Easter Bunny Zaira meets Easter Bunny Jelly Belly

When Zaira and I visited the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield, CA a few weeks ago we were excited to learn that they would be hosting an easter brunch today.  Of course, we immediately bought tickets being huge fans of brunch (and all things breakfast).  The fact that not only would Mr. Jelly Belly himself be attending, but so would Easter Bunnies Wendy & Wendell Bunny had absolutely nothing to do with our decision   Okay, maybe it had everything to do with our decision, but I have mentioned that 2009 is a character hunting year for us, have I not?

As the opening photo shows, Jelly Belly doesn’t fool around for the holidays, going so far as to add bunny ears to the giant (3 story plus) inflatable Mr. Jelly Belly that rests outside the Jelly Belly Visitor Center.  Zaira (who provided her own ears courtesy of a carnival midway game at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom) was egg-static.  But we were actually there for the brunch (and to meet and greet the “live” characters, of course) so we quickly headed inside.

Zaira snuggles with Wendell

Aahz Gets two thumbs up!

Brunch was excellent and the whole place was wonderfully decorated for Easter, but Zaira did feel a little out of place being the oldest “child” in the room (by about three years).  We were both very glad we attended, but also agreed that this was not our new Easter tradition.  If you’ve got children in the single digits, however, Easter at the Jelly Belly Factory is highly recommended.

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Jelly Belly Visitor Center - Fairfield, CA

Zaira and I found ourselves on a mini road trip today wandering along the small coastal towns of Northern California. When I asked where she wanted to go next her reply was: the Jelly Belly Factory. Well, we were down near Monterey, and Jelly Belly makes its home in Fairfield, so I told her I wasn’t sure we’d make it in time to take the tour.

She was, however, undeterred and we headed North just as quick as Rover would take us.  Alas, we arrived only moments after the final tour of the day had begun.  It turns out, however, that the factory itself doesn’t operate on weekends so even if we had made the tour we still would not have been able to see any Jelly Bellies actually being made.  Instead, we cruised the gift shop (adding two balls to our slowly growing souvenir golf ball collection),

Jelly Belly Souvenir Golf Balls

tried a few free samples, grabbed a couple of pressed pennies (aka elongated coins) for Z’s collection, and found a great photo booth to take the picture above.  Unlike most photo booths at amuesement parks, tourist traps, and entertainment centers, this one actually had a digital frame that applied to the location of the booth itself.  Hence the picture that opened this post.

But that wasn’t all we found.  We also discovered that Jelly Belly hosts an annual Easter Brunch that would be attended not only by Mr. Jelly Belly himself, but also by Wendell & Wendy Bunny – better known as The Easter Bunnies! And suddenly, we had holiday plans.

Zaira and I headed up to downtown San Jose today to view the Leonardo: 500 Years Into The Future exhibit at The Tech museum. Leonardo DaVinci is my longest standing hero, so I was very excited about taking advantage of this opportunity to get more insight to the man. But that’s another story for another blog. Just North of The Tech, in conjunction with San Jose’s traditional Christmas In The Park celebration was a full carnival provided by Butler Amusements. While checking out the rides and games (Zaira rode the Tilt-A-Whirl which they call “Hot Wheels”, but, again, that’s another story for another blog) we found something completely unexpected! The story for thisblog has to do with the flier pictured above.

Those pictures are of the Sleigh Ride Portraits booth provided by Eye Candy FX Studio.

Thanks to their “Hollywood Green Screen Technology” we were able to successfully steal Santa’s sleigh right out from under Rudolph’s red nose! That’s us doing so in the picture at the right. Look at how mad Santa is! It’s not like we weren’t planning on bringing it back. Well, at first we were, but then…

We passed this friendly snowman who not only cheered us on, but also pointed out that Santa was chasing us in his very own Santa-copter! That’s when things got really scary as we went completely out of control! Luckily, Zaira figured out how to steer the rogue reindeer (somewhat) and we eventually managed to find our way back to San Jose.

That final pic is us over downtown San Jose’s skyline coming in for a bit of a rough landing.

The photographer at Sleigh Ride Portraits was great and although th eprice may seem a bit steep at first ($20 for a single picture, $30 for three) it’s not really out of line considering what you get, all of the technology involved, and the multiple options in backgrounds you have available. There does seem to be a little bit of confusion over how long they’re going to be in that spot, however. The flier and website say through January 1st while a sign on the booth says Christmas Day. But if you’re anywhere near downtown San Jose while Christmas In The Park is running this holiday season I recommend you get one of these photos taken. They quickly entered the ranks of our favorites.

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.

Zaira and I have visited Knott’s Berry Farm four times now. And we finally managed to get our picture taken with Snoopy. But it wasn’t easy. In fact, we had to wait for the Camp Snoopy kids area to be transformed into Camp Spooky before we could finally find America’s favorite beagle.  Not only that, but we still had to hunt him down.  In fact, we found his staff photographer before Snoopy arrived and had a picture taken in front of his ‘house’ thinking that was the best we were going to to do.

Fortunately, for us, just after the picture above was taken we saw Snoopy (and his handler/escort, of course) enter the ‘on stage’ area (if that’s what Cedar Fair calls it) from a door tucked away in the corner.  Snoopy was one of the most gracious characters we’ve met on our park visits, even waving to us and encouraging us to wait just a few more minutes while his escort fixed his boots and straightened his pirate costume.  We waited patiently until he came over, gave Zaira a big beagle-y hug, and then posed along with us for the pic on the right. Snoopy wasn’t the only character haunting Camp Spooky on that lovely Sunday morning, though. WWe also found the folowing critters wandering about-

These have got to be some of the weirdest ‘monsters’ I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering, but I guess they’re less frightening to the little kiddies when they’re this goofy. There was reportedly a Witch of some wort out and about on that day as well, but we kept missing her, so will have to wait until the 37th edition of Knott’s Scary Farm’s Halloween Haunt to immortalize her in our collection.  Of course, if you managed to grab a shot with her we’d love to post it up here.  BTW, I added the Haunt digital border myself after pulling it from the official photos we had taken yesterday.

Aside from our extended ‘Snoopy hunt’ we also kept managing to miss riding the Timber Mountain Log Ride on our previous visits. Well actually, we only missed it on the first two visits. Last night we did ride the Pyromaniax version of the ride, adding the re-themed photo to our collection.  Today, between monster hunts in Camp Spooky we also rode the ‘standard’ version of one of the oldest log flumes in America and picked up the picture to the right.  The dad behind us was teasing his two boys throughout the ride about how “spooky’ it was.  But they got the last laugh when they bought this photo’cause who’s the one who ends up looking the most nervous?

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.

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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