MouseFest Hop till You Drop at Pop - Day 2 -- UPDATED 1/6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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MouseFest Hop till You Drop at Pop - Day 2 -- UPDATED 1/6
MouseFest Hop till You Drop at Pop December 4-11, 2007 Pop Century Resort
Ok, I know that in the past I’ve written pre-trip reports and I always fail to turn them into post-trip reports when I return. It’s so daunting to write a TR that will hold anyone’s interest when you have other Passporter’s like Cheryl that could write a guide book, or Nala that is so eloquent, or Sharon and/or Karen that are so hysterical with their TR’s. I’m really going to try to finish this one though. Promise.
I figure since I’ve never completed a TR I should give you some background. My DH and I went to WDW for the first time back in October 1999. It hadn’t been my life long dream to go but my sister really ‘talked’ it up. She and her family had gone the year before and loved it. (For some reason, now they can’t stand it.) At that time we were D I N K S (double income no kids). The girls are all grown up with families of their own. So we saved for a year and planned a trip. I spent enormous amount of time planning and still we didn’t know very much. This was going to be our one and only trip to Walt Disney World. After all, we’re not kids and why in the world would you want to go more than once?
My husband is a retired Air Force officer and so we heard about Shades of Green. (wonderful place, btw) Anyways, we called to make a reservation and they were already booked. What!? You’ve got to be kidding! Our vacation is still 10 months away. At that time SOG was still pretty small and they started booking 366 day’s in advance. They filled up pretty quickly. Now what do we do? Well, SOG has an overflow program where Disney will let you stay at a moderate for a reduced price. So SOG booked us at Coronado Springs Resort.
I won’t bore you with all of the details but it rained everyday that we were there except the day we arrived and the day we went home. It rained and it rained and when it wasn’t raining it was pouring. For me, Disney was not fun in the rain. I had on this stupid yellow poncho and I kept my head down the whole time because I didn’t want the rain running down the inside of my poncho. I didn’t see much of anything except the pavement. Hindsight, I should’ve just bought a hat with a big brim. (NOW, I could do Disney in the rain but it was all to new back then)
I remember that I had tears running down my face as we left Epcot and world showcase for the last time but you couldn’t tell with the rain. I was crying for so many reasons. Our once in a life time trip was literally being washed down the drain. I knew that given different circumstances that I could fall head over heels in love with this place but it was just beyond my reach. My sweet DH knew that I needed some serious pixie dust. He took me by the hand and led me to the monorail. I had no idea where he was taking me but we transferred to another monorail. (You can guess where we are going)
I finally figured out that we were going to the Magic Kingdom. We hadn’t been there yet. We had visited MGM for a day and Epcot for one and half days. So my feeling was “Eh! It’s going to be the same as the other parks – Wet and miserable”.
Well, we walked out from under the train station and lo and behold it stopped raining. The sun came out and …. I think I heard a choir of angels singing.
it wasn’t angels but the afternoon parade was just coming down the street. I could look up and out and see the wonder before my eyes. I don’t know how to describe it but I know my heart was just bursting at the seams.
I don’t remember a lot about the parade other than several dancing female cast members in yellow tights. Their tights were soaked clear past their knees because they were dancing and walking thru huge puddles left from the rain. I figured they had to be miserable. My eyes moved from the puddles past their soaked feet and soggy stockings to look at their faces. Oh my word! They didn’t look put out, miserable, or anything. They had huge grins on their faces and in my mind, they actually glowed, sparkled, whatever. They really looked like they were having a ball and that a little rain wasn’t going to get them down. I started to feel the magic of this wonderful place. It’s like a dark cloud had lifted.
We still had to contend with a ton of rain for the rest of the week but my heart was light. …. I had fallen in love. Both DH and I knew that this wasn’t going to be the last time we visited WDW. We had to come back. We started planning the next trip on the plane ride home.
Next up.... Why in the world did you decide to take a trip to WDW by yourself ?
__________________
ºOº ~*~
Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
About This Page: 
It’s so daunting to write a TR that will hold anyone’s interest when you have other Passporter’s like Cheryl that could write a guide book, or Nala that is so eloquent, or Sharon and/or Karen that are so hysterical with their TR’s. I’m really going to try to finish this one though. Promise. 
You’ve got to be kidding! Our vacation is still 10 months away. At that time SOG was still pretty small and they started booking 366 day’s in advance. They filled up pretty quickly. Now what do we do? Well, SOG has an overflow program where Disney will let you stay at a moderate for a reduced price. So SOG booked us at Coronado Springs Resort.
I had on this stupid yellow poncho and I kept my head down the whole time because I didn’t want the rain running down the inside of my poncho. I didn’t see much of anything except the pavement. Hindsight, I should’ve just bought a hat with a big brim. (NOW, I could do Disney in the rain but it was all to new back then)
I was crying for so many reasons. Our once in a life time trip was literally being washed down the drain. I knew that given different circumstances that I could fall head over heels in love with this place but it was just beyond my reach. My sweet DH knew that I needed some serious pixie dust. He took me by the hand and led me to the monorail. I had no idea where he was taking me but we transferred to another monorail. (You can guess where we are going)
singing. 
I figured they had to be miserable. My eyes moved from the puddles past their soaked feet and soggy stockings to look at their faces. Oh my word! They didn’t look put out, miserable, or anything. They had huge grins on their faces and in my mind, they actually glowed, sparkled, whatever. They really looked like they were having a ball and that a little rain wasn’t going to get them down. I started to feel the magic of this wonderful place. It’s like a dark cloud had lifted.
Both DH and I knew that this wasn’t going to be the last time we visited WDW. We had to come back. We started planning the next trip on the plane ride home.
ºOº ~*~ 
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