The Aguilar's Christmas Special - Pre-Trip Report (8-11-08) - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
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
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
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.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
The Aguilar's Christmas Special -We're Back Home!!! UPADTED 12-26-08
PRE-TRIP REPORT:
Andrew’s First Visit to WDW and during the Holidays
First things first, our cast of Holiday Travelers:
Mario (Leah’s Dad), 38, the proud father of two fabulous kids and DisneyWorld fan, planner of all things Disney and keeper of the “Holy Grail”, our Passporter Deluxe. (BTW, I highly recommend the Deluxe. It’s very durable and you look like you mean business when you whip that thing out.)
Liz (Disney Wife) – 37, proud parent like myself and lover of WDW. This will be our 5th trip in 8 years. She keeps us in line and on time for all our ADR’s and events.
Leah (daughter) – 7, loves WDW and is our oldest. She has the itch like her dad when it comes to thrill rides. Last trip, she rode Expedition Everest and she was only 4 years old. She loved it and can’t wait to go on it again.
Andrew (son) – 17 months old, crazier than his sister and it’ll be his first visit to WDW. He will be nearly 21 months when we’re in Florida and I hope he takes to it like his sister or he’ll be having some bad upcoming vacations. LOL
Special Guests Appearances by:
Nef & Becky (Wife’s Grandparents who live in Florida) – We will be spending a couple of non-Disney park days with them during our stay.
When: December 11- 22, 2008
Resorts: POP Century (December 11-18) and Coronado Springs (December 18-22)
Well, I can’t believe it’s finally getting closer to our next visit to the Disneyworld. A lot has happened since we last visited the Mouse. We have added to our family in the form of a son named Andrew Jonathan Aguilar. He’ll be around 21 months when we arrive in December so I’m hoping he’ll get what’s going on. He has been walking now for a couple of months and we are in the process of potty training him and we hope to have that completed by December. (Yeah right!)
Anyway, on to the planning. I’ve been planning this trip to WDW for over a year now and I have started to put into motion lists of what we are going to do. Here’s the current lineup for our visit.
We will be driving from Corpus to San Antonio and catch a flight from S.A. to Houston to MCO. It’s actually cheaper to fly out of S. A. than it is from Corpus. It turns out this works for us because my in-laws live in San Antonio and we will be returning to home near Christmas time and we were going to go to their house Christmas this year anyway.
As far as out commendations, we will be splitting out time at POP Century and Coronado Springs. We’ve never been to the latter but we’ve heard some great things about it and we got a sweet deal to stay there 4 nights.
What about ADR’s this trip? Well, my have confirmed some locations like Boma, 50’s Primetime and Tony’s Town Square. We have only eaten at 50’s once and we enjoyed it. We thought our daughter would get a kick out of it. We want to also eat at Beaches ‘N Cream, though we don’t ADR’s for that.
We also plan on attending MVMCP on Dec. 14 and those tickets have purchased and placed in my faithful Passporter. I still am trying to make plans on trying to fit in a day to go to Tampa and hit Busch Gardens and Jungala for a day.
We’ll those are the plans so far. As we get closer, I’ll update you guys on other activities I hope to include on this trip.
__________________
Leah's Dad
Leah and Andrew - March 2008
Last edited by Leah's Dad; 12-26-2008 at 08:56 PM..
Reason: Double threads
PRE-TRIP REPORT:
Andrew’s First Visit to WDW and during the Holidays
First things first, our cast of Holiday Travelers:
Mario (Leah’s Dad), 38, the proud father of two fabulous kids and DisneyWorld fan, planner of all things Disney and keeper of the “Holy Grail”, our Passporter Deluxe. (BTW, I highly recommend the Deluxe. It’s very durable and you look like you mean business when you whip that thing out.)
Liz (Disney Wife) – 37, proud parent like myself and lover of WDW. This will be our 5th trip in 8 years. She keeps us in line and on time for all our ADR’s and events.
Leah (daughter) – 7, loves WDW and is our oldest. She has the itch like her dad when it comes to thrill rides. Last trip, she rode Expedition Everest and she was only 4 years old. She loved it and can’t wait to go on it again.
Andrew (son) – 17 months old, crazier than his sister and it’ll be his first visit to WDW. He will be nearly 21 months when we’re in Florida and I hope he takes to it like his sister or he’ll be having some bad upcoming vacations. LOL
Special Guests Appearances by:
Nef & Becky (Wife’s Grandparents who live in Florida) – We will be spending a couple of non-Disney park days with them during our stay.
When: December 11- 22, 2008
Resorts: POP Century (December 11-18) and Coronado Springs (December 18-22)
Well, I can’t believe it’s finally getting closer to our next visit to the Disneyworld. A lot has happened since we last visited the Mouse. We have added to our family in the form of a son named Andrew Jonathan Aguilar. He’ll be around 21 months when we arrive in December so I’m hoping he’ll get what’s going on. He has been walking now for a couple of months and we are in the process of potty training him and we hope to have that completed by December. (Yeah right!)
Anyway, on to the planning. I’ve been planning this trip to WDW for over a year now and I have started to put into motion lists of what we are going to do. Here’s the current lineup for our visit.
We will be driving from Corpus to San Antonio and catch a flight from S.A. to Houston to MCO. It’s actually cheaper to fly out of S. A. than it is from Corpus. It turns out this works for us because my in-laws live in San Antonio and we will be returning to home near Christmas time and we were going to go to their house Christmas this year anyway.
As far as out commendations, we will be splitting out time at POP Century and Coronado Springs. We’ve never been to the latter but we’ve heard some great things about it and we got a sweet deal to stay there 4 nights.
What about ADR’s this trip? Well, my have confirmed some locations like Boma, 50’s Primetime and Tony’s Town Square. We have only eaten at 50’s once and we enjoyed it. We thought our daughter would get a kick out of it. We want to also eat at Beaches ‘N Cream, though we don’t ADR’s for that.
We also plan on attending MVMCP on Dec. 14 and those tickets have purchased and placed in my faithful Passporter. I still am trying to make plans on trying to fit in a day to go to Tampa and hit Busch Gardens and Jungala for a day.
We’ll those are the plans so far. As we get closer, I’ll update you guys on other activities I hope to include on this trip.
A great start on your trip report (and your children are beautiful). I see you've never stayed at CSR. Please feel free to send me a private message with any questions you may have about the CSR. As you will see from our pre-trip report (Our 25th Wedding Anniversary) we are staying at the CSR for the seventh time in three weeks. It is our favorite Disney resort.
__________________
Headed "Home" for a Mini Trip -- 9/18 - 9/22 at CSR
Hello from a fellow Texan. Great start on the plans. I hope to one day be able to enjoy a December vacation at WDW. Right now though I will have to live vicariously through you.
__________________
They caught us all smiling and looking at the camera!!!
Just wanted to first thank all of you for such kind words. The encouragement was much needed. I also wanted to update some other plans I have now made:
First, our flight info. We are set to fly out of Houston and we got a great deal. Two adults, one child and a child under two (on our lap for free), round trip to MCO was $644. I have been looking for the best deals for the last two months and I was using Kayak's website. A little something about Kayak, it has helped me tremendously. You can type in your desired location and dates and it'll search most of the airlines, even Southwest (which was way more than Continental for some reason). You can even sign up to receive email alerts everyday to see what the cheapest price is. Great site. Anyway, I used this site to gauge the prices from my hometown, Corpus Christi and from other locations near by, San Antonio and Houston. The cheapest I usually found were from $1293 to $997. On Sat. I found the same flight I bought last night for $808.50. On a whim last night around 11:55 pm, I typed in the my lacation/ date info. and I got this super fare price. I had to jump on it. I know what most of you vertern travelers will say, " It's cheaper on Wednesday's. This is ususally true, however, I have been looking on Wed.'s for the last month and a half and I have never found this price before. I am so glad I waited. It may get a bit cheaper thanthe $198 per person, but not by much and I don't want to risk it. Last time we went flew out of Houston to Orlando, the price was exactly the same and that was in 2004. I thnk we got the best deal around.
Anyway, I have also made reservation for Disney's Magical Express. This is the first time we have used this service, last time we went to WDW, we drove. (Never do that again!!!) We've heard alot of great things about it and we can't wait.
I'll update some more when it gets closer, If you guys have any advice, please post it here for me. Thanks.
__________________
Leah's Dad
Leah and Andrew - March 2008
Last edited by Leah's Dad; 08-18-2008 at 06:49 PM..
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Just wanted to fill you in on some updates to our plans at WDW in Dec.
First off, it's looking more and more that we aren't gonna make out to Busch Gardens this time around. It looking like we're gonna just add a town days to our tickets and that'll cost less than going to Tampa for a day. I really wanted to go to check out that park but ... oh well...
Anyway, we DID want to check Downtown Disney's newest restaurant T-REX. It turns out that they won't taking any reservations until 2009 and will be "first come first served" until then.
I did email them to see if there was a way to ensure a table at a certain time (atlernate way to ask if they are taking reservations...LOL)
Looks like we are just gonna have to sign in early.
Other than that, we may have to change our stay to be at POP Century for entire stay due to some problems with a travel company that promised me rooms at Cornodo Springs. If things change, I have a Plan B. I'll be back with any other updates that may happen . Man, this trip is really sneaking up on us!!!
__________________
Leah's Dad
Leah and Andrew - March 2008
Last edited by Leah's Dad; 10-09-2008 at 06:04 PM..
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Just received the Mickey's Magical Express booklet and baggage tags. It about 37 days away. It looks like we'll be staying at POP Century for the whole trip. It turns out that the travel agency I purchased some vouchers from off of ebay, are not going to be honored andI am forced to go with Plan B. It's ok, I guess. I would've like to stay at Coronado Springs. Maybe next time. We love POP and at least we will get our money's worth outta those refillable mugs.
Anyway, I have decided to go ahead with plans for an adult only night out, hopefully when my wife's Grandparents are in town. If not, we'll use a sitting service. BTW, if anyone used the top popular ones, I would appreciate your review of their performance.
Coming up: The outline of what will be doing everyday of our stay.
Just wanted to let you all know that I have added Mom & Dad's night out on our upcoming trip. We have decided to go and have a nice dinner and do a few rides without our kids for one evening. We have made reservations with Kids Night Out and we will let you know how it turns out.
Also, I have noticed that Mousefest will be going on during our stay and I hope to meet some of you guys from this board. Hope to see ya there.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Hoping everything works out for you! to hear you won't be going to Busch Gardens, but really looking forward to hearing about your experience at T-REX~
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
DME! So much less stressful than driving yourself!
![[SIGPIC]](signaturepics/sigpic27594_7.gif)
to hear you won't be going to Busch Gardens, but really looking forward to hearing about your experience at T-REX~
[SIGPIC][SIGPIC][/SIGPIC
Hybrid Mode
