I want to go back to my happy place (with pics)! Celebrating the twins 5th bday TR - UPDATED 1/2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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!
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I want to go back to my happy place (with pics)! Celebrating the twins 5th bday TR - UPDATED 1/2
If we see you smoking we will assume you are on fire! Travel Day-part 1
I started a PTR and never quite finished it so I will introduce the cast of characters for our trip. Its me, Dawn who planned everything with great excitement and joy. I haven't been to WDW in 8 years and while it was nice it was nothing compared to this trip. Then its DH, Jeff who likes WDW but is not a fanatic by any stretch. He was excited to bring our kids but tried to hide his own excitement for the trip. The twins, Jocelyn and Jeffery, turned 5 on Thanksgiving and love Disney things. They also really love staying in a hotel for any reason. My MIL and Daunt were also scheduled to join us. Unfortunately there were some unforeseen issues that kept them in TX.
We have friends who work for Southwest so we were able to fly stand-by as a gift from them. The unfortunate thing about flying stand-by is the need to be flexible in your travel. I picked our dates pretty careful and was pretty sure that the majority of people would not be traveling the week before Turkey Day. I wanted to fly out on the first flight but it was oversold and not likely to be accommodating stand by passengers. My MIL and Aunt were scheduled to travel with us but had an event come up for Sunday they didn’t want to miss. I figured having them come down on Monday morning would actually be good because it would give us a couple of days to enjoy each other as a family unit. I was looking forward to them coming though as it is always nice to have my MIL around and I knew she would create lasting memories with my kids. So, we put ourselves on the list for the 9:55am flight that would take us through Birmingham and hopefully into MCO by 3:15pm. Since our kids are younger we knew we would board with the family boarding group and still be able to sit together as long as there were seats and we got a boarding pass. Sure enough there were plenty of open seats and we were able to get our passes and get boarded. My daughter announced that she wanted to “sit near daddy” (this will be a reoccurring theme throughout our trip) which was fine with me. I gladly sat across from them and let DH manage the activity bags and snacks. It was on the plane that he finally took a look at the planning binder. His interest came when he started asking questions. First it was “so do you know which parks we are going to every day?” “Do you have a budget for everyday or just a total budget?” At some point I asked did he was to see “the binder”? As a former event planner he was pretty excited that I had a binder for our trip and once he reviewed it he was pretty impressed. When I pulled out the labeled Disney activity bags for the kids he looked at me and said “OK, now you’re just showing off!” I just laughed. Flights were pretty uneventful and we made it to MCO a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Now for those of you who have flown Southwest with a funny crew leader you can appreciate the levity they bring to the table. My favorite statement I have ever heard on the plane occurred on this flight. The attendant was going over the no smoking rule and she said “if we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and put you out!” With her voice and the other things she said I was so tickled. Anyway, we made it to get our many bags and woo hoo everything was there. On to the car rental location and to get the min-van. It was less than fun dragging and pushing our luggage and 2 kids around but once we got settled in the brand new Town & Country mini-van all was well. Now would we get to pick up our stroller and find the townhouse for the hungry melt downs began?
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We left off with us in the van and on our way to find Pop Century resort to pick up our stroller we were borrowing for the week. After getting a bit turned around (which happens when you have no directions but are winging it based on the WDW signs ) we made it. My DH who never met a stranger, “just unmet friends” strikes up a lively conversation with the gate attendant about High Point, NC. I tell you, he could make friends with anyone! We picked up the stroller and decide to find the townhouse at Windsor Hills. Now for those of you who have never stayed off property just bear with me. We made it to the townhouse and got through the gated security and all checked in with no problems. Used our keyless entry and made it into our home for the next week! Took a good look around and everything looked great. Clean and exactly as the pictures I saw. Except for the smell. My husband informed me that the very strong smell was from curry and a lot of it! Apparently the guests before us had a wonderful curry feast and didn’t think to open a window or put in a plug in deodorizer. Since we were hungry and still had to make our Walmart run we didn’t stay too long. I originally thought about going to DTD or some place really fun for dinner but the hungry melt downs were on the horizon. Going down 192 we found a Golden Corral and decided that a buffet with food ready to be eaten was a good way to start. After the lovely dinner we headed out to Walmart for our weeks' supplies. Surprisingly we made it out of Walmart under budget with plenty of breakfast food, snacks, household supplies, etc. for the week. Back to the townhouse and unpacking. I had us unpacked and ready for bed in short order while the kids watched a movie (supplied by the owner) on their flat screen in their room. DH watched some sports and I listed to music. It was really good to have so much space. We had an early meeting with the princesses so after letting everyone unwind we had to call it a night. After rearranging a couple of nightlights, prayers, and tickles the kids were out for the night. I thought I would have a hard time going to bed but since I was working on 3 hours of sleep I went down pretty easy. Below are some pics from the townhouse.
Now, would we make it to Epcot on time? Would my princess and prince (who are not morning people) behave in a royal fashion? Would DH pass out when he sees the bill for breakfast? Stay tuned.
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I wanted to fly out on the first flight but it was oversold and not likely to be accommodating stand by passengers. 
My MIL and Aunt were scheduled to travel with us but had an event come up for Sunday they didn’t want to miss. I figured having them come down on Monday morning would actually be good because it would give us a couple of days to enjoy each other as a family unit. I was looking forward to them coming though as it is always nice to have my MIL around and I knew she would create lasting memories with my kids. 
So, we put ourselves on the list for the 9:55am flight that would take us through Birmingham and hopefully into MCO by 3:15pm. Since our kids are younger we knew we would board with the family boarding group and still be able to sit together as long as there were seats and we got a boarding pass. Sure enough there were plenty of open seats and we were able to get our passes and get boarded. 
My daughter announced that she wanted to “sit near daddy” (this will be a reoccurring theme throughout our trip) which was fine with me. I gladly sat across from them and let DH manage the activity bags and snacks. It was on the plane that he finally took a look at the planning binder. His interest came when he started asking questions. First it was “so do you know which parks we are going to every day?” “Do you have a budget for everyday or just a total budget?” At some point I asked did he was to see “the binder”? As a former event planner he was pretty excited that I had a binder for our trip and once he reviewed it he was pretty impressed. 
When I pulled out the labeled Disney activity bags for the kids he looked at me and said “OK, now you’re just showing off!” I just laughed. Flights were pretty uneventful and we made it to MCO a few minutes ahead of schedule. 
With her voice and the other things she said I was so tickled. Anyway, we made it to get our many bags and woo hoo everything was there. On to the car rental location and to get the min-van. It was less than fun dragging and pushing our luggage and 2 kids around but once we got settled in the brand new Town & Country mini-van all was well. Now would we get to pick up our stroller and find the townhouse for the hungry melt downs began?
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
, 
Susan
Katie's graduation
) we made it. My DH who never met a stranger, “just unmet friends” strikes up a lively conversation with the gate attendant about High Point, NC. I tell you, he could make friends with anyone! We picked up the stroller and decide to find the townhouse at Windsor Hills. Now for those of you who have never stayed off property just bear with me. We made it to the townhouse and got through the gated security and all checked in with no problems. Used our keyless entry and made it into our home for the next week! Took a good look around and everything looked great. Clean and exactly as the pictures I saw. Except for the smell. My husband informed me that the very strong smell was from curry and a lot of it! Apparently the guests before us had a wonderful curry feast and didn’t think to open a window or put in a plug in deodorizer. 
Since we were hungry and still had to make our Walmart run we didn’t stay too long. I originally thought about going to DTD or some place really fun for dinner but the hungry melt downs were on the horizon. Going down 192 we found a Golden Corral and decided that a buffet with food ready to be eaten was a good way to start. After the lovely dinner 
we headed out to Walmart for our weeks' supplies. Surprisingly we made it out of Walmart under budget with plenty of breakfast food, snacks, household supplies, etc. for the week. Back to the townhouse and unpacking. I had us unpacked and ready for bed in short order while the kids watched a movie (supplied by the owner) on their flat screen in their room. DH watched some sports and I listed to music. It was really good to have so much space. We had an early meeting with the princesses so after letting everyone unwind we had to call it a night. After rearranging a couple of nightlights, prayers, and tickles the kids were out for the night. I thought I would have a hard time going to bed but since I was working on 3 hours of sleep I went down pretty easy. Below are some pics from the townhouse.
Deb
PassPorter Guide Author
Parlor Panther in 'stalking mode'
Hybrid Mode
