Rides, Rainclouds and mishaps....Disney Style - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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We did get a lot done, but the funny thing is, I never planned on spending that long in WS. I though an hour or two tops and we'd have the pennies and be on to FW. We ended up spending something like 5 or so hours in WS and by the time we were done there and in Mouse Gear, it didn't leave much time to tour FW because Lenny wanted to see Illuminations. It all worked out though because we did a couple of EMH attractions and then went back on Lenny's birthday to finish up FW - which is how he wanted to spend the day.
I know what you mean, there is so much to see,and you don't realize how long you are there!
None of us were moving too fast this day. I slept until about 8. Lenny and Abby until a little after 9. We had a really late breakfast scheduled at 1900 Park Fare for 11:10 so it didn’t matter that we were moving slow. I wanted to cancel this and would have preferred a lunch somewhere because we had already seen Mary and Alice the day before. But Abby wanted to go and see them again. So after getting ready for the day, we passed the time by heading to the pressed penny machines and the gift shop in the main building of AS Sports. Done with that, I left the stuff in our rooms and we headed to the Grand Floridian. Once at the GF, we were unsure of where the handicap spots were (we saw a bunch that we all full) but somehow we ended up in the convention center parking lot (we didn’t know it at first). Nobody said anything so we stayed there and went to check in. We only had to wait a few minutes and soon after we were seated we saw Pooh. Abby gave him some pretend honey which he ate right up. Next came Tigger, who was as boucny as ever so Abby joined in. We then saw Mary Poppins and Alice with the Mad Hatter. We finished the meal by seeing Pooh and Tigger a second time.
We had good character interaction here but we were all tired so we didn’t really engage the characters in much. The food itself was typical breakfast stuff. Abby had her fill of bacon and chocolate milk. Lenny had a little bit of everything it seemed and I just kinda picked at the food. After breakfast, we headed back to the truck where Abby said she wanted to go to the MK. "What about the studios? You told me last night you wanted to go there." Her answer - "Well, I changed my mind." Since my original plans were to do the MK that day anyway, we went to the TTC and then caught the monorail. Once at the park, we headed to Fantasyland and the carousel. We had to take the long way as the castle was blocked off due to the show and the Liberty Square bridge was also closed.
The third picture showed the water being pumped from underneath the bridge.
After the carousel, we hit Peter Pan, and then the bathrooms next door where Lenny told me his scooter seat was totally broken and not to let Abby near it (she has the habit of sitting down on it whenever Lenny gets up.) The metal pole that supported the seat split right up the seam so it was something that would need to be replaced, not just mended (he already had tried electrical tape - it didn’t work). Since Lenny knows his scooter, he said he would be okay for the day but he planned on finding the nearest Lowes or Home Depot and going there Saturday morning. From Peter Pan, we finally got Abby out of Fantasyland and the first stop was the Haunted Mansion. Abby needed her headphones, but she was okay with the ride. To make it less scary, I told her in the dining room they were having a birthday party with singing and dancing. And in the graveyard, I told her that it was another party, this time with games. The ghosts popping up were playing hide and seek, others were on the see saw and others were singing and playing instruments. She never had any nightmares from it, so I guess the party idea worked. From Haunted Mansion, we headed to Splash Mountain then to the Country Bears.
After the bears, Abby wanted to do POTC. On the way, Abby and Lenny stopped to fight Cap't Hook (her pictures didn't come out too good). Once at Pirates, the line was shorter than I expected it to be and before too long we were on it. I still think the Davy Jones effect is cool, but the ride is just not the same without the song throughout it. When we came out of Pirates, we lucked into a performance of Capt’ Jacks Pirate Tutorial. All I can say is Disney does a wonderful job in keeping the characters consistent from movies to parks. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought it was Johnny Depp playing the captain again.
When the show was over, we finished out Adventureland with the Jungle Cruise, the Flying Carpets, then the Tiki Room. We were getting hungry and in an effort to keep Abby happy, we headed back to Fantasyland so we could eat at Pinocchio Village Haus while she watched Small World.
Abby had to do Peter Pan before dinner, so we stopped for that, then we walked in the restaurant and not only did we get a table at the big windows, we also walked right up to the registers. There were no lines whatsoever here that night. I know it was around 7 so either people had already left or they were all on Main Street for the 7 pm showing of the day parade (remember, this was the first day of no Spectro). It was also here I learned for the kids meals, you can order a double side of fries instead of the other choices. I knew I could substitute fries, but I never thought to substitute them for both sides until I saw someone with a Mickey plate and 2 cups of fries in it. After dinner, Abby just had to do Small World again so we stopped for that, then we headed to the Riverboat for Lenny. I didn’t realize it doesn’t run at night anymore so by the time we got there, it was already closed for the day.
Not wanting to go back to Fantasyland, we headed to Tomorrowland where we did the Laugh Floor. I thought it was cute and would have been willing to do it again for Abby but we never did. Next came Buzz Lightyear.
I still find the ride a little tough for me and I didn’t do very well (Abby did worse but we still told her she did a good job). As we were nearing the end, I don’t know what happened, but the ride stopped for quite a few minutes. The CM kept checking out behind the vehicle I was in and the one that was behind me. I don’t know what the problem was but the ride finally started up again and we were able to get off. We stopped at the pictures but Abby’s laser gun was right in front of her face so we didn’t bother purchasing it. After Buzz, Abby wanted to do COP. She might not have understood the show, but she loved the song and everytime it started to play, she sang along. When we were done with COP, I wanted the peoplemover but Abby mentioned Wishes. I knew if we took the time to do the peoplemover, the chances of getting a good spot for Wishes was pretty small, so we headed to Main Street instead.
We finally found a good spot over by Casey’s where there was enough of a break in the trees that we would be able to see not only the fireworks, but also Tinkerbell on her wire if she flew that night - which she did. The fireworks were good and it seemed like they were more colorful than they were 2 years ago. When they were over, we waited a few minutes for the crowds to move and then we made our way to the monorail. Everyone was in the center of Main Street instead of on the sidewalks where we were so it only took a few minutes for us to get out of the park instead of the typical 30 plus minutes. Once back at the hotel, Lenny and Abby went swimming while I took a few minutes to organize all my charge slips and money to make sure everything was right (thankfully it was.) Once they came back, Lenny and I checked out the phone book for Lowe’s or Home Depot and once we found what we were looking for, it was time to go to bed for the night
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Another great update!
Sounds like a great breakfast at Park Fare and a great evening at MK!
Thanks for the double fries with a kidsmeal tip, I would not have thought of this either, but I think my kids would prefer double fries to other choices.
Also, Is Pinnochio Village Haus at CS or TS meal??..............being able to see small world while eating sounds like something my kids would enjoy.
Another great update!
Sounds like a great breakfast at Park Fare and a great evening at MK!
Thanks for the double fries with a kidsmeal tip, I would not have thought of this either, but I think my kids would prefer double fries to other choices.
Also, Is Pinnochio Village Haus at CS or TS meal??..............being able to see small world while eating sounds like something my kids would enjoy.
Thanks. It was a great day.
Hopefully more people find that tip helpful too. I know Abby enjoyed getting more fries - and I didn't have to worry about keeping grapes cold (the only way I'll eat them). And PVH is strictly counter service. If it's really busy, you might have trouble getting the seats near the windows (we've been lucky the times we went there), but if you keep an eye out, you might be able to snag one, even if it's halfway through your meal.
What a great day you all had...a nice relaxing morning and breakfast seemed to make your little one happy. You got a lot done during the day...once again some great pictures. Never knew about the double fries but that will definitely come in handy as my little one loves this place...
Glad you were able to grab a good spot for Wishes and Tinkerbell...
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Great update. You are sure finding a lot of characters and getting so much done. We saw Wendy and Peter walking down the street in MK. It was strange that they were more intent on their own private conversation than the guests looking at them. I never did find where they went that day.
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