This isn't REALLY Philly and Alicia's Last Dance Competition Trip Report - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
So we are all in our jammies and relaxing in front of the TV around 9:30 pm just about ready to hit the sack and the rest of the crew get back from NYC. Everyone shares a bit about their day and the girls get all wound up! The girls have to dance again tomorrow, but they are crazy wired. Since Alicia’s solo placed and her duos placed she also needs to film “bumpers” for the dvd they put out of the final showcase (top finalists). They have to be there at 8 am dressed and ready to go. She is feeling yucky again, but not nearly as bad as yesterday, but can’t seem to settle down. I am kicking myself thinking we over did it by going to the zoo! I should have made her just stay at the hotel and rest! Of course that would have just made her stir crazy, so there is just no winning! We finally manage to get the girls off to bed, but I think the mom’s are more tired than the dancers! Six thirty am roles around too early for my liking, but out of bed I roll, quick shower, breakfast and off we go!
We get through the even faster costume changes for bumper filming and sit around and wait. There were all the mini groups, large groups and productions and our older girls had only two dances. They did one of their two numbers and had only their production number left. Since it is a small studio, the studio owner likes to incorporate all the “company” dancers into the producion number. It can be a challenge mixing eight year olds with eighteen year olds, but she makes it work! This year it was a medley of 50’s music themed around “Happy Days” with Alicia as the center of attention. She was a GEEK (which she actually IS!) boy that is turned into a cool guy by the end. It was really cute! Here she is being geeky with one of the younger girls that she also used to teach.
The schedule had the dancers taking a lunch break and then a dance class, and then returning for productions before final awards. The competition people asked if our production group could go early but unfortunately some of the girls were gone for lunch. Little did we know we were the only group left to dance!! So after lunch they did the class – which is always a blast, but Alicia still sat out as she was still feeling pretty whipped – and Maggie opted out of because she was starting to not feel well. When the hour long class was over they had “One more dance of the competition” before awards! It was sort of weird being the studio with the last dance, but the girls put on a great show!! Alicia is ALWAYS hysterical when she comes out looking all geeky and acting dorky! She really is a ham on that stage! Of course it helps that she is a good dancer too, so when it looks like “HE” doesn’t know what “HE” is doing the judges know SHE really does know what SHE is doing! It was a crowd pleaser! Everyone was happy to be done dancing and ready for the final award ceremony, and ahead of schedule! Some of the people were going to be driving home that night! But we weren’t out of the woods yet! If the groups scored in the top 5 over all for small or large groups, they would then be competing AGAIN in the showcase for the cash prize. Since Maggie was feeling sick she slept through the awards. We had to give her the news about their scores and whether or not they made showcase after it was over.
As much as you would like to see your child do well and be a winner, sometimes you would also just like to go home. Ok I know that is not very nice, but it is how I felt. I know they danced well, but it is not always about the prize! Here is the run down of how they scored: The highest you can score is Platinum (within 4 points of a perfect score!) then High Gold, Gold, High Silver, Silver, High Bronze, Bronze, Honorable Mention (but everyone usually always gets at least a Silver!) They scored all High Golds and a Platinum for their production “Happy Days”! Way to go Girls and Geek! They also had highest scoring production!
The following dances made it into the showcase (YAY…UGH….YAY….ugh…yay...ugh). Ballet (My Heart Will Go On), Jazz (Footloose – Go Skittles), and Modern (American Beauty) WHAT?! We were ALL SHOCKED by that one! They also break down this part of the competition by age category, but not by style catagoy. OUR girls had 3 out of 5 in the top five for Teen category!!! We also had 2 in the top 5 for the junior category! Go DMX!
The Junior girls took 2nd and 4th place over all for Junior Small Groups! And Alicia’s group… drum roll please……..
4th place over all American Beauty
2nd place over all Footloose and
1st place over all for Teen Small Groups My Heart Will Go On!
I am SO EXCITED that their BALLET dance WON FIRST PLACE OVER ALL!!! For all you non dance people you might say ok that’s nice, but what’s the big deal? But for anyone who knows dance, you know that a high score in ballet (due to technique) is a BIG deal. And these girls not only look beautiful on stage they have great technique! Thank You Dance Teacher!!! So as painful as it was to have to stay and recompete the dances again – The dances were being filmed, so it was being treated like a live TV show. They literally danced one number and had ONE number to change and be on stage ready to dance again. They did that for 3 dances! - it was worth it in the end! The girls were exhausted and over joyed! The downside…. Who was going to carry home those trophies?
The Skittles…
Last edited by tinker_me_happy; 07-09-2008 at 09:18 AM..
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Congrats to them - they did really well! It sounds like the rest of the day went really well at the zoo, you did well dodging the weather and I loved the staring contest with the tortoise.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Well, Thankfully One of the Dad's had his trusty leatherman type tooly thing and took those lovely trophies apart and brought them back to central MA in his truck! The girls all had a great time, though we would have liked to have seen more of Philly. I did get to see the stairs Rocky ran up! And a couple of statues!! And of course America's first Zoo was great... but then again I like that sort of thing - I am truly a six year old inside !
Glad that you got to see the Art Museum steps (did you see the Rocky statue off to the right of the steps at the bottom?)
Hope you get another chance to see Philadelphia soon!
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Linear Mode
