One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 6

I have to put a little bit of a heads up on today's post, and that's to settle in, it could be a long one. Today was the day that Jenea and I were going to Epcot to attend the Disney Photography Blog's 2011 Flower and Garden Festival Meet. This all started when I was asking on Twitter if anyone else was going to be down at the same time we were. That of course got Cory Disbrow's attention, probably because he hadn't been in the parks in like a month and that's just crazy talk! Anyway, Cory was a pretty easy sell on the idea that we could do a little meetup to shoot the beautiful color around Epcot.

We ended up with nine people total in the meet and we met up right under Spaceship Earth. I remember my parents and even Jenea to some extent wondering why we were going to shoot photos we people we'd never met before. The way I looked at it though, is I already knew all the people I met in person that day through our conversations on Flickr and various other social networks. This was just putting faces to names, and those names we Cory Disbrow, Ryan Pastorino (I know! I knew them before they were famous podcasters! LoL), Jeff Krause, Katie Marino, Andreea Radu, both Larry White and his wife Kathy, Jenea, and myself.

After we all met up and chatted for a little while, we started heading over towards the Land to get fastpasses for Soarin. From there, we headed towards the Living with the Land attractions, learning about Cory and Larry's "special ride" when they had a boat to themselves. There was a sarcastic glint in each of their eyes through the whole attraction. Already I knew, this was going to be a really fun day.



Heading toward the Imagination pavilion, the heavy shooting for me took over. We went in and changed the world seeing Captain EO, which was just corny enough for us, and since I hadn't seen it since I was a little kid, it was a nice throw back.



Heading through the butterfly house and then through the surrounding flower beds towards World Showcase, I started wondering how epic we must have looked. I'm sure the average Disney Park goer isn't expecting to see a group of 9 people all shooting photos together.



We went to the right side of World Showcase first, hitting Canada, then the United Kingdom. We paused there because we were waiting to for Andreea to catch up from getting some food. Which was fine as we could all keep ourselves plenty busy.



Moving on from there was of course France, which is always beautiful. Plans were being made from here to get some quick lunch in America when we made it there.



We moved into the Morocco pavilion, where several of us got lost in back taking photos. This pavilion and the Japan pavilion were two that I knew I wanted to spend a fair amount of time in shooting.




When we got around to the Japan pavilion, most of the group was pretty quick to be distracted by the food smells coming from the American pavilion, so they headed over there. Meanwhile, Jenea, Andreea, and I stayed in Japan and shot some more photos.



After grabbing few photos outside of the American pavilion, we headed in to meet up with the rest of the group and get some food. This was a good time to talk with everyone. I'd known all these people for a while now, but it was so nice to get to talk to everyone in person. I for one count myself lucky to have friends all over the country, and the world in some cases, that I wouldn't have without my photography.



Anyways, another place I knew I'd spend a great deal of time, was Italy. Luckily for me, everyone else seemed to be just as attracted to it. We all spent some time shooting photos when we realized something. The Germany pavilion was mere feet away which could only mean one thing... Caramel Corn!



After getting some shots in the pavilion of the wonderful architecture that can be found anywhere you look, we all went into the caramel store. Of course, the top on the order lists was fresh caramel corn, which I would highly recommend everyone getting a bag, or three, every trip. Jenea and I always got on of their Choholate covered, caramel drizzled, mutant hulk sized strawberries. It of course was absolutely wonderful, and I would've gotten several more if they hadn't had a hulk sized price tag.



We all stopped by the Snow White and Lion King topiaries to take some photo before we made our way to China.




I had just gotten my Sigma 10-20mm ultra wide angle lens the previous Christmas, so I was itching to get to this pavilion and the Temple of Heaven. I think we all spent a good deal of time there as the day was winding down, at least the meet part.



We got into Norway, and after getting the shots we were all looking to get, we decided that we should get a photo to remember the day. Kathy was kind enough to take the photo for the rest of us, so I thank her and Larry both for letting me use it here.



From left: Myself, Jenea, Cory Disbrow, Jeff Krause, Katie Marino,
Andreea Radu, Ryan Pastorino, and Larry White.

Heading towards the Mexico pavilion, which I had done a fair amount of shooting at on our first night, Jenea and I decided to say goodbye to the rest of the group. It had been a fantastic day and I was very glad that I was able to meet everyone, but we had a dinner ADR at Le Celleir that I wasn't going to miss.

We met up with my cousin Andy inside MouseGear. We left there heading towards the Canada pavilion, when we decided to get some photos together with Spaceship Earth as background.



Ok, so, Le Cellier, is there really anything I can say about this place that hasn't been said already. We love the Cheddar Cheese Soup, we love the Filet Mignon, and it doesn't matter which dessert, because we love them! This is one of those restaurants that we try to get back to once a trip every trip. Since our whole party was split up doing different things today, we all had a great chance to share our days and it was really quite a nice dinner.

Leaving Le Cellier after an amazing meal with the family, we decided to go do some late blue hour and night shooting in Future World.



We wanted to get back to French Quarter a bit earlier tonight, because we wanted to watch some great jazz just outside the bar in the lobby of POFQ. Getting a great craft beer called Purple Haze from the bar, we sat and had a very relaxing rest of the evening. Tomorrow morning would be another morning at Animal Kingdom, and more photos from me!

Be sure to check out the other parts of this trip report here:
One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 1
One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 2
One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 3
One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 4
One Year Later - 2011 Disney Trip Report - Day 5

Also, be sure to check out and play our triva contest for a chance to win the great iOS app Disney Photo A Day from the guys that bring you both Disney Photography Blog and the ISO5571 podcast. - Disney Photo A Day Trivia Contest