No kids this time -it's like date-night X 7! - UPDATED 8/22 - Page 6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I just found and caught up with this lively and interesting trip report, Susan. I know you're incredibly busy and really appreciate you taking the time to write a trip report. I'm enjoying myself vicariously and looking forward to reading more. Good luck to Chris on the job possibility; that would be awesome!
Sharon
First of all, thanks to everyone who has posted along the way. I just looked back at all the pages and this has been a lot of fun for me and really great that you are peeking in. Thanks guys!
I have to note here that if you plan to do a TR, either git 'er done, as they say, as soon as you can or take great notes....since I did neither, I got myself mixed up. Especially after as many trips as we have taken recently, they sort of start to blend together and I was thinking of dates and realized I had done something wrong. What finally saved my bacon, was that I save all my receipts in the bedside table in the room and then I throw them into my suitcase before we leave. It'sa little habit I picked up because I read in my Passporter that sometimes the computer can goof up the number of dining plan credits left on your account, so if I have all my receipts then I can always trace back where the mix-up happened. I'm happy to say that has never happened. Anyway, I put the dates in order and realized I had just days in my TR out of place which was confusing me (okay, that's not really hard to do) Anyway, it doesn't matter to you because you weren't there and it obviously won't matter to me, because in a few months I won't remember either
Allright, for anyone who has been in suspense…holding their breath….couldn’t wait to find out – did Chris get the job????
We awoke and he called the number at 8am and the answer was YES! The bad news was that it would mean full-time work for both of us over the summer while we are at our busiest at the B&B, but we were pretty sure we could figure it out. The good news is that he is now the tavern keeper at Upper Canada Village – a wonderful 1860s working village here in Ontario. I’ll attach a photograph of DH in his tavern keeper’s uniform (still haven’t found the time to figure out how to include them in the body of the post, but thumbnails work for me, so I’m stickin’ to it!) His first day should actually have been the Saturday we were away, but they knew when they interviewed him that he would be late starting and they chose him anyway out of hundreds of applicants, so it was a big relief.
An interesting bit of trivia here: we moved from our native Ottawa to a little border town on the St Lawrence River five years ago. I commuted 80 kms (approx 45 miles) for 3 years back to my job in Ottawa. I heard about my current job as program director at an adult recreation centre that is located almost directly across the street from our house and couldn’t believe my luck. I was chosen for an interview and then a few things happened to delay a response from the town and we ended up leaving for our planned trip to WDW with the kids and Gramma in the fall of 2008. Halfway through that trip I got the call I had been waiting for – I got the job!! Perhaps there is some employment magic happening at Pop Century? If anyone is looking for a job AND needs an excuse to go to WDW – here it is! Do an interview and then get your butt to Pop Century and see if you get the job!
So, needless to say, we started the day in very good spirits. After a quick call home to gramma and the kids to tell them the good news, we were heading into the Magic Kingdom. We enjoyed the early morning hours in a quiet Frontierland and had a fun moment. I’d gone in to Pecos Bill to get an iced tea just after it opened and was chatting with an older cast member who had been laid off from GM and moved his family to Orlando to live out his dream of working at WDW. I told him the news we had received that morning and we empathised about how tough times are and how lucky we both were to have found jobs and then parted. At lunchtime we decided to head for the fixin’s bar and ended up being served by the same man at the counter. He recognized me and said “Now this must be the lucky man!” He called over another older man and told him about DH’s job and this is where we slid into the twilight zone for a moment or two. ...
doo doo doo doo..doo doo doo doo...imagine, if you will......
The two men agreed that DH should be deputized because of his good work and the second one whipped out a horse puppet to do the honours! I had tears in my eyes from holding back the mad giggles….it all would have been utterly charming to have a horse puppet wielded by a gray haired gentleman who (in a very bad horsey voice) presented my 45 yr old husband with a plastic star and proclaimed him an honorary deputy – if he had been a little boy, that is!
We managed to pick up our food and bid farewell to the two intrepid cowboys without completely breaking down, but we howled at our table! We had a great day wandering around Frontierland and Fantasyland and then we hopped a bus over to AKL to explore that a bit. There's a lot of eye candy and we enjoyed the visit, then headed back in for our dinner at Crystal Palace which I already told you about because I'm all confused. It was awesome (yes, even the second time) and I'll try to sort out what I might have missed so I can wrap this up, 'cuz one way or the other we must be getting close to the end of our week! It's taken me so long to get this TR done, I may end up back to WDW before I am finished. Who do I think I am? PSha??
I've attached my obligatory photo of Pecos Bill's home of the wildest fixin's bar in the wilderness and henceforth to be known as the place where DH was deputized...by a horse puppet...
I'll have to attach the photo of him in his uniform tomorrow - everyone's in bed and I don't know how to get pictures off the camera and on to the computer
I know! Sometimes people just don't get our addiction to Disney, but tell me - where else in the world would that happen?? And in an alcohol-free setting??
We just LOVE that about WDW!
The star, in all it's plastic glory, is sitting on our dresser and it still never fails to make me smile when I notice it. Imagine....my husband...a Frontierland deputy!
Eat your heart out Cindy! You may have Prince Charming, but me...I've got Deputy Chris!
The first 2 pictures are in our driveway in his full uniform and the third is at work in the tavern. It's a very cool place to visit but, unlike WDW, they don't believe that A/C is authentic and it would spoil the 1860 vibe, so when it was 90 degrees this summer, the poor staff were just wilting under all those layers of clothes.
He even kind of looks "deputy"ish in the second picture, don't you think?
The last photo is one of the flyers up on the walls in the tavern taken from the year of Abe Lincoln's death offering a reward for his murderer's capture since "Upper Canada" as Ontario was known then was so close to the border
You know come to think of it, I interviewed for a job the day before I left for Disney World in July we stayed at Pop Century and when we got back I was offered that job, but I had already taken another job so, I didn't take it.
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You know come to think of it, I interviewed for a job the day before I left for Disney World in July we stayed at Pop Century and when we got back I was offered that job, but I had already taken another job so, I didn't take it.