwise. This change was nice because it gave a fresh perspective on what we were seeing and experiencing.

The park was fairly crowded. We have made some noteworthy observations based on our time here thus far. First of all, there isn’t nearly as many Disney cast members waiting around to take your photo. Where there would be a dozen or so wanting to take your picture as soon as you entered Main Street; this year we didn’t see any, in fact, we saw maybe only one cast member taking photos of families with Cinderella’s Castle in the background. I found this a little surprising.

Secondly, folks that don’t speak English as their second language are surprisingly chatty in the auditorium based exhibits, i.e. “Carousel of Progress” or “The Hall of Presidents”. While the narration is playing, some folks are opting to discuss various subjects in their mother tongue at full voice. At first I thought there might be some translating going on, which I would be perfectly fine with, but three ladies to our right decided to light up their map of the Magic Kingdom with their cell phones during a surprisingly stirring presentation at “The Hall of Presidents”. I found this to be kind of rude.

All in all the day gave me a giddy feeling and I had a smile on my face the whole time. There isn’t a huge number of new things at Disney this year but many things have been refreshed and exhibits that were closed last year are open this year. We are having a grand time.

Life is good. Especially with ears on.