The "Together the Magic Continues - As a Family" Trip Report. Aug 26 - Sept 6 at POP - COMPLETE!! 11/15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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Day 5, Monday August 31, 2009 Disney Studios day!
Ok, before I start I think we need one more picture of Liz and Tori.
Isn’t that a lovely Photopass picture of them at Epcot? Awwww, oh and what is that in there hands? Their phones?? Hmmm at least I have the decency to put my phone away when the photopass photographers come around. Ah well, on to the Studios! It is Monday morning and we get there at rope drop again and head straight for Tower of Terror and Rock N Roller Coaster! I believe we get two rides on each of those in. I don’t care much for ‘drop’ rides but I absolutely LOVE Tower of Terror. After Rock N Roller Coaster we try on some wigs in the gift shop:
Hmm Tori's still fixated on that darn phone!
I don’t know what it is about this gift shop but I can’t hardly walk through it without buying something. Last time I bought drum sticks for when I play Rock Band back home. Then we were still in a Rockin Mood when we walked outside:
I was really wanting to Rock out! :
Mmmmm I swear I missed my calling. Should've been a rock star!
After that we headed for the Little Mermaid show. I realize I am a 42-year old man, but I swear this show always brings me to tears. It is so well done, I just love it. It did seem to rain a little more on us than I remember. After that we found some more photopass photographers:
Then Liz and the girls split up for a meal so myself and Brendan and Jordan found more photopass photographers:
We rode the Great Movie Ride, then hooked back up with Liz and the girls. Headed to the Back Lot Tour then Lights Motors Actions stunt show. After the stunt show was over we headed to the Muppet show. I think I like this show more every time I see it. By now it’s about time we head to the 50’s Primetime Café for Dinner. After a rather lengthy wait we were seated and had a really good meal. Our waiter was pretty good and got on us for all the normal stuff. Keep your elbows off the table, set the table,etc. A nice experience but nothing really special. After this it was getting close to getting dark and it started raining so we headed back to POP. When we got on the bus it started pouring. When we got to POP it was still pouring so we put a smile on our faces and walked in the rain to our rooms. It felt so good to walk in the rain we did just that: Walked around the resort in the rain. We got soaked and were loving it. J It was a good day.
DAY 6: Tuesday Sept 1, No Park but dinner at Whispering Canyon!
I was up before dawn again this morning for one of my treasured walks. Loving the heat. No big rush this morning. Brendan and I are going to the Contemporary resort to rent a sea raycer this morning. It was fun and it gave us some views of the Magic Kingdom we had never seen before. It also gave us a nice look at the new Bay Lake Tower. Impressive looking hotel!
When it was time to bring the boat back we found out that the man working at the boat dock was from Jackson, Michigan: just a 45 minute drive from our home in Battle Creek. Small world! We explored the Contemporary for awhile then made our way back to the hotel to meet up with the girls for our much anticipated dinner at Whispering Canyon. This is one of the coolest places to eat we have been to. We took a dip in the pool, then made our way to the Magic Kingdom then hopped a boat to the Wilderness Lodge and just got inside when the heavens opened up and cut loose with some serious wet! We were seated right away at Whispering Canyon and our waiter was named Bob. Bob was very good and played along with us adults in the group as well as the kids. Liz couldn’t resist telling our waiter Bob about her friend Bob back home. I didn’t really know either Bob so if you want more on that story you’ll have to ask Liz. Something about Bob spelling his name backwards and having an extra O in it? Her friends name was Bobo or something???? I don’t know, you’ll just have to ask Liz, ok?
Brendan got very into this meal. He delivered ketchup to other tables countless times during the meal.:
And rode the horses:
After dinner it was still raining, so I took the younger two kids to DisneyQuest and Liz and the older girls just headed back to the room, I think. Or did you ladies do something else that night, Liz? Or did you drop the girls off at home and hook up with Bobo?? J
DisneyQuest was, well, Disneyquest. A great place, and a lot of fun, but quite honestly I can only take that place for a few hours at a time. Sooo much noise! The young ones and I headed back to the room after a few hours and got a good nights sleep in preparation for our big day tomorrow!
Next: A rainy Magic Kingdom morning, a meeting with Tinkerbell (things never seem to go well for me when she’s around) and a very special dinner at 1900 Park Faire with my lady, Cinderella and she helps me give my lovely wife a very special gift.
Teaser: What is Liz worried about at Dinner when Cinderella is headed to our table? J
This was perhaps my favorite day of the whole trip. Stay tuned!!!
Sounds like great fun, sorry that Liz and Tori had another dissappointing meal . Love the photos of all of you at RNRC. Can't wait to hear about your dinner at 1900 PF.
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Location: Physically stuck in Michigan while my heart and soul reside in Disney.....
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Oh Mr Brent.....How do I ever reply to some of the things in this post! LOL
Yes yes.....we have our phones in hand, darling, this was because we were seperated from you for the longest hours ever, which seems ever so dreary without your presence and we wanted to IMMEDIATLY answer your call should you desire to talk to us....... I hope you understand.....purely for your benefit, sweetheart!
Mermaid show? Not sure those were tears......it was like a rainforest in there! What the heck was all the special effect about anyway! Geesh! I was soaked! I was beginging to feel like a mermaid! Seriously, we both are very fond of this show.....just gets better every time!
Just a good time throw this out there. There is a bucket with a rope hanging from it near the Indiana Jones show, Kinda by PTC that is so cool! You pull the string and it says stuff! Very unknown thing I guess.....I've heard anyway.
Oh 50's PT Cafe! Victoria and Chey are kinda creatures of habbit sometimes and they just love this place from when we used to go alone, b4 our lives were significantly blessed by Brent, Jordan and Brendan. We have always had a wonderful experience there and I was so disappointed that they didn't get to enjoy it more. I am hoping that despite the slow service and not-so-into-character waiter we can convince them to go again next year and give it another shot! Really the humor is right up Brents alley!
Day 6
It was a long anticipated morning. Boys were off to.......oh who cares....the boys were off! LOL. The girls were making a significant effort to SLEEP IN! ahhhhhh! We had been waiting for this the whole trip! When I stumbled out of bed I made a trip up to the food court to refill mugs and ran into a guy who lived about 30 minutes from where I used to live b4 I moved here when we got married. He was actually in Orlando for a conference and made a short stop at Disney! Isnt that weird coinsidence that we both had that same encounter on the same morning!
Whispering Canyon....this had to be one of the highlights of the trip!
Heres a pic of the girls, being girls!
Heres a pic of Tori, she just looked even more beautiful than usual that night, I thought! Oh and ummmmm, on her phone!!!
I was soooo thankful for our waiter, Bob! He was hillarious!!! We still laugh about him alot! We were joking with him and he really had a way with words........He said he could never figure out why his wife always added and extra "o" to his name......and it wasnt Bobo! LOL It also brought up the topic of an old friend of mine who helped get me thru some tough times in the past few years.
Oh I love that pic of the older two and I goofing around. We had some great girly moments that night! I still really appreciate the dynamics of the family here, we found it comfortable to split into many different combinations sometimes and do a bigger variety of things! And NO honey, I didn't drop the kids off and hook up with Bobo! LOL. Bobo/Bob could never compare with the happiness you bring me! Besides you and I have much more interesting conversations!!
Ohhhhhh The next day at 1900 PF was sooooooooo sweet! I thought after the engagement he would never think of anything even close to that romantic and sweet......but he did! What a man!!
And Tink? Apparently she's got this girls back! Not looking so good for you Brent! LOL.....that was SOOOO FUN!!!!!
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
I think youns are in the building that we stayed in-did it have the Rubix Cubes on the stairwells?
We LOVE Pop-had such a blast!!
Hope you guys hurry back!!
Close! We were in the blue building with the cell phones for stairwells right by the Rubiks cubes buildings. It's got the huge laptop computer in the middle of it. Another update should be coming this weekend including our magical dinner with Cinderella at 1900 Park Faire. Best day of the trip!!