2 Haunted Mansions, 1 Day (Plus Free Dining!) - Page 4 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Love the pic from the commisary. There's a hidden mickey with your catsup and mousse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by materstater
Love your TR! I think there is maybe another hidden mickey in your Le Cellar salad!
Well the catsup/mousse one was DH's idea, but I had never seen the one in the salad before - talk about pixie dust!
Quote:
Originally Posted by mcc0313
What a great day in Epcot...sorry the rain spoiled your easy access to TT. Dinner at Le Cellier looked delicious. My DD loves the Salmon there, sorry the Creme Brulee wasn't amazing for you, we have always had it on stellar days but maybe it is just luck. Hope the rain stays away for you.
It was good to learn about TT and the rain, at least - when we wnet back to WDW last month, we always knew to ride TT before the rain started!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Wow, that was one amazing day! I am so jealous that you got to see and do all that.
And that was only the day part - just wait til you see all the stuff we did that night!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Okay, only 1 hour of reading this time instead of 3 days for the honeymoon TR. I'm caught up on the reading and caught up in the TR. Love the way you write. And top-secret lounges...very .
Thanks! Grandma always said a picture is more interesting with a person acting silly in it! Oh wait, I think I might've added the "acting silly" part....
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Originally Posted by WeRDisneyFanatics
Great update. I didn't know about those lounges.
Me either! We just lucked out that Jennifaerie had an "in" with Siemens.
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Originally Posted by OhToodles!
I just all the crazy pictures you take! They're so fun. I didn't know about all those special/VIP lounges! How is that!?
Totally cool! Although the best part is just getting into them. Once you're inside, meh....
Quote:
Originally Posted by mom to 3 princesses and 1 prince
Did you hear the Michael Giacchino did the music for the new Star Trek movie? We saw the commercial during "Lost" the other day, and we were so excited to see that he did the music! He's awesome!
YES! We are SO excited for that movie, I can't even tell you...
Quote:
Originally Posted by vfair
Great update! And love the food porn!
If there isn't a "food porn" thread on the PassPorter Boards yet, there should be....
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Originally Posted by travismom
Fantastic update, Carrie!!
Can't wait for more!
Coming right up!
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsteiny23
Okay, only 1 hour of reading this time instead of 3 days for the honeymoon TR. I'm caught up on the reading and caught up in the TR. Love the way you write. And top-secret lounges...!
Thanks! Hopefully this next installment will be a quick read for ya!
We walked down to the Friendship Boat dock and waited around for someone to decide they weren’t going to sue Disney because they tripped disembarking the boat, and then we were headed back to DHS. The plan was to get off the boat, get our car, and head for the Adventurer’s Club at Downtown Disney. But then I decided I wanted to see if Hollywood Hills Amphitheatre was open so I could take pictures of the Fantasmic! dessert party location for my buddies on the wedding boards.
I forgot to put this part earlier, but when we were at DHS that morning, I decided one of us needed to sneak behind the roped off entrance to the amphitheatre on Sunset Blvd. and run into the closed theater to take these pictures. The way DH tells it, one minute we were standing by the rope talking about whether he was brave enough to duck under it and then next time he looked my way I was sprinting up the path. Unfortunately, my spy mission came to an abrupt end 10 feet later when I ran into the big honkin’ gate around the bend. D’oh!
So, cut to that evening and we decide to make a banzai run back into DHS to try to get those pictures. Except something funny happened – we discovered that Hollywood Studios is MUCH nicer at night! For one thing, there’s no sun beating down on you and heating up the huge expanses of asphalt….We found ourselves meandering around Echo Park Lake just looking at the pretty lights and taking pictures of buildings like these.
It was almost – dare I say it, romantic! As we strolled down Sunset Blvd. toward the amphitheatre, they were playing a big band tune, so we stopped and did a little swing dance in the street. When we got to the amphitheatre I learned just how far I’d been from the actual seating area when I hit the gate that morning – the path just goes on and on! The CMs were funneling people off to the left, but we ducked out of the crowd to find the patios where they hold Fantasmic! dessert parties.
I forgot it would be DARK out – we got one pathetic shot:
”Hold your glamorous wedding dessert party near our fabulous green trash can and wheelchair!”
And then another funny thing happened: I heard myself saying that since we were there, we might as well stay for the show. Me! Ms. “Disneyland’s Fantasmic! Is Way Better So Why Bother?”! Fantasmic! is DH’s thing more than mine, and I could tell he wanted to see it even though he wasn’t letting on. We got really great seats about, oh, six rows up and just to the left of the section they reserve for the dinner package people. I think it’s cuz it was starting to rain so not as many people ventured out for the show. Actually, I’d heard Fantasmic! has a much higher rate of cancellation due to weather than IllumiNations, but that night they performed it through rain. The lady next to us told us to sit on one of our ponchos – good idea!
And Fantasmic! was great! The stuff on the island is WAY closer than at Disneyland, so it’s much more impressive. Of course they have a fakey steamboat instead of our real one, and no Columbia Sailing Ship or swinging pirates, but I think the Florida version makes up for it in other ways.
Picture from a real camera…
Picture from an iPhone!
It’s still prolly my least favorite pyro show at the Disney parks (the creepy neon monkeys are a dealbreaker for me), but I enjoyed it a lot more than I ever have. Maybe now that ours has its new mist screens I’ll check it out again at Disneyland.
After the show we shuffled out to our car and then headed for Pleasure Island to wave goodbye (or, in our case, hello and then goodbye) to the clubs, since it was their last week of operation! (Now that it’s closed, I don’t know what we’ll do for fun when we want a bleary-eyed night out after an exhausting day in the parks!)
Our goal was to hit every single club so we could say we’d seen them before they closed. First up, Adventurer’s Club!
DH loved the theming. He took a panoramic picture of the view from above (but it isn’t stitched together yet, so all you get is this):
We would have felt like AC newbies any time, but that night we felt even MORE out of place because, of course, the club was packed with diehard fans paying their last respects (this was the Monday before it closed). Our first show was the one in the Mask Room.
It’s an amazing place – we couldn’t get any good pix cuz it was so dark. Apparently a bunch of the masks are from Imagineer Joe Rhode’s personal collection. But not these guys... our hosts… my tormentors…!
The Maid came in and hosted the show with the two masks, Arnie and Claude. They made jokes about people in the room depending which mask they were sitting under, and, lucky me, I was under the “fertility” mask. That meant we got a lot of wisecracks about what a hot number I was (whohoo!) and what on earth I was doing with DH. They didn’t like his shirt. And they thought I should shack up with them. Classy!
I felt kinda guilty that I got to be part of that skit when there were probably a bunch of other longtime fans in the Mask Room who would have appreciated it more. Little did I know I was soon to feel REALLY guilty. The next major show in the main room, The Library (she types, cribbing from Wikipedia), was the Radiothon. We were jammed against the doors waiting to be let in, so we got to go all the way down front and picked some seats in the first row, in front of the cool organ.
OK, you can have a really dark pic of the organ…
…or a really blitzed-out one, but you can’t have a good one!
I love Samantha Sterling’s costume!
I guess the Radiothon is a mock fundraiser for the club (how ironic – and how cool that on the last night the conclusion was that the Radiothon had failed to raise enough money, hence the club’s closure!). This is about when we realized that we just weren’t that into the Adventurer’s Club. LOVE the concept, love the décor. Get that it’s supposed to be wacky and zany and kooky and possibly funny in its unfunnyness. But just didn’t fall for the style of humor. Maybe it’s better if you’re drinking? At any rate, I felt very guilty about that, and I felt very weird sitting in the front row because we got a lot of attention that by rights should have been directed at the real AC fans (e.g., the Maid did a fan/lap dance for DH). Who knows – the performers were probably picking on us because we weren’t that into it.
Toward the end of the show, Hathaway Brown came up to croon a sappy tune. I remember reading in one person’s trip reportsthat she and her friend have a favorite Hathaway Brown. I don’t know if this was him, but I did get that he is supposed to be a Big Deal (if only in his own mind!).
So when he started serenading ME, I got a little, well, swoony! And then when he grabbed my hand, pulled me onstage and held me close, suddenly I BELIEVED in the AC! Hallelujah!!!
I was, of course, very embarrassed to be the center of attention, so I hammed it up by batting my eyelashes, raising my hand to my brow, and sighing dramatically…
And then the show was over. We funneled out past the bathrooms and back around to the Main Salon, where I was promptly spotted by DISer rpmdfw (Rob)!
It was really fun to meet him and Scott in person -- and in their natural habitat! Not only are they HUGE Adventurer’s Club fans, but they actually met there, and they held their commitment ceremony at the club six days later!
Moments later, DISer Tinkflash stepped over and introduced herself! It was so much fun! I really love that sense of community fostered by the Disney fan sites – and that no matter where you go at Disney, you’re bound to know someone else there!
DH and I decided we’d better get going if we were to see all the clubs on Pleasure Island that night. But the AC had one more surprise in store for us…. As we circled the upper lobby and headed toward the exit, a door opened behind us and the Butler stepped out to deliver to me a letter from Hathaway Brown! I don’t know how they managed it – pretty dang impressive!
It was actually addressed to Miss Weggie Wishmeyer. Perhaps the Adventurer’s Club aficionados among you can tell me the backstory there… or what this letter is about:
My dearest Weggie,
I hope this finds you at the Club. Graves has always been good about getting my mail out. I would have written sooner, but I cracked the wing spars on the Gypsy Moth when I ran into a freight train.
You’ll probably laugh, but I’m going to tell a little story on myself: I had just run out of fuel at 15,000 ft. Normally, I’d just glide until I found a clearing, but not this time! I decided to try and make Cleveland (another 800 miles). Well, the joke was on me! First, I hit a fog bank, then I hit the train. But I only missed Cleveland by fifteen hundred feet! I’ll be fine when the hand heals.
My only disappointment is that in an effort to gain altitude, I threw out all my food, water, and cologne overboard, but I refused to let go of the kimono I bought you in Hong Kong. I guess the additional weight was just too much. Sorry, I don’t think the bloodstains will come out.
Anyway, I’ll have the Moth back in shape as soon as I do a little welding with my lighter.
Remember—pookie bear needs cuddlewinks.
Higher and faster,
Hathaway
Then we were off to check out the other happenin’ clubs of Pleasure Island… and discovered there were no other happenin’ clubs!
First stop, BET Soundstage… which was completely empty! I’m not using hyperbole here, we were literally the only two people in the building. I couldn’t even find a bartender or a DJ!
No flash…
…no people!
We took the opportunity to stand in the center of the club and shake our booties to hip-hop, and then we shook a leg on outta there! I felt like apologizing to the security guard for leaving after only 5 minutes…
Next we tried the Comedy Warehouse, but we didn’t feel like waiting out front (by ourselves – there was no line) for the next show to start.
Off we went to 8TRAX!
There were maybe 20 people on the dance floor. I’m sure it’s a fun place to party, but (much as I love it) ‘80s music just isn’t that interesting to dance to!
Next stop: Motion!
It was HUGE inside, which only made it sadder that there were just 6 people on the dance floor.
At that point I realized that our ultimate destination – Ghirardelli – might not be open much longer, so I used the handy dandy GPS on my iPhone to get me a phone number. They said they were closing in FOUR MINUTES! We ran like we’d never run before, out of Pleasure Island, across the bridge, and through the Marketplace, finally collapsing in a heap at the feet of a bewildered Ghirardelli cashier and gasping out our order.
Strawberry ice cream with pineapple topping and a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Sundae, please!
My iPhone ate this picture
Elastigirl ate this sundae
Once we’d shut down Ghirardelli, we ambled back over to Pleasure Island to take in the last club: Mannequins.
People say this place was the best club on Pleasure Island…
...I will have to take their word for it!
Finally we staggered out into the night, 18 hours after we’d started the Busiest Day at Disney EVER….
Farewell, Pleasure Island – we hardly knew ye…
Up next: Magic Kingdom! Sara Lee Podium Cake! And the Revenge of Free Dessert!!!
Uh oh . . . I'm a little worried about the next installment . . . but those empty clubs show exactly why PI is now no more . . . I think they were empty an awful lot.
I'm glad you got to experience Pleasure Island before it closed - what a great time you had at the Adventurers' Club, but how sad to see the clubs so empty.
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I am so jealous that you got to see and do all that. 
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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