Total Chaos, fried nerves, and can't believe it's happened trip report - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Total Chaos, fried nerves, and can't believe it's happened trip report
OK--so we've been back more than a month and I apologize. Life has been crazy--with trying to catch up with school, sickness, and just life in general. Not to mention that quite honestly coming here makes me so homesick for Disney it's hard to read what's going on. Commercials about Disney make me want to cry and we will be going back--but it won't be until Dec 2010/Jan 2011.
So--on to the trip report which will take me a while to get through but I'll try to do it fairly quickly. On the trip were me Vicky (36), Mike -DH (39), Cassy (13 the day before we left), and James (6—has adhd and sensory processing disorder). The plan was to spend 9 days, 8 nights at AKL, savannah view—2 queen beds.
We left Friday afternoon September 18th. The kids both went to school in the morning--Cassy for normal Jr. High classes and Jamie for a field trip with his first grade class. Mike went with him and they left at lunch time. Meanwhile I spent the morning running around Wal-Mart, finishing schoolwork, fighting a migraine and dealing with a very upset stomach. It all had me a little worried. But some Excedrin migraine and Imodium and I made it through.
My father-in-law picked us up and dropped us off at the airport--where we waited for about 2 hours. Mike and the kid grabbed some lunch at McDonald's while I sipped a coke-not wanting to egg on my upset stomach any worse.
Jamie almost had a meltdown going through security--he was not happy about having to take off his shoes--and the security guard, instead of being at all compassionate (there was absolutely no lines) was rather brusque...not helping the situation. I tried to explain his sensory issues and such before he got up there...not because it would keep him from having to take them off--but because I was hoping she'd be more kid-friendly. It didn't work but we made it through.
The wait was long. Jamie and I wandered and bought some gummy worms at the candy store--some very expensive gummy worms...lol. And then we waited some more. Jamie--quite happy the plane is here to pick us up!
Finally our plane got there; we got loaded and crammed into our seats. The trip was ok—though Mike got sick to his stomach—he has motion sickness—but we had no problems the last time we flew. I managed to get to my carryon and got his pills and things went better from there.
We landed in Orlando, made our calls to friends and family to let them know we had arrived safely, and went about finding DME. We followed signs, managed to get outside where we thought we were supposed to be and asked someone at a podium how we were supposed to get to DME. The guy was quite rude and very unfriendly about the whole thing. And then tried to play it off on how “old it gets to always be asked”. I let it go and decided that it was NOT an omen for our vacation.
Cassy and I on DME--Mike and Jamie are across the aisle...as we wait impatiently to GO.
We got to AKL—and I’m not uploading any of those pictures because Mike’s camera, while it takes wonderful pictures—they are very big..and cropping and resizing them takes away from the beauty somewhat. Anyway, I had done online check in and had called and asked for Arusha Rock overview on Zebra Trail—which we got. We had asked for a 2 queen room-not because I wanted my kids to share a bed (my kids don’t’ like to sit next to each other on the couch) but because I didn’t want to spend another $40 a night for the bunks. I asked the gentleman who signed us in and all for 2 twin-sized sheets and blankets to try to help at least limit the struggle in the bed at night. Imagine our surprise when we walked into the room and found a queen and a set of bunk beds!!! Especially when the CM said nothing about it! The mousekeeper left us a mickey head on the bed made from towels...it was really cool.
So then we went to check out our view—and crossing our fingers for a decent one, we opened the curtains to find WHat a cool greeting! (I know this isn't a very good picture---Mike's camera takes awesome pics--but having to resize is not showing how good the pictures really..hopefully they will show up better than I think they will.)
We then headed down to the lobby to check in for our reservations for Boma—and thinking we were on time. Only we weren’t—we were half an hour late because I wrote it down wrong!!! Thankfully they agreed to seat us anyway. While we waited, we decided to get a photopass picture taken since we preordered the cd. Only problem was—the photographer rather liked Mike’s camera—and she and another photographer decided to check it out instead…lol
They did actually take our picture –before they took each other’s—but they were using a Nikon D40 and he has a Nikon D90…so we had lots of jealousy all week long. LOL
More to come this evening...to finish out our day.
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