Goofy's Lemon Surprise Pre-Trip Report - UPDATED 5/17 - Page 11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Hi everyone! Sorry it took so long for an update. Work was crazy when I got back and I've been sick with a really bad bladder infection since I got back as well. Feeling much better though so no worries there.
Sunday May 3, 2009 (Day 1)
I went to bed at a prime 11:00 Saturday night so I figured I’d get a solid 4 ½ hours of sleep. Yeah… that didn’t happen
I ended up waking up at 12:30 and having this feeling I was forgetting something and I was. I had forgotten to print up the last couple of newsletters to take with us So I finished them up and by the time that was done there was absolutely no sense in going back to bed. I did some last minute housekeeping because there’s nothing worse than coming home from a vacation to a messy house. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and so I took my shower and got DH up. I asked him not to wake the children until the two of us were ready. I wanted them to sleep as long as possible. That’s when I got these:
It was so cute… upon waking DS up I told him that it was “Disney Day” and he awoke in disbelief. He said, “Really?” and I said, “Yes!”. I have to tell you that it was so darn cute!
Then there was DD… upon waking her she grinned widely and said, “Can you do my hair?”. She has curly locks and they were particularly messy this morning.
DH was easily awakened and dressed prior to my waking the children, however once he was dressed he laid back down until departure time. I got his happy face picture while he was waiting for the rest of us to be ready.
We were all ready and set to go so DH and DS loaded the minivan up with our luggage and we bid our hamster (Mr. Sniffles) and our cat (Jaycee) adieu and asked that that behave in our absence with absolutely NO parties.
We headed out on our way to DM’s house since she was taking us to the airport. In 20 short minutes we were curbside and a nice Jetblue employee took our luggage and sent us on our way. I went to take a picture of my happy faced family and another traveler said, “get in the photo, I’ll take the picture”. I thought this was exceptionally nice of him. Here’s what we got:
Then others arrived:
I was asked why I was so chipper and taking pictures at 5 am for. Hello… we’re going to Disney!? Some people just don’t get it. In fairness it was her first trip and she really didn’t know.
Once we got them checked in we headed to security where we waited just 5 minutes or so. We headed to gate 15 where Jetblue has a little children’s playhouse and the kids had fun passing the time. We took them for a quick restroom break and then we were off to board. We flew connecting at JFK which has really improved since the last time I connected there. We had breakfast at a tiny restaurant and it was very good. Our bumped flight fit in perfectly with our agenda as it gave us a chance to eat and gave the kids a chance to move about. Both legs of our flight were fantastic. I know I’ve already said it, but I love Jetblue. It’s like every seat is first class with lots of legroom, satellite TV, satellite radio and great movie offerings.
Here are the kids as we took off:
and as we landed in Orlando:
You can definately see DS is noticeably excited!
We landed and found our way to the luggage carousel effortlessly. There were many drivers with signs for their customers all over, but none with our name. I figured it was fine as we had asked the limo company to arrive in time for the latest flight arrival which was DMIL and that was about 15 minutes after ours. We could see that her flight landed but couldn’t find her. It was just as well as our driver was clearly late at this point. I called the number for the limo company and it was disconnected… I was freaking out! Luckily I had my confirmation sheets in my travel folio I had put together. I finally got in touch with them and they put me on hold to find out where the driver was. He was close by and would be there soon. Although I was upset he was late I was also relieved that he would be there. After the brief near heart attack I was facing I see DMIL floating down the escalator. These are the moments I hope to remember all my life. Since she lives in Ohio and us in NY, the kids see her far less than we’d like and the embrace she shared with the kids nearly brought me to tears. We were all happy to see her. Just after the embrace I look up to see the driver walking our way holding our name! Great timing!
The others asked where we needed to go and I said, “why don’t you ask that guy?” DBIL said, “Seriously? Why?” I said, “Really, just ask him.” So he asked him where we should go and the driver said, “Well why don’t you follow me?” We went downstairs and outdoors where our chariot awaited. Everyone was stunned that we would be traveling in style like this:
The kids were totally stoked and DBIL kept repeating, thank you over and over. We pulled up to the grocery store to pick up our order and went about our way. Once we arrived at our home for the next 10 days:
We handed over an entire bellman’s cart full of luggage and groceries to a young gentleman named Erick. We entrusted him with our belongings while we checked in. There was no line for online check in or for the regular check in. We were checked in very quickly and although our room wasn’t ready, the room for the others was. We had connecting rooms so we figured we’d head to their room and have our luggage delivered. They gave me my birthday pin and also anniversary pins for DH and I. We were placed right where I had requested and DBIL was upgraded to water view at no charge which was great because we had hoped to be close and this allowed the resort to give us connecting which was a surprise to us. It was a great start but we were soon in for some challenges.
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Your kiddos were so cute waking up. Glad you had a smooth flight to Orlando.
Love the pic of everyone by the limo. I bet you surpised them all.
Can't wait to hear the rest of the trip.
Great report so far! Seeing the pic of the CSR sign brought back some great memories. Although the title of your next installment sounds a little foreboding......
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
So I finished them up and by the time that was done there was absolutely no sense in going back to bed. I did some last minute housekeeping because there’s nothing worse than coming home from a vacation to a messy house. Before I knew it, it was 3:30 and so I took my shower and got DH up. I asked him not to wake the children until the two of us were ready. I wanted them to sleep as long as possible. That’s when I got these:
Liz 
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