Living the dream and remembering the Bagman LIVE UPDATE 10/2 - Page 12 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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There are other changes as well.
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We go on to the joy and through the tears
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Moving on with the current of the years.
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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.
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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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Love your FP+ list! I hope you got the ones you wanted!!
I have to keep track of dates here too. I can't tell you how many times I've had to re-tell Dave what the dates of our trip are and what dates I will be gone before him. It must be a guy thing!
The park plans look great and sounds like the PP meet in the ORL at the CR should be a good one!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Your plans look fabulous and congratulations on getting into the Poly bungalows!!! I'm so excited for you and for us since we'll get to see all your wonderful pictures of it!
I promise to get lots and lots of photos!
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The Bagman Days sound like the perfect way to honor Bill.
I think it will be a wonderful way to remember him.
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Your Fastpass picks are similar to what I seem to always choose when planning for a Disney trip! Your trip is going to be here before you know it!
It was five weeks yesterday - and on Wednesday I can officially say we fly out in a month's time!
Love your FP+ list! I hope you got the ones you wanted!!
Without giving too much away, we got most of what we wanted, but not everything...
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I have to keep track of dates here too. I can't tell you how many times I've had to re-tell Dave what the dates of our trip are and what dates I will be gone before him. It must be a guy thing!
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So are you being asked what date you fly out and what date you're doing things for your upcoming trip then?
You could say that.....and before we leave we've got to get Ryan down to university. And with Kelsey currently in New Mexico I'm now getting daily questions as to what she's got on her itinerary for the day. Sigh....
You could say that.....and before we leave we've got to get Ryan down to university. And with Kelsey currently in New Mexico I'm now getting daily questions as to what she's got on her itinerary for the day. Sigh....
It sounds like it's the same the world over! I hope Kelsey's enjoying time in New Mexico. That's on my list to get there.... one day....
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Everything looks like it is coming together. Congrats on getting a bungalow at the Poly! I can't wait to hear about stay there. You've got a lot of great meet ups and good luck getting everything on your FP+ list!
Pre-trip report – part twelve: I despair of that website
Tuesday 1 March
Today was the day of my surgery to unblock my tear ducts, something that’s been causing me problems for 18 months. When I was discharged, I was told that I could only spend limited time on a computer for the next week, which meant no work, as that requires me to be at a computer full time. I was very angry and frustrated that I wasn’t told that beforehand, so I could plan accordingly, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
When I got to the hospital for the op, I had a message from Heather (ilovedisney247) to say that the Outer Rim Lounge actually only opens at 4:30pm. I couldn’t believe it! I went back and re-checked the Disney World website, and sure enough, it says it’s open from 11:30am every day until late, but Heather was adamant that was wrong, and heck, she should know, as she works for Disney. I really do despair of that website. Oh well, we can still all get together and enjoy some photo ops, and while we can’t get alcoholic drinks, at least we’ll be able to get non-alcoholic ones from the Contempo Café next door, so all is not lost..
I was very sad to see that Tara (Tara O’Hara) had posted in the Facebook group that she wouldn’t be joining us for Bagman Days. I completely understand, given she’s got other vacation plans, but it’s still a shame, given we haven’t seen her for a number of years, and she was one of the members of the group of us that had some wonderful vacations together with Bill.
Wednesday 2 March
As I’m off work following the eye surgery, I decided to get the old packs of playing cards out to try and give me a break from looking at the TV. I’m being very good and I promise whenever I write anything for this pre-trip report (or anything else), I am doing it in very short spates – no more than 15 minutes. Anyway, I found the playing cards, then had to clear a surface to actually play any games. As I did, I got to the bottom of a pile of stuff, and found the Universal Orlando tickets I thought I’d lost.
We didn’t use them last year due to illness on our spring 2015 trip, so I’d called the company I bought them from and asked if I could pay the difference to trade them up to 2016 tickets, which they did with no problems. Given I’d done something similar in 2014, I didn’t really want to call them again.
Well, they arrived last August, and I realised at the start of the year, when I started planning this trip that I hadn’t seen them in some time. I thought they’d arrived, but I had no idea where I’d put them. I swear I hunted everywhere, but obviously not, as I can’t have looked in this particular pile. Ok, so this does present me with a dilemma. Given I thought I’d lost the tickets, I hadn’t planned any time at Universal for this trip. Now I have them, we really should use them. I think I might be printing out the itinerary (so I don’t have to look at a computer screen to make any changes ) to see if we can sneak a day in there…
After a fair bit of waiting for the Universal Orlando website to play ball I finally found the hours for September. They display the Islands of Adventures hours first, then you have to scroll further down the same page to find the hours for Universal Studios. Now you’d think if you clicked on the next month, it would display for both parks. Not a bit of it! I had to sit clicking next month individually for each park to get the hours. Why do all theme park websites have to be so useless?
Well, it turns out the Studios open at 8:00am, with Islands of Adventure opening at 9:00am. I’d prefer to get there for opening, as obviously it will be quieter, and hopefully not as hot. However, it could be a tough call, given I’ve got evening Extra Magic Hours at Epcot down for the night before. This may mean very little sleep, but then again, at least the bonus is we’re doing WDW followed by the cruise, and we can veg on the cruise. Actually, I think we may need to veg on the cruise!
I’m now looking at doing the Boathouse on the day of Animal Kingdom. It was always my plan to go there for the first couple of hours, then have lunch elsewhere. I had been thinking of maybe Beaches and Cream. It’s always been a favourite of ours, but unfortunately our favourite server there Delores died of cancer late last night. I did say to Mark I’m not sure I can face going back there this trip. It’s already going to be emotional enough, remembering Bill, and I just don’t know I can do that too, so maybe the Boathouse is the way to go?
Of course, I can’t work out exactly what time I want to go for the Boathouse for lunch, given that my evening plans are back at Animal Kingdom. I want to do the Tiffins restaurant there, and the Rivers of Light. I don’t have a clue what time Rivers of Light will be, although given the sunset time, I’m guessing maybe 8:00pm? I suspect we’ll do Tiffins before, especially if it offers a dining package to go with Rivers of Light, so I guess we won’t want lunch too late, but this is so tough to plan, given all the unknowns about the new things coming up at Disney…
Ok, now how spooky is this? Dyan just posted a link to this: First Look: ‘Rivers of Light’ To Debut April 22 at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Well, at least now we now a start date for it! I had a quick look at park hours for a date just after that, and I’m sure you can see this coming… they didn’t have anything up yet. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to be a little more patient…
Thursday 3 March
I’ve spent much of the day reading through the print-off of our itinerary, and going through and adding in missing details. By doing this, it means I’m not spending too much time looking at a computer screen, which is good for my eyes. Generally, the missing information I’ve found so far is addresses for places. I tend to find that out right at the last minute, as I usually do these checks quite late on, so I’m pretty far ahead of the game this time – at least there’s one bonus to the eye surgery.
I was online at points and saw that Ginger (GingerJ) won’t be able to join us on this trip, which is such a shame, as I was so looking forward to meeting her.
Friday 4 March
The big news is Mark has finally sent his passport away for renewal! It expires in January 2017, and to travel to most countries, you need to have six months remaining on your passport. As we’re visiting America in September, it doesn’t meet that criterion. However, you can only renew your passport when you have nine months left on it, so it’s a tough call to know when to do it. I figured as soon as we got back from Iceland was the best time, as we won’t need our passports until the end of April when we go to Disneyland Paris. I wanted to get it done as soon as we could, as we currently don’t have ESTAs to enter the States. You are supposed to get them as soon as you book your flights, but I thought I might set off a heap of red flags if I put through a passport that wouldn’t meet US entry requirements. I cannot wait for him to get his new passport, so I can get our ESTA all squared away, then that will another thing done.
Well, it’s not looking hopeful for us meeting up with Sue and Steve elsewhere on this trip, outside of WDW. I heard back from Sue, asking if our dates for Toronto and Niagara Falls were the only dates we’d be there, and I messaged her back to confirm they were. She told me the reason she was asking if that they’ve got a wedding on one of those days.
I’ve found a number of things I can do that don’t involve looking at a computer screen for too long, and one of those things is scanning things in. I spent a lot of yesterday scanning in things we brought back from our Iceland trip, as I’ll need them digitally to eventually do a digital scrapbook. It occurred to me that perhaps now would be a good time to scan in parts of guidebooks to save me taking them with us. The Canada guidebook will come with us, but the New England one isn’t worth taking for just over a day, so I scanned in the various pages about Maine, and now have print-outs of those. I’ll do the New York City one in the same way at some point as well.
Talking of New York City, we saw an article on the national BBC News tonight about the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub. Wow! Firstly, it looks amazing, but secondly, the overspend on it is just appalling. From what I’ve read, it was supposed to cost $2.7 billion originally, which to me is an obscene enough amount but ended up costing $5.2 billion. I can’t help but wonder what that money could have paid for… It should all be fully open by the time of our visit, as apparently the shopping and restaurant complex doesn’t come online until August. We won’t actually be using it, but from what I can see, it’ll be on our route from the station over to One World Trade Center, so at least we’ll see it, as it does look like an amazing building, and we can admire its architecture. Mind you, I’d expect to admire its architecture for that amount of money!
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Glad to hear you found your Universal tickets. At some point I need to get Chris down there. Last summer was my first trip when nephew Kevin and I went. I am so sorry to hear about Delores. I know she was special to you and Mark. I will keep you both in my thoughts and prayers.
Plans are shaping up very nicely, but too bad that some PPs won't be able to meet up with during your trip! Glad the surgery went well for you!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Glad to hear you found your Universal tickets. At some point I need to get Chris down there.
Wow, I didn't realise he hadn't been...
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Last summer was my first trip when nephew Kevin and I went. I am so sorry to hear about Delores. I know she was special to you and Mark. I will keep you both in my thoughts and prayers.
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I went back and re-checked the Disney World website, and sure enough, it says it’s open from 11:30am every day until late, but Heather was adamant that was wrong, and heck, she should know, as she works for Disney. I really do despair of that website. 
I did say to Mark I’m not sure I can face going back there this trip. It’s already going to be emotional enough, remembering Bill, and I just don’t know I can do that too, so maybe the Boathouse is the way to go? 
Firstly, it looks amazing, but secondly, the overspend on it is just appalling. 
From what I’ve read, it was supposed to cost $2.7 billion originally, which to me is an obscene enough amount 
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