OK...latest trip is over, and I thought I'd share a little photo tour! Weather was beautiful, and the photo opportunities were abundant, with those amazing deep blue skies with not a cloud to be found on some days, and those party-cloudy sunny days on others. Not a drop of rain...cool the first two days, and a very pleasantly warm upper-70s to low 80s on the final two days.
Upon arrival in the early afternoon on Saturday, we checked in to the Boardwalk villa - didn't get my Boardwalk view room, but did score a lovely pool/river view corner room on the 4th floor, by the back quiet pool. The corner rooms have nice side windows looking out over the river, which was nice. Sorted out the unpacking, grabbed kitchen supplies, filled the ice bucket, and then headed out for dinner around sunset with just my little T100 compact (hadn't unpacked and charged the DSLR yet)...took the boat to Hollywood Studios, and was treated to that lovely golden glow light while at the Dolphin dock:
Got off the boat at Hollywood Studios, walked right over to the French Quarter bus, and hopped on for a ride to that resort. Walked through the resort grounds and over to their boat dock, where we hopped the boat to Marketplace (yep...you can tell I enjoy the boat rides, and like to make going to dinner an adventure!). Arriving in Marketplace, we grabbed the traditional first-night patio table at Rainforest for a crisp, cool nightly dinner. After dinner, we headed to the busses, and grabbed the bus to the Epcot Resort area...and exited the bus at Swan/Dolphin, where we walked across the way to Fantasia Gardens for some minigolf:
Ended the first night around midnight with the walk back to the Boardwalk from Fantasia Gardens.
Sunday morning, rise and shine with some coffee on the balcony at 9:30am, and our usual slow start to the day which had us ready to head into the parks around 11-ish. I noticed the beautiful light on the Dolphin and Swan out of my corner window, so I snapped the first DSLR shot of that view:
First day, decided to walk into Epcot - it was crisp blue clear skies and cool weather floating in the low 60s...absolutely gorgeous! Walking through the International Gateway, I hung a right and decided to circle World Showcase first. And the first lovely view that greeted me was the Eiffel Tower through the trees on the bridge to France:
I couldn't help but to try the shallower depth of field shot of a lamp on the bridge, with 'Paris' in the background:
Crowds were wonderfully light...after touring through France, I decided to stop in the Morocco cafe for a baklava and Moorish coffee (espresso with cinnamon and nutmeg) enjoyed on the empty patio:
The skies were really coming into their own in Morocco - walking through that beige desert architecture, I really noticed how beautiful the skies looked:
A rare sight - I walked through the usually bustling souk, and found it almost empty - a great chance to catch the light streaming through the wood roof beams:
Wandering next through Japan, I wanted to try a real landscape shot, without the theme park look...wandering down the path from the tea house past the waterfall and behind the pagoda, I looked back through the trees and found a view that made the little pavilion look like quite a vast Japanese village-scape:
Moving on to Italy next (I hopped past America the first round), the sparse crowds gave the rare opportunity to shoot the long halls of columns outside the shops with noone in the shot:
I passed through Germany and found a bit of a crowd there, being lunchtime...so not as many photo opportunities jumped out at me there. Moving on, I found Andrew Mutiso working away on his beautiful wood carvings:
By this point, I was due to meet up with some of my party around Test Track in about an hour, and later we would meet my mother at China...so I decided to hop past China for now knowing I'd be back later. That put me in Norway - I was going to take the obligatory walk through, when I noticed the line (or lack thereof) for Maelstrom. Well I realized I hadn't ridden that one for well over a year, and decided to hop on board. There was no wait...just the 2 minutes to walk in to the boats. When I got out, the light hitting the Norway houses was amazing, and the colors were jumping out, so I decided to take some street scenes:
More of the trip report to come in the next segment tomorrow!
Upon arrival in the early afternoon on Saturday, we checked in to the Boardwalk villa - didn't get my Boardwalk view room, but did score a lovely pool/river view corner room on the 4th floor, by the back quiet pool. The corner rooms have nice side windows looking out over the river, which was nice. Sorted out the unpacking, grabbed kitchen supplies, filled the ice bucket, and then headed out for dinner around sunset with just my little T100 compact (hadn't unpacked and charged the DSLR yet)...took the boat to Hollywood Studios, and was treated to that lovely golden glow light while at the Dolphin dock:

Got off the boat at Hollywood Studios, walked right over to the French Quarter bus, and hopped on for a ride to that resort. Walked through the resort grounds and over to their boat dock, where we hopped the boat to Marketplace (yep...you can tell I enjoy the boat rides, and like to make going to dinner an adventure!). Arriving in Marketplace, we grabbed the traditional first-night patio table at Rainforest for a crisp, cool nightly dinner. After dinner, we headed to the busses, and grabbed the bus to the Epcot Resort area...and exited the bus at Swan/Dolphin, where we walked across the way to Fantasia Gardens for some minigolf:

Ended the first night around midnight with the walk back to the Boardwalk from Fantasia Gardens.
Sunday morning, rise and shine with some coffee on the balcony at 9:30am, and our usual slow start to the day which had us ready to head into the parks around 11-ish. I noticed the beautiful light on the Dolphin and Swan out of my corner window, so I snapped the first DSLR shot of that view:

First day, decided to walk into Epcot - it was crisp blue clear skies and cool weather floating in the low 60s...absolutely gorgeous! Walking through the International Gateway, I hung a right and decided to circle World Showcase first. And the first lovely view that greeted me was the Eiffel Tower through the trees on the bridge to France:

I couldn't help but to try the shallower depth of field shot of a lamp on the bridge, with 'Paris' in the background:

Crowds were wonderfully light...after touring through France, I decided to stop in the Morocco cafe for a baklava and Moorish coffee (espresso with cinnamon and nutmeg) enjoyed on the empty patio:

The skies were really coming into their own in Morocco - walking through that beige desert architecture, I really noticed how beautiful the skies looked:

A rare sight - I walked through the usually bustling souk, and found it almost empty - a great chance to catch the light streaming through the wood roof beams:

Wandering next through Japan, I wanted to try a real landscape shot, without the theme park look...wandering down the path from the tea house past the waterfall and behind the pagoda, I looked back through the trees and found a view that made the little pavilion look like quite a vast Japanese village-scape:

Moving on to Italy next (I hopped past America the first round), the sparse crowds gave the rare opportunity to shoot the long halls of columns outside the shops with noone in the shot:

I passed through Germany and found a bit of a crowd there, being lunchtime...so not as many photo opportunities jumped out at me there. Moving on, I found Andrew Mutiso working away on his beautiful wood carvings:

By this point, I was due to meet up with some of my party around Test Track in about an hour, and later we would meet my mother at China...so I decided to hop past China for now knowing I'd be back later. That put me in Norway - I was going to take the obligatory walk through, when I noticed the line (or lack thereof) for Maelstrom. Well I realized I hadn't ridden that one for well over a year, and decided to hop on board. There was no wait...just the 2 minutes to walk in to the boats. When I got out, the light hitting the Norway houses was amazing, and the colors were jumping out, so I decided to take some street scenes:


More of the trip report to come in the next segment tomorrow!
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