Is It Time Already?! OKW and POR, November 2013 - Page 26 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Oh I love that the kids were so excited about the royal room! Meri was, too! I swear we lost so much darn sleep playing with those fireworks, lol!
I also love that Sophia was so into the characters and things! That makes it so much more fun, to see your teenager become a kid again! What good times!
well I just found this TR and sat here all morning reading!!!
Looks like you are having a great time with the kids!!! So glad that you loved the royal room at POR! We stayed in one last year for my birthday and we loved it too!
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Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
Love the room and the cool headboards. Too bad about the leftovers, especially after having carried them around and looking forward to finishing it up for dinner. Kona looked great, we were suppose to eat breakfast there on our trip, but ended up needing to cancel.
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What a great day at the MK! You all look like you are having so much fun in your pictures.
I forgot you were staying in a Royal Room at POR, I'm so glad it was such a hit with Sophia! I had heard that they got rid of the full comforters in the rooms and replaced them with a runner, but I hadn't seen any pics of that. I kind of like it, the white blankets really brightens up the room, those old comforters were really dark.
I can't imagine what it would've looked like with dark comforters, but I agree it the white blankets and sheets work really well in the room. I still have to say that our brief stay at Beach Club in 2009 was the best sleep I've ever had, but these Royal Room beds were pretty darn good as well! So comfy!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Principessa_di_Fata
Oh I love that the kids were so excited about the royal room! Meri was, too! I swear we lost so much darn sleep playing with those fireworks, lol!
I also love that Sophia was so into the characters and things! That makes it so much more fun, to see your teenager become a kid again! What good times!
Loving all of this!
I think I was more excited about the fireworks than the kids. They were really excited about it in the beginning, but it wore off. For me, I had to look at them every time we returned to the room and right before I went to bed! And once more before we checked out!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lfredsbo
well I just found this TR and sat here all morning reading!!!
Looks like you are having a great time with the kids!!! So glad that you loved the royal room at POR! We stayed in one last year for my birthday and we loved it too!
We had a wonderful time! I'm definitely the biggest Disney fan in the family, but the kids really are a close second. Toward the end of the trip, Evan was ready to return home to his usual routine, although he did great during the trip. Sophia didn't want to leave...she really wanted a few more days! So did I!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shari2137
Love the room and the cool headboards. Too bad about the leftovers, especially after having carried them around and looking forward to finishing it up for dinner. Kona looked great, we were suppose to eat breakfast there on our trip, but ended up needing to cancel.
Yeah, those darn leftovers! I was really looking forward to finishing those pumpkin pancakes! We really love Kona for breakfast. I'd love to go back and try it for lunch or dinner some time!
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Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
Sorry for the delay, everyone! Life is just getting in the way right now. I promise I'll be back soon. There's only two days left to the trip, but I still have plenty to share with you!!!
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Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
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So the rain came last night, but nowhere near as bad as the weather forecasters had said! I heard the rain around 11 and looked out the window to see a steady rain coming down. I heard thunder maybe twice, but it sounded far away (never did see the lightning that came with it). I think I fell asleep after midnight. It figures we'd start getting used to Florida time at the end of our trip!
So we woke up Wednesday morning around 9. It was really comfy in the room, and none of us wanted to get going...but it was our last full day at WDW! I don't remember if I mentioned we had added a second extra day to the kids' parkhoppers. We were planning to head back to MK this afternoon, but first we needed some breakfast!
It was after 10 by the time we headed out to the Riverside Mill food court. It was beautiful to see the grounds during the day, and most of the clouds from the night before were gone.
This is the courtyard where the night before they had set up the movie, just beyond the fountain.
As we walked through the courtyard, I heard a familiar sound...the motor! The LOUD motor! I looked over and saw that it was a motorized cart with a big tank of water on it. The CM was powerwashing the walkway. Well THAT's what it was, but doing it around 10:30 in the morning makes a lot more sense than doing it at 5:46 in the morning!!! I should've taken a picture of it.
Looking back toward Oak Manor:
Breakfast! I think we got two of these breakfast platters to share between the three of us.
Of course I filled up our mug! I had a cup of coffee, and then I rinsed out the mug (they actually had a little rinsing station near the beverage dispensers!) so I could fill it up with our Sprite/Punch mix for Sophia. We took our time with breakfast and really enjoyed a leisurely pace. At one point, the CMs started singing and dancing through the food court, and it was fun to watch.
The kids had asked for Disney Quest before the trip began, and of course with Stacey promoting it on tv, how could they forget about it?! I wanted to take the boat to DTD, but I hadn't seen the boat leave the dock while we ate. While the kids were finishing up, I walked over to the dock and asked the boat captain who was standing nearby if the boats were up and running. He told me they were stilled closed due to the wind. He said it was possible that they could be closed all day. Oh well, I guess we'll be taking the bus then.
Before leaving, we filled up our mug one more time with Sprite/Punch. Are you keeping count? That's 6 drinks now for the mug!
Here's the Christmas Tree in the lobby, and you can tell it's getting pretty busy at the resort.
We walked through the lobby and out front (and to the right) to get to the bus stop. They had video monitors here to show the estimated arrival times for the bus. There was also a CM there to help out.
There was a bit of a wait for the bus. The time kept changing (longer, not shorter), and the CM told us the bus to DTD was a bit delayed. At one point I noticed the video said the boat to DTD was available. I mentioned it to the CM, and he said that it must have just started up again because the video had been showing it closed all morning. Oh brother! Well, I'm not walking all the way back to the boat dock now, so we waited.
Along the way, I got a good shot of the fire station that our DME driver told us on day one was designed based on a drawing submitted in a local design contest for kids. Kid or not, the design fits in perfectly with Disney!
We got off at the Marketplace because Sophia wanted to walk through and look at the shops again. I also still had a 20% off coupon I wanted to use. I still hadn't found a shirt that my mom would like (if you read my Hawaii TR, you'll notice that this is a continuing theme in all of my TRs, lol!). We Now that we were back during daylight hours, I was able to get some better shots of the decorations.
This will give you an idea of how breezy it still was:
Ok, this is a bit better!
Getting close to Disney Quest!
I forgot about the other times when Evan blurted out the funniest things, but this one I remembered. As we passed by Splitsville, Evan said something like "Splitsville! You don't want to miss it!" It was clearly right out of Stacey's mouth! Sophia and I looked at each other and cracked up! I don't think Evan understood why we were laughing, lol! I told him "Yes, Evan, but we're going to have to miss it this time."
We stopped at a few shops along the way for Sophia to browse...her birthday was only a few days away, and she was still looking for ideas to tell friends and family who kept asking her what she wanted!
There was a short line at the DQ ticket window. I was able to purchase discounted tickets with my AP (my entry was "free"), and we headed in.
__________________
Huge Disney Fan...Always Have Been...Always Will Be!
Disneyland 60th Anniversary Celebration TR here!
2013 WDW trip here!
2011 trip to Hawaii here!
Last edited by Dlandmom2; 01-12-2014 at 06:48 PM..
Reason: Had to fix a typo that was bugging me!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Great to hear that you know what kind of cart was the source of all the noise in the morning! Too bad about the transportation waits! Sometimes they're ridiculously long and you may see 3 or 4 buses going to a particular park show up before one arrives to the park you want to go to! That's poor scheduling on Disney's part and it's happened to me on a few occasions! Drives me nuts!
Hope you had a good time at DQ and DD and looking forward to your adventures there!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
I'm glad you found out what was making all the noise! I agree, that's not something they need to do at 5am! Nice breakfast, but too bad the boats weren't running when you first asked. A shame to waste all that time on your last day waiting for a bus. Every time you post an update it makes me want to be there NOW. Right now I wish I could click my heels and be at DTD. You left me with a smile with Evan's Splitsville comment!
POR looks so beautiful. I can't wait to stay there in October!
That wind was fierce! No wonder the boats weren't running!
Can't wait to see how you felt about DQ and if it was worth the money. My girls want to go this trip, so I am curious.
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That's poor scheduling on Disney's part and it's happened to me on a few occasions! 
Drives me nuts! 
Liz 
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