Oh the Places We Go, The People We See Updated 11/03/2013 - Page 52 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great pictures of the Osborne lights! I'm glad that Claire liked it once you were there and they "flipped the switch".
I don't think she understood what we were going to see, but now she knows it was an amazing sight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
I'm glad the lights shocked Claire back into a happy mood! She can play with the legos any old time, but THIS shouldn't be missed!
The whole lego thing was funny and annoying. I could see if I was dragging her off to something that wasn't all that exciting for her like a museum, but this is DISNEY! lots of fun to be had.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKnott17
Great pictures of AoA, the Little Mermaid room looks so cool. I know my girls are going to love it! We're staying in one for one night after our cruise in August
How funny that Claire wanted to stay behind and play legos instead of going to the lights. I'm glad she liked them once she saw them! They are just amazing, you got some really good pics of them!
We enjoyed the room and the bed was comfy too. I am glad we did try it out.
The lights were truely a highlight for me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What a stunning sunset! I love all your photos of the Osborne Lights - they're one of our favourites in the holiday season.
Thanks. I could never get a picture like that again in a million years if I tried.
The lights are wonderful. There is a rumor though that they will either move or this could be the last year because of the expansion. I sure hope they keep them!
We saw Santa Goofy, but the line was long and Claire didn’t want to wait, so we just took a few pictures of him from afar.
We REALLY enjoyed the lights, but it came time to move on. We then talked about what to do next. The MK was open fairly late tonight so I suggested we head over there. Claire wanted to check out TSM first though and ride that. I decided we would see what the wait time was and decide then. Now I don’t remember the exact waiting time stated, but it wasn’t too bad. I am thinking it said 40 minutes. We hopped in line.
The line moved fairly fast till we got to Mr. Potato Head.
And then we waited and waited and waited. I grumbled a bit as did people around us. Claire did NOT want to leave the line though and was very patient. I believe it was over an hour wait. There were a few announcements made, but no one could understand a darn thing they said. It was muffled sounding and very loud in line. You would think people would stop talking when an announcement was being made, but that wasn’t the case.
We did have a great time, but I was not happy with how long we had to wait.
We then headed towards the front of the park to leave after our long wait but fun ride on TSM. Of course I had sore arms then too. I need some sort of better technique for shooting because I kill my arms every time.
We picked the wrong time to leave. I “think” the park was closing now or at least close to closing time and we were walking with the masses.
We headed over to the bus to MK. Well this was the plan for many people and the line was just unreal. So we headed over to the resort buses and figured we would catch a bus to a monorail resort. Those lines were long too, but not as bad. I don’t remember which line we got in, but it took forever for a bus to come. I know I did some complaining. Eventually our bus came and we got off at the Contemporary and walked over to MK. I think this is what 90% of the people on this bus did as we walked over with a huge crowd of people.
We finally made it over to the MK. It had taken close to an hour to get there.
We stopped for a photopass.
As you can see in the background of those pictures, it was still very crowded here tonight.
We still had 3 counter service meals that needed to be used up before midnight. We were not really super hungry, but we decided to use them (or lose them) and get a bite to eat. We headed to Cosmic Rays. I think Claire wanted nuggets and that’s why we went there.
It was crowded in there too and we had people going slow in front of us. I think my patience were wearing thin too, so little things were irritating me, but we finally did get our food and sat down.
We also used the 3rd and final credit for a crustable to take back with us.
We actually took the cookies and applesauce with us too. It all did eventually get eaten, I think some for breakfasts some mornings and some on our final day on the plane if I remember right. I do know the cookies got smashed, but they still were edible.
We then took off with no real plans.
The whole reason for coming here was just for the atmosphere of the castle and Christmas Décor.
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The lights are wonderful. There is a rumor though that they will either move or this could be the last year because of the expansion. I sure hope they keep them!
I sure hope they keep them, too! I've never seen them, and I'll be really sad if I never get the chance to.
They've moved the lights before, so that shouldn't be a problem for seeing them in the future. I still like the old location and style much better than the present one! It's hard to ruin the impact, though, there are just so many lights!
I love the hidden Mickey on your trzy (the chocolate cake and the two ketchups)! Lovely pictures of the castle, almost makes me feel cooler during this heatwave....
I sure hope they keep them, too! I've never seen them, and I'll be really sad if I never get the chance to.
I would be very sad if they took them away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Sorry it took so long to get from the Studios to the Magic Kingdom, but looks like you had a fun time when you got there.
When you depend on the bus service you just have to take your chances at times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
They've moved the lights before, so that shouldn't be a problem for seeing them in the future. I still like the old location and style much better than the present one! It's hard to ruin the impact, though, there are just so many lights!
I heard that too.....where were they before?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Baloo
I love the hidden Mickey on your trzy (the chocolate cake and the two ketchups)! Lovely pictures of the castle, almost makes me feel cooler during this heatwave....
I didn't even realize that and had to go back and look. Good eye.
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While roaming the park, we had to make another attempt at pulling out the sword.
Again we had no success.
We headed off to It’s a Small World then at Claire’s request.
I wish this was a better picture. I loved how the new castles walls are lit up.
And then at my request, we headed off to Pirates of the Caribbean.
And the Jungle Boats had a very little line, so we got in line there. Claire loves to ride this at night….well I do too.
It was now about 11, closing time, so we had to make our way to the front once again.
I know I have said it several times now, but I just really LOVE the Christmas décor!
The shops windows were just adorable too.
Off to the bus stop then and they were doing a great job and getting buses in and out tonight. For as busy as the park was and the amount of people leaving, I think it only took us 30 minutes at the most to get back to AoA.
We made it safely back to Art of Animation and of course I took a few pictures on the way back to the room.
We made it back to our room. Let me tell you, after spending a full day, the walk back to the Little Mermaid section is long. I think it’s psychologically longer because it’s made outside instead of indoors. Probably 7-10 minutes. Probably 5 if you walk fairly fast. But by the time we made it back there we were dead on our feet. We quickly went to bed, though Claire did spend a few minutes with her Legos while I got ready for bed. Soon we drifted off to dream land once again.
We had another full and wonderful day. I met up with Carey and Kadence once again and almost had another meet with Tim. Oh the People We See. We moved to yet another resort today and slept in the 6th bed of the trip. Oh the Places We Go!
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More wonderful photos of MK. Just the thought of the Christmas decorations at MK makes me smile!
The Osborn lights originally were on the suburban street that the old Backlot Tour used to take you through. There was a city section at the end on the smaller version of the NY street they used to have, but most of the lights were set up in the yards and trees along the street. It felt like a suburban neighborhood totally blinged out for the holidays and just felt nostalgic and sweet. You could stroll down both sides of the street and look at the displays as you went.
More wonderful photos of MK. Just the thought of the Christmas decorations at MK makes me smile!
The Osborn lights originally were on the suburban street that the old Backlot Tour used to take you through. There was a city section at the end on the smaller version of the NY street they used to have, but most of the lights were set up in the yards and trees along the street. It felt like a suburban neighborhood totally blinged out for the holidays and just felt nostalgic and sweet. You could stroll down both sides of the street and look at the displays as you went.
Ok, I know exactly where you are talking about. That would've been really cool to see.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
I love all the pictures of the Christmas decorations!
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I love all your photos of the Osborne Lights - they're one of our favourites in the holiday season. 
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