Jan 2016: Everyone and Their Mother Goes to Disney - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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congrats on the race. Hope things are OK with mom and neighbor. My son did the pirate adventure and my niece and nephew did too. I think 11 would really be pushing it for the age range unless it really is the "big brother" sort of thing. I would think about 8-9 is really the max. No bathrooms on the boats but Adam will be too busy to think about potty breaks. All smiles from everyone getting off the boat.
Wow....this is making me dread our big (amount of people) trip in May 2016... Myself, Husband and DD....then my MIL and FIL, My SIL and 2 nieces, My SIL and her hubs, my brother, my niece and her BF, then my nephew. ...plus maybe my BFF and her son. This trip is celebrate our DD high school graduation and I will not allow anyone to make it about anything, but Lillian!!
sounds complicated to plan for such a large group of people and to book with DVC points. i would like to plan a trip in January as well, because it is the low season and to escape our winters. it would be a solo trip, as my kids are grown up now and i used to go with my youngest daughter but she now has a 2 month old baby.
congrats on the race. Hope things are OK with mom and neighbor. My son did the pirate adventure and my niece and nephew did too. I think 11 would really be pushing it for the age range unless it really is the "big brother" sort of thing. I would think about 8-9 is really the max. No bathrooms on the boats but Adam will be too busy to think about potty breaks. All smiles from everyone getting off the boat.
I think he'll be going alone. The neighbor kid has suddenly become a moody tweenager who wants nothing to do with a four year old.
Quote:
Originally Posted by llgmommy2
Wow....this is making me dread our big (amount of people) trip in May 2016... Myself, Husband and DD....then my MIL and FIL, My SIL and 2 nieces, My SIL and her hubs, my brother, my niece and her BF, then my nephew. ...plus maybe my BFF and her son. This trip is celebrate our DD high school graduation and I will not allow anyone to make it about anything, but Lillian!!
Good luck!!! A sense of humor is your only defense!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by a_bernard
sounds complicated to plan for such a large group of people and to book with DVC points. i would like to plan a trip in January as well, because it is the low season and to escape our winters. it would be a solo trip, as my kids are grown up now and i used to go with my youngest daughter but she now has a 2 month old baby.
January isn't my first choice because it can be cold, but it's still better than NY and finding the balance of not too cold/not too hot is pretty much impossible in Florida!
Not much going on lately, but I've made some dining reservations, released myself from caring what the neighbors do with their time, and starting ignoring the tweener next door.
Let's start with that last bit; until three or four weeks ago the 10 year old next door was a child. He played with cars and lego and swords with Adam all the time. He wa sin our house constantly (probably because his mother doesn't let him watch much TV and then playing wiht a four year old becomes more attractive). But recently that's changed. He still comes over but doesn't stay long, like he realizes it's not that fun. Occaisionally he's even, for lack of a better word, mean. Adam loves to bounce on the neigbor's trampoline with him, but lately the neighbor kid just lays there until Adam leaves. Ignoring, or saying no, or just playing dead. Once, they were building hotwheels tracks on the porch and I saw him hide a favorite car from Adam. Adam was looking and looking and becomeing more upset and the kid just wouldn't offer that he knew where it was. Of course I put a stop to that. And I had to actually yell at him once to stop being a jerk to my kid in my house (I can't remember now what he was doing, but it was jerky). So, that's not going to be so fun for Adam I guess.
On the upside, the younger kid turns two in a week and has started to be more fun for Adam. He's acting as the protector/rule enforcer on the trampoline and often asks to play with the little guy. Given their closer ages (2.5 years), the little one's relative fearlessness, and Adam's cautious nature, they might be a good match. I forsee the younger own proposing something Adam is afraid of, mine suggesting that it's not safe, and then both of them doing it. Let's hope it's not jumping off the roof or smoking behind the shed!!
The dining ressies and releasing the neighbors from my planning go together. It's our vacation too and we don't really vacation the same way. Jake and I like late dinners, fine dining, and trying new things. They like eating 5:30, Red Robin, and 'normal' food. So I wasn't on fire about eating dinner EVERY night at House of Blues, Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Cafe etc. I'm fascinated by their choice to go to Disney Springs pretty much every night and honestly, with the loss of Pleasure Island, can't find much to draw me there. I don't like shopping on vacation (especially with my family) and I don't want to waste my dinners out on casual family eateries since I can eat that stuff at home.
So I just booked what we like. We arrive on Sunday. When Adam was a baby we often went out this night, because he went to sleep at 7, but now that he's older and we have APs I think we'll probably book one FP at MK and head there before bedtime. If he's asleep/happy with Baca and Mimi we might go down to Jiko or Sanaa around 9:30 and get a quick bite.
Monday is MLK day, and I suspect a crowded night at MK, also a late night there. Rather than take Adam and try to keep him up for Wishes at 10, we'll hit see it the next night at 8. So, I booked California Grill for Jake and I at 8:45PM Monday. Adam won't be asleep when we need to leave, but he will have had a full day of parks and will get some pizza with his favorite person (seriously, we all pale in comparison to Baca).
The next night is the 8PM Wishes and our only confirmed dinner with the neighbors, at Casey's. Say what you will about Casey's with it's terrible lines, flow of people and crappy buns, I love it. LOVE IT.
I'm unsure about Wednesday.
Thursday is our other dinner date, at Citricos. We ate there once, years and years ago, and to be honest, I was half in the bag. It was good, but my recollection is, shall we say, fuzzy. So 8:15PM it is. I was tempted to do the chef's table (it has a name that's not Chef's Table but I can't find it now) but it appears that there is a $600 minimum and they are catering to larger groups rather than couples. I'd put about a billion dollars on the bet that my neighbors don't want to eat at Citricos.
Finally, given our success with Spice Road Table last May, I booked a 7:45 reservation for the three of us on Friday. We had a decent view of Illuminations, it allowed Adam to sit and watch videos or play while he waited for a late show, and we enjoyed the food and wine. I suggested it to the neighbors who replied that they hate hummus.
So there you have it, some dining plans that are just what we want to do. For the record, my parents aren't really into adventurous eating either and I did not book at character meal yet. I'm still on the fence due to both the cost and time consumed in them. Adam doesn't seem to care about the characters and my mother doesn't liek the one family style that we do. So I gave up. I gave up trying to make people happy and make plans with everyone and we'll just do what we do. I hope the weather is warm and that we all have fun, but I think from now own, it's a three person trip!!
Things to still take care of: airfare for parents, rental car for parents, grocery order, towncar(?), and fastpasses.
You're scaring me lady......I just talked to my in-laws the other day about dining. They want all character meals. Nope not happening at all. We will do Norway breakfast with the princesses and Chef Mickeys for my niece, that is it. Again our trip is about our DD graduation. I am so re-thinking all of this now!
Did I forget to tell this story? Of how I lost the Pirate Adventure confirmation number? When I call I write all the numbers down but my tendency since MDE came about is to just ignore those slips of paper. I can remember when I was armed with a plastic folder containing every printed confirmation and contact number but now I rely on apps, mostly Tripit. Well, turns out MDE doesn't update to reflect things like Pirate Adventure. Why? Who knows. I'm baffled all the time by the lack of intuitive linking MDE includes (for example, why do I have to manually link a DVC reservation, shouldn't they know that?).
Anyway, it wasn't there in MDE. And I had just done one of the whirlwind cleaning off the counter things during which every shred of paper goes in the recyling bin. I'm ruthless and have been known to throw away bills, checks, all holiday cards (really, why do people hang on to those, I actually open them right over the bin and dump them in after reading, thanks, sender, but do I need to display it? why? you aren't here and it just clutters things up), and kid art. So that little post-it note went in too. I suppose I could call Disney and try to figure out the confirmation number, but it was 10PM. I'd also written down the time and location and promptly forgot it so it appeared if I was to sleep I needed to find the post-it. So, into the recycling bin I went. Mmmm, good. Perhaps I should rinse the containers a bit more...
But, I found it!! Then I manually entered it in to MDE. Because MDE is nothing more than a fancy folder I guess.
My other story is better. File it under "even the blind squirrel finds a nut/sun shines on a dog's a--" moments. Being lazy and procrastinating and generally hostile toward buying the plane tix for my parents I just this morning finally decided to do it. SW, flights are available, but man, they seem cheaper than I remember. I book and then check my own email comfirmation to see the price. Yup, cheaper. By many, many dollars. So I rebook and have $197 in travel funds for future SW tickets.
Read that again. $197. What? That's like a whole ticket!! I've been considering the Star Wars Half Marathon in April...we've got APs, I like to run, Disney is fun, we'd go as a family, I'd have to borrow points but at least I would be borrowing my own...and now, credits all around? Too bad the race is $200. Highway robbery.
Glad you found the confirmation numbers. I have done that and I agree, I do not know why they cannot link tour and special experience reservation numbers into the system. It would make it so much easier.
Glad you found the confirmation #. I still put everything into an excel spreadsheet as well. I just don't trust that app!
Score on the SW credit, but bummer the race is just as much!
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