Clear Blue Dei

We just got back from the Magic Kingdom and I will pass on some tips that I found online and/or discovered myself.

1. The biggest thing we found out was that if you rent a wheelchair for $10, you can go right in (or almost) for most of the rides by using the handicapped entrance. Mom can’t walk long enough to do Disney so we rented a wheelchair. And we all got in right away! I can’t in all good conscience recommend doing this just to get into rides, but if you have someone who has a hard time walking or can’t walk that far, it was $10 well spent! NOTE: You rent a wheelchair just past the ticket booths to the right at the gift shop.
2. I looked at the themeparkinsider site about Magic Kingdom Rides for a quick rating of each of the main rides and a detailed description of the ride and reader’s opinions. Very Helpful!
3. The Mouse Buzz forum has great information and tips about all things Disney. And the biggest tip I found there from a thread called Top Magic Kingdom Tips was that if you get there first thing and run to Splash Mountain (taking a shortcut), you can be the first riders of the day: The first riders of the day get a special dated certificate, their Splash picture for FREE, AND a CM will personally take them over to BTMRR and march them to the front of the line. (Or sometimes this last bit will be exchanged for honorary Fastpasses to another attraction.). We didn’t do it because we had mom with us and didn’t get in right at 9am, but if Sean and I go, we will definitely try for it!
4. This is the shortcut to Splash Mountain, per the Unofficial Guide to Disney: …go to the end of Main St and turn left to The Crystal Palace. In front of the restaurant is a bridge that provides a shortcut to Adventureland. Stake out a position at the barrier rope. When the rope, drops move as fast as you can and cross the bridge to Adventureland.
   Just past the first group of building on your right, roughly across from the Swiss Family Treehouse, is a small passageway containing rest rooms and phones. Easy to overlook, it connects Adventureland to Frontierland. Go through the passageway into Frontierland and take a hard left. As you emerge along the waterfront, SM is straight ahead. We tried this and it worked.
5. Splash Mountain is fun and not scary. None of us like roller-coasters so we didn’t do Space Mountain or any that revolve, but Splash Mountain was fun even for people who don’t like roller coasters. We wanted to do it again, but didn’t make it back.
6. Mickey’s PhilharMagic is a great 3-D (with effects) movie. I don’t see 3-D (my eyes don’t focus together) but mom and Jill both said it was EXCELLENT.
7. It’s a Small World seems to have been repainted since I was there last and I personally love it. It has always been one of my favorites.
8. Buzz Lightyear was new, you shoot at things with a lazer as you go through and can turn your car back and forth and you can see how many points you got. None of us are very good at it, but you can see the red lazer dot of your lazer if you look closely. Jill couldn’t see it, but I did. Also, to be a big shot, hold your button down while on the Buzz Lightyear to get a top score…no need to aim and shoot.
9. Tomorrowland Transit Authority is nice and relaxing (the rails above you in tomorrowland) and lasts a decent amount of time.
10. Some people liked the Stitch adventure and some didn’t. I thought that it looked good but was sort of boring.
11. I thought the Haunted Mansion was sort of boring too.
12. Here are some more Tips for Those Leaving Soon from Mouse Buzz.

These are some tips about the various theme parks of Disney World from DisneyAnne on MouseBuzz (look for her posts, they have good tips):

1. Epcot - Future World, don’t miss the “Jammitors” - they are a group of street performers who make percussion music on their trash cans and whatever else they can find. They dress like janitors and “jam” - cute, huh?
2. Epcot - World Showcase - don’t miss the candy sculptor in the courtyard in Japan. She’s not there everyday. She uses candy like clay and shapes it into wonderful lollipops for the kids - free of charge.
3. Haunted Mansion “Inside Story” at Magic Kingdom - you go through different rooms while on the ride - living room, dining room, etc. You end up in the attic and then fall out the window of the house. When you see the bride and your car turns around, look over to the right and you’ll be able to see the window - the outside of the house - and that’s how you end up in the cemetary. I had never noticed that before.
4. When you go to the Magic Kingdom - go to the candy store on the right hand side (as you’re looking at the castle) on the corner - not the one closest to the Town Square, but a block closer to the castle. Pick up the old phone on the wall inside - you can hear an old fashion party line conversation going on between a mother and her daughter. Don’t be surprised if the mother yells at you to hang up the phone and to stop being a nosy biddy body!!!
5. At MGM - go see Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain umbrella - It’s located right across the street from where the Hunchback show used to be - if you don’t know where that is, just ask a CM and they’ll tell you. People will walk up to the umbrella and step underneath it for a picture. What they may not know, is that when you step on the plate in the ground, under the umbrella,
   it starts to rain all around the umbrella! Without realizing that the rain will stop as soon as they step off the pressure plate, many people will try to run - and end up wet when they really didn’t have to!
6. If you happen to be at the Animal Kingdom Lodge when it’s dark, look for the CM with the night vision goggles. It’s wonderful watching the animals in the dark.
7. Every cashier at the counter service restaurants at WDW actually has two lines that they service - one on either side of them. So if there is only one line on the right, go to the left. They alternate between right and left lines when taking orders.
8. Every restaurant in WDW will give you the recipe to any dish you ask about. They will either give it to you on the spot, email you with it, or send them to you in the mail.
9. WL - Look for the abandoned lawnmower between FW and MK. I tree has actually consumed the lawnmower. It has some a cute poem next to it.
10. MK - As you go down Main Street USA toward the castle, take the first alley on your right and at the back of that alley on the top floor is a store that advertises dance lessons and another that offers piano lessons. If you stand there and listen you can hear tap shoes and piano lessons going on.
11. MK - Tug on the rope of the Liberty bell in Libertyland for a surprise.
12. MK - When on Tom Sawyer Island, if you find a paintbrush, take it to a CM for a surprise. Although I have never found one, there are reports of front of the line passes for SM or BTMR or limited edition trading pins.
13. MK - To be a big shot, hold your button down while on the Buzz Lightyear to get a top score…no need to aim and shoot.
14. MK - Be at Toontown for rope drop…each character choses a child to walk through Toontown to start the day.
15. MK - In Minnie’s house, the microwave pops a bowl of popcorn when you turn it on; the coffee pot will perk if you turn the knobs on the stove and causes the utensils hanging above the stove to dance in time to music. You can also listen on Minnie’s messages on her answering machine!
16. MK - Ever notice the sidewalks around the resort? There are shells embedded in Ariel’s Gotto and jewels around Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride.
17. MK - Stop by the tiki gods in Adventureland…you may hear the natives getting restless. Just don’t anger them…You’ll be surprised at what happens.
18. AK - Although the river ride is defunct, if you will stop on the bridge to Camp Minnie Mickey, you can still see the fire from the fire breathing dragon. It is on the right hand side of the bridge on the left bank.
19. MGM - In the pre-show area, a sign on the security window reads “Back in 5 minutes. Key under mat.” If you look under the mat, you will find a key!
20. EPCOT - When exiting TT, look for the test dummies that are sometimes there. They are real. Have your friends or family go pose next to them for a picture, and they will come to life. (Sometimes)
21. MGM - Don’t miss the dog’s nose in the HISTK playground
22. EPCOT - At the Outpost, there is a cooler that has a suprise when you lift the top
23. MK - There is a hidden Tink at the exit to BTMRR carved into the door near the CM exit door
24. AK - Look for the small door in the rock wall in the Boneyard at Animal Kingdom
25. MGM - There is a great photo op in the New York Street backlot that is a car on a lift that allows guests to “lift” a car
26. AK - look for the hidden path - turn right after going over the bridge to Harambe and take the 2nd paved walkway on the left
27. MK - On the JC, the chanting natives are actually saying, “I love disco” ~ if you aren’t sure what disco is, ask your parents….
28. MK - At the lost and found on Main Street Station, you can see Pluto’s bone and Aladdin’s lamp
29. MGM - Look down at the fallen letters on the signboard in the lobby while standing in the queue area for TOT
30. EPCOT - The EPCOT rose just past the Fountain of Nations supposedly represents the center of WDW…you will see the pink tiles
31. AK - Across from Dawa Bar, there is an “old fort” that is actually full of tables and chairs and offers an escape from everyone else.
32. MGM - the license plates at Sci-Fi Restaurant represent the state that the Imagineers are from - the letters are their initials and the numbers are their date of birth
33. EPCOT - In Sea Base Alpha at The Living Seas, the crates of scientific equipment are labeled with letters and numbers… you guessed it… the initials and birthdates of the Imagineers
34. MK - While eating at Cindy’s, you can request a crest guide for the lobby which reflects the crests for Walt and the Imagineers
35. MK - One of the mirrors in Pooh doesn’t reflect as a typical mirror should

If you want to see some pictures I took at Magic Kingdom, they are towards the end of my set called Florida 2007 Camera Pics.

That’s about it. I’ll be singing “It’s a Small World”, “Yo ho, yo ho a Pirate’s life for Me” and the theme to Carousel of Progress for while!

~Susan Mellott

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My experiment with ‘flittring’ (taking pictures as it happens and uploading to flickr, like twitter but with photos) is working very well. My husband is thrilled to be able to see what we are doing as it happens.

I decided to keep my real time phone camera pictures separate from my Kodak pictures so you can see my digital camera pictures at my Flickr set called Florida 2007 Camera Pics and my real-time pictures on my main flickr mellottrobinson site until I get them moved and then in my set called Florida October 2007.

I also have been taking pictures with my Kodak DX6490 Digital Camera and when I got to my sister’s apartment (she has wifi) I attempted to upload them to Flickr also. But for some reason, every time I pushed the ‘upload’ button, my laptop rebooted.

I tried everything, removed and reinstalled EasyShare software and the camera drivers, tried other software, tried going directly to PC instead of through dock, tried restoring my laptop back to a former backup point, etc. Still, every time I tried to upload, my PC rebooted. Very Frustrating!

So today I got on the Kodak website and did Instant Chat with a rep to troubleshoot it. They wanted me to remove and reinstall the EasyShare software but I’d already done that. So they said to remove the EasyShare software and disconnect the camera which I did. Then I plugged the camera back in and turned it on and it asked me what software I wanted to use to upload the pictures. I picked Microsoft Photo and Scanner upload software and it worked like a charm! Yay!

They wanted me to reinstall Kodak EasyShare software version 6.0 (it was on 6.4) but I said I’d wait until vacation was over until I try that. But if your computer reboots when you try to upload to EasyShare, either uninstall it and try again, or try Version 6.0.

~Susan Mellott

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I have just gone on vacation for 10 days in Florida visiting my sister and my mom. So I thought I would try an experiment where I would do online updates like twitter, only using photos in Flickr.

Now, if I had a fancy phone I could do it through the internet, but I don’t (if you can get to the internet, you can use mobile flickr website).

But I am still emailing pictures from my phone. I found some instructions here on flickr and wasn’t sure if I could do it but it was just a matter of getting an email address for my account (which I can view or edit through my account page on Flickr and then the email tab). Then I just take a picture on my phone camera and email it to my flickr email which posts it right on Flickr. My phone is old but it still have a ’send pix message’ which makes it especially easy and I saved the email address in my phone’s phonebook so I can just pick it when I want to email.

I can also add a message (my phone text messaging skills are poor to say the least, but I can do it - at least if I have my reading glasses on ). And you can set it in Flickr to add certain tags to any email pictures. You can also use tag keywords in your message but I try to minimize my texting through my phone so I just set up some defaults on Flickr.

It is surprisingly easy and fun. The one thing it does not do is have a way to send your emailed pictures to a set, but I just move them there when I get on the computer next.

This is my true “flittr” experiment since it is real time updating. You can go to my Flickr account to see my pictures and see it being updated.

And I will be taking pictures with my Kodak digital camera, my palm pilot and my web cam and posting them to my flickr account at mellottrobinson. I’ll put them in a set called Florida October 2007.

I’m not sure what access I will have to wifi/internet (my sister has wifi but it is locked and she isn’t sure she remembers the password) but I will do the best I can to post my digital pictures as my vacation progresses. The phone pictures are easy!

My husband didn’t come with me so it will be a good way for him to see what all I am doing and seeing.

I have always thought that there needed to be a way to “flittr” since I use twitter and flickr both regularly and combining the two seems like a great idea.

So keep an eye on my Florida October 2007 set and you can see my vacation as it unfolds (it is probably not that interesting but if you do it, it would be interesting to you and your family and friends) and maybe it will spark an interest in you to do the same.

~Susan Mellott

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I am getting ready to head out to Florida to visit my sister in Orlando (Magic Kingdom here we come!) and my mom in Clearwater.

I am packing right now for the trip. And while the clothes packing was pretty simple, getting everything that I have for all my techie needs is proving to be a surprise.

Here is the initial list of what I’ll take for these 10 days, techie things I can’t do without:

1. Dell Laptop
2. AC adapter for Laptop
3. portable mouse for laptop
4. earbuds for listening to podcasts
5. either USB skype phone or headset for using Skype
6. Web Cam
7. Kodak EasyShare Digital Camera
8. Kodak Camera Dock
9. Zire 71 Palm Pilot
10. Palm Pilot Dock
11. possibly my Palm Pilot portable keyboard
12. Cell Phone
13. AC adapter for Cell Phone
14. Headset for cell phone
15. no, I am not packing an mp3 player, I don’t have one (or more accurately, I have one around here somewhere, but don’t know where it is)

This is my list so far. It appears to just fit in a carry-on suitcase with wheels.

And of course, I will have flashlights. Lots of flashlights. All different sizes of flashlights. Sean always takes a lot of pens when he travels. It is his comfort item. Mine is flashlights. And with the new LED flashlights, I can have good, bright flashlights that are easily tucked in a purse or suitcase.

It is funny that not one of the items in my list would have even been thought of, much less packed, 10 years or so ago. The most techie item then would have been a camera, and certainly not a digital camera. Maybe a decent 35mm and a few disposable cameras. If you were really into it, you might bring an SLR (which has it’s own set of paraphenalia). And I still have an old Polaroid camera somewhere that gives you ‘instant pictures’.

Funny how quickly times have changed. Not too long ago, I would have taken basically, a pen and notebook or travel journal and a camera. And of course, a flashlight.

~Susan Mellott

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In my last post I lamented the near lack of free internet in Las Vegas and how I couldn’t see paying for it. I was planning on schlepping my laptop to the few free hotspots, just to check my email a time or two.

My husband said I should just bite the bullet and pay for it since I wouldn’t be happy if I didn’t. And he was ever, ever so right. I don’t know what made me think that I could not buy it when I have my laptop with me and have wireless right there waiting for me, all I had to do was put my credit card number in and I was surfing. In some weird way, it was infinitely worth paying the $10/day to be able to get on and check my email, check my blogs, look things up and write posts whenever I wanted.

We are quite happy to play penny slots for all our little gambling (and free drinks) breaks, but I’ll put $10 a day in just to be able to be connected. And I think, how much do I really use it? Couldn’t I just do a couple of hauls to a hotspot and be done? And of course, I could do that if I was broke. But I’ve got $10 in my pocket and its going to buy me access.
And although for probably no good reason since I doubt that many people read my blog, I still feel a need? desire? responsibility? fear of losing people? to make sure I post regularly. Sean and I were discussing this in the elevator, about the whole blogging experience and the mindset of a blogger. About how for the blogger, the act of blogging seems to be a really creative outlet and a way to clarify one’s thoughts. And the surprise of having people actually read and get something out of something you have posted is both gratifying and a real impetus to keep blogging. But the downside is that it is easy to start feeling a pressure to please people instead of just doing it and letting whoever may be interested read it and not worrying about it.

It is also somewhat addictive to have a lot of people read what you wrote. I blogged about the Skype outage last week, just because I use Skype and had wondered why I couldn’t connect and then found out it had crashed. And suddenly I had a ridiculous (for me) number of hits on my post. I posted it at 4:30pm and by 4:34 I had like 450 people read (or at least view) it. I thought I was getting spammed or attacked or something.

But it was just that everyone was trying to find out what was going on. So I wrote another post the next day with more information and it was really being read. And then another. And at some point, I realized that I had quit blogging about it just because I had something to say about it and started blogging it because it was a hot topic and people would read what I wrote. I knew if I wrote something even remotely interesting or intelligent about Skype right then, people would read it.

While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with writing about what people are interested in, when I find myself writing just for other people’s interest when I’ve pretty much lost interest in it myself and even worse, just to increase my hit count, I have to re-examine what I am doing and why.

I have always been a writer and have been on many lists and boards where people read and responded to what I wrote. But this is something beyond that. This is a medium that has people coming to my blog to read what I have to say. And a surprising (to me) number of them. And they even come back to see what else I have written.

I’ve never had a group of people who wanted to read what I had to say and I have to say that I really get a great deal of satisfaction and gratification from it. But it can also be addictive. I want to enjoy that people read what I write, but I don’t want to need it. I don’t want to obsess about it.

And I think it is wise for people to be aware of some of these pitfalls and potential dangers that are inherent in many of the Web 2.0 tools. They are wonderful, creative outlets and can enhance one’s life immensely. But I think everyone needs to make sure they are monitoring their involvement and motivation.

It is a truly fascinating time for people with all the amazing ability there is to create and interact. But just like me, I’m sure there are others who may need to step back periodically and look at it and make sure they are in control and are not being manipulated (most likely, by themselves). And really, who shouldn’t do that regularly about most everything anyway?

Thank you for reading

~Susan Mellott

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I haven’t been posting as much because I’m trying to get my new WordPress installation configured and plug-ins added, etc. But I’ve been working my butt off! Since my birthday is coming up, I was trying to come up with something to do.

Then Vi told Sean about a deal that Allegiant Air is having where if you book one fly/hotel package, the 2nd person flies free. I never quite trust that sort of promotion because I have checked it before and it has come out about the same, or cheaper if I look for hotel deals myself. But this actually ended up being a good deal!

If we each got regular airfare ($158+tax pp) then the hotel ends up being like $29 a night total. I think it was approximately $450 total for the 2 of us to fly from Fort Wayne to Las Vegas and stay 3 nights at the Imperial Palace. I picked the Imperial Palace because it is cheap and very centrally located. This is where we usually stay since it’s right in the middle of everything and you can’t beat the price! I know there are snobs who say the Imperial Palace is tacky and old and they would never stay there, but we’ve stayed there many times and been very happy with it. Its cost/benefit ratio is the best, IMO.

And we were very lucky that the kennel could take our dogs since it would be so near Labor Day. The dog’s room costs almost as much as ours.

And while looking for what shows we might want to go see, I found a promotion through Ticketmaster where you can get seats to the Cirque de Soleil shows for half price! They are the less desirable seats, but in the specially designed Cirque de Soleil theaters it is hard to find a really bad seat. When we went to see Mystere’ we got the nosebleed seats in the middle because they are actually some of the best seats because so much happens in the air that you can see it all without having to twist your neck trying to see straight up. I found that tip on the internet before we went and it was a very good one. The seats are about $50 less than the “good” ones and they are arguably, as good or better. Again, high cost/benefit ratio.

Some people might call me obsessive about deals but since I’m obsessive about everything, it comes in handy here . I’m all about good value for your money!

~Susan Mellott

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