Free + Still Good + F&WF = Let's Go TR!!! Completed! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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.
Free + Still Good + F&WF = Let's Go TR!!! Completed!
Free + Still Good + F&WF = Lets Go TR!!!
First of all, I am so sorry for the MAJOR delay in the posting of this TR!!! Life really got in the way over the winter thought I would have had more down time. But I was also busy posting the other TRs that preceded this trip!!!
Anyway I will do my best for this TR as it was a short trip, and I took NO notes except for what we ate/drank at the F&WF thats what is really important anyway, right?
We woke not so bright and early at the ripe hour of 3:45 a.m. to quickly jump in the shower and throw in last minute items in the carry on suitcases (because it was a short trip we were able to make carry ons work for us!). Our daughter had spent the night before at her grandmothers so we didnt need to worry about getting her settled.
We were soon out the door and in the car heading for the airport! It was a very uneventful ride, me sipping my diet coke (no coffee for me, thank you) and Scott had an energy drink on the way. Once we got to the airport and parked the car, we made our way quickly through security ~ although we did see a few people trying to push their way through as they were apparently running late for their flight .we did see that they did indeed miss their flights.
After we were all clear through security, we each grabbed some breakfast and sat by the gate waiting to board!
We were flying Southwest and had done the early bird check in and had A boarding passes, so we were on pretty quickly found our seats and once we took off we ate our breakfasts. I took a few photos once we were up in the clouds and then I had started to watch HGTV (love that you can watch that on SW with the Wi-Fi) but apparently I fell asleep pretty quickly and pretty hard, as I woke by Scott startling me by moving my IPad and telling me that I needed to sit upright as we were getting ready to land! I hardly ever sleep on flights but apparently that Lyme disease or maybe just pure exhaustion has really helped the last few flights as I have slept very well!
Once we landed we quickly made our way to DME it was really nice to not have to go wait for bags at baggage claim!!! What a time saver! I scored the front row seat on the DME!!!
And soon we were seeing one of my favorite welcome signs in the world!!!
We arrived at POP checked in and we had requested a room with a king bed, however, when we checked in the CM stated that they did not have a king bed available right now, but they did have a regular room available if we wanted that so we said sure we would rather have a room ready so that we can drop our bags and get going and not have to worry about it later so we took our room keys they had also linked our magic bands and we were on our way to our room in the 80s section 4th floor ..so we climbed all the stairs, found our room all good. Checking it all out, it all looked good to us we were just about to leave the room when the phone rang ..who the heck is calling us already????
It was the front desk they did indeed have a king room available for us if we wanted it and it was an upgrade as it was a pool view ..okay, twist our arms. So we walked to the new room. The CM asked that we give them a few minutes to relink our magic bands to the new room, so we strolled over .found our room magic bands dont work room keys dont work ..hmmmm .we just climbed 4 flights again .there was a mousekeeper right there and she actually unlocked the room for us so that we could call the front desk .Scott was told that he had to come down to re-link his band. I of course could not stay in the room as mousekeeping would have gotten in trouble as she had no proof that we were staying in that room, so I sat down with the bags outside the room while Scott ran down. He called me a few times, having me check my band to see if it would unlock the door .nope by they were showing that both bands were linked to that room??? Anyway, after about 20 minutes or so, Scott finally came back up and his band worked but mine still did not we would have to stop by the front desk to re-link mine. All this time, we were concerned as we had Fastpass+ reserved for MK and we were not going to make our first one at this point.
Apparently Scott had mentioned this to the CM and he was able to show Scott how to change our fastpass+ on his phone but he also gave us 2 Fastpasses each for any attraction!!! We will certainly put those to good use, thank you!!!
So finally, we were on our way to MK, arriving around 2ish. We headed straight back to Ariel where we had our first Fastpass+ scheduled (rescheduled)!!!
After our meet with Ariel, we went for a ride on Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid!
Our next Fastpass+ was for the princesses in the new Princess Fairytale Hall with Cinderella and Aurora!
We also had Fastpass+ for the second set of princesses, but we had some time before that fastpass was ripe, so we took a snack break sharing a Caramel Brownie Sundae from Storybook Treats!
Then we were able to use our Fastpass+ to meet Rapunzel and Snow White!
After our princess meet and greets we walked over into Tomorrowland and rode the People Mover ~ Scott loves this ride. I like it for being able to put my feet up and relax a bit!
Now we figured we would put our bonus fastpasses to use and headed for Space Mountain!
Then we were able to basically walk on to Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin!
Why stop spinning there .next we went for a spin on the Mad Tea Party (there was basically no line!).
When we came off there, we noticed that Pooh and Tigger were out, so we got in line for them ~ I have to say that I remember this line quite well, as I had a really really hard time keeping my mouth shut. We were behind this young family mom, dad, and toddler (maybe 18-20 months?), and it was quite apparent that everyone was quite tired .very fussy baby Dad was a fuss bucket and the more he fussed, the more the baby fussed ..which is turn led mom to yell at the baby, and sometimes swat the babys behind hello??? I kept having to turn away as it was breaking my heart this poor kiddo was obviously so tired and then mom got so upset when she did not have any interest in the characters! Oy Vie!
Anyway we had a great meet and greet with Pooh & Tigger!!!
We continued on into the New Fantasyland, and found Gaston! I have to say the Photopass photos here were awful with the color therefore I made them black & white!
We then decided to use our next Fastpass for Peter Pans Flight!
After we came off Peter Pans flight, we found Captain Hook!
And Hook did not like my tee
Throughout the afternoon I had been texting with Melissa (mdobereiner) to try to meet up to say hi. She and her family were attending the MNSSHP tonight which we did try to get tickets when we entered the park, and it was sold out . We were all finally in a position to be able to meet up for a few minutes! Her kiddos are adorable! They were all dressed for the party with her daughter being Snow White, and then each family member a dwarf.
After we met up with them, it was time for us to head out as the party would be starting soon but of course we stopped on Main Street for a few Photopass Photos!
On the way out, we noticed that Mickey only had a 5 minute wait so we popped in to say hi!
Next Up: How many booths can we taste tonight?
__________________
Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World Its hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
I wish I could sleep like you did on this flight. What chaos with switching rooms and getting the Magic Bands to work. Glad it all worked out. You all got quite a bit done while in MK. Can't wait to hear what all you eat at the F&WF.
Too bad for the confusion and delay getting to the park, but you didn't waste any time once you were there! Lots of great character meets. I love the photo of your sassy Tink pose with Captain Hook!
What a great start to your couple vacation!
Lots of character meets!
Aww, that poor baby in line for Pooh! I hate it when people push on when they are clearly tired. Please take a break!
Wow you were really able to hit the ground running! Am I the only one who thinks it's weird they have different bedding in the King rooms? I like the look much better Nice score on that upgrade!
Wow! You guys got so much done!
Are all the king size bed rooms at POP handicap accessible? I didn't notice that yours was and I guess I thought they all were. I just never have asked for one, but would like to for an upcoming trip!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Wow....what an amazing afternoon. You guys got a ton done. Glad you go the king size bed but the problem with the bands must have been frustrating.
Thanks! I don't think I realized how much we had done until I started putting this together
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
I wish I could sleep like you did on this flight. What chaos with switching rooms and getting the Magic Bands to work. Glad it all worked out. You all got quite a bit done while in MK. Can't wait to hear what all you eat at the F&WF.
I honestly cannot believe how well I have slept on the last couple of flights I have had!!! Hoping it continues - as it makes a difference! Oh - there will be LOTS of F&WF!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Too bad for the confusion and delay getting to the park, but you didn't waste any time once you were there! Lots of great character meets. I love the photo of your sassy Tink pose with Captain Hook!
Thanks - now Laurie - you know us - we don't waste any time
Quote:
Originally Posted by tcmary
Sounds like you hit the ground running!
Thanks! Yes - we did!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
I can't believe how much you guys packed in as soon as you arrived!
I know! Honestly though - I think everyone was over at Epcot as it was the first day of F&WF!
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
What a great start to your couple vacation!
Lots of character meets!
Aww, that poor baby in line for Pooh! I hate it when people push on when they are clearly tired. Please take a break!
Thanks! We love our character friends! I know, it really gets me going when you see little kiddos (and even adults) that are so exhausted, or don't feel well - time to take a break
Quote:
Originally Posted by llgmommy2
Cannot wait to read more. I love your TR. Your family reminds me so much my own so, it is a lot of fun reading along.
Awe - thanks!
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great start! Can't believe how much you did.
Thanks Mayra - you should know by know - we get right in there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by xwewhisper
Wow you were really able to hit the ground running! Am I the only one who thinks it's weird they have different bedding in the King rooms? I like the look much better Nice score on that upgrade!
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
I was wondering about the bedding too!
Hmmm.......interesting - I did not even realize that until you said something!!! I know that they had been revamping all the bedding resort wide - so maybe this section had already been done?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soarin829
Wow! You guys got so much done!
Are all the king size bed rooms at POP handicap accessible? I didn't notice that yours was and I guess I thought they all were. I just never have asked for one, but would like to for an upcoming trip!
I hadn't realized there were king rooms - non-handicap - until recently - however, there are not a lot of king rooms we found out by speaking with the CM at the desk. I can't remember exactly - but I want to say the number was under 150 rooms - out of all those rooms at POP! So they are not too easy to come by!
__________________
Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports