Goofy's Lemon Surprise Pre-Trip Report - UPDATED 5/17 - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great update! I understand procrastination....I suffer from that myself! Your ADRs look wonderful! Looking forward to more
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Originally Posted by chezp
Wonderful choices!
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great ADRs!!
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Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
Great ADR's. Hope you got what you wanted.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to trying some of these new dining experiences. We're looking forward to O'hana the most because it means family and this vacation has grown in a very familial way... Another update will come soon!
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Shortly after making our ADRs I decided that I deserved a little magic of my own on this trip with all the planning that I’d been doing and after all it is MY birthday celebration.
I decided that I really wanted to do one of those specialty cruises that come with fireworks weather permitting of course. I hopped on the horn and booked it! It was around $320 for the deluxe cruise which included the music for Wishes piped into the boat. I absolutely love Wishes and I quickly became very excited when a lovely CM (Roxanne) told me that it was available for the date that I was looking for. She was the only CM I remember and it’s because she was amazing. (Thank you Roxanne) You could just tell that she put everything into her job. She gave me tons of information about celebrating occasions in WDW and how important it is to celebrate even the smallest things. She had me giddy by the time we hung up. So it was all booked and we would have a boat all to ourselves (you can have up to 10 guests of your choice) but because the rest of our party will be leaving that morning they won’t be there to enjoy it.
On to the purpose of this update… on February 22nd DMIL calls me and says, “you know what, I’ve been thinking…maybe I should go to WDW will all of you”. I was extremely surprised… this came from nowhere. So once again I began crunching numbers and trying to figure out if this was possible and since DBIL DGF’s DS (are you following me) is 2 years old so adding an adult to their ressie was the way to go. $685 later we had a 9th person added to our party.
All I’m saying is that I think it may be best for me to not answer the phone for the next couple of weeks until we leave because our party is growing all the time! I’m very happy that DMIL is going. She lives out of state and she gets limited time with the kids and they really wanted her to go when we booked but she didn’t think she could afford it. She was surprised at how reasonable it was after all. So the I managed to get her added successfully and then had to find airfare.
I did some research on this first to make sure we wouldn’t have trouble finding her a reasonably priced flight out of Columbus. With DMIL making the trip with us we wouldn’t need to hire Kids Night Out so we figured it would save us a couple hundred dollars so I offered to pay for her flight. I got her booked and she’d arrive just an hour and a half after us. I told her she’d take DME to the hotel and we’d be there waiting for her.
Now the challenging part… how do I get ADRs for an extra person with all those TS ressies? I was going to have to pull some strings or get really lucky. I’m pretty sure I’m fresh out of magic for this trip because by the grace of pixie dust I was able to get her in on all but three ressies. I’m sure you can guess which ones they are too.
1. Tusker House
2. Coral Reef
3. Le Cellier
The lovely CM on the phone told me that I should simply ask at the podium if they can accommodate an extra person. If they can’t then we’ll have to figure something out at the time, but she was pretty confident (even though she couldn’t say 100%) that we’d be okay. I couldn’t believe it!! I was very excited that this was so easy and that we were all set to go. It was February 24th and we had 62 days to go. Even DH and DBIL were starting to countdown. What could possibly go wrong?
Inevitably, once those words are spoken… something usually does!
Up next: It’s not my fault you’ve overbooked this flight.
Wow! Things sure are going at a fast pace for you. I hope your remaining 3 ADRs work out for you. And the next installment doesn't sound so good. Hope it works out!
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