What to do With All Those Digital Pictures

Saturday we got a lot of rain at my home in Salt Lake. I kept waiting for the rain to stop and would then run out and do yard work. While inside, I worked on organizing all of the photos I took with my wife while visiting Disney World with one of my granddaughters a few weeks ago. This sparked me to create this posting should you be wondering what to do with all of those digital photographs you have taking up space on your phone or computer.

The first grandchild trip to Disney was sort of on a whim. I wanted to go to Disneyland for my birthday and wanted my oldest grandson to come along. He happened to be 5 years old which is the perfect age for a Disney trip. I found a great deal staying at the Grand Californian, booked reservations, booked flights, bought park tickets, and headed to Anaheim 2 weeks later. I think we only took about 15 photos of the whole trip as we focused on having fun and not trying to capture the perfect moment. We also decided to do a similar trip whenever any of our grandkids turned the magic age of 5.

The second trip required a bit more planning as we had to pick up or oldest granddaughter in Ohio. We also booked accommodations in the Marriott vacation club in Orlando which is near Disney World and not Disneyland. When we checked in, the concierge sat us down and gave us a welcome basket full of a bunch of freebies. One happened to be a coupon for a photo book from Shutterfly. We knew we would redeem the free gift and made sure to take lots of pictures. Then at the end of the trip, my wife and I sat down to create the ultimate memory book. We uploaded the best pictures of the trip and filled 20 pages. Several weeks later, it appeared in the mail. I have to say it turned out awesome.

My grandson saw the nice book and I'm sure felt like he needed one too. My wife and I gathered up all 15 photos from his trip and supplemented the content with generic Disneyland pictures. Even then it still came out looking like an afterthought. We learned our lesson for the next time. So did the rest of the family. Whenever any grandkids come over they head straight to the picture books and relive the fun they had with Grandma and Grandpa.

The idea of photo books has caught on to the rest of the family. My youngest son's wife has gone so far as to create a photo book for each year. After January 1st, they pick the highlights from each month of the previous year and add them to a book. They don't worry how many pages they fill as you have the option to add more. They are also sure to include text under the pictures describing why it is important along with any stories to add flavor about the event. My daughter-in-law has even gone to previous years and created books all the way back to when they first got married.

So what should you do with all of those digital pictures taking up space on your devices? My advice is to pick the best ones and immortalize them in a photo book. There are lots of sources where you can have them made. I mentioned Shutterfly where we have had several printed. Our new favorite place is Walgreens as it can be printed and ready to pick up in an hour so you don't have to pay for shipping. It doesn't matter who you choose though as they all seem to have regular coupons putting the cost of a 20-page book in the $10 to $20 range. 

Once you have your photo books printed, I would leave them out for visitors to see and perhaps ask about. Not everyone wants to see your vacation photos but some will. Most importantly I would keep those books close to help you remember happy times on a rainy or sad day. It might just be what you need to lift your spirits.

Why Kids Seem Technologically Gifted

Last week I had the pleasure of spending an entire week with my soon-to-be 5-year-old granddaughter at Disney World. When any of my grandkids turn 5, my wife and I take them to Disney with just the two of us. No parents. No siblings. She is the 4th to have such a trip and we had a wonderful time.

As my granddaughter lives in Ohio, I had to get on a plane, fly out to Ohio, pick her up, and fly to Orlando where we met my wife. In case you are interested, the whole trip involved 8 flights for me and 4 for my granddaughter. My wife had an easy trip with non-stops between Salt Lake and Orlando for a total of 2 flights. She gets the arduous journey the next time.

While doing all that flying, my granddaughter enlightened me with her technical skills. She is only 4 but will be 5 in September. Our first flight together started on tiny regional jet known as a CRJ. It didn't have any screens to keep us entertained and so I pulled out my Kindle Fire, connected to the plane's WiFi, logged into Netflix as a "Kid," and gave it to my co-traveler. I assumed she would watch one of the cartoons I started for her. It didn't take long for her to grow tired of the show I picked out and she told me she wanted to watch "Alphabet." I had no idea what that meant. Several minutes later I leaned over and saw that she had stopped the cartoon and started watching "Wicked for Good." It hit me that Alphabet is how she remembered the Elphaba character from the popular musical.

I didn't have to show my granddaughter how to change videos nor how to find what she wanted to watch. She had no problem stumbling around Netflix's UI and finding what she wanted to watch. Later I saw her rewinding the video for favorite songs or fast forwarding over scary parts.

After watching my granddaughter I realized that she has no problem jumping into new technology and figuring out how to use it. She builds on past experiences and if she doesn't know how to do something, she just tries it. I compared that to how I look at new things and feel like I don't want to make mistakes and am much more afraid to try something. Little kids don't worry about it. If something goes wrong, they hand the screen back to an adult and say, "It broke," leaving you to solve the problem they created.

While I cannot adopt the attitude that someone else will always be there to fix my mistakes, I can show a little more courage and not be afraid to just try stuff. This is especially true on a streaming platform. There is very little you can do to dig yourself into a hole. About the worst thing you can do is log yourself out of the service and Netflix makes that nearly impossible. I really had to go searching around for that when it came time to check out of our accommodations. Borrowing from my granddaughter's fearlessness of just trying things, I figured it out and now guests visiting my condo in Orlando can't log in as me.

Don't Use Disney's Genie+ To Plan Your Day

My wife and I recently returned from Disney World and learned a lot. We acted as tour guides for my wife's office trip. We took two couples that had never been to Disney World before and they appreciated our knowledge and help. One of the wives had refrained from going to Disney's Flagship park because of how large it is wanted someone who knew the parks to act as a guide.

One of my wife's coworkers has serious fear-of-missing-out or FOMO and did a lot of research on her own. That meant a constant barrage of questions as to if we would do things and if not, the reason why. We appreciated her thoroughness but it got old quickly. One of her suggestions included using Disney's Genie+ app to help us plan our day. Basically you enter all the rides and attractions you want to experience and it will string together a list of how you should attack them based on crowd predictions. Just to humor her, we entered all the things we wanted to do on our first day. It came back and said we wanted to do too much and would not be able to fit it all in. We assured everyone we would be able to get everything done before the park closed and did.

Ultimately we managed to get a lucky break or two and the projected crowds did not materialize as expected. It also helped to visit attractions close to the ones we just exited. Every day we started at the parks' openings and finished everything we wanted to by 7pm or earlier. At Animal Kingdom we finished everything by 3:30pm.

I am not sure what AI technology Genie+ uses to create your schedule but I do know AI is wrong 80% of the time. That is my personal metric and yours may be different. In the case of Genie+ it told us we would not be able to visit all of the attractions we wanted to experience, yet we did. Your best bet when visiting Disney World is to pick your must-do ride and head there right when the park opens. Build your itinerary from there by visiting the next ride on your list that is near to where you are. Doing that you should be able to get everything in that you want to do. Good luck! 

Dining Reservations

Today I received an e-mail from the Cheesecake Factory. It reminded me that my wife and I have a gift card to the restaurant and so I immediately looked into getting a reservation for sometime this weekend. If you have never been, the Cheesecake Factory has a lengthy menu that reads more like a novel. I pretty much like everything on pages 6 through 27. They also always seem to have a line to get in and so reservations come highly recommended.

I logged onto the restaurant's website and selected a time on Friday evening. The website did a search and let me know they didn't have anything available at my requested time. So I searched for Saturday evening. Once again the site came back and didn't have anything at the time I requested but suggested a reservation only 30-minutes later. That works for me and my wife so I accepted the suggested time and we now have a date night planned. It did leave me wondering if the Cheesecake Factory's website always kicks out your first suggestion just to show you who is boss.

My experience this afternoon got me thinking about dining reservations in general. As I mentioned in a previous post, I spent last week in Orlando, Florida. One of my wife and my favorite things to do is to go to Disney Springs for dinner. You can make reservations on the Disney World app but often cannot get the restaurant you want because all the seats are taken. While there last week, I checked at one of the highly desired restaurants to see if they had any reservations later in the week. The receptionist looked at her calendar and gave me a time that worked. She then gave me an important piece of advice that will be very useful in the future: look at Open Table.

Open Table is a website that many restaurants use to book reservations. While the Boathouse in Disney Springs can be reserved using the Disney World app, it has more reservations available on Open Table. That is an important thing to know. Many times I have tried to get reservations in Disney Springs only to be disappointed and have to select someplace else to eat. Should that be the case in the future, I will check out Open Table. Hopefully that is a trick that works for you too.

Don't Lose Your Mobile Phone

I had the pleasure of spending last week in Orlando, Florida. While that is close to Disney World, I spent the week at other attractions including Legoland, Sea World, and Kennedy Space Center. On the last day we decided to double back and visit Sea World again. On the first day, we focused on all the animal shows, which are amazing. On the second day, we attempted some of the roller coasters.

Arriving at the park early allowed us to practically walk onto any of the rides we wanted. Eventually we found ourselves at Ice Breaker. My 8-year-old grandson wanted to ride with me and we had a great time on our first ride. Then he wanted to go again. Not having any line made it easy to experience it a second time. As we started our free fall, I noticed someone lost their mobile phone and thought they would be having a bad day. Then I checked my pocket and realized it was mine. I don't know how it fell out but it did and the only person to blame happened to be me.

Before riding the ride, we saw signs on the fence around the roller coaster with a QR code telling people how to report lost items. My grandson immediately asked what you should do if you lost your phone. We all laughed and didn't think anything of it until I lost my phone. Then my son used his to report the loss. Not wanting to give up on finding my phone, I started walking around the fence guarding the track from the public. In one of the few areas that had close access to the ride, I found my phone about 10 feet inside the fence. Now I couldn't reach through the fence and get my phone but I knew where to find it. I had hope.

I went back to the ride operators and asked if they could help me get the phone. They told me I needed to go to guest services, which I did. I waited in a 30-minute line only to be told to go to lost-and-found. I went there and was told I should have just asked the ride operators for help. I explained I did. They told me to go back to the ride and someone would help me get my phone. I walked back, which turned out to be about a mile or so and waited. Then I waited some more.

Eventually a young man came out and told me they would have to shut down the ride and he would go get the phone. I waited for another 15 minutes without any signs of the ride stopping and the young man eventually told me they would not stop the ride and I would have to come back that evening when the park closed down. Unfortunately I had a 7pm flight and so that was not an option. While waiting in the lost-and-found line, another park attendee told us stories of maintenance retrieving her phone only to have it stolen from the maintenance locker. The hope of Sea World getting me my phone back disappeared.

Think about it for a minute and when was the last time you backed up your phone? I don't think I have ever backed up mine. That means any of the pictures I took on the trip would be lost. I would have to download all of my applications again, including quite a few multi-factor-authentication (MFA) apps that I use for work. I started getting depressed and decided I wouldn't leave the park without my phone.

The young man that came to help me get my phone brought along an 8-foot claw and let me try my luck with it. His arm wasn't as long as mine and I could get the device fairly close to the phone but not quite reach it. At this point my inner Engineer kicked in and I wondered how I could extend the claw 2 more inches as that is all that I needed to reach my phone.

The first thing I tried was Geometry and picking the right slats in the fence to put the claw through. I could get close enough to the phone for the claw to reach it but couldn't see the phone due to a track support leg. I solved that by positioning my wife to help relay the outcome of my efforts. While I could reach the phone now, I couldn't grip it because the claw didn't have the usual rubber feet necessary to hold the phone. I asked my wife if she had any hair ties. She had 2 and I wrapped one around each of the claw ends. They provided enough friction for me to grab the phone and move it 2 inches closer. At this point I knew I would retrieve the phone. I just needed patience. On my next attempt, I got the phone withing 6 inches of the fence. At that point I reached through the iron slats and grabbed it. Amazingly the 50-foot fall didn't damage the phone. I didn't even crack the screen. That is amazing considering I don't have a screen protector.

I returned the claw and let them know I got the phone. My wife and I then left the park so we could pack up and get ready for our flight home. It felt good to be successful in retrieving my phone. In the future I will keep my phone in a zippered pocket and not rely on friction to keep the phone from falling out.

Sending Candy Inexpensively

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Disney World where we took part in "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party" in Magic Kingdom. We had hoped that it wouldn't be crowded and that we would be able to ride a number of attractions without foot-cramp-inducing lines. It turned out to be the most crowded day of our 5-day trip. We did catch a bit of a break though when a giant thunderstorm drenched everyone in the Tron line and we only had a 15-minute wait.

One of the joys of the Halloween party is the trick-or-treating you can do. When you enter the park, they give you a special wrist band and a bag to store your sugary loot. We would find ourselves near a candy stand and quickly filled our bags with candy. The people handing out candy didn't give you one or two pieces, they gave you a huge scoop. When we filled our first bags, they gave us a second one each and we filled those too.

I love candy but can't really eat very much of it. I would estimate that I have about 3 year supply of candy for me. That translates to about a week for your average child. I have 6 grandkids that would love to take all of the treats off my hands. For the 3 that live here in Utah, I can just give the candy to them the next time I see them. For my grandkids in Ohio, I need to get it there somehow. I would love to use the trick that my 8-year-old grandson still thinks works but unfortunately it doesn't. I can create a package and send it in the mail, but postage will cost more than the value of the candy. Ultimately I will bring it to them when I see them next month as that is the most cost-effective way of sharing with them. 

Is it too Early for Christmas Songs?

Halloween is over and our next major holiday in the United States is Thanksgiving. My daughters grew up saying that we need to respect the turkey and not get too excited about Christmas until after the giant eat-a-thon. Now they are changing their tunes and think it is fine to play Christmas music a little earlier.

The day after Halloween, the Disney resorts pulled down all their pumpkin decorations and re-themed their resorts for Christmas. On November first I started getting ads for Black-Friday specials and encouraged to start Christmas shopping. It seems that everyone is eager for the largest holiday of the year.

So is it too early for Christmas songs? My personal thought is I have to restrict how many times I hear certain songs that become popular at the end of the year. The most popular Christmas song is Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you." It turns out that it is also the most hated holiday song. I fall into the later category and want to limit how many times I hear it.

One advantage I see with starting the holiday song list early is it gives me time to learn more Christmas songs on my guitar. I generally take a few weeks to memorize one and if I wait until the month of December, I never really learn them. That being said, I have to like the songs I learn because I play them so many times.

So what do you think? Is it time to play those old familiar favorites or should we wait another month? Let me know your thoughts.

Not a Fan of Disney's Magic Band+

I spent last week in Disney World with my wife and a couple of granddaughters. Whenever one of my grand kids turns 5, we take them to Disney for a couple days. This year we had 2 granddaughters turn 5 and so we brought them together. It made for a fun trip but I'm not sure the extra $35 investment in Disney's MagicBand+ is worth the extra cost.

My son is a huge Disney fan and loves taking his family to Disneyland and Disney World. He invested in the watch-like devices for his family and suggested we do the same. He loves staying close to Disneyland or at the lower-cost resort hotels within Disney World. He has also done a cruise on the Disney Cruise Line. For him, he just loads park tickets and room access onto the bands and doesn't have to worry about carrying extra key cards. He also is a fan of the Lightning Lane and can add that to the bands.

We had a very different situation for our trip last week. First off, we stayed at an off-property hotel using frequent stay points. That means the bands wouldn't help us get into our room. We also had a height limit with our 5-year old granddaughters. One measured just over 38 inches but under 40. That means we could not ride most of the thrill rides. Those are the ones with the longest lines where it makes sense to pay for Lightning Lane access. We also visited the park when it seemed fairly empty compared to other times of the year. We walked onto most rides.

Without the need to use the Lightning Lanes, we really only used the MagicBand+ to enter the parks. Of the 4 days we visited parks in Disney World, the bands had problems during 2 of them. They worked perfectly on the first day. On the second, 3 of the 4 bands had issues and needed to be reset. One thing they didn't tell us on the first day is that the finger print for a 5-year old is not very reliable and that we should have used an adult's finger. We fixed that and then my wife's device reported itself as stolen and turned itself off. We had to reactivate it. All of this took time.

On the last day of our visit we ran into another issue with the bands and had to visit guest services once again. I'm not sure we would not have had those problems with a free paper card that gets handed out for those not willing to buy MagicBand+ bracelets but I would not have had to pay for them.

If you are on the fence about purchasing a Disney Magic and+ here are some criteria I would use before spending the money:

1. Are the parks crowded and do you have kids old enough to make Lightning Lanes worth the extra cost? If so, the MagicBand+ is much easier to use than fishing around in your pocket for easily lost paper cards.
2. Do you plan to return to the Disney parks many times for years to come or spend time on a Disney Cruise? If so, then it might be worth it.
3. Do you plan to stay at a Disney hotel? If so, then the Magic Band+ can be used as your room key and might be worth it.
4. Is this probably a one-time visit to a Disney park? Save your money and use your smartphone, which is also an option, or the free paper card they give you.

I hope this helps as you debate whether or not to spend the extra $35 for a piece of technology that I don't think works very well. Disney wants you to buy the device as it allows them to track your movement throughout the different parks, thanks to their ubiquitous golden statues that light up your wrist band whenever you walk by them. In my opinion, because of that tracking feature, they should be giving them out for free.

Setting Up Magicband+ For Disney World

Two years ago my wife and I started a tradition with our oldest grandson by taking just him to Disneyland after he turned 5. We found a great deal on the Grand Californian hotel and booked the trip. We had a wonderful time and decided we would continue with the rest of our grand kids. This year we have two of our granddaughters turning 5 and so instead of a trip for each of them, we are bringing the both of them to Disney World. Why Disney World? One lives in Ohio and it is easier to pick her up on the way with the second granddaughter in tow.

Wanting to make sure we maximize our experience in the parks, my wife and I went online and purchased Magicband+ bracelets for ourselves and our granddaughters. Today I went about connecting them to my iPhone where I have the Disney World app installed. For some reason I could not get them to connect. Then I watched a video and saw my mistake.

My Sony smartphones have had Near Field Communication (NFC) capabilities for a decade. I didn't think it caught on for other brands but today I discovered it is available in my iPhone. The important thing is to know where the touch point is on the device. For my iPhone it is on the upper-back-right corner. Once I turned the Magicband+ on, all I needed to do was touch it to the right place on my phone. Then I just followed the prompts to connect everything. Before the enlightening video I tried touching every part of my phone with the bracelet except the upper-right corner.

Unfortunately the software engineers that create Disney's theme park apps do an insanely poor job on their user interface. Even though I selected the correct person in the app before linking the Magicband+, the app linked all of them to me. There is no way you can unlink them. I had to call Disney technical support at (407) 939-4357.

Disney is known for having the best customer service and their technical support lives up to that standard. I have to say it is second to none. I quickly navigated the menu to get to the right department and a real human answered the call. Furthermore she spoke English like an American. I don't care if she is in Mexico or India, I just care that I can easily communicate. I explained my problem and she solved it immediately. Furthermore she linked my wife's park ticket with her account. Her help definitely made up for a poor application.

Now we are set and ready to go. The only problem is that the trip is not for a long time. I can hardly wait.

Different Vacations

For the past year I have been training to climb Mt. Rainier. Now that the trip is over I find myself with a lot of extra time in the evenings and on weekends. This is both a blessing and a curse. While the training for climbing a mountain overwhelmed my schedule, it provided a needed focus in my life. While I have another vacation approaching, it is much less physically demanding.

In September I will be headed to Disney World with two of my grandchildren and wife. I am making sure to keep up on my evening walks so we won't get tired by all the walking we plan to do. I am also leveraging online resources to help plan the event. With Mt. Rainier, I utilized a lot of material from the Uphill Athlete. With Disney World, there are a lot of YouTube videos to help with the preparation. Fortunately most of the work can be done on the computer while relaxing on the couch.

Tomorrow starts a week of getting on the Internet early and making dining reservations to maximize my grand-kids' time with princesses and themed meals. It won't be nearly as physically draining as waking up early and hiking a thousand vertical feet. To be honest, I miss the physical preparation.

I had a friend ask if I am going to let my physical fitness decline now that my Mt. Rainier trip is over. I don't think I can as I have come to enjoy being able to walk up hills faster than I ever have before. As soon as we get some early season snow, I plan to hike up Alta with my skis and do my best to avoid rocks on the way down. There are also a lot of mountain peaks in the area that we couldn't climb earlier in the summer because of dangerous snow. The snow is all but gone and so my wife and I plan summit some of them in the coming days.

Ultimately I need another physical vacation in the next year to train for. Do I pull out my bike and plan for a century ride (that would be 100-miles in a single day) or try for another mountain? My wife has asked about doing Mt. Whitney in California or perhaps Mt. Adams in Washington. Ultimately I have worked hard to achieve this fitness level and while I have joked about sitting on the couch for the next 3 months, I'd prefer to continue improving my fitness.

Is Genie+ Worth it at Disneyland and Disney World?

For the past year I have been planning a family vacation to Disney World for all of my kids and grandchildren. The trip happened last week and I have to say we had a great time. We did a few things different on this trip than in other vacations at Disney World. One change is that of Genie+ and I thought I would weigh in on if it is worth it or not.

In January I visited Disneyland with my oldest son and his family. It helps to compare and contrast that experience with Disney World as the service is available in both parks. My hope is that it will help you as you plan your summer vacation as both parks seem to be very crowded now that COVID seems to be slowly going away.

If you go to the Disney parks to ride the rides and money is not a concern, then by all means add the service to your ticket. It will save you long lines for at least a couple of rides. If you are a little more discerning with your cash then you may want to pick-and-choose when you pay for the convenience.

I opted not to pay for Genie+ for any of the days at Disney World last week but then I wasn't concerned with riding rides. I really went to hang out with my grandkids and have fun with them. None of them had Genie+ and so it didn't make sense for me to pay an extra $15/day. I will confess that on our last day in the parks, I got stuck on the Pirates of the Caribbean for 30 minutes. Disney immediately gave us 2 free lightning lanes that we could use on half a dozen rides. Naturally I couldn't use it on any of the thrill rides like Space Mountain or the Seven Dwarf's Mine Train. I did enjoy being able to skip to the front of the line for Thunder Mountain Railroad and The Little Mermaid ride. Then we loaded up our car and headed to the airport.

My son opted to pay for Genie+ while at Disney's Hollywood Studios where he used it judiciously. My philosophy was to get to the parks early and save myself long lines and I got to ride a lot of attractions in a short time.

Ultimately my recommendation is not to add it to your ticket every day. There are some parks that don't have a lot of Lightning Lanes that allow you to jump to the front without waiting. At Disney World, it is only a $15/day addition (it is $20/day at Disneyland). You can add it in the Disney World app on your phone and then immediately schedule your first attraction. As you can only have one reservation at a time, make sure you don't sign up for a ride that allows you to jump lines at the end of the day. That can be expensive for a single use.

Uber at Disney World

My wife and I took a trip to Disney World last week so we could do some research for a potential future family trip. We found a great place to stay on AirBnB that was supposedly on the Disney World property. One advantage of staying on property is that you can use Disney's excellent transportation between your hotel and the different parks.

We arrived in Orlando on Monday and took Uber to the hotel. During our check-in, we asked about getting to the park and were told that a rideshare was the least expensive way to get there. At that moment I realized that any cost savings by inexpensive accommodations could easily be negated by trips back and forth. Fortunately my wife and I could leave the hotel in the morning and not have to return until the evening. Anyone with small children requiring naps would require two round-trips instead of our one.

Ultimately we had a great visit but were glad that we hadn't brought the entire family. We did have our youngest daughter with us but could all fit in a single car. With small grand-kids and ten adults we would have spent a fortune with Uber or Lyft.