Reconstructing the Magic with Cam and Luke UPDATED: 12/23 Christmas Present and Our Final Day - Page 33 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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LOve the costumes but who are the pirate and princess with Animal and Hot looking Mickey. They remind me of what Lucille and I went as to last years party TOURISTS
LOve the costumes but who are the pirate and princess with Animal and Hot looking Mickey. They remind me of what Lucille and I went as to last years party TOURISTS
We celebrated Christmas yesterday with Luke's family. Luke's parents surprised us with a very special gift. Luke's Mom contacted our friend who had done the drawing of Stefanie with Jesus right after she died. She asked him to make another drawing of Stefanie this time with Stefanie giraffe. He didn't think he could do it at first because he didn't know what the giraffe looked like, but she told him to check my Facebook page and he'd find several to choose from. And this is the result:
I did cry as both Luke and I are missing her a lot right now, but at the same time it is such a very special present.
That is a wonderful gift. I hope that you and Luke have a great Christmas with family. Looking forward to reading more after the New Year. Thanks for allowing us to follow along with you this year. You both are very strong and appear to have a marvelous relationship. You are an inspiration.
That is a wonderful gift. I hope that you and Luke have a great Christmas with family. Looking forward to reading more after the New Year. Thanks for allowing us to follow along with you this year. You both are very strong and appear to have a marvelous relationship. You are an inspiration.
What a beautiful gift! I hope that you and Luke have Merry Christmas. Try to remember the happy times and know that Stefanie is watching over you always. Keeping you in our thoughts and prayers this holiday season.
I first woke up at 6:54, but I fell back asleep, only to wake up again at 7:30. That time I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I pulled out the laptop and camera to upload yesterday’s pictures. I also checked e-mails, but mainly I was relaxing. I think Luke woke up around 8:30 or 9:00 at which time I could turn on a light and take notes about Thursday. I think around 10:00 or 10:30 we started to get ready, though we were moving slowly. At that point our only plan was to find a nearby post office or UPS Store to ship some stuff, mainly dirty clothes, back home. Then I got a message on Facebook from Ashlee Hahn that Disney was having a preview of the new Fantasyland today until 6:00. That motivated Luke and me to get ready a bit faster. By 11:30 we were on I-4 headed to Celebration and its post office.
You don't see one of these very often.
It was a very short trip to a community that is clearly planned, even though we had a little difficulty finding a parking spot.
This is the DVC building.
Inside the post office, we discovered that their largest box would not hold everything; in fact, it would only hold a fourth of what we had. At $15.95 a box that was NOT cost effective.
Luke checked his YP app and found an UPS Store a couple miles away. WE failed to make a necessary turn, but that gave us a better tour of some of Celebration’s residential areas. After backtracking and eventually leaving Celebration, we wound up on a tourist trap road leading into Kissimmee. Luke stopped and parked so we could get our bearings. I noticed on the map that the UPS Store was in Water Tower Place. Looking around, Luke spotted a water tower, so he drove in that direction, winding through a retail area. We finally discovered the UPS Store near a Publix. In the end it only cost us $20 to ship the dirty goods home. So on Tuesday, I would be doing the laundry.
Since it was now after 12:00, I suggested we eat at the Joe’s Crab Shack we had passed on the way into the shopping center. Zoning must restrict parking to the sides and rear as we had to walk around the building to the front entrance. I got the lunch fish and chips with a house salad, and wrote in my notes that Luke got “?”. No idea now what he had. We ate at a leisurely pace, just enjoying each other’s company. Luke mentioned that he could easily live in Celebration. It was lovely and so clean looking.
To exit the retail area we could only go away from I-4. Luke kept thinking there would be a way to turn around or another 1-4 entry. Finally, at a stoplight we were able to get going the other direction. When we did, we realized that we wouldn’t need 1-4 as this road became one on property headed right to the Magic Kingdom
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We parked in the first and closest lot to the TTC and took a monorail to the Magic Kingdom. The bag check line was not bad. Once through the turnstiles, we focused on getting to the new Fantasyland. Folks were already claiming their 3 PM parade viewing spots, so we did a fair amount of weaving until we eventually took a deserted path to the left of the castle, bringing us out across from the new Fantasyland entrance. I love the “Dress Rehearsal” sign.
Then we made a bee-line for Ariel’s ride. It had a posted 40 minute wait time, and it was at least that. This ride and it’s queue is fantabulous even though it is a class Disney dark ride. The queue is well designed and the line pretty much kept moving the entire wait.
A little warning: I love the light fixtures at Disney World as they work so hard even on this small detail of each attraction. So there are lots of light fixture pictures. Heather shares this interest,so we've had some interesting conversations about them.
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is watching over you always. Keeping you in our thoughts and prayers this holiday season. 
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