An Anniversary, a party, a luau, and oh so many changes from the plans, lol! - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Isn't Providence airport great? We also did Southwest from Providence...nice small airport..no pressure...it was fantastic.
Looking forward to reading more.
Absolutely, we LOVE providence! And I almost always travel on Southwest also since they are the only airline who has nonstop flights from PVD now. Even logan airport has a lot less nonstop flights these days
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Travelers: Stacey (writer of this report - been to WDW too many times to count), Bill (my DH who prefers DL but does now love WDW as well), Mary (our DD who is 19 months old - this is her second trip. She was 9 months the first time), Jane (my mom - drove over from Clearwater and stayed a night), Lydia (my 9 year old niece came over with my mom for a night)
Hotels: Off property at the Fairfield Inn the first three nights as there were no rooms available on points and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas Kidani Village for our last 6 nights.
Celebrations: DH and my 11th wedding anniversary was on 10/10/10.
Day 3 - Snow White and the TWO Dwarfs? - 10/11/10
Since my mom and niece were only staying the one night, we planned to spend the first half of the day in DTD with them. Since we had a very late night on Sunday and mom was watching Mary for us she kept her up in her room. I was a bit worried about how she would sleep but looked forward to being able to sleep through the night myself! We were so exhausted we passed out quickly and slept a good 7 hours (which is more than we are used to). I showered and went to retrieve Mary from my mom's room so she could get ready to go. (They had to pack up the car etc)
I got to my mom's room and knocked for a while but no answer. Hmmm did my mother kidnap my child? LOL
I tried her cell phone and she didn't answer. so I roamed the hotel for a bit looking for them. Finally I found them in the "elite member" section of the breakfast buffet. It was my mom, my niece, and Mary enjoying breakfast. She said since I was a Marriott Rewards member they had no only upgraded her room, they told her she could sit in this section. (I had booked both rooms and was paying for both rooms) Would have been nice to know that we could do this too, LOL
Anyhow, I enjoyed breakfast with them for a bit then mom went to take the girls outside to let off steam and DH came down and we enjoyed a nice peaceful FREE breakfast together... that NEVER happens so that was really nice.
We helped mom pack up and we all headed to DTD for some shopping! My niece picked up a few souvenirs and we browsed a lot of the Marketplace but surprisingly I bought very little! (I'm a well-known shopaholic!)
Mom treated us all to lunch at Earl of Sandwich and we enjoyed a nice lunch while Mary napped. I wish it was so easy regularly, LOL! Our sandwiches were really huge and I wish my mom and I had shared but they are so reasonably priced I didn't mind too much.
One nice perk was that I got 10% off at most stores for having an Annual Pass so I used it for my mom and nieces souvenirs as well.
Once mom and my niece headed back to Clearwater, we headed over to the MK.
We had 2pm appointments for both DH and Mary for hair cuts at the Harmony Barber Shop. I had put in a request for Michael but he wasn't there when we arrived. It wasn't a deal breaker, we just have a fun history with him. Ivette did a wonderful job! We had Mary go first just incase she got cranky waiting. This was Mary's very first hair cut! She honestly doesn't have much hair but DH had been planning this since before she was even conceived, LOL! Sadly, I'm serious about this one!
Here is Mary entertained by stickers while Ivette cuts her hair:
She is now obsessed with stickers after all the stickers she got last week, haha
Here she is with her Mickey ears. They say first haircut on the back but she didn't keep them on long enough for me to get a picture of the back!
Mary did really well! Much better than I expected. They do such a great job with kids their though. I am really glad we brought her there for her first haircut. Of course at the rate her hair is coming in we could just bring her here for all her haircuts, hahaha
DH got his hair cut next and of course had her do all the bells and whistles... mohawk, colors, pixie dust, you name it! (You can see it in pictures later today)
Next we went to frontierland to browse for while before our dinner ADR at Crystal Palace. We met a student in one of the shops near the Magic Carpets of Aladdin who was there on his internship. He was so great but of course I am terrible and forgot his name. We spent a long time chatting with him (DH talks even more than me, if you can imagine that!!!!!!) We had a nice relaxing afternoon then headed over to CP for dinner.
We had a corner seat at CP which was probably good since Mary was fussier than usual. She had napped earlier but not as long as usual and it was showing! She loved the characters from afar! As soon as they got close she would scream... then when they would leave she would be blowing them kisses and clapping.
I don't have most of our CP pics with me today so I can share them later. Here is one of Piglet petting DH's hair. It was funny, all the characters were in awe of his hair!
I honestly did not enjoy my meal AT ALL! Mary was so fussy I had to hold her and she was grabbing at everything when I tried to eat. It was quite frustrating and has made me rethink our meals for our next trip! DH did get to try a few new things so I'm glad he enjoyed his meal.
Our server was wonderful as well. I told her we had tickets for MNSSHP that night and asked where we could get our wristbands so we didn't have to go back to the main entrance. She told me two places and one I knew of so we planned to go there. BUT, just before we left, our server came by with a manager who had wristbands. We showed her our tickets and she gave them to us right there in the restaurant... talk about service! Again I forgot to get our servers name
Sadly the crankiness was a theme for the rest of the night because she refused to nap again. She is happy when running around but if she can't go her way it got noisy! We had fun nonetheless but didn't stay too late.
We had dressed Mary up as Snow White and DH wore his Grumpy T-shirt. I had a short made at DTD the day before with Sleepy on it. It says on it "Is it Nap Time yet?" then below it... "How about now?" The girl at the shop actually helped me with ideas... I liked it so much better after we made her suggested changes! I know our T-shirts were kind of lame for costumes but coming from MA even October in FL is really hot to us!
Here is our little snow white:
Here is the three of us in front of Toontown (you can see DH hair a bit here)
We spent a lot of time in Toontown. We waited to see Mickey and Minnie and they were in Costume. Again the wait for the Princesses and Fairies were too long for us since they don't let you have strollers in line. If we could have the stroller, Mary would have napped in line but holding her she doesn't nap well.
Mary loved playing in the little play area so we spent a lot of time there. However, after about 10 minutes there was this young boy who was running up all the slides and say "F***" every other word... or "F***ing F***ers" etc... He was terrible, yelling swears and knocking little ones down. I looked around and couldn't even figure out who he belonged to. I don't think he was much older than 6 or 7 but I think he was too big for this small play area. After a while we left since it didn't seem like he was going anyplace and I knew if he knocked Mary down I'd not be able to handle it very nicely.
On our way out we got pictures taken with the Seven Dwarfs. I had been looking forward to this since Mary was dressed as Snow White. She was overwhelmed by there being 7 of them though so she never looked at the camera, LOL... Oh well, it's a fun memory (That picture is on my home computer so I'll have to add it later)
On our way out we did see some of the fireworks from the boat. We ALL slept well that night. I guess the trick is to get Mary so exhausted all day long, haha
Busy busy day but all in all, a lot of fun!
UP NEXT: Day 4: Our move to Kidani Village... Talk about service!!
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What an adorable snow white I can't wait to see the princess with the dwarfs. Sounds like you are having a great time! Please share more pics! How exciting that she got her first hair cut at Disney, and I love the pixie dust hair.
We know all too well about meals not going as planned because of our little ones! It has definately made us realize that we need to cut back on sit down meals because after long days in the parks, its better to keep moving than to sit down and try to enjoy a meal with an exhausted child!
How much was the child's hair cut? Earl of Sandwich is so yummy!
__________________
Teresa
Sammy 5 years and Peyton 15 months - September 2013
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
We know all too well about meals not going as planned because of our little ones! It has definately made us realize that we need to cut back on sit down meals because after long days in the parks, its better to keep moving than to sit down and try to enjoy a meal with an exhausted child!
How much was the child's hair cut? Earl of Sandwich is so yummy!
We asked her to take VERY VERY little hair and she did just that. Mary had some longer hair in the front that would often get in her eyes so she trimmed that a bit but she kept all the hair she cut in a napkin and taped it up for us to keep in a memory book for her.
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