Festing with the Mouse . . . and a gaggle of other people, too. **Updated 1/29** - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
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Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
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It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
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If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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Festing with the Mouse . . . and a gaggle of other people, too. **Updated 1/29**
Eeeek!
So, normally, I would have started my pre-trip report a couple of weeks ago (heck, one time I posted a pre-trip something like 6-7 weeks before my trip! ) but HOLY HECTICNESS!!!! I have let my other report about my summer trip to Washington DC go by the wayside, but am going to make a conscious effort to finish this report once I start it, dang it.
So, um . . . I’m going to WDW for MouseFest on Wednesday!!!
With that, I bring you another two-headed report from myself and Terri (DrDolphin)!
The first time I went to WDW during the holiday season was 2003. The week of Christmas, to be precise. Yeah, I was either brave or insane . . . one or the other . . . but being that the trip was my parents’ gift to my family and both of my sisters, I couldn’t complain! I did, however, tell everyone at the end of the trip that, unless I got another deal that I just couldn’t refuse, I would NEVER go to WDW during Christmas week again. I don’t really fancy the “Sardine Can” feeling that I felt frequently during the trip.
Not long after that trip, I found PassPorter and started planning for a trip in Oct. 2004 . . . then upon returning from that trip, heard about this little gathering called MouseFest. At that time, it was in its infancy, so there wasn’t really TOO much to hear about it, but I decided that I might like to try a trip during that time of year instead. So, we headed down for MouseFest in 2005. I went with DH and DD and had a great time. While we didn’t make but a couple of the PassPorter events, we still had a wonderful time! When it was time to head home from that trip, I vowed to myself that one of these years I WOULD get back during that time of year again.
I started reading about folks’ plans for MouseFest 2007 in late August/early September ’07 and got a bit of a pang of jealousy reading about the fun everyone was going to have (not to mention thinking about the fact that I hadn’t been to The World since March 2006!) So, I decided right then that, dang it, “I’m going to go in 2008!”
As soon as I decided this trip was going to happen, I added a countdown in my signature on the boards and started looking into hotels. I was fairly sure that I was going to go with either Shades of Green or Pop Century, and was floundering between the two of them when I received a PM one day from Terri that read “What’s this I see about MouseFest ’08?!” Terri offered to “introduce” me to a DVC resort this trip, if I was interested. As many of you know, this is not the first time that Terri and I have “done Disney” together . . . we’ve been hanging out together at The World since early 2005 and traveled there together for my last trip in March 2006 as well as to Disneyland in February 2007! Of course, when Terri offered the chance to be roomies again, I could not pass her up! And so, the trip planning was in full swing! Originally, the trip was planned to be myself and DD, as we were going to be “home alone” in Virginia (DH deployed on an aircraft carrier in the fall. )
In January, at 11 months out, Terri made a DVC reservation at her home resort of Saratoga Springs and then it was pretty much the usual “hurry up and wait” game while we waited for the early summer to roll around so we could make our ADRs. On February 1st, DH and I received the good news that, after 5 years of attempts, we FINALLY were expecting our 2nd child! So the trip became myself, DD and “baby to be named later” (aka: Evan, who was born on October 9th! ) However, being that we were coming out to Oregon to stay with my family for a few months (rather than DD and I stay in Virginia and me have to have a baby “alone”) and because we’d be here through the holidays, my mom put her foot down and said DD, Emilie, needed to stay in school and that she would NOT let me pull her out to go. So, after I explained to Emilie about not being able to miss school and promising to make it up to her once her dad got home from deployment, the trip became myself and DS only. She did help me make reservations for our next trip after school gets out in June though I know that she is still having a hard time with the fact that mom’s going to Disney World and taking her brother . . . and she can’t go. I have a feeling my parents will be dealing with a lot of utterings of the words “It’s not fair!” next week.
SO . . . around the end of April, Terri and I started tossing out thoughts on ADRs, by the end of May had nailed down a good list of places we’d like to eat and in mid June, I called and made our ADRs! It was the first time I had called Disney for anything since . . . maybe Christmas time 2005 when we got home from MouseFest. I tell you what, I sure did like calling and hearing “Thank you for calling Disney Dining . . . “ and hearing “You’ve Got A Friend in Me” when I was put on hold! Now, normally, I HATE being placed on hold when I call someone/someplace . . . but there’s just something about calling Disney and being put on hold that makes everything OK! Seriously . . . even when you have the grumpiest CM alive on the other end of the phone once you talk to a real, live person, it STILL is sort of OK . . . because it’s Disney World trip related.
Once all of the ADRs were made, there really wasn’t much planning to be done (at least not until the MouseFest event schedule came out. ) so we just kind of sat back and twiddled our thumbs in hopes that our waitlist request for either Villas at Wilderness Lodge or Animal Kingdom Villas came through. Neither of those did pan out, though, we did come through for Old Key West! We switched our dinner ADR for our first night from Turf Club at SSR to Olivia’s at OKW . . . and we were SET. Once the MouseFest MVMCP night was “announced” as being Dec. 11th, we bought our tickets for that. Now . . . to wait (for months and months) for the rest of that darn MouseFest schedule!
Once the planning was set at a stand-still, it seems that both Terri and I got busier than we could have ever imagined! haha Terri with her new boyfriend and moving and the new part to her job . . . I will let her get into details of her very busy story! haha We came out to Oregon at the end of August then sent Mike back to Virginia to button up the house until we get back . . . then he left on deployment the first week in September. After that, Emilie started school and I started getting ready for the arrival of Evan! Since then, it’s been baby everything! There’s always been someone home to help with one kid or the other since Evan was born . . . however, I got my crash course in “single mom of 2 kids” this past week when my parents went on a trip to San Diego for the decommissioning of the ship my dad was on (before, during and after it was commissioned in the 70’s) when he was in the Navy. Holy COW . . . I don’t think I have gotten more than 3 minutes to myself between the hours of 6:30am and 11:00pm all week!!! Add to that, I have been fighting off a stuffy and runny nose and slightly sore throat for the last week . . . blah. I haven’t even had the chance to sit down and play with my new lenses for my camera yet. I guess I will get a crash course in how they work on the trip! When Emilie’s at school and Evan naps . . . I nap. When Emilie goes to bed for the night and Evan is napping (again) . . . I read my e-mail for the day. When Evan has gone down for the night and I have more than 5 minutes to sit and do “whatever”, I sit down and respond to e-mails, go through my packing lists and write pre-trip reports for MouseFest 2008 trips.
Terri has mentioned that she is still having trouble wrapping her head around the trip and I have to confess, I kind of am too. Maybe it is because it’s been in the planning for over a year and the bulk of the planning has been done for quite some time . . . maybe it is because there’s been SO much craziness going on and I’ve been so busy since the trip was planned that the trip doesn’t really feel “real” yet . . . maybe it’s a combination of both. Even though, in my own currently cloudy headed way, I am excited and anxious to get going, I just have a feeling that it isn’t really going to “hit” me that the trip is FINALLY really happening until I see those purple gates! Well . . . maybe when I get off the plane and go to the Disney Welcome Center and get on the Magical Express bus. MAYBE. I may start giggling like a loon at that point, if that is the case. Being that it will be just me and a 2 month old baby, I hope that if I go goofy like that, no one thinks I am insane . . . just entertaining the kid. Yeah . . . that’s it.
So . . . my flight for Orlando leaves not-so-bright and SUPER early on Wednesday morning . . . and I will be at WDW in plenty of time to get my AP activated, get my refillable mug and hopefully be able to check out the resort a little bit before dinner!
I, personally, will be “laptop-less” this trip but Terri should have hers! We will have free internet (YAY DVC!!!!!) so we may stop in with a live update or 2 throughout the week . . . MAYBE. This will be the first trip in a LONG time that I haven’t had a laptop with me, but I figured 14gb of memory for the camera should be plenty this time!
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WOW - how can we be 3 days away???
And I am SO not ready for this trip??
Like Sarah said - this year has A) Flown By; B) had a BUNCH of changes happen since we first decided to go to Mousefest...
Sarah got preggers and Evan arrived; Terri found a boyfriend and to make things even more interesting decided to move in with him - which resulted in complete upheaval of my otherwise "organized" world (HA!) and throw into the mix - I was accepted into a new training program at work with extensive travel - so while I was trying to move - I was out of town for three weeks. THEN when I finally came home, I had surgery and spent a week recovering from that before I could finish moving and I've spent the last MONTH (ok more than that now) trying to combine my house INTO my boyfriend's house. Take one 1,500 sq townhome's belongings and try to mesh it into another 1,500 sq ft townhome.... and all the stuff in it - throw in a boyfriend that likes to keep STUFF,... and well - you can see why I've been a little distracted about this trip. Heck I am three days away (well really 2 now) and I haven't even begun to pack (I did however buy 2 cases of water... so something is done)...
I guess the funny memories I have about planning this trip include Sarah having to impersonate me to DVC to try and move us to a new resort - cause I was bobbing around in either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans for the Panama Canal westbound cruise at 7 months - and she had to call.... Sarah making all the ADRs for us (thanks buddy) - oh I just discovered that my pharmacist other half kept getting confused about ADRs - since he kept thinking I was talking about Adverse Drug Reactions
I am two days away - still buying and wrapping Xmas gifts to mail to nieces and nephews (mine and Chris') - still writing more than 200 Christmas cards - which are normally in the mail 2 days after Thanksgiving.... and still unpacking and putting things away. I have been pretty stressed - and although Chris wishes he could come with me (I seem to recall him asking if he could come and stay with us at OKW - I told him to call Sarah!!) - he knows how much I need this week to relieve some stress.
I will miss Mega Mouse meet again this year - since Friday afternoon I have to drive back to JAX to teach the last class of the semester Saturday morning - and then will drive right back to Orlando...
Ok - enough for now. Sarah is correct that I am taking my laptop, and we MIGHT have time for some live reports via the free internet connection at OKW!!
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I can't believe we'll all be there in 2 more days! Sarah - I can't wait to meet you (and hold Evan - I babies!). Terri - It will be great to see you again. This trip is almost here.
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I feel both of you on the not quite believing it yet. I keep thinking, "HELP, I'm not ready! How am I going to get it all done?" Before we know it, we'll all be there, & anything not done just won't matter anymore! Hope I see all of you at some point!
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) but HOLY HECTICNESS!!!! 
I have let my other report about my summer trip to Washington DC go by the wayside, but am going to make a conscious effort to finish this report once I start it, dang it. 
I did, however, tell everyone at the end of the trip that, unless I got another deal that I just couldn’t refuse, I would NEVER go to WDW during Christmas week again. I don’t really fancy the “Sardine Can” feeling that I felt frequently during the trip. 
Terri offered to “introduce” me to a DVC resort this trip, if I was interested. 
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Sarah - I can't wait to meet you (and hold Evan - I 
babies!). Terri - It will be great to see you again. This trip is almost here. 
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