Category: Photos

Discovery Cove photos added…and more.

A batch of photos from Discovery Cove have been sorted and added to the Universal/SeaWorld gallery:

https://us-sw.disneyfans.com

While I was there, I found some Disney Skyliner photos I never added to the Walt Disney World gallery:

https://wdw.disneyfans.com

I had completely forgot that while we were in town last year, we took a ride share over to one of the resorts and then explored the Skyliner routes. (Probably the “cheapest” day to spend in Orlando, if you don’t stop and buy food and drink while visiting them šŸ˜‰

I am still going through the VR360 footage and uploading it to my Park Hopping in VR YouTube Channel as time permits:

https://www.youtube.com/@ParkHoppingInVR

There are a few nighttime ones taken at Universal Epic Universe in the Dark Universe area of the park. They are pretty cool to watch, even if the low-light quality is pretty poor. It is a much more accurate way to “see” what it is like in that immersive area compared to photos.

I also have a similar on walking through the portal (green pipe) to Super Nintendo World all the way to the entrance to Donkey Kong Country. These, and more, will be showing up soon-ish.

Meanwhile, my submission to Google Street View of the walking path from Stella Nova Resort to the entrance of Universal Epic Universe has been processing for 11 days so far. While it is promising that it did not get rejected the first day, as often is the case (gaps in the GPS signal being the usual suspect), it is bothersome that it is taking this long. I am now bracing for some new error telling me to try again.

More to come, I am sure.

Universal Epic Universe (and more) photos being added…

Thousands of photos taken last week at Universal Epic Universe have been sorted, and are currently being generated into a gallery. It will take a day or so to get it all complete and uploaded, but they will be in the Universal-SeaWorld gallery:

https://us-sw.disneyfans.com

I have also fixed some mistakes (misspelling of “Sapphire Falls”, having the wrong Water Taxi destination, moving some files to where they need to be), but nothing significant.

There are also new photos from Universal Studios Florida, CityWalk, Islands of Adventure, and resorts such as the new Stella Nova, and visits to Aventura, Hard Rock Hotel, and even Grand Helios Hotel (with its downstairs bar, and upstairs bar). Lots of new stuff in this one.

And Discovery Cove still needs to be sorted, including underwater photos from the SeaVenture uncharge experience.

More to come…

Did Disney World Christmas lights end up in Missouri?

During a recent trip to Orlando, I heard an interesting tidbit concerning the fate of the The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights at Disney/MGM Studios. Disney had this display in their park from 1995 until 2016, when it was removed due to construction of the new Star Wars land. Here are some photos I took in 2006:

https://wdw.disneyfans.com/DisneyMGMStudios/DMGM2006/OsborneFamilyFestivalOfLights/index.html

A bartender at one of the Universal resorts heard us mention Silver Dollar City and came over. He was originally from Arkansas, and that is where the Osborne’s originally had their display before it went to Walt Disney World.

He said that Silver Dollar City ended up with (some of?) these displays after they were removed from Disney, but they were not allowed to mention where they came from. This is similar to when certain off-the-shelf rides from Disney ended up somewhere else, but the new owner was not supposed to tell folks “it’s a Disney ride!”

Indeed, when we first visited the Silver Dollar City event in 2024, there were a number of displays that really reminded us of the Disney/MGM displays.

Silver Dollar City Christmas, 2024.

He said there were side-by-side photos online that showed some of the former Disney displays and the current Silver Dollar City ones.

Does anyone reading this know more? Please leave a comment. If we drive down to SDC this Christmas season, I may take the photos I took at D/MGM with me and see if I can spot anything that looks like a match.

Until then…

Silver Dollar City 2025 in Google Street View

Although Google has driven around Silver Dollar City, as well as down a restricted employee-only road a bit, and users have contributed many 360 “photo spheres” from inside the park, there does not appear to have been any Street View inside the park.

Until now.

On a recent visit, I roamed the park a bit with my 360 camera. The footage was submitted to Google and has since been approved. If you go to maps.google.com (or use the app on your phone/tablet) and search “Silver Dollar City,” you can turn on the Street View layer and see where I roamed:

You will find many small blue circles which are 360 photos submitted by others over the years. Be sure to check them out.

You can also click on the blue line and begin exploring the park — or at least the portion of the park I explored. I still do not know my way around this park very well so I ended up finding alot of “dead end” areas and having to backtrack.

But hey, you can see Southern Gospel Picnic in full effect!

Have fun roaming around. If you have a 360 camera, consider contributing more footage to Street View. It is a great way to “look back in time” and see how things used to look as the park continues to evolve.

Until next time…

Lost Island 2025 in Google Street View

The 360 footage I submitted to Google Street View from Lost Island 2025 has been approved. You can go into maps.google.com, search for Lost Island theme park, then click on the Street View layer to see where I went. This time, I recorded one continuous path from the entrance all the way around the park then back to the entrance:

There are some random “squiggles” there as well, which were recorded in 2024.

If you did not make it to the park this year, you can now “see” where the new Fire Runner coaster is located:

Since I submitted footage of this area in 2024 as well, you can click back in time and see what it looked like before the coaster was there.

Have fun!

More from Silver Dollar City and Branson

The Theme Parks gallery has been updated again with another batch of photos from Silver Dollar City. This updated adds some places we’ve never seen before, such as areas around rides we’d never made it to (Giant Barn Swing, for one).

https://themeparks.disneyfans.com/SilverDollarCity/index.html

There are also updates to the Other Places gallery with some new images from the Branson area, including first-time visits to two of the Crazy Craig’s restaurants.

https://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Missouri/index.html

And the updates will continue. . .

My digital cameras, since 1996…

I wondered how many photos I’ve taken with each camera I have owned. I used a script to find out, but unfortunately it does not tell me how many were taken with my original Epson PhotoPC camera. That was before the standard, so the way it worked was different. Still interesting, to me.

(This does not include any of the images taken with an iPhone over the years.)

Photos per camera:
  ā€¢ Canon Canon PowerShot G5 X: 132110
  ā€¢ FUJIFILM FinePix F10: 46544
  ā€¢ Panasonic DMC-LX5: 21257
  ā€¢ SONY CYBERSHOT: 20044
  ā€¢ Panasonic DMC-LX3: 18858
  ā€¢ SONY DSC-W1: 9663
  ā€¢ SONY HDR-CX7: 8575
  ā€¢ SONY HDR-HC1: 7358
  ā€¢ SONY HDR-CX12: 6024
  ā€¢ CASIO COMPUTER CO.,LTD EX-Z4: 4358
  ā€¢ SONY HDR-XR500V: 2836
  ā€¢ SANYO Electric Co.,Ltd. X1200: 211
  ā€¢ RICOH RICOH THETA S: 6

I wonder what the “SANYO Electric Co.” is.

More Missouri and Silver Dollar City photos…

New photos from attractions in Missouri have been added to the Misc gallery:

https://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Missouri/index.html

This includes Sight & Sound Theatre (very well-themed and detailed), Ozark Hills Winery, and stops at interesting eateries such as The Pie Safe, Brason Walkers (zombie themed walking tacos) and more.

The Silver Dollar City gallery has also been updated bringing the count to over 6000 photos (so far):

https://themeparks.disneyfans.com/SilverDollarCity/index.html

And a bunch of VR360 photos have been posted to the “Branson in VR” Facebook group and the “Park Hopping in VR” Facebook group, as well as new VR360 videos being added to the YouTube channels for each of those.

Check ’em outā€¦ Much, much more VR stuff to be added as I get time.

Branson and Silver Dollar City photos added

Two of my galleries have been updated with new photos:

Branson Missouri photos, including A Tribute to the King, Retromania, Branson Landing water show, Masters of Escape, and much more:

https://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Missouri/index.html

And new Silver Dollar City photos:

https://themeparks.disneyfans.com/SilverDollarCity/SilverDollarCity2025/index.html

Also, new VR photos have been posted to Branson in VR and Park Hopping in VR on Facebook, and new VR videos are showing up on the YouTube channels for each one. Here’s a VR walk from the entrance of Silver Dollar City to the old Fire in the Hole, then over to the new Fire in the Hole.

…with many more scheduled to post.

Meow Wolf Omega Mart in Las Vegas

First, a quick update to my Miscellaneous (ā€œOther Placesā€) photo galleryā€¦ I found some Las Vegas, Nevada photos I took in 2000 during a work trip. These were taken with my 1996-era Epson PhotoPC digital camera, so the ā€œhigh resolutionā€ was only 640×480. You can take a glimpse of Vegas through the eyes of a first-generation digital camera here:

http://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Nevada/index.html

Next, Omega Mart has been added to the gallery! After running in to some very weird ā€œcommercialsā€ on YouTube for this ā€œgrocery storeā€ a few years ago, I went down quite a rabbit hole watching their in-universe videos. Omega Mart is an interactive experience where you can walk through and just look at bizarre artistic creations, OR go down the rabbit hole yourself and explore the underlying story. For this one, Omega Mart is a grocery store operated by a corporation called Dramcorp. Dramcorp is up to some questionable business practices, involving alien worlds, extracting ā€œthe sourceā€ from humans, and stuff that it would take a book to fully explain. If even possible.

I really wanted to get to Omega Mart, but ended up in Denver earlier this year, and thus my first Meow Wolf experience was their Convergence Station (see photos in the gallery).

But now, Omega Mart has been visited:

http://misc.disneyfans.com/OtherPlaces/Nevada/LasVegas2024/Area15/index.html

It is located inside a facility called Area 15 (15, not 51) which was quite the site on its ownā€”attractions, food, drinks, VR, arcade, shopping and, of course, Omega Mart.

VR photos posted to Park Hopping in VR on Facebook, and VR videos will be on my Park Hopping in VR YouTube channel (currently unlisted, but I will make them available soonā€”or ask, and Iā€™ll send you the link sooner).

More to comeā€¦