Our Fall 2014 Trip Report - Coming to You Barely Live from Orlando - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
PassPorter.com
Award-winning travel guidebooks

   guidebooks   |   news   |   podcasts   |   boards   |   blog   |   worksheets   |   photos   |   articles   |   updates   |   register   |   follow us on


Forums Closed
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!

Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!

Go Back   PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums > PassPorter's Walt Disney World Resort (Florida) > Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
Register


Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.

To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.

If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 09-27-2014, 10:47 PM   #1
shazza
Community Rank: Globetrotter
 
shazza's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Florida & Maine
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 3,411

Post Thanks / Like
Our Fall 2014 Trip Report - Coming to You Barely Live from Orlando

Hi folks. We are currently on our week long adventure in Walt Disney World, and I'll be updating as we go. This report will only be "Barely Live," because I'll be running a day or two behind actual live events. We've scheduled afternoon down time for each day, so I should be able to keep up with reporting. Barely Live may also describe how we are dealing with heat, rain, humidity and initial crowd levels

For the back story and planning details, you can check out the PTR - 9/26-10/03 MNSSHP, Food & Wine, and More." If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend skipping the PTR, since it looks like things are not going to be sticking to the plan

We (DH=Lou + Me=Sharon) left our house in South Florida at 1pm Friday. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, but who knows what will really happen. It was clear, but cloudy when we hit the turnpike:





We knew we'd hit rain ... and we did, as this next photo shows. For periods, you could barely see a car length or two ahead:




I'd been checking in on the Touring Plans Line App, and knew it was raining off and on in the Magic Kindgom, and most of the outside rides were down. As we crossed into the bubble at 3:30pm, it was cloudy, but there was some blue sky showing:





We checked into Bay Lake Tower and our room was ready - good thing, since it was almost 4pm We booked a Lake View Room - this is the view we had:





Apologies for the weird green color in the photo - I'll have to do some editing once we return home. We did have Lake View to the right as we looked out the balcony. I'll post more on the room later. For now, let's skip to the evening's plans. Lou was tired from the drive up in the rain, so he elected to rest. I did a loop around the Resort Monorail track. You can't see a lot of the Poly Construction from the Monorail:





Good views of the Grand Floridian. We are looking forward to staying there in February:













It started raining again as I was riding the Monorail, so I was no hurry to get over to the Magic Kingdom. We had tickets for MNSSHP tonight. Friday - September 26th - the first night to sell out after Halloween itself. Yay for us I was beginning to think the Party might be a write off, but we'll wait and see ...


Lou was awake when I returned to the room, and we headed up at 6pm to check out the Top of the World Lounge at BLT. This was our first visit to the Lounge. Neither of us were hungry, so we just had a snack and a glass of wine:








The House Made Chips with Gorgonzola Cheese were tasty. We relaxed for an hour or so, and I took some photos. There were a few other people in the Lounge, but it certainly wasn't crowded. They have a few more substantial items on the menu, but still a very limited menu. We found the group with screaming kids somewhat annoying (and we like kids!). I guess TOTWL is not considered a bar because it serves food, but it's not very exciting for kids if there are no fireworks.








We left the lounge and I made the first of several tactical errors. Stay tuned tomorrow, and find out if we make it to MNSSHP.
shazza is offline  
 
Reply With Quote
 



Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump














Please login or register to hide these ads -- it's free and easy!

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:00 PM.

-->

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Feedback Buttons provided by Advanced Post Thanks / Like v3.4.0 Patch Level 1 (Pro) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
(c) 1998-2017 PassPorter Travel Press/MediaMarx, Inc.
Celebrating 19 Years of Making Dreams Come True
Ad Management plugin by RedTyger