on the choice of Rainforest Cafe for the birthday meal (with frou-frou drinks)
on Carnation Cafe - they have good apple pie a la mode there, with whipped cream and strawberries, as well as the yummy banana split and Matterhorn sundae. DEFINITELY make a PS for it. The seating is very limited and I have never been there where I have not had to wait for a table. The line of folks waiting builds up fast, and the line borders some of the tables, so everyone in line stares down at the people while they eat.
on using PhotoPass. They don't mind taking pictures with both cameras, but sometimes theirs might be better, depending on the photographer (they use the Nikon D70 or D80, I think it is) and depending on how comfortable they are behind the lens, so let them take as many as they want on the PhotoPass account at first, and
then hand them your camera. I wouldn't tell them up front because as you suggested, some of the photographers
may not be as free with the photo sessions if they think you are not buying the CD. They usually take a bunch of them on their cameras anyway, so it's not like you will be lacking in photos. I had them take 97 pictures with their cameras in December (we were only in the parks for 2 days), which I turned into 300 by editing and enhancing online. They cannot add character enhancements to your pictures on your camera, and if you upload your own pictures to the PP account, you can't add the same borders and characters that you will be able to add onto
their PP pictures.
See in my signature below, the one where my friend and I are standing in front of the big Sun fountain? That was a picture the PP person took with
my camera. The big Mickey pumpkin and giant candy corn pictures were taken with their cameras. Of course, larger versions of those or similar ones appear in my TR and in the Photopass picture thread.
I used PP for 90% of my 'people pictures' on the last trip, and I used all of the other cameras I brought for the scenic/landscape sort of stuff. It's good to have too many pictures instead of too few, even if many of them are similar.