You can take the girl out of Disney, BUT……… - Page 13 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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On to ET. Claire was a bit nervous about this because I mentioned that ET was an alien. I kept telling her he was a nice alien, but she didn’t want to believe me once again.
The queue is set up cute and the line was pretty much walk through and get on. Not much of a wait at all.
If I remember right there is a room for a preshow. (My memory is fading fast…I must be getting old)
We are each given a card and we have to tell a CM our name. At the end, ET will say good bye to you, but we couldn’t understand him. LOL. Of course the people in front of us had names that were “strange” and the girl didn’t know what to type. I think she usually types them for sound, or just basic, spelling obviously doesn’t matter…..for instance you can spell Claire several different ways. But these names were probably NOT in the system. Finally we got through and on our bikes…..The ride vehicle looks like a big bike and at times we have ET in our basket in the front.
We saved ET’s planet and all was good in the world again. I did try to listen for our good bye from ET. I think I heard Claire, but the rest we couldn’t tell. Claire declared that she loved it….Again Mom is right!
Our next destination was to be the Simpsons. We just loved that ride! We took off and I knew we were going the wrong way, but Skip “swore” we could get through. I knew he was wrong, but I just let him lead and took pictures.
I asked Claire if she wanted to go on the woody woodpecker roller coaster, but she frowned on that one.
You can see good ole Woody on the front of the train….cute!
We came to a dead end in front of the Barney area. I didn’t even get to get close enough to peek because Claire said Barney was for babies and she wasn’t going near it. Not too many years ago, she was a huge Barney fan….my how we change.
When we turned around Skip wanted to get a drink and I decided it was Churro time. Claire and I snacked on it…we even let Skip have a few bites, but I think I ate most of it. I think this one tasted better today.
The line for the Simpsons was longer today. I think it was about 40 minutes. Skip was actually kind of happy. Now we could watch all the little cartoons while waiting. Honestly, it doesn’t seem that long when you are watching the little segments. And some are pretty funny.
I also caught up on facebook through my phone while in line.
Soon we were in the preshow room. A couple asked me to take their picture and I did, then she took ours…and we got photo-bombed!
She said “oh, it’s a bad picture, let me take another”. I think she must’ve noticed the extra family member. I think the 2nd picture was much worse. But photo-bomb guy is in the background laughing.
Again, we just loved watching the screens sit with the character waiting for his/her turn to talk.
Soon we were boarding our vehicle. We got the backseat this time. I noticed the motion much more in the back. So….if motion bothers you, try to get the front seat. I also hadn’t taken bonine either. We enjoyed it again. Still a top ranking ride for us after round 2. Skip did say he noticed the motion this time too more, and it usually never bothers him.
When we got off the Simpsons I took some pictures of the area. It is just so cute.
We then decided we were ready to head back to the hotel for a nap and swim and then would return to the parks later.
We ran across this guy break dancing and stopped to watch for a minute or 2.
I spotted Lucy walking up ahead and tried to get a shot, but she was too fast for us.
And there is Scooby and Shaggy again…you can see Lucy too.
We all took a look in the Mystery Machine. It was basically all wood inside with a wooden bench. Skip asked me if it was wood in the cartoon, and I am pretty sure it was just a stripped out van and they sat on the ground…Does that sound right? I don’t remember it being luxurious, but not wood either.
We saw Marilynn walk by and she did a swirl for me…but I had the wrong settings on the camera and she was over exposed.
I did get a better one then.
And then we headed out. I stopped to get the Thing 2 Tank top and told Skip and Claire to keep going and I would catch up to them.
I like the tank, but it’s not as stretchy as I like them to be. It also runs very small. I got an XL, and it fits more like a tight large.
I took this picture of one of the resorts in the distance…and off the top of my head, I can’t remember which one.
I caught up to Skip and Claire and we worked our way to the car. My Mom called and I talked to her a bit. She was surprised we were heading for a nap. I told her that Skip was tired and sore……and I guess that was the wrong thing to say because he was mad. He said “now your Mom is going to call everyone and tell them that I can’t hang…my hip is NOT bothering me, it’s these shoes!”
Seriously, who cares? Why get mad over this. So he pouted and we left. He needed to buy cigarettes and I wanted some food. We stopped at a liquor store to get cigarettes. Why there I have no clue, but that is where he pulled in at. Claire and I waited in the car.
He came back with a different kind as they didn’t have a selection…..go figure.
I told him that I wanted something to eat, so we could take him back to the hotel and I would go get something, but he said no, he would just run through a drive thru since he might want a snack….which turned out to be a full meal. LOL
We spotted a burger king right around the corner and got in line. We went to pay and the girl yelled at us for coming to the window. She told us to back up and pull forward. So we did. And then she said,” NO! stay back till I tell you to, Oh just pull around and we’ll bring out your food.” STRANGE. So we did and we waited…and waited…and waited.
I finally said I was going in to complain, and then we saw a guy come out with a bag of food, and sure enough it was ours. We asked what the heck was going on and he said that our car didn’t trigger something right and they have to serve people in a certain amount of time and then they get a bonus pizza party. We were messing up her record with the way we triggered it. Of course as we pulled away, I grumbled about messing up her record some more, what poor service they had, and how slow they were…along with some choice words…..and they gave me the wrong Pop, which is a HUGE pet peeve. I drink diet with no ice. I am VERY picky about this.. I got regular….GAG…and it was FULL of ice.
We headed back to the room, stuffed our faces, I complained about my pop and then got Claire ready for a nap. Skip had talked about going to the pirate show down the road, so I said I would walk to the lobby and get a flyer. He and Claire laid down, with Claire swearing she wasn’t tired, and would rather be swimming, to which I told her she couldn’t swim till she had really been truly asleep. I crept out into the hall and found Housekeeping. I told them they were napping, but grabbed some more towels and took them back to the room. I went down and got the flyer and called my Mom again and told her about Mr. Grumpy. She laughed. I felt better venting and went back to the room to catch a nap myself. Claire was snoring by the way…so I guess she was tired.
WOW, what a situation at BK. Sorry you had such a bad time. The afternoon nap sure sounds like a great idea. You guys really packed a lot into that day. Hope the pirate show worked out.
WOW, what a situation at BK. Sorry you had such a bad time. The afternoon nap sure sounds like a great idea. You guys really packed a lot into that day. Hope the pirate show worked out.
I guess fast food wasn't their motto!
A nap really hit the spot!
I believe that Claire and I woke up about the same time, around 4:45. She was ready for a swim. We got her dressed I grabbed my notebook and down to the pool we went.
I just sat at a table next to the pool and wrote notes while she swam.
There was a lot of “Mom, look at this!” And “Watch me do this”.
Also, she kept asking me where we were going to eat and when. I told her we had to talk to dad about that one. She said she wasn’t hungry, but as many times as she asked me about food, you would’ve thought she was starving.
After a while, Skip came down and joined her. Actually he went in the hot tub and she joined him for a few minutes and then back to the pool she went.
I had a little lizard friend next to me. I tried to get a good picture, but this was the best I could do. But his front side was really neat. He had this little red beard thing flickering; I swore he looked like a baby dinosaur.
Skip took a quick Swim and then headed back to the room.
Soon he returned because he had no key. He took mine and went back once again. Claire finished up her swim and we decided we should get showered and ready for the evening. I think she swam for more than an hour, which was heaven for her.
I didn’t let her use the excuse that she is clean from swimming today. She had a shower and a hair wash. I handed her the hair dryer and I took one. The whole time she kept coming in to ask about food again. I told her to tell Dad to call the pirate place. He hem hawed around on that for some reason. He felt we should be able to just walk in and get seated. I had to tell him that it doesn’t work like that. It’s a show and which means reservations, AND we had no clue what time it started anyways. Finally he called and found out that the show was already going on and it was the only one for the night. He asked the price and couldn’t believe they would charge so much. I think it was like $60 is for adults. I told him that it was a pretty average price for a dinner show, and he didn’t believe me.
By this time I am working on getting dolled up. I knew the option of going back to the parks was out. It was getting later, and we just didn’t have the urge to go back tonight now. Claire was having a fit about dinner at this point. I kept relaying messages to her to take to Skip who was lying on the bed watching TV. I suggested Hoop Dee Doo, no that wasn’t good, Spirit of Aloha? .......no that wasn’t good. Cheesecake factory…never heard of it, no good. I just kept giving Claire options to tell him and all were a no. There was NO WAY I was sitting in this room the rest of the night with a child “starving to death”, while he watch TV all night. So I came out, put my shoes on and said “We are going to the cheesecake factory and then to Downtown Disney, You are welcomed to come, and we can drop you off after we eat if you don’t want to walk around DTD.” He had a look of shock on his face. He asked why he didn’t get to help make the decision….yes, I smiled ….but inside I was about to jump across the room and kill him. I told him we gave him choices and he didn’t like ANY of them, so we made a decision. He then says, check and see if we can go to Hoop Dee Doo. Ok, now we are making progress. It was about 7:15 when I called. I asked if the 9:30 show had an opening and was told yes. Then the girl realized the time and said, “Wow, you are cutting it close, you better leave soon.” I told her we were on our way and we gathered our stuff and left. We weren’t sure how long it would take us to get there and then ride the internal bus to the back so we wanted to be sure to allow plenty of time. We got as far as MK and through the gates and told the guy we were heading to Fort Wilderness, and then go lost. I was looking for signs, but I just didn’t see one and soon we approached the Contemporary. I told Skip we should pull in and ask, because there was nowhere to go from here. We realized we should’ve turned immediately after going through the gate and turned around and got back on track. I took this quickly with my phone.
I decided to play the “where are we” game again on facebook, and posted this picture next, which was horrid, but worked with the game, because it made it harder to tell where we were.
We got parked and headed to the bus stop. This system confuses the heck out of me. There are a ton of buses and I have no clue where to go. I got to talking to a nice lady and she gave some directions of how to get there and how to get back later….thank you nice lady….
A bus came (I believe we had to take a bus that said settlement), and the lady told us that this was a good one as it didn’t make as many stops on the way. YAY!
We finally got back there and we had over an hour to kill. Who would’ve guessed we would make such good time.
I took Claire to the bathroom.
And then went to the counter to get our tickets…which caused a bit of confusion. They couldn’t find us, and then I told her we had just called about an hour ago, and it was all settled then.
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Love the theming around the Simpsons - very fun! 
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