The First Thing you need is a Pumpkin, (and the right Princess!) Trip report. Jan26-31. - UPDATED 3/9 with more PhotoPass Pics!! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
The First Thing you need is a Pumpkin, (and the right Princess!) Trip report. Jan26-31. - UPDATED 3/9 with more PhotoPass Pics!!
Our trip begins by introducing the players, we’ll start with my lovely wife Liz, or ‘Tinker Liz’ as she is affectionately known. I bet you can guess who she enjoys seeing most when we go to Disney World. Yes, that’s right! We line up at Toontown early in the morning to be one of the first ones in to see Tink and her friends. I am Brent, husband to Tinker Liz and you will not find a bigger Cinderella fan. She is my favorite fairytale princess and her story is my favorite fairy tale. Cinderella helped me propose to Liz years ago, (but that is another trip report!) so our princess interactions are always quite special to us. The purpose of this trip is to celebrate our second anniversary. We have left the kids at home!
So without further adieu, here goes: Our flight out of Detroit was scheduled to leave at 8 am Wednesday Jan 26th at 8:00 am, so we rented a hotel room the night before at the Best Western Int’l Gateway hotel where we could leave our car and take a shuttle. For those of you who fly out of Detroit, this is a very nice hotel with an indoor pool and we had a very good experience here. It was a chilly night but there was no snow and the weather window for our flight looked very promising. We got settled in our room and went down to the pool for a swim. We met some kids by the pool heading to Disney for a school science trip. Returned to our room hopeful for a good night’s sleep but we were like the people in that Disney commercial: “I can’t sleep, can you?” So after a night of little sleep we were up and heading down to catch the shuttle, bags in hand. Made it through security without incident , and were on to the gate. Plane was there and on time so we had some breakfast at McDonalds. Back to the gate and we were almost ready to board! Is it just me or does everyone seem nicer when you go to the airport and are headed out on vacation? The flight was uneventful, and we landed on time and got our rental car without any trouble. We really don’t need a car but if we find a good deal on one, we go ahead and get it. Liz selected a little white Hyundai, and off we went to Pop! A few toll booths later we arrived. Our room was overlooking the bowling pin pool on the 4th floor. Great location! Changed into shorts, and I changed into a Cinderella shirt and were on our way to the Studios for lunch at 50’s primetime. We were seated right away, and had a nice if quick lunch. I also received my first ‘shirt compliment’. This was a light blue shirt with a picture of me with Cinderella. After lunch we set off to ride some rides. First we got a fast pass for Rock n Roller Coaster then rode Tower of Terror. It had some scaffolding work going on:
Love this ride. The line was so short we got through in time to ride again before our fastpasses were good, so we did! We then rode Rock n Roller Coaster, and while we loved the ride we quickly realized we were getting older and could only really ride this one once. Had to do my traditional pose though:
Saw the Mermaid show, (always a tear jerker. love it!) Then rode the Great Movie Ride, and saw the Muppets. Strolled around a bit and browsed in some shops and found our first photopass photographer:
We then headed back to the hotel to relax a bit, unpack and get ready for our dinner at Chef Mickeys. Had a great time here. Minnie came to our table first and made a big deal out of our anniversary:
She kissed me on the cheek and I swear I heard a smooooochhh.
The other characters came by to ham it up too:
Donald Duck came up to our table, saw my Mickey hockey jersey, gave the thumbs down and strolled on by. But then he came back for a picture:
It was a great dinner and really got us in the ‘Disney mood’. We went back to the room after our dinner and found we had a delivery from the Disney florist! It was a floral arrangement with a bottle of wine in it from our dear friend Cassie. How thoughtful! We just loved it, and it capped off a fantastic arrival day. Thanks so much, Cassie! We were really touched by this gesture.
It was off to bed for an early start at the Magic Kingdom tomorrow morning and our first encounter with Tink, and the Princesses. Just a hint of things to come: We find out what Liz’s picture in the PTR means, and I have a very uncharacteristic ‘less than graceful’ moment with the princesses. However, the day ends on a high note with a little help from the glass-slippered princess. Sighhhh is there nothing she can’t do???
Tune in soon for our next installment!!
Brent
__________________
Last edited by home4us123; 02-18-2011 at 06:14 AM..
Reason: fp523
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.
Location: Physically stuck in Michigan while my heart and soul reside in Disney.....
Posts: 2,680
Post Thanks / Like
Likes (Given): 16
Likes (Received): 11
Thanks (Given): 14
Thanks (Received): 0
Pixie Dust (Given): 0
Pixie Dust (Received): 0
Oh I am soooo excited! I just love doing our trip reports! At work but will update when I can. I am SURE I will have lots of valuable information to add about tomorrows encounter! Ya know......"the real version". LOL
Yes, what our friend, Cassie, did was amazing! Thanks again! It added so much to our visit!
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.
Location: Physically stuck in Michigan while my heart and soul reside in Disney.....
Posts: 2,680
Post Thanks / Like
Likes (Given): 16
Likes (Received): 11
Thanks (Given): 14
Thanks (Received): 0
Pixie Dust (Given): 0
Pixie Dust (Received): 0
So, Brent was hoping I wouldn't tell you the toll booth story. Ya know? Every year, its tradition, Brent pulls up to the toll booth, gets a panicked look on his face, searches everywhere for change....finally finds it and then drops it in some unretrievable spot in the car. Every trip........same thing. Brent, the toll booth doesn't change......you WILL need exact change.....you WILL drop it.....and you WILL get all frazzled and act like its my fault. At this point I am only obligated to laugh at you! LOL
BUT.....I clearly told Brent that I have way too much new material to make fun of him over in this trip report so I didn't have to tell you guys that story. There ya go honey, aren't you glad I'm not spilling the beans about the toll booth?? Whew that was a close one!
STAY TUNED for more Brent antics!
__________________
Last edited by smilechaser; 02-05-2011 at 04:52 AM..
So, Brent was hoping I wouldn't tell you the toll booth story. Ya know? Every year, its tradition, Brent pulls up to the toll booth, gets a panicked look on his face, searches everywhere for change....finally finds it and then drops it in some unretrievable spot in the car. Every trip........same thing. Brent, the toll booth doesn't change......you WILL need exact change.....you WILL drop it.....and you WILL get all frazzled and act like its my fault. At this point I am only obligated to laugh at you! LOL
BUT.....I clearly told Brent that I have way too much new material to make fun of him over in this trip report so I didn't have to tell you guys that story. There ya go honey, aren't you glad I'm not spilling the beans about the toll booth?? Whew that was a close one!
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.
About This Page: 
Had to do my traditional pose though:
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Sammi
PassPorter Guide Author
Whew that was a close one!
Linear Mode
