Eight is Enough - A July 2014 TR with cousins, club level and more Updated 3/29 DHS and Frozen Fun - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Aside from the scare with your cell phone, it sounds like a pretty uneventful trip down to Florida. Nothing is better than passing under the WDW arch!!
Close call on the phone! I tell you what I love about all the photos is all the happy, smiling faces - you can tell how excited everyone was to be going to Disney!
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Oh gosh, I would have been in a panic about my phone too, definitely not a great way to start vacation. Glad you were able to get it back in time to get on the shuttle. Weird about the family behind you rolling their eyes as you waited for the shuttle, I probably would have made some comments loud enough for them to hear if I saw that.
Signing in. Sounds like a great start so far. I love how you all have matching shirts on. I'm trying to get my family to do something like that for our next trip, but I've been told no so far.
Warning… This will be a short update, but I think I will be more likely to finish this report if I squeeze in regular short updates, instead of waiting until I have time for long updates. Hope you don't mind.
I’m not sure exactly what time we arrived at Kidani, but I think it was around 10:30. Both of our families had taken advantage of online check-in as soon as it was available. My sister’s room was ready (they had a savannah view studio). Our room wasn’t ready yet (we had a standard view studio, but had requested something near the lobby). The nice lady who checked us in told us there was a room almost directly above my sister’s that was ready, but it wasn’t very close to the lobby. We decided to take that room and get settled rather than wait for our request. The room we got was on the fourth floor in the Rafiki building. It was room 7829 and I think my sister's was 7728. We went to our rooms to get ready for lunch. The kids really wanted to go swimming, but I knew if we didn’t get lunch now, we would never get them out of the pool. On the way to lunch, we looked around our resort briefly.
Here are some pictures of the resort and of our room:
After looking around for a bit, we headed to The Mara over at Jambo house. I’ve heard there’s a shuttle from Kidani to Jambo, but I never did see it. Anyone? Instead, we hopped on the first park bus we saw. Just as we were told, the bus stopped at Jambo to pick up more people, but not before we hopped out.
This was our first time without the dining plan, and I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about how it would all work out in the end. I found myself not wanting to eat in order to save money and that’s exactly what I told myself I wouldn’t do.
Anyway, I really wasn’t that hungry yet, so I decided to share chicken nuggets with the boys. I got them each an adult size order of nuggets instead of a kids’ meal for Aidan . I believe each platter came with 8 nuggets and fries. I knew there would at least be a couple of leftover nuggets, which is exactly what I ended up eating. DH got the Angus bacon cheeseburger.
chicken nuggets and fries
angus bacon cheeseburger and fries
Throughout the trip, I tried taking pictures of everyone's food as much as I could, but sometimes it proved to be too much work. This was our first meal and everyone still had enough patience to wait for my pictures
My BIL got the African stew, which he absolutely loved.
Shea got a chicken nugget kids meal (oops no picture).
Brianna got a Chicken Caesar salad.
DSis got a special allergy plate since she is allergic to garlic. I don't remember exactly what she got, but judging by the picture, it was some kind of chicken with asparagus.
I got 3 refillable mugs (DH and I shared) and 2 cookies for all the kids to share.
We really enjoyed our meal at The Mara and were glad we got to eat there again.
For those of you that are interested, I will try and find all of our food receipts and upload them later.
It was now time to head back to Kidani, but we decided to walk and work off some of our food.
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Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
I would have been freaking too, man how did we survive before cell phones 
! 
PassPorter Guide Author
I tell you what I love about all the photos is all the happy, smiling faces - you can tell how excited everyone was to be going to Disney! 
Holly: 
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Liz 
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