Our 2014 Christmas Trip Report - Final installment and thoughts (updated 5/22) - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Our 2014 Christmas Trip Report - Final installment and thoughts (updated 5/22)
We surprised our longtime family friend early last year by telling her that we were going to Disney World. She had never been, so this was quite the shock. The trip came in December, and here's the trip report.
Who went:
Me: I am Hughes, am 39-years old and a sports editor editor at a newspaper. I went on my first trip to WDW in April 2013. I only did it because my wife wanted to go. Once I went, however, I was hooked and now can't get enough of that place.
Emily (DW): She's a 32-year-old, who went to Disney for 2 days in high school. She was there for such a short time and was on such a strict time schedule that she doesn't count that as a trip. On our first trip together, I surprised her with breakfast in the castle on our first morning there since her favorite princess has always been Cinderella. I will never forget the look on her face when we walked around the circle and saw the castle for the first time and I told her about breakfast and getting to meet Cinderella. The smile on her face and the tears were priceless. Needless to say, she's hooked as well.
Holly (our longtime family friend, who is also our god daughter) (DGD): She just finished her first semester of college and this was her high school graduation gift from us. This was also her first trip. She's a hunter and cowgirl, so Disney isn't/wasn't really her thing. She'd rather be camping or driving an ATV through a mud pit.
The basics:
We traveled by car from Texas. We left on Dec. 12 and returned on Dec. 21. We were in the car 2 days both ways. We stayed at the Coronado Springs Resort, were on the table service dining plan and had a 7-day base package. It was our first time at Coronado Springs and our first trip at Christmas.
So, here we go: The Day Before
We had been packing for about a week prior to the trip. The 3 of us had gone shopping the night before (Dec. 10) to load up on snacks, drinks and other things.
DGD got to the house about 10 p.m. on Dec. 11 (day before departure). Our DGD finally crashed about 11 p.m., and DW and I stayed up and packed a bit more before finally crashing about 12:30.
Dec. 12-Travel Day 1
Our plan was to get up at 5 a.m. and leave at 6:30. Well, we were late. It was about 5:45 when DW and I got up. Loaded the car in the pouring rain, stopped and got breakfast and we pulled out of town at 7:30 a.m.
It rained on us the first hour and a half. We finally stopped about 10 a.m. in Nachitoches, La., at a McDonald's for a potty break and to get a Dr. Pepper. We got into Baton Rouge about 12:30 p.m., were in bumper-to-bumper stand still traffic over the Mississippi River bridge and then stopped for lunch at a Chick-Fil-A about 1.
We ate and then decided to pull into a gas station across the street to top of the tank, even though we still had a lot of miles to empty. The pump was messed up and would stop about every 10-12 cents. So, we only got a few dollars and got back on the road.
We had to make I think one more potty break, and the few dollars in gas that we got ended up getting us enough to get into Pensacola where we decided to stay for the night. I drove from Baton Rouge into Alabama, and DW drove the remainder of the day.
I was texting our best friend, who is also our agent, and she said to go as far as we could. But I don't travel well as it makes me nervous when I'm in new places. Plus, it had gotten dark, so we decided Pensacola was far enough. We found a Holiday Inn Express at Exit 7. It was about 5:30 p.m. when we got into Pensacola.
Prior to getting into Pensacola, we went over Mobile Bay, and the sun was just going over the horizon, and it was most beautiful.
We checked into our hotel and freshened up and then decided to go out since a beach was supposedly nearby. We searched for the beach in our google maps on DW's phone, so off we went to find it. DW had never been to the beach, and I haven't been since the early 1990s. So, we just wanted to go check it out.
Ends up, the address was wrong. We ended up driving about 10 minutes and finally came to this hispanic neighborhood. It wasn't a good feeling, and DW was pissed off about the situation. Since we didn't know the address of the hotel, we just tried to remember which way we had gone by different landmarks, buildings, signs, etc. and finally made our way back to the interstate.
We were going to get something to eat while we were out, but DW was so mad that she just wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep. We filled up the gas tank at our exit, and there was a McDonald's by the hotel, so we just went through the drive thru and got something. I swore off McDonald's early last fall, and she knew that yet stopped anyway. So, I just had a few fries and a Dr. Pepper.
We went back to the room, watched some basketball, played on our iPad a bit and were asleep by 10 p.m. - we normally don't go to bed until about 11:30 or 12, so this was quite a bit earlier.
Dec. 13-Travel Day 2/Arrival Day
We wanted to be on the road by 7:30 a.m. at the latest because we had ADRs for dinner at 4:15 and knew it was about a 6-1/2 hour trip (plus an hour difference because of the time change) from Pensacola to our resort. So, we got up early, probably about 6:30 a.m., got ready and grabbed a muffin in the lobby before hitting the road. We packed our overnight bag into the card (we packed a separate bag where we wouldn't have to carry all of our luggage into the hotel) and hit the road right at 7:30 a.m.
For those that haven't driven this way, there's about 200 miles between Pensacola and Tallahassee of just nothing. The trees hover over the road causing a striped effect when driving, and it's such a boring part of the trip. About two hours in, DW was starting to fall asleep at the wheel and decided she needed to get a Dr. Pepper out of the trunk - we had packed snacks and Dr. Peppers since WDW carries only Coke products and we're addicted to Dr. Pepper.
I had decided the night before that since we had our cell phones, it would be okay if something happened and the car messed up. I was a nervous wreck the day before because I was worried about the car, which had over 100k miles before we started. So, I just read and fiddled with my baseball cards that I had brought and didn't worry about the trip anymore.
Once back on the road after stopping to get a drink, we sailed through Tallahassee and on into the Eastern time zone. We made our first stop of the day about noon in Live Oak at a Wendy's to grab something small to eat for lunch. While there, I noticed there was a Wal-Mart nearby. My boss had given me a $75 Wal-Mart gift card before we left as a thank you for the work I do. So, I used that to top off the tank.
We were off the road maybe 30 minutes total between potty and fueling up. We hit Lake City a few minutes later and headed south toward Ocala. Once through Ocala, we got on the Turnpike and headed on into Walt Disney World.
Our DGD took over driving in Live Oak because she wanted to drive through the sign, and we didn't plan on stopping again since we had ADRs so close to our expected arrival. As we were getting closer, we started to see the Epcot ball and the Contemporary resort from afar, and she was getting real giddy and excited. We then drove through the magical gates about 2:50.
Up next: Arriving at our resort, why we missed our ADR and winning a bet.
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