New House, New Disney Trip TR - COMPLETE 5/13!! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day two-part two
We headed over to Seuss Landing and encountered a bunch of characters first thing. We got our pictures taken with Thing One and Thing Two, the Grinch, and the guy from Green Eggs and Ham
We rode the High in the Sky Trolley, One Fish, Two Fish, the Caro-Seuss-el, and The Cat in the Hat all within about an hour. There really was no wait anywhere. I was worried the crowds would be bad because it was a weekend, but it was super slow. I got soaked on One Fish, Two Fish. Somehow I was the only one of the four of us that did!
We headed back to the Three Broomsticks for lunch:
Richard and I had the Fish and Chips, Natalie had her first of many plates of mac and cheese and Ethan had a giant turkey leg that he barely put a dent in. It was all pretty good, and I like how they do things here. You order your food, get your food, and then someone finds a table for you. It’s a pretty good system.
Right after lunch Natalie decided that she had to ride Dragon Challenge again. I was up for it, Richard didn’t think he could right after eating. So off we went to do the blue side, which was great too. We both decided that we liked the red side better.
We decided after that that we wanted to head to US, as there was a bunch of stuff there that we wanted to do. So we headed out of the (now crowded) WWOHP and made our way over to US.
We stopped right after getting in the gate and had our picture taken. We stopped at the bakery on the corner and got some drinks. Richard and I also got a couple slices of cheesecake. Holy moly, were they delicious! We spotted Lucy and Marilyn. The kids said “Who?” Richard got his picture taken with them:
Next we spotted the minions, which the kids were super excited about.
We did some rides and shows- Shrek 4D was super cute, and we headed over to see Shrek, Princess Fiona and Donkey after:
We walked around some more and Richard and I did The Mummy Ride one at a time in the single rider line. This ride was amazing! One of the best of the whole vacation.
We also did The Simpsons ride, MIB:Alien Attack, and ET Adventure. After that the early morning was catching up with us, and the kids were itching for more pool time, so we walked back to the DoubleTree. We headed down to the pool for a bit, where we discovered that Ethan’s brand new waterproof video camera wasn’t so waterproof. He and Natalie got the exact same ones for Christmas, and hers worked great, taking some really cute underwater video. The minute he put his in the water, water got inside and we couldn’t get it to work the rest of the trip, even after it dried out it wouldn’t turn on. I just today sent it out for repair as it was still under warranty, thank goodness.
We dried off and got dressed and headed over to TGIFridays for dinner, which was right across from our hotel. We had some good food there and then headed back and fell into bed. We were all exhausted but very happy. Tomorrow we were headed to Our Beloved Disney!
Up next: We Enter the Bubble
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Day 4 3/4/12: Yay Disney!
We woke to rain and lots of wind. We couldn’t believe how much the palm trees bend and don’t break! Quicksilver was scheduled to pick us up at 10, so we slowly got up and ready and headed to the lobby. They were already there at 9:45, so we loaded up and headed out. The driver this time was also nice but not nearly as chatty.
We got to Port Orleans Riverside around 10:15 and headed in to check in. We checked in quickly, but our room wasn’t ready so we stored our bags with bell services and walked around the resort.
We were very impressed with this resort! It was absolutely beautiful. We walked over into the Alligator Bayou section, which I had requested, checked out the pool and the bridge, and took a bunch of pictures of the waterwheel.
By then the sun was starting to come out and we were all getting hungry, so we headed in to get our refillable mugs and the first of our counter service meals with our free dining plan. I couldn’t believe how much food we got! We have been on the dining plan before, but I thought that the food court here was the best we have seen. Richard got the make your own pasta bar, and it was unbelievable how much pasta he had on his plate. We were all totally stuffed by the time we were done, so we very slowly made our way out to the bus stop to head over to the Magic Kingdom.
We didn’t wait too long, and we were on our way. When we got there, we headed straight over to the Sorcerer’s of the Magic Kingdom game center. We got our cards and instructions fairly quickly and headed over to Main Street USA to play. The first place we stopped worked fine, but at the second portal, something wasn’t working right. There was already a CM there as others had been having difficulties too, so he brought us back to the fire station and got us set up to play in Adventureland instead. He also gave us 2 extra packs of cards for our trouble.
We headed over to Adventureland, did a couple portals, and then headed in to ride Pirates. This is one of our favorites!
We did a few more portals and picked up fastpasses for the Jungle Cruise along the way. We also saw the Tiki Room, as I had never seen it before. I think once in a lifetime will be enough, lol. We finished up playing the Sorcerer game. The kids thought it was OK, if not a tad bit confusing. It seems as if it’s just another line to stand in, frankly, as it was pretty busy and there were a lot of people playing. There were some hard-core card collectors sitting near some of the portals with binders full of cards looking to trade. None of them were kids either which I thought was pretty funny.
We were hungry by then for a snack (or maybe just hot and wanting ice cream, lol), so I got a Dole Float, Natalie got some chocolate ice cream, Richard got a frozen fruit bar, and Ethan got popcorn. He’s not much of a sweets kid.
We headed to The Swiss Family Treehouse and did that, which is always cute. Our FPs for the Jungle Cruise had ripened by then, so we headed over to do that. We had a nice lady skipper with the same lame jokes, but they always make us laugh anyway.
We decided that we had done enough in Adventureland, so we headed over to Liberty Square and did the Haunted Mansion, where we walked through the new queue. It was very cool.
At the end, the ghosts made Natalie and I switch heads, which she thought was absolutely hilarious! We headed over to the Hall of Presidents, which I told the kids was their education for the week, as we took them out of school to go, lol.
We had enough time to look through a few shops, I bought a new Christmas ornament with 2012 on it and then went over for our obligatory ride on It’s a Small World. The kids humored me, even though they roll their eyes over this one.
We headed over to Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner. The food here was so good as always. I love the rolls and butter especially! Next we went to stake out a spot for the Magic, Memories, and You show. This was so amazing! I wonder what they’ll think of next?
We had a decent spot, so we figured that we would stay put for Wishes, when all of a sudden someone (Natalie) had to go to the bathroom, and couldn’t wait! That child drives me crazy sometimes as she always waits until the last minute before she tells me she has to go. So we headed through the tons of people to the bathroom over by Tommorowland Terrace. By this time the fireworks were half over, and we couldn’t see well anyway, so we figured it would be a good time to do a few more rides.
Natalie decided to try Space Mountain with me, which I was pretty excited about as she had never done it before. Richard and Ethan did the Tomorrowland Speedway, as there was no talking him in to Space. She liked Space she said, even though she gripped my hands so tight the whole time I thought she might break a few fingers, lol! We made Carousel of Progress our last ride of the night, so that we could have that wonderful tune in our heads throughout the entire vacation, Ha! We all really enjoy this one.
I had gotten a text in the afternoon that our room was ready, so we got onto a bus bound for Riverside and headed for room 3640 in Alligator Bayou. It was an absolutely adorable newly refurbed room. Natalie decided to sleep on the Murphy Bed all week as she was really the only one that fit anyway. Ethan was a bit too tall for it. She loved that bed, and thought it was so cool to sleep next to Louis every night!
We headed to bed after setting a wake up call for 7:00. We were headed to Epcot tomorrow!
Up Next: Epcot!!
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