Top 5 Pixar Faves

The youngest Dis Kid expresses his love for Pixar with wooden letters

After seeing Pixar's 13th feature film, Brave this weekend, I thought I would do the very predictable blog post of my favorite Pixar films.

I know that I am a couple of months late seeing Brave, but in my defense is only premiered in Romania on August 17! Because it has been out for so long, I'm not going to give a full review of it, except to say that it was a very enjoyable movie, but not one of my favorites from Pixar.

For this post I I'll rank all of the 13 films in my preferential order, but will only comment on my top 5. I'm sure that some of my picks might surprise you, as they might not fall in line with other such lists, but hopefully my explanations will shed a little light on my thinking...

5. Ratatouille: You'll notice a couple of trends in my picks. One, the uniqueness of the story. And two, did I see this movie on a Disney Cruise? I love the story of Ratatouille. It was fresh and unexpected. Also I saw it on one of our cruises when Disney had one of their premiers at sea!

4. Cars 2: This is another one that I saw on a Disney Cruise! Making it even more special was the fact that we were on a Mediterranean sailing, and it kind of coincided with the theme of the World Grand Prix theme of the movie. The entire family from our youngest (3 at the time), to my almost 70 year old father enjoyed the film. I also found the animation the most beautiful of all the Pixar films (until Brave).

3. Cars: I have probably seen this Pixar film more times than any of the other 12. Again, the reason is that the entire family loves it! It has a great story, great music, and is just a lot of fun! I saw this movie in the theaters with our oldest daughter, and both of the younger Dis Kids have enjoyed it just as much ever since!

2. Monsters Inc.: The gap between number 2 and number 1 was razor thin! I love Monsters Inc. because of the story, and how imaginative it is. Monsters using kids' closet doors to enter the human world to sustain their energy needs through the screams of children, and it doesn't stop there. The door chase scene, the entire cast of Monster characters, it is all amazing! This one almost topped the list but I had to go with...

1. Finding Nemo: This film hit me at every level, except that I didn't see it on a Disney Cruise. First of all, the film is gorgeous, the underwater world that Pixar created was amazing. The characters were lovable and as a father I could really connect with Marlin and his quest. But what put Nemo on the top of my list was again, the story. Nemo overcoming his "lucky fin", Marlin throwing his cautious nature to the wind (or waves)           to save his son, and who doesn't love the character of Dory? We don't watch this movie as much as others, but when we do, I am almost always in it from start to finish. I just can't turn away from it!

So rounding out the rest...
6. Toy Story 3
7. The Incredibles
8. Toy Story
9. Toy Story 2
10. Wall-E
11. A Bug's Life
12. Brave
13. Up

This really is a case of there being no losers. I have really enjoyed all of these films. In fact, we own all of them with the exceptions of Ratatouille and Brave. Most of these 13 films are among my favorites for one reason or another. Like most people, I feel that what separates Pixar from Dreamworks and other companies making animated films is the story and the characters. No matter what Pixar film I'm watching, I feel a real connection to the characters, and really have an emotional connection with them while they embark on whatever journey they are on. The films are beautiful, and frequently have glorious musical scores to accompany the visuals.

John Lasseter and his staff have really produced some of my favorite movie memories, and I can't wait to see what else they have in store in the future!

Favorite Disney You Tube Videos

Do you remember when you were a kid and your Aunt Hilda would come over for dinner after returning from vacation, and she would show you hundreds of boring slides of whatever distant mind numbing place she had just visited? Well maybe that goes too far back for some of you...

What about when your co-worker gets back from their honeymoon and shows you two hundred Instagram photos of various flowers from whatever Caribbean island they just returned from? Why do these people think we care about their vacation photos? We weren't there, why try and comatose us with these pictures? We don't care!

Unless you are a Disney fan, and the pictures are of a Disney vacation.

Now you have my attention.

It's a funny thing about the Disney fan community... Many of us will go out and search on You Tube for complete strangers vacation videos! For a lot of people this is a great way to keep away in-between Disney trips depression. And there are a lot of these videos out there! In fact there are a lot of great ones, that are really professionally done.

Programs like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker have allowed so many people to produce great videos to share with the world. The quality of these videos have improved so much since I made our first Disney Cruise slideshow back in 2008.

Here are some of the favorites I have found recently...

Phil, Emma and Ben are a British family that travels to Disney often. Whenever they take a Disney trip, they take tons of video and post each day in one or two parts after they return. They have a huge online following, and lots of people have duplicated their style. They chronicle everything even the travel days! When I watch their videos, I really feel like I am there with them! Also, Emma is a member of the Disney World Mom's Panel. This video is from their most recent trip, but there are several more on their You Tube page.

This is a very popular video from a family's 2011 trip. What I love about this video is how professionally it is produced. There are a lot of cool effects, and you can tell that the family had an idea of what they wanted to do before they even got to Disney.

What I love about this video is that you can really see what makes a Disney vacation so special. This family has a great time, and there is a good message as well. I also love the music!

Those were just a few great Disney videos that you can find on You Tube. Do you enjoy reliving your Disney memories by watching other people's videos? Do you use them to get ideas for you next trip? Do you have a favorite, or have you made a video of a recent trip? Share them here in the comments section!

Staying Fit at Disney

I want to start this post with a little confession... While I make my living teaching people to play tennis, and have spent the better part of my life competing as a player, I am in no way a fitness nut. I am not the person who feels bad at the end of a day when I didn't "hit the gym." And I am not that guy that you see running from Beach Club across the Boardwalk towards the International Gateway before breakfast. That person would be my wife, and she will frequently get up early to get in a quick run before we hit the parks. She loves it, and counts these runs as a highlight of her vacation. She also loves running along Deck 4 of the Magic and Wonder while the rest of the family sleeps off the feast of the night before! I am trying to embrace running, but doubt that it will ever become a part of my vacation routine.

When we go to Disney (especially the cruises) I tend to indulge. Regular Coke instead of Zero, steak instead of chicken, a burger instead of a turkey sandwich, a turkey leg instead of, well that one pretty much speaks for itself! I also tend to eat a lot more sweet things. My favorites are Dole Whips, Butterfinger Muffins, and Carrot Cake cookies. The funny thing is, at least with our visits to the parks, I don't gain weight. In fact I tend to drop a couple pounds. 

I wondered why this was, and I initially came up with a couple of ideas... The first was that even though I was indulging, in reality I wasn't eating as much. When we are really hitting the parks we rarely eat three full meals a day. We will usually eat one large meal a day, and kind of have a couple mini meals along the way. For example, if we do a character breakfast, we try and schedule it as late as we can so we can essentially knock out breakfast and lunch in one meal. Since most of the character breakfasts are buffets, everyone getting enough food to hold them over until dinner is no problem! 

The second thought I had was that Disney really is taking their healthy food initiative seriously, and they are serving zero calorie food and beverages! Wouldn't that be some real Disney magic?! Since this probably wasn't the case, I came to the third thought... 

Is it possible that we do so much walking while we are vacationing in the parks that I am actually able to burn off the extra calories I am consuming? So I decided to do a little Disney experiment, or a "Dis-speriment" if you will. 

Thanks to Apple's Generation 1 iPod Nano recall program, we had two brand new generation 8 iPod Nanos, with built in pedometers and Nike+ fitness apps. For a couple weeks I used the iPod to measure my average number of steps in a day. On an average day I would take between 6-7,000 steps (about 3 miles). On days when I would teach a lesson or two the total would go up to 9-10,000 (roughly 5 miles). These might be a little higher than some people, I tend not to take elevators if I can avoid them, and with two kids under 5, I am rarely immobile for very long! The next part of our "Dis-speriment" would be to see how many steps we take a day on a Disney park vacation. 

The testing ground would be a five night vacation to Disneyland Paris. During this trip we would be spending 4 full days in the parks, and one day visiting that big tower thing that they have downtown. For the first time ever, on any Disney trip, we would be staying off property, at the Dream Castle Hotel, just outside the resort proper. Since this was a Dis-speriment, I would only measure our steps on park days. This would be interesting. Behold the results... 

Total steps during four days of touring the parks: 97,455

Total distance covered: 47.24 miles 

Honestly, I was pretty shocked by the numbers! I didn't think that we would do that much walking at Disneyland Paris, where everything is so compacted together, but I think it would be about the same at Disney World where everything is more spread out. Again, we tend to walk more than the average park guest. At Disney World we almost never take the trams from the parking lots. Usually this is because we don't like having to stop and fold up the stroller, but also we enjoy walking. During this trip to Disneyland Paris, we frequently walked to the parks from the Dream Castle Hotel, and almost always walked back. It was about a 25 minute walk, which we found much preferable to waiting in line for the shuttle back. Unfortunately there are only a few resorts at Disney World where you can walk to the parks, that might lower our step count there, but I'm sure we would make it up somewhere. We'll find out for sure when we go back late this year. 

So there you have it. My secret for staying fit on a vacation at Disney... Eat what you want, and walk you tail off! 

Disneyland Paris Annual Passes: 365 Days of Magic... Almost!

With only one day before we leave for our second trip to Disneyland Paris, I wanted to talk about something that we purchased on our first trip, that we will be using on all future trips - or for at least until February 21, 2013 - our Dream Annual Passes! If you are looking to purchase an annual pass for Disneyland Paris there are a lot of options, but I'm not going to go into all of those options, I'll leave that to DLRP Magic's webpage on AP's. They do a great job of breaking down all of your options, including blackout dates, benefits of each category, and of course pricing.

When we were researching which AP to purchase, we eventually decided on the Dream Pass, which is the top level of annual pass. We chose the Dream for two main reasons; no blackout days, and a 35% discount on Disney resort rooms. Another nice benefit of the Dream Pass was that since we were buying 5 of them we got a 20% discount on the passes! Boy I wish that Disney World would institute this!

So on our first day at the resort, we walk up to the ticket booths at the Disneyland Paris Park and take the first step towards Dream Pass ownership, purchasing them. now at Disney World when you buy an annual pass that is allyou do.... You go to the booth, pay your money, and get your pass. You can also pre-purchase your AP, get a voucher and redeem it at WDW. At Disneyland Paris it's not quite that easy! After paying for your passes at the park (there is no way to pre-purchase), you are given a pass to enter the park for that day, and while in the park you are required to go to the "Bureau Passport Annuel." This is where Dream Pass ownership becomes a little less magical!

After entering the park we walked to the Bureau Passport Annuel, to take the next step. Upon arriving at the Bureau, we were greeted by a queue that stretched well outside the door of the office. We decided to go have some fun and let the

line die down a bit. Each time we walked past the Bureau we checked to see if it diminished, and it never did. Finally we reached the point that we could wait no more. The park would be closing soon, and we would not be able to enter the park tomorrow if we didn't finish the process.

This was the longest queue of our day, and we waited 45 minutes for Dumbo, and rode Buzz Lightyear without FastPass! This was also particularly difficult with a 3 and 5 year old, who didn't get the pay off of an actual ride at the end of the line! Finally, we get to the end of the line, and finish the process of Dream Pass ownership. what took so long you ask? Well they have to get some extra information from you - like your address - and take your picture.

Now I like that they put your picture on your pass, but why couldn't all of this be done during the first step of the process? Several years ago we bought "annual passes" at Colonial Williamsburg, and they were able to get all of the same information, and take your picture in a matter of minutes! Not the best introduction to 365 days of Paris Disney Magic! I'll trade the picture on the pass for the biometric ID system that WDW uses for the sake of efficiency! I just think that because there are so many options for annual passes at Disneyland Paris, that just about everyone purchases one, and because of that the lines at the Bureau gets insane! I really think that they need to streamline this process!

The benefit of the Disneyland Paris passes are that you get an actual plastic card, with a clear protective cover to store it in! for those of you familiar with the passes at Walt Disney World you understand why I say this. At WDW your annual pass looks no different than any other day pass, just a paper pass. I was always a little miffed that despite spending close to $500 for an annual pass I couldn't even get a plastic card, like my Key To The World Card. Oh well, I only had to replace it once, and that was my fault...

So while I did not enjoy the process of getting our Dream Passes, I have very much enjoyed using them. And when I walk by the Bureau Passport Annuel, my heart will go out to the poor souls using up part of their magical day, but not for long, because there is a candied apple at a 10% discount calling out my name!

Disney Dreams! - Initial Thoughts

I just finished watching the delayed premier of the new Disney Dreams! castle show from Disneyland Paris, and my first reaction is WOW! The show combines different aspects from several different Disney shows, and then takes them to the next level! You can't call it just a fireworks show, or a projection, or dancing fountains, or lasers... It is all of these things, put together to form an epic event that plays out in front of, and on the already beautiful Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland Paris. I can't wait to see this in person!

The effects are amazing! There are projected scenes on water-spray screen like Fantasmic!, water shooting hundreds of feet in the air like World of Color, beautiful projections that transform the castle like The Magic the Memories and You, and low level fireworks like Illuminations and Wishes. All of the scenes are tied together with Peter Pan, but during the show we visit some new and old classic films such as: Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Beauty and the Beast, Ratatouille, Rapunzel, and others. The characters projected on the castle are huge! Much larger than any of the projection shows we have seen up until now. The use of projections has become my favorite effect in any of these nighttime spectaculars, and this is no exception. It is amazing how they can transform the castle, and change the way we see it!

Only Disney can do something like this. I am so glad that I am going to be able to see this in person soon. I am sure that like other shows, seeing it on video can not compare!

I'm going to make a prediction here, right now. Disney Dreams! (maybe not exactly in this form) will be the replacement for Wishes in Walt Disney World within a couple of years. Probably when the Fantasyland renovation is completed. If it does replace Wishes, it will be a worthy replacement. Disney will want this show in their flagship park, where the most people will see it.

I'm not sure how long this link will be good, but for now you can watch it here...

DisneyLand Paris : Le grand show du 20ème anniversaire Vidéo disneyland-20ans sélectionnée dans Evènement

Amazing!

Epic!

Thats all for now. Good Night!