The Land of Disney

This is a parody of adventure movie trailers. It was shot on iPhone at Disneyland in Anaheim, California and edited in iMovie. Enjoy it on YouTube or in higher quality on Vimeo.

3D Disneyland photo made with one iPhone 4

Save this image to your iPhone’s Photos app, then view it in landscape mode from that app. Shift the focus point of your eyes until a 3D image appears in the middle (ignoring the left and right images surrounding it).

If you dont have an iphone you could try looking at it on your computer screen. The trickiest part is getting your head the right distance from the screen then getting your eyes to focus on it correctly (since there are no 3D glasses involved).

Here’s how it was done: Two frames were taken from a movie I shot at Disneyland on my iPhone 4 while riding on a train facing to the side of the train. Then I put these frames side by side using Photoshop and saved it as one image. The movement of the train while holding the iPhone 4 pretty motionless while recording provides the 3D effect. This technique works as long as people in the shot don’t move too much (or at all).

Next time I’ll pick two frames without something like that scalloped awning on top (which didn’t change position in relation to the camera).

And I might try recording a movie on my iPhone 4 and my wife’s iPhone 4, holding them both side by side. Then in After Effects I could synch the two movies and put them side by side and see if a 3D movie is possible!

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Need A Little Christmas, Right This Very Minute

Disneyland’s Christmas Day parade is being recorded for the Christmas morning ABC-TV broadcast right this very minute at DL’s Town Square, Main Street U.S.A. and in the Central Plaza in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. Taping is also going on at Walt Disney World today.

RT @Orlando_United: Heads Up: Samantha Brown from the Travel Channel will be filming at Epcot today from 3-5 PM! #fb #WDW—
Rich Koster (@DisneyEcho) November 07, 2010

Nick Cannon and friends at Disneyland today.

The Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade airs on ABC on Christmas Day at these times:
Eastern Time Zone: 12 pm – 2 pm
Central Time Zone: 11 am – 1 pm
Mountain Time Zone: 10 am – 12 pm
Pacific Time Zone: 5 pm – 7 pm
Los Angeles: 9 am – 11 am

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Professionally-shot photos: Tuesday

This is a good place to share some of the professionally-shot photos we’re getting on our Disneyland PhotoPass PhotoCD.

It hasn’t arrived yet, so these are screen shots until we get it sent to us.

This was taken Tuesday after we ate breakfast with Minnie and her friends in the Plaza Inn.

Looks like one of us isn’t buying into the bit that Tink landed in our hands.

I guess we thought we were on a roller coaster.

You never know who you’ll meet at Disneyland, although you can be pretty sure you’ll see Mickey there…

…Minnie, too!

Excuse me, folks… Which way to the Matterhorn?

Oh, there it is!

It was a great day on Tuesday!

Everybody wants to get into the picture!

More to come — but that was all the professionally-shot photos on Tuesday!

Monorail Purple into Disneyland Tuesday morning

Michael had the great idea to see if we could ride in the front of the monorail so I asked. They said yes! It was Monorail Purple, skinned in it’s Year of a Million Dreams motif. The new Monorail Red wasn’t online yet that morning because they had problems with it, we were told. It will be added sometime during the day, but they didn’t know when.

We also got to ride the new Monorail Red twice that week, and we’ll post about it in this travel blog, too.

 

 

 

The door opens and Michael is the first to get in.

Our monorail pilot said Disneyland doesn’t give out “Monorail License”s like WDW does.

 

In the picture below, Carol takes a picture before she enters the front of the monorail.

Pictures Carol took have been added into this blog entry, including this one of me (what she was shooting through the open door, above).

 

Michael also shot a video which we’ll post after getting home.

There are more pictures!

The first thing we see while at the Downtown Disney monorail station is a Cast Member parking lot.

Then some lovely flowering bushes.

Hard to believe this wooded scene used to be an asphalt parking lot.

Here’s something you don’t see every day… the backside of the Indiana Jones attraction.

Another look at what’s backstage behind the Indiana Jones attraction.

Now we passing over the picnic area. I will have more pictures of the picnic area from ground level later in this blog.

This is the Disneyland entry plaza.

 

Further east, going over the Disneyland entry plaza.

The Disneyland turnstyles with Main Street Train Station beyond.

Here is where hotel shuttle buses turn around.

Another bus turn-around area. Probably looks like crop circles from the air.

On the left, the Cast Member building.

These are massive air conditioning units backstage behind Tomorrowland.

More backstage buildings on the left. We can see the monorail track on the right for heading back to the Downtown Disney station.

Our monorail track is on top, while the return monorail track comes in on a curve underneath before running parallel with our track. That’s Harbor Blvd. beyond the Disneyland fence.

On the left, Tomorrowland’s Autopia and the Matterhorn.

Michael did a great job taking video, which I’ll post here later.

The Matterhorn, behind Autopia.

The Matterhorn behind our monorail track seen going over the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage lagoon.

Here is the lagoon with Autopia behind it. Part of Autopia is actually on top of the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, but you’d never know it.

Now we’re over Fantasyland with it’s a small world in the distance.

it’s a small world plaza

You can see a bit of it’s a small world behind the trees.

Fantasyland with our monorail track and the People Mover track to the right of it.

Here’s the switch track for when a monorail needs to go to the roundhouse.

The monorail track swirls around a lot of Disneyland before reaching the monorail station, giving great views of the park like this other one of the Matterhorn.

Here is the Mad Tea Party attraction.

A Disneyland exclusive: Alice in Wonderland attraction.

A waterfall on the Matterhorn.

Here is part of the queue area for the submarine voyage attraction.

We’re approaching the Tomorrowland station.

We’ve exited and now can see Monorail Purple from below.

That was our last ride on the old monorail. The next two times are with the new Monorail Red and we’ll have details of those exciting rides as well here on the blog.

Night View Of Disneyland Hotel

The blue section shows stars and fiber optics, Magic Tower (where we stayed) is where the red Disneyland Hotel lighted building is in the right.

Walk in Walt’s Footsteps tour is great. Worth the cost and time. Puts the park into perspective about Walt, and we heard little stories and information we never knew or noticed before. Meet at 9:15 for a 9:30-12:30 tour and it includes a lunch of your choice of sandwich, seasonal fruit or bag of chips, two chocolate chip cookies and your choice of soft drinks or bottled water – served 12:30-1:00 pm. Lunch is included in the price.

We saw the interior of Club 33, the interior of the fire station with facts about Walt’s use of it as well as his apartment above, we rode the Lilly Belle train car (that’s not assured, the tour guide has to obtain prior permission and train car can’t be booked for another group), displays of 50th Anniversary exhibit were shown and explained – but not the movie of it – and we went on the Jungle Cruise (through the exit marked “Excaping Passengers”!) and into the Enchanted Tiki Room where they showed us one of the flowers unattached in the attraction — and let each of us operate it to make it “talk.” We walked through New Orleans Square, by the Matterhorn and it’s a small world, Snow White’s Grotto, the Fantasyland Carousel, and Sleeping Beauty Castle — as well as along Main Street U.S.A. where we were shown the output vents of the “smellitzer” that makes the aromas available outside of various shops, and had windows along the street explained to us.

After the tour we saw the Steve Martin movie about the 50th Anniversary. Our son bought some light-up Mouse Ears and I bought a princess version for a young distant relative who had a bone marrow transplant last year, and we had those stitched with names.

Next we rode the train on a “grand circle tour of the Magic Kingdom”, saw the Grand Canyon and the dinosaurs. At 3:00 pm we left the park to rest (after getting our hands stamped), upload things to this travel blog, then got ready for dinner at Napa Rose.

Dinner was superb. Michael wants this caliber of food at his school cafeteria (heh, wouldn’t we wish!). Annual Pass discount not done at Napa Rose. For three adult entrees, three adult menu soups, two glasses of wine and Coke, three desserts, tax and tip a fortune got spent there, well into triple digits. Rich will cancel our coming back due only to the expenses. Fabulous meal!

(Update from Rich: Afterwards we also decided a good reason to cancel our Priority Seating for the following night is because it takes so long to dine comfortably (not rushed) in the meal, plus getting cleaned up beforehand — and we didn’t have that much time left in our vacation compared to all we wanted to do.)

I was too pooped after the meal but Rich and son returned to the park after a change of clothes. They went on Autopia (you get a drivers license souvenir for free there, for $5 you can make it a photo drivers license but they didn’t do it that night… Michael and I did that another day), took the monorail into and out of the park (one time we couldn’t leave on it because it was closed at the time, being too close to when the fireworks go off), saw Fantasmic! (better than when we saw it last 13 years ago and better than in Florida, Rich said) and POTC for the second time of the trip because Michael liked it so much (and we all agree it is better than in Florida). A meeting up with an E-friend and family didn’t happen that day.

Today at 9 am we’re have a character breakfast with Minnie and her friends at Plaza Inn in Disneyland, and we have the rest of the day and night free to do anything we want in the park. We night try again to meet up with the E-friend.

Wednesday we pick up a rental car in the morning, travel to Legoland with E-friend and family in separate vehicles, move from DL Hotel to Grand Californian Hotel, and have dinner at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen.

(Update from Rich: We stayed longer than we thought we would at Legoland, plus got a later start, so I cancelled the Priority Seating from Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen using my iPhone while at Legoland.)

Friday we meet Michael Broggie and tour Walt’s barn and see his trains, see the “College Road Trip” movie at El Capitan Theatre and try to find Walt’s grave.

Saturday we leave for home and return the rental car at the airport before taking our flights.

Have a great day where you are.

Carol Koster

Sent from my iPhone

posted from iPhoneSlide.com