2 Haunted Mansions, 1 Day (Plus Free Dining!) - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This is the story of our first trip to Walt Disney World since we were married in Epcot in February ’08, and how we turned it into a race to ride the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom and Disneyland on the same day!
It’s also the story of what happens when two people who greedily snatched up as many free desserts as they could during their honeymoon came to despise the very sight of dessert, thanks to the free Disney Dining Plan.
Who We Are
Elastigirl and Mr. Elastigirl, longtime Disneyland annual passholders who are squeezing every last drop out of the “free” WDW annual passes that came with our Disney’s Fairy Tale Wedding (tm).
How We Came to Be at WDW Just Seven Months After We Got Married There
See “free WDW annual passes,” above. Also, when we went to WDW for our wedding-planning session in September ’07, they hooked us with a bounce-back offer for free dining in September 08. I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a cheap trip to look forward to after our honeymoon, and I was right!
Our first day, like most people’s first days, was pretty uneventful... til we got to Walt Disney World, and then it was jammy packed!
We left LA on Saturday morning (I’ll spare you dreary shots of the security lines and drab waiting areas of the United Terminal at LAX). One cool thing – we took a shuttle using a service I found on Yelp.com – instead of parking and riding the shuttle from the EasyPark lot. This was mostly to save time when we got back - the idea was that they could shuttle us from LAX to Disneyland before it closed the following Saturday so we could complete our mission to ride both Haunted Mansions in one day. But using the shuttle also saved us a lot of time parking and transferring – cool!
The flight was uneventful, except for the irritating couple who sneaked into the empty seats in front of us so they could sit together and then shoved their seats back as far as they could go (i.e., under our chins!) for the duration of the flight.
Finally... Orlando!
Welcome to Orlando – Deposit All Your Money Here!
We got our rental car using the self-service kiosks at Alamo, a tip we stumbled on last trip, when the line for customer service was about 45 minutes long. This time instead of the rattly Oprah-mobile, we got to pick out a PT Cruiser: cute and compact, with the turning radius of an elderly yak!
Off we went! I figured this rainbow was a good sign...
Obligatory Gate Shot
We got to Pop and I went to check in while DH parked the yak. I did all the things they say you should do to request a certain room – noted it on the ressie, called three days before to reiterate, spoke to someone in the actual room-assigning department, etc. Turns out it doesn’t matter - if everyone who checks in before you requests a King room, the front desk passes ‘em out like candy until they’re gone and you end up with two teeny tiny double beds. Boooo!
Little did we know how spoiled we’d been the year before when we ended up with a handicapped-accessible king room at Pop. We foolishly thought all the rooms were that spacious and comfy, so imagine our disappointment at the tiny little closet we were assigned this time. We asked about switching rooms, but nothing was available til Tuesday. Bleh.... I decided to pretend that double beds are “cozy” and “romantic,” but the experience has definitely ended our days of staying in Value resorts at WDW.
We set off for Downtown Disney and our 7:15 ADR at Raglan Road (another tip, shared by a kind message board vet – you can make ADRs at Raglan Road on Opentable.com even when 407-WDW-DINE is not making ressies for it!).
Scallop Forest - forks of scallops served with a lime dipping sauce
... they need to give you that sauce in a trough!
Serious Sirloin Steak - 10 oz sirloin topped with Irish whiskey glaze, drizzled with gresh basil oil. Served with mashed potatoes and topped with crispy fried onion strings...
We split this and had it without the whiskey sauce... which was prolly a mistake. It was kinda dry.
All through dinner this cute little lady kept making the rounds of the tables and handing out sparkly shamrock headbands in honor of it being halfway to St. Patrick’s Day... to everyone but ME! At the end of the meal I prowled the restaurant until I found her and demanded one. Perhaps this is why mine was missing one of its shamrocks (picture to come...)
After dinner we were supposed to meet Jenn from the DIS and her fella at Ghirardelli for sundaes! While we waited, we killed a little time in the shops....
Goofy’s Candy Co.
Eventually Jenn & John were able to extricate themselves from dinner to meet us at Ghirardelli, but I was sad to hear that a terrible experience at Yachtsman had pretty much killed their interest in dessert. However, DH and I didn’t let this stop us from getting....
Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae and... whatever DH got... Strawberry Ice Cream with Marshmallows and Chocolate Sauce?
It was really nice to finally meet Jenn in person, and John, and (bonus) their cute kids! John and Patrick took lil’ guy Jack to the Lego store to play while Jenn and her daughter Kayla and I gabbed. We learned their family got a really cool bit of pixie dust on a trip that was already jammy packed with fun stuff when a CM gave them FREE passes to Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party!
Me ‘n’ Jenn in the Second Happiest Place on Earth: Ghirardelli! ...Note the lopsided shamrock headband...
Finally, we got kicked outta Downtown Disney (specifically, the Christmas shop) ‘cuz they were closing, so we got as much hyper-excited-I-can’t-believe-we-finally-met-in-person chatter in before we parted at the Fambly MiniVan. And hopefully the pic DH took of them with the character statues outside of the Marketplace makes it on their Christmas cards this year, cuz we could really use the royalites....
After that it was back to Pop for plenty of sleep so we’d be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for... Sunday at Epcot, with Celebration Cake and IllumiNations Cruise!!
"Too many people grow up. That's the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don't remember what it's like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won't do that." ~Walt Disney
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Pixie Dust
Yay!! Another TR!!! Great first day at WDW doing what I like best, EATING. Can't wait to read more.
More please!! 
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
a new TR....loved the honeymoon TR & this one is looking good too! Can't wait to hear more!
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