Come sail away, Come sail away, Come sail away with me TR Completed 2/8/2012 - Page 16 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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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
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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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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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Great start! Except for the anxiety about not making the flight it sounds great to walk up to the gate and right on to the plane! Good planning, getting the kid's meal for the sand toys before the cruise! SAB is really amazing.
After our naps, I ran down to the marketplace to pick up a few things, while I was there I saw the Duffy Bear book and he was all dressed in his cruise attire and getting ready to get on a boat with Mickey. Now Josie has a book from her first visit to Disney when she was 14 months. It’s called “A Day in the Magic Kingdom with Mickey and Disney Bear” the bear really is Duffy, but they never called him that. This book is adorable and I have never seen it again. We read it quite a bit too. So I was thinking maybe she would like this book and maybe we would get her a Duffy Bear while on the boat. I ran back to the room and told Arnaud about it, and later that night he went and got it and said let’s save it and give her to her on the last night of our trip. Love him!!
So we got dressed and took a few pics out on our little patio and then headed off to dinner.
Now the plan was to eat at B&C, but after having burgers and dogs for lunch neither of us were real into that. So we decided to go down and look at the menu anyway. On the way Arnaud said “Hey, did you know they have a clam bake buffet here??” Uhm, of course I do num-nut. I know every place there is to eat. He was shocked that I didn’t suggest going there, and this my friends would be why……………I have never been a fan of a buffet and I became even less of a fan when I started working in casinos. Wednesday’s used to be all you can eat shrimp buffet at one of the casinos in town. I use to have to walk around to the guests dressed in costume and say hello to everyone. The smell of the buffet’s gag me, and if you ever had to walk in the back of house, it smelled the same way. However what would get me the most with this buffet were the big purses some women would bring in filled with a plastic bag inside that…………..do you see where I am going with this?? People would take plates of shrimp and dump them into their bags and do this over and over again. I never once said a word, mainly because I was just so grossed out. But this would be why I didn’t suggest going to the clambake buffet!
At this point though, I was thinking maybe a buffet would be good to get in and out at our own pace and off to do a little more looking around the resort. Plus Arnaud was really into it too. So we head over to CMC and sure enough they could take us. Well OK, seafood buffet it’s going to be…….eh! Now have a seat folks…….we, well I should say I LOVED IT!!! It was GREAT! There were so many choices of things to have. The ribs were my fave, OK so the crab legs brought back some memories, but I really had no complaints about this dinner. Arnaud loved it too and was kinda mad that we had never been here before. Whoopsie. I told him we can come back again next year if he wanted too, and my boy was all over that! This night also brought up a good point to us too. This trip was now Josie’s 4th trip to the world, first time we have ever had to pay for her though. So all those years when we thought the dining plan wasn’t really a huge deal to us, it is now!!! That dinner cost us over $100. That BB offer for FD was looking real good about now.
Another interesting thing that happened at dinner had to do with Andre. My sweet boy. All of a sudden during dinner he decides to make these high pitch squeals, like laughing in a way, maybe grunting. All while being happy and eating, but these hyper little bursts to him were funny, to me…………not so much. Then he thinks he can grab anything in front of him that he wants, really it was a work out just making sure nothing was in his reach, well aside from the cob of corn he was insisting on gnawing on. All during dinner this went on, he was quite amused, I maybe should have realized this would all be a sign of what is coming…………..
Friends, I went back to Photobucket today and re sized the photos I was going to use. Looks like I did it wrong, again. So I am in the process of resizing the whole darn album. Started from scratch. Hope it works. Please stay with the challenged computer girl. I'm trying
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After dinner, we strolled around inside the hotel a bit and the headed out to walk the boardwalk. One foot outside we looked up and saw the MOST BEAUTIFUL cotton candy sky you have ever seen. It was so bizarre.
We headed down to the beach as they were setting up for the movie.
Then it was off to the boards. This whole area is really cute and there is so much to do here. As I mentioned before, we have never been to the Epcot resorts so after spending the day at SAB, having a great dinner at CMC and now this little evening stroll, this place was starting to grow on us……………starting, I say.
We played some games and watched some performers and just took our time walking off dinner.
We made it down to the Dance Hall and decided to turn around and go back the way we just came. As we were getting closer to the bridge to Epcot this is when I started to notice some changes in the area. The crowds were turning a little less family and a bit younger adult and a lot louder too. Who cares, it’s a Saturday night, and it’s F&WF. Whatever. But it was a noticeable difference for sure.
We headed back to our room and got the kids ready for bed and everyone was just relaxing watching a little TV. I think Andre was passed out by this point. Arnaud and I both wanted a drink so he sent me off for some margaritas. I took my video camera with me because I wanted to see if I could see anything from Illuminations. I was walking around and trying to head over to HH for some drinks when not once, but twice I was almost run over by people on the surrey bikes. Loud as all heck and weaving in and out of people like crazy. I decided to just sit and watch for a little bit and man, this place was crazy!! The calm and peace from this afternoon had completely gone out the window, it was really crazy to me. Now please, do not get me wrong. I am all about having a good time and I enjoy getting crazy myself, but I guess when I travel with my family, it’s different. The parks are always crazy to me, so when we would go back at night to the Poly or GF, it would be peaceful and not as chaotic as the parks were all day long. This was throwing me for a loop, at this moment I would prefer my 2 old favs of resorts. During the daytime though, BC has won my heart. Crazy right??
So I get to HH and I order 2 mango ritas, but then I asked the bartender if he was the same guy working this afternoon. He said he was. I said OK then, never mind those, I will have 2 grand ritas instead. Sorry pal but your drinks from this afternoon were not so fabulous.
I got back to the room and hubs and I enjoyed our drinks and got things a little more situated for tomorrow. I made a 7:30am adr for CMC, not knowing the shuttle to the port would not be getting us until 11:45am!! I tried to push it back, but they said they were full. Oh well. We went to bed around 10:30 and boy did that feel good! Those BC beds are right up there with the GF beds. Heaven!!
You have a beautiful family! I have been staying at BW for years and the only time I've ever seen behavior like that out on the Boardwalk is on a Friday or Saturday night during Food & Wine. At other times I've been struck by how family friendly it is, with entertainment for kids even quite late at night. It does get more active and less relaxing at night because of the carnival games, but not rowdy and drunk. Sounds like you really made the most of your time at the BC using the pool and eating at CMC. How sweet that your DH has the plan to give Josie the Duffy on the last night.
Great first day! Sorry I didn't get to meet you (I put your number in my phone wrong and ended up texting some random stranger! ). Can't wait to hear about CMC and then the cruise!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
So I get to HH and I order 2 mango ritas, but then I asked the bartender if he was the same guy working this afternoon. He said he was. I said OK then, never mind those, I will have 2 grand ritas instead. Sorry pal but your drinks from this afternoon were not so fabulous.
Loved this statement! Something I should have done with that Italian margarita I had at Via Napoli.
Sounds like it was a pretty perfect day.
You describing Andre made me smile and think is the routine I go through with Lukas: putting everything out of his reach, tearing food up as fast as I can while he's scarfing it down. The both boys will start to squeal at each other - think it's a game.
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Great first day! Sorry I didn't get to meet you (I put your number in my phone wrong and ended up texting some random stranger! ). Can't wait to hear about CMC and then the cruise!
OMG, I just had to go back and check the PM I sent you to make sure I didn't write the number wrong, I didn't, but somehow I never noticed you sent me your number.
I did get a random text that night and I was excited to check it but it was from GG asking me if I was happy with my order............OK, next time for sure!!
Sunday Oct 16th
COME SAIL AWAY DAY!!
We were all up, dressed and off to CMC (AGAIN) for breakfast with some characters! I had also noted on our ressie that we were celebrating Josie’s b-day. We get seated and before we were settled here comes Minnie!! The server said she was going to do Josie’s celebration now since Minnie was right there. I didn’t care, she wouldn’t eat that cupcake anyway so sure, bring on the sweets first thing in the morning. As Minnie came over and they placed that cupcake down in front of Josie and all started singing happy birthday, I lost it. I mean not sobbing mess, but really choked up and eyes filled. I can’t explain why. It was just sweet and special and just one of those family moments that really gets ya.
After that we saw Donald and then Goofy. They were so much fun and so playful with the kids. Andre was just in a state of shock, I mean Goofy really seemed like a giant to him.
I’m happy he wasn’t freaked, but I do know with kids then can change at the drop of a dime. He never did though. He was really in awe of the characters the whole trip. I’m sure next year may be a different story. We filled up on everything we wanted then settled up the bill and went back to the room to check on our bags and make sure we had all our ducks in a row before they came to pick them up.
I have to say, I always felt like I was re-organizing our bags on this trip. So many times I had to think ahead of what we would need because people were always coming and taking our bags, and then I never knew when I would get them back. I had to make sure I had enough food and diapers for the baby, all our alcohol (1 bottle of vodka and one bottle of wine……what a party) swim stuff etc….. It just was annoying to always be doing this. Anyway, I think they were picking our bags up at 9am from our room and we didn’t need to be there, so off we went for another stroll around the boardwalk.
We went in search of renting a surrey bike, but by the time we got there Andre had fallen asleep in his stroller so I stayed back with him and relaxed on a bench while Arnaud and Josie went off for a ride.
After that we strolled over to the lighthouse and just looked around at everything. Every time Josie saw a friendship boat passing, she asked “Is that our big boat?” LOL, uhm no kid. Ours will be MUCH bigger.
Back to the room for some last minute potty breaks and to grab our carry on’s and also to make one very important phone call. To the BB people and secure our deal of FD for next fall. Then we headed off to the Solarium to wait on the shuttle that would take us to the port. That Solarium is beautiful and Josie loves watching the old Disney cartoons, so this was a nice little wait. Soon we were lined up with our passports in hand and headed out to the bus. We made a stop at POP for some more people and then we were on our way!
At first Andre was really antsy and Arnaud was doing his best to keep him entertained, then the boy finally gave up and passed out. Josie did OK while playing games on the phone, but at the very end she laid down across my lap and was out cold!!!
I tried to wake her so she could see the boat in the distance, but she never woke until the bus stopped. We got off the bus and went right over to a line for security. Once inside we filled out a few more forms and then over to the registration line. The terminal was not crowded at all. I had been worried about this because of all the horror stories I have heard. But it was after 1pm at this point so I guess we missed the mad dash to get onboard. With 2 little ones, I was just fine with that. We then went over to get Josie’s ID band for the kids clubs. That was all quick and painless too, until we get to the password part. You need to have a password in order to pick your kids up from the clubs. Well the guy just asked me what it was??? No typing it down or writing it down on paper. So basically everyone standing around me now knew what our password was to pick up our kids. Arnaud was really shocked that Disney didn’t have a more secure way of doing that.
So off to look at the model of the ship and go through that big Mickey head.
Poor Josie, every time we went through a gate or rope or whatever, she said “Are we on the boat now??” Not yet babe, but really, really soon!!!!
Love the photos of Andre looking at the characters. I think he did really well for his first time, but you're right, you never know from visit to visit how they'll react. Also love the photo of Arnaud tossing Josie in the air-- what a family vacation is all about.
I'm shocked, too, about the password thing. What??
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