Zaira and I mistakenly made our first pilgrimage down to Knott’s Merry Farm a few days after Christmas. It seems that, despite the event being advertised as running through the first week of January, the bulk of the Christmas activities actually ceased on Christmas Eve.  Live and learn.  We’ll go earlier next year.

We were still able to grab samples of their holiday digital frames, however, with my favorite being the one pictured at left. That’s our gate photo in front of the big Peanut’s Christmas display that replaced the Pony Express display near the front gate.

Zaira actually prefers the gift wrap border (pictured at right), though it still says Knott’s Berry Farm instead of Knott’s Merry Farm.  In fact, we could find almost no merchandise with the Knott’s Merry Farm name despite there still being a plethora of Knott’s Scary Farm merchandise available from as far back as six years ago.

We did manage to find Snoopy again!  Unfortunately, he had already sent his Santa outfit to the cleaners so only had this bizarre vest that Z and I assume some distant Aunt sent as a Christmas present.  We figured he was only wearing it during photo opps so he could send her “proof” of how much he loved it   Alas, although the other members of the Peanuts gang were performing in various shows and parades, none of them were available for photos in the two days we were there.

We also managed to catch sight of this holiday ornament ‘border’ while purchasing our pictures.  Although subtle I really like it and think it capures the holiday spirit very well while not overpowering the photo itself.

While planning our visit to opening weekend at Discovery Kingdom’s 2nd Annual Holiday In The Park celebration we decided to focus primarily on character hunting during this visit. You see, Discovery Kingdom goes all out with holiday characters adding holiday costumes and scarfs to their Loony Tunes characters and regular mascots as well as bringing in more than a dozen holiday-only mascots.  We managed to grab photo opps with the majority of the characters available, but missed a few including three reindeer and the most crucial: Merlin the Dolphin.  We also saw but did not manage to photograph, Wile E. Coyote, Speedy Gonzalez, Tweety Bird, and Shouka.

I did manage to get a photo with “Mr. Marine World (er.. Discovery Kingdom)” himself – Captain Lee. As Discovery Kingdom’s chief explorer and park ambassador Captain Lee is the head animal guy and one of my personal heroes, so managing to grab a photo with him was quite a personal treat.  Other than that we did a pretty decent job of character hunting and managed to net photo opps with: Blitzen, Bugs Bunny, Christmas Bear, Comet, Cupid, Daffy Duck, Dancer, Foghorn Leghorn, Frosty The Snowman, Mr.Gingerbread, Mrs. Gingerbread, Mr. Christmas Mouse, Mrs. Christmas Mouse, Christmas Penguin, Prancer, Sylvester the Cat, and the Tazmanian Devil.  Here they are…

The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden held their HallZOOween celebration last month. And, even though they didn’t come up with any custom digital frames or borders for the event, that doesn’t mean gate photos weren’t being taken.  In fact, Who Dey, the Cincinnati Bengals mascot even stopped by to pose with some of the munchkins.  There was also at least one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in attendance as evidenced by the photo below.

Of course, our focus here is on the souvenir photos available, but the zoo also had a special Haunted Lighthouse film in their Special FX 4-D Theater as well as a special Halloween show, Theater of Illusion by magician/illusionist Phil Dalton. The kids weren’t the only ones celebrating Halloween, though. The animals got into the act with pumpkin hunts for the gorillas and snow monkeys, a polar bear pumpkin bob and the elephants’ pumpkin smash.

Six Flags may not be able to match Knott’s Berry Farm for overall theming of the park for Halloween, but when it comes to souvenir photos and custom digital frames/borders, they wipe the map with Cedar Fair.  The only step they missed was not having special Fright Fest photo folders like those available at the Knott’s Scary Farm Halloween Haunt.

Zaira and I visited along with her friend Hannah and managed to bring home more than half a dozen new photos for our collection.  Before I start detailing the photos, though, there have been a few changes to the way pictures are handled at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom…

First, we did not receive a My Six Flags Photos card from the gate photographer as we usually do.  Frankly, I forgot about it until we were home, so it is possible they had them available, but our gate photographer gave us the standard paper slip instead.

Second (and more importantly, IMO), Six Flags now offers $5.oo Kodak photo vouchers on their website.  If you’re a fan of theme park photos and are buying your tickets online anyway then this is a great deal!  Not only do you need to use your cash in the park as they’re prepaid, but it’s a great deal as well since these are normally a minimum of $12.99.  The only problem is that Six Flags has also instituted a $5.00 per order ‘delivery’ fee for etickets and vouchers that you print at home.  I realize they’re trying desperately to avoid bankruptcy, but this is an absolutely ridiculous fee.  Even at $5.00 it verges on gouging, particularly since we have season passes so the only reason we need to use their online ticketing system is to buy these Kodak photo vouchers.

Back to the topic at hand, check out the digital frames on those two gate photos.  Not only did they make separate horizontal and vertical borders, but both are awesome!  Although the vertical is more fitting with the theme of Fright Fest, I just love the way that Gossamer the Hair Monster looms over us.
But that’s not the end of Fright Fest Photo goodness. The picture on the right was taken while I was chowing down on super worms from the Wheel of Fright. Although it’s not a very good photo, IMO, I love the Halloween cuteness of the digital frame.  This would be even better for pics of kids in costumes, perhaps with a character or two.

Speaking of characters… The only one we managed to get a photo with was Sylvester The (Cat) Vampire. but there were plenty of others out and about as well: Bugs (Bunny) Vampire, Tweety (Bird) Baseball Player, Franken-Foghorn Leghorn-stein’s Monster, and Daffy (Duck) The Pirate. We didn’t see the Tasmanian Devil, but I’m sure he was out and about somewhere.  I am considering returning next Saturday (November 1st) for the primary purpose of hunting down photo opps with Lonney Tunes characters dressed up in Halloween.

The great thing about collecting Six Flags ride photos is that they make special holiday frames for all of their on ride photos.  In fact, for their most popular roller coaster, Medusa, they not only made a special Fright Fest frame, but it’s an entirely different look then the either the standard Medusa ride photo, last year’s Fright Fest frame, or last year’s Holiday in the Park ride photo.  We actually bought three Medusaphotos on this trip-

Medusa isn’t the only coaster with a ride photo of course. Somehow we missed out on the Fright Fest frame for Cobra last year, so I have no comparison photo for y’all, but we were pleased to get our grubby mitts on this one. The ride itself is amusing, but the fogged up ride photo is top notch.

Of course, no trip to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom is complete without a ride on their wooden roller coaster, Roar. Unfortunately, the ride photo equipment was having problems and didn’t grab our picture on our first ride. We returned later in the evening, checked in at the photo booth to ensure it was operating, and headed through the exit with our flash passes to ride again. Still no photo. It literally broke down again on the ride before ours . The folks at the booth were very understanding, however. They offered me another flash pass ride, but instead I asked for (and received) a copy of someone else’s Roar ride photo. After all, not getting our photo was unfortunate, but missing this cool fright Fest frame would have been a tragedy.

Knott’s Berry Farm literally invented the concept of the haunted amusement park thirty seven years ago. Now there’s hardly a theme park in the world that doesn’t do some level of revamp for Halloween. But Knott’s Scary Farm is still, by far, the best.  I hadn’t been to the Knott’s Halloween Haunt since 1996 and Zaira had never been so we were pretty excited to be able to attend opening weekend this year.  As always, Knott’s came through with flying colors, despite their takeover by Cedar Fair.

The top left photo is the cardboard frame created specifically for Halloween Haunt.  Oddly it was only available with the set photo pictured on the right. We came across this photo opp pretty quickly and Z jumped at the chance to have her picture taken in a coffin. As a father I’ve got to say this did creep me out just a bit and her mother is horrified by this picture. But Z’s all about vampires at the moment thanks to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books.

As always, Knott’s went all out with their theming and created a wonderfully spooky custom digital frame for Halloween haunt this year. In addition to using it for the gate photos (left), they also had photographers throughout the park to capture ‘monster attacks’ and other set photos near the scare zones.  The one to the right was taken in front of Xcaliber in the CarnEvil zone.

But it’s not just haunted mazes and scare zones that transforms Knott’s Berry Farm into Knott’s Scary Farm!  They are also the masters at re-theming rides.  The Timber Mountain Log Ride has regularly been converted to Pyromaniax for several years now – adding fire effects, “live” monsters, and other goodies to its usually tranquil setting. As excited as I always am to find new holiday digital frames I must say I’m a bit disappointed in the Knott’s team on this one count. The Halloween frame for Pyromanix is pretty cool, but it doesn’t seem to fit the “toxic fire” theme set by Pyromaniax. In fact it would much better match the Camp GonnaGetcha retheming of Logger’s Run at California’s Great America (which didn’t have a holiday frame at all).  The top half of the frame has definitely creepi-fied the old saw mill building, but the burbling blood and dismembered arms, while suitably Halloween themed, don’t seem to go with this ride’s theme.

Zaira and I had the pleasure of attending the opening night (aka Media Event) of the first-ever Halloween Haunt event at California’s Great America. The park has had Halloween events in the past, but nothing of this scale and not for many years.  Cedar Fair is to be applauded for tapping the crew from Knott’s Scary Farm to create Halloween Haunt at Great America as well.

Unfortunately, they barely scratched the surface of the custom, Halloween-themed digital frame.  The only one they had available was for the gate photos which you can see above.  They did go to quite a bit of effort to completely re-theme their Loggers Run log flume ride as Camp GonnaGetcha, but then dropped the ball by only having the standard digital frame available.  Luckily, for Z and I, we still needed to add the official California’s Great America digital frame to our collection.

Still, when it comes to Holiday ride photos, they’ve got a lot to learn from their older brother to the south: Knott’s Scary Farm.  You can read my full review of the event at my primary blog, Philaahzophy.

I’m not sure how many zoos offer gate photos or other photo opps, but someone recently emailed me two pics from the Cincinnati Zoo. I really like the digital frames on these. They remind me of the actual frame I purchased from Six Flags Discovery Kingdom with all of the animals.

But if you’re considering heading to the Cincinnati Zoo and getting a family photo taken I highly recommend that you  go for the horizontal as the vertical frame just makes the animals look all stretched out.

Still, considering how rare it is to find a professional photograph from a Zoo I imagine these are pretty popular with both locals and tourists alike.

As much as I feel like I’ve become a shill for all things Disney lately, the amount of photos available at Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure is truly staggering.  Last week I promised to post up both our personal photos (with their Disney PhotoPass enhancements) and the official PhotoPass pictures that we received.  So now I’m finally doing both.

The first picture you see up there is one of my favorites. One of the little “surprise” photos the PhotoPass photographers will pose you for is simply pointing at a spot on the ground. Then, when the post the photos to the Disney PhotoPass website they have already edited in Stitch breaking through the pavement. We simply zoomed in on Stitch and then added the “1st Visit” banner to indicate that Stitch broke into DCA without buying a ticket

Since 4×6 photos of official PhotoPass photographer pics cost roughly $6.50 per print, we didn’t purchase prints directly from Disney, opting to get the Photo CD and have them printed ourselves.  I’ve still uploaded them, though and have included them below.  First, however, here’s our collection of personal photos with digital frames, character pop-ins, and other enhancements created through PhotoPass-

These are my snapshots from the Princess Celebration lunch at Ariel’s Grotto in Disney’s California Adventure. Not only did they not have PhotoPass photographers in the dining room for when you get to meet the Princesses, but even the entry photos with Ariel are not on PhotoPass, but rather a separate purchase (which we didn’t make)-

 

Now for the Disney PhotoPass pictures. I will filter out the ones that I’ve already posted, but we managed to go from around 30 actual photos taken to 106 different images with digital frames and photo enhancements-

For those who think that $60 is too much to spend on your vacation photos on CD, consider this – we got all 100 of our Photo Pass pictures printed for less than $10.  Added to the cost of the CD that makes $70 for more than 100 professional photos with nifty digital enhancements.

That should conclude my Disney photo-rama until next month when I’m sure to have more photos from when we attend Miley Cyrus’ Sweet 16 Party at Disneyland!  Between now and then I’ll be sure to post more pics from other parks we’ve visited.

More Disney Souvenirs-

*GOOFY Walt Disney SOUVENIR PVC BIRTHDAY CAKE TOPPER FIGURE FIGURINE TOY!*

US $0.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Saturday Feb-11-2012 18:27:34 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

VINTAGE 1977 WALT DISNEY WORLD A PICTORIAL SOUVENIR BOOK

US $5.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 20:29:43 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

DISNEY ON BROADWAY, LITTLE MERMAID, SOUVENIR CUP, NEW IN PLASTIC

US $0.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 20:14:10 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

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Several days ago I posted about the Disneyland Disney PhotoPass Frame Options. Well, today it’s the Disney’s California Adventure Park’s turn. Unfortunately, there’s only a single different enhancement for DCA, so instead of simply showing only that one picture I’ve decided to share all of the enhancements and digital frames again, but this time using a vertical photo.

Once again, I’ve posted the original, unmodified photo above so y’all can see what effect the frames have. This time Zaira joins me on the bridge from Paradise Pier to the Pacific Wharf area, with Maliboomer, California Screamin’ and the Sun Wheel in the background-

Early next week I’ll show you the digital frames and enhancements you can add to your personal pictures after you upload them to the Disney PhotoPass website. Our PhotoCD is scheduled to arrive Wednesday, so either late in the week or the following week I should have osme of those photos to share with you as well.

More from Disney’s California Adventure-

★Disneyland Ticket or Disney California Adventure Ticket 1-Day 1-Park FastPass★

US $73.99 End Date: Monday Feb-13-2012 17:39:41 PST Buy It Now for only: US $73.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

★California Disneyland or California Disney Adventure 1-Day 1-Park Ticket. New★

US $72.00 End Date: Monday Feb-13-2012 14:37:13 PST Buy It Now for only: US $72.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list

★Disneyland Ticket or Disney California Adventure Ticket 1-Day 1-Park FastPass★

US $73.99 End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 21:38:36 PST Buy It Now for only: US $73.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

Disney California Adventure LE 2001 numbered

US $2.99 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 20:23:31 PST Buy It Now for only: US $5.99 Bid now | Buy it now | Add to watch list

★California Disneyland or Disney Adventure 1-Day 1-Park Ticket. With Fast Pass★

US $72.00 End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 9:31:40 PST Buy It Now for only: US $72.00 Buy it now | Add to watch list

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Yesterday I wrote up a general review on the Disney PhotoPass system and promised that I’d share with y’all the variety of enhancements available on the DisneyPhotoPass.com website.

Disney offers a huge variety of digital frames, logos, character “pop-ins”, and other enhancements through their online PhotoPass site, but there are essentially, 28 basic or standard enhancements that are available on most photos. In order to show y’all the variety of enhancements available I’ve added each one to the same photo. The original photo is me in front of the train station just inside the gate of Disneyland and can be seen above. Below are numerous copies of the same photo displaying each of the various enhancements available on the Disney PhotoPass website-

In the coming days I’ll share the enhancements available on horizontal photos, from Disney’s California Adventure, and on your personal photos that you can upload to their website.

More Disneyland photos-

Mickey Mouse Colorful Photo To Disney Disneyland Mouse Pad J42

US $8.99 End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 20:37:43 PST Buy It Now for only: US $8.99 Buy it now | Add to watch list

B & W PHOTO N4901 PEOPLE ON SHIP AT DISNEYLAND 1966

US $5.98 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 22:33:53 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

B & W PHOTO N4900 PEOPLE AT DISNEYLAND 1966

US $5.98 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 22:32:56 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

B&W Photo R0599 Far view over monorail of its a small world,Disneyland

US $9.98 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 21:30:56 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

Disneyland MICKEY, DIGNITARIES & WALT Press Photos

US $18.00 (0 Bid) End Date: Sunday Feb-12-2012 20:49:37 PST Bid now | Add to watch list

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