The Return of the Son of the CLT - Pre-trip report complete 5/30 - Page 21 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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We will be at Disney for a lovely, long stretch from May 31st through June 9th and have many fun meets, special events, and two lovely resorts to enjoy -- not to mention a plethora of Frozen Beverages to sample!
Resorts:
Animal Kingdom Lodge Concierge (first night)
Beach Club Villas (Sunday through Friday morning)
Animal Kingdom Lodge Concierge (Friday through Monday)
The Gang
The CLT®
Eileen (me) (a.k.a. Caldercup - a.k.a. EileeeeeeeenTM) Karen (a.k.a. zacksmom_1993 - a.k.a. The Spreadsheet Queen & She Who Must Not Be Second-guessed)
Sharon (a.k.a. PrincessSharon - a.k.a. P-Sha & She Who Must Not Be Believed)
The “+2’s”
Zack (Karen’s son) a.k.a. chickensrock
Michael (Zack’s buddy)
Our first night benefactors and travel buddies
Jill a.k.a. Jillybean
Thom (Jill’s husband)
Mary Devall and Maddie (Jill’s adorable daughters)
Jill’s parents (and other relatives?)
Our fellow PassPorters during the trip:
Tanya a.k.a. eeyoresmom, her daughter "Miss V" and her husband Scott (+ assorted inlaws)
Danielle a.k.a. disneydani, Paul (her DH), Andrew and Isabelle (Danielle’s kids)
Tina a.k.a. loobyoxlip and Kylor and Jalen (her boys)
Maureen a.k.a. statelady01 with her newborn boy, Connor!
Lynn a.k.a OffKilter_Lynn
Robin a.k.a. RobinKay6573
Carol a.k.a. ripkensnana
Claudine a.k.a. WDWJAMBA
And a host of other PassPorters who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet! (If I missed anyone, please remember that I have a brain like a sieve and can’t be held responsible for forgetting if we talked about meeting up.)
The title:
Well, back in 2007, Karen, Sharon and I referred to ourselves as the Crazy Lady Trio – or CLT, for short. Somehow, to our great surprise, it stuck!
At Mousefest this past year, we found that we were being referring to us as the "CLT" by our fellow Festers and were even more shocked to find comments of “ran past the CLT” and “saw the CLT near BTMRR” and “the CLT is really, really nuts” popping up in people’s trip reports from Mousefest.
Feeling a bit as if we’d created a three-headed monster, I began to feel that this trip report should have a title that reflected the horror movie/sequel genre!
Revenge of the Son of the CLT - Episode III, Part Deux seemed apropros! And, no, it’s not a slam at Zack. I mean, he’s only Karen’s son, not Sharon’s and mine too. Yet, he IS a bit of a monster, but I would never rag on him to you all. Never! (Well, only if he deserved it …and Aunt Tardy was nearby.)
The reason for the trip:
Not that there has to be a reason to go to WDW again….. right, Sharon!
After our romp at Mousefest, I think we were ready to find any excuse to get the three of us together – and soon! So, when Karen let slip that she was hoping to get a few of Zack’s friends to join her in June and she was hoping for a little adult companionship, Sharon and I jumped at the chance.
It didn’t hurt that Karen also offered up the largesse of her DVC points for the next… oh… decade to rent a two-bedroom villa at the Beach Club and we were invited – no EXPECTED – to stay with her.
We’re with you, sistah. All the way. Couldn’t separate us if you tried.
Well… actually…Sharon’s mom and dad (those crazy ‘rents who sing the ride songs on a continual loop and eat their weight in candy daily) needed her to stay at their timeshare nearby and she had to help them out or risk her family harmony. No worries! (We plan on making a nightly stop in Epcot to ply her with Italian Margaritas so she can’t drive home and HAS to share the villa with us anyway. I expect that she’ll be wearing the same clothes for the whole week!) Now that I think about it, Sharon’s also not joining us the first night because she’s going to Universal. In fact, she’s not staying through Sunday night the second weekend at the AKL and is flying out a day earlier than Karen and me. (Hey… maybe we should be wondering if she really IS our friend, Karen.)
Anyway, we should have our usual fun together – talking, laughing, mocking each other (mostly me), and enjoying life, Florida, and the joy of being at Disney!
To make the trip even sweeter, I finally get to meet one of my favorite people on the boards – that fabu trip reporter, intrepid foodie, amazing frosty adult beverage consumer, and incredible wife and mother – Jill. I can’t tell you how excited I was when Karen sussed out that our planned June trips overlapped with Jill’s. A lot of PMs have flown across the country between the four of us and I’ve grown to adore Jill even more!
One of the most fun PMs was the one I got a couple of weeks ago, just after announcing to the boards that I’d snagged an AP rate at Port Orleans French Quarter for our first (pre-DVC) night. Jill’s parent’s had decided to come down a day later than originally planned and the extra bedroom at Jill’s AKL villa was going to be empty that night. She graciously offered it to me and Karen and we oh-so-be-yew-ti-fully accepted her kind offer. (There was much rejoicing and chair dancing, I can assure you!) We fear that our DME tags won’t have enough time to get resorted, even with the amazing help of Don at the AKL concierge, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. I’ll just bring what I need for that first night and hope DME can locate our bags with the airline claim tags.
Jill even graciously decided to switch around their night for the Pirate & Princess Party from the 31st to the 4th, when the "CLT+2" (this is how I'm going to refer to Sharon, Karen and I plus Zack and Michael) are going. That means that we can hang in the concierge lounge, swilling free African wines while I ply Maddie with sausages and teach Mary Devall my favorite card game. (It can get loud and a little violent, so I hope my “Hulk Smash” tendencies are kept in check. I wouldn’t want to alienate those adorable kids!)
I’m also hoping to see Tanya and Scott on the 31st or 1st, before the rest of her family arrives. I'm also looking forward to the second weekend when I’ll finally get to meet Danielle (and family) in person. Sharon and Tina are trying to work it out so we can hook up a bit and there may be a chance to see Robin when she dines with Carol at the Garden Grill. Everyone else, I should be seeing at the IllumiNations meet.
I do have a recent copy of the Big @$$ Spreadsheet.... Hmmmm. Wonder if the author would mind if I shared our ADRs.
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I wouldn’t want to alienate those adorable kids!)
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