It’s Always Sunny in California!..Eh?...L’il Bit! - Page 13 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Love all the pics you took of the resort. I stayedf at the Grand Californian during my one trip to Disneyland. It is a beautiful resort. Love your description of Death trap for the ferris wheel cars that slide, though I did love those cars
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I am laughing at the death traps. Your lunch looked great. Good to know about getting walk ups, though I don't think I'd risk it with a few of them like Blue Bayou. What beautiful weather you are having!
Isn't that direct entrance from the park to GC great? It's as close as you can get to actually staying IN the park!
I'm glad the resort made such a great first impression. I walked through quickly on my last trip and really should have taken the time to wander around a bit.
I hope you get your packets (and tickets) soon!
It is so awesome how close it is. I can only imagine if WDW had one like that. That place would be sold out all the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FanOfMickey
Love all the pics you took of the resort. I stayedf at the Grand Californian during my one trip to Disneyland. It is a beautiful resort. Love your description of Death trap for the ferris wheel cars that slide, though I did love those cars
All ferris wheels are death traps! Even stationary cars....you can just plummet to your death at any moment!
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Wow, it really was empty in Storyteller's Cafe! I hope you get your packets (and tickets) in time for Early Entry the next day!
It was very empty. This totally blew me away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
It's so cool to just be able to walk through into the park from the Grand Californian, isn't it?
You must try and ride the trolleys the next time you're out there - I really enjoyed those.
It is so wonderful to be that close. It really spoils you too.
I do plan to ride a trolley next time. They were just so darn cute.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchdisneyfamily
I am laughing at the death traps. Your lunch looked great. Good to know about getting walk ups, though I don't think I'd risk it with a few of them like Blue Bayou. What beautiful weather you are having!
You are right, there are certain restaurants and times you want to make a reservation. We had a few made before the trip and then tried to walk up to one one evening and they couldn't get us in for an hour or so, so we did quick service that night. I have a better grip now on which ones to book ahead of time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mommapants
I went on one of those Wild Mouse rides at the boardwalk near my home last summer - OMG it is way more jerky then I remember as a kid
Yes, I think my bones no longer go with the flow of those rides like they did when I was little.
Princess Sofia was out and I took a quick picture on the way by.
Hey! Look who is in the streetcar!
Our destination is just ahead.
Actually we were just getting Fastpasses. Oh how I wish WDW still had the paper FP’s. I am already dreading how it will work on my upcoming trip with magic bands. (and now that I am back, let’s just say the whole My Disney Experience at WDW was much WORSE than I even imagined…not a fan at all)
After getting our passes, we still had some time to kill, so we went this way.
I tried to get this window shot, but I got a lot of reflection instead.
This was on the wall as we entered and I got a terrible shot of it.
We went in here to see something Cass wanted to look at and we came into this room….. I was not expecting this. It was really neat in here.
Cass had a mission. She wanted to see the Zoetrope.
This thing was so cool and pictures can NOT show how it works. I found this youtube video and it explains what a zoetrope is and at the end it shows this one in motion. Basically with strobe lights, it plays tricks on your brain and makes it look like everything is in motion. Cass tried to take video of it and it didn’t turn out right. I have seen some on youtube by others, but again, they can’t capture what you actually see. I strongly suggest you watch the youtube video to understand and see it. (it’s only 2 minutes)
I can't believe how much cool stuff I missed at CA. We really didn't spend enough time there on our park hoppers (that's why I'm opting against PH for my next trip.) I missed the Zoetrope (I've seen them, they are neat-o, and actually I think the first form of animation, though i'm no expert). We also missed TT, which I'm going to see in Epcot, on the benches, apparently. Keep the entries coming, I'm learning stuff!
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I much prefer Turtle Talk at Disneyland with the seats. Talking of comparisons, sorry you had such a bad time with the Magic Bands.
Yes, the seats are nice.
I sadly am still not a fan of the new MDE and bands....but hopefully things will get better.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KimmyAnn1147
I can't believe how much cool stuff I missed at CA. We really didn't spend enough time there on our park hoppers (that's why I'm opting against PH for my next trip.) I missed the Zoetrope (I've seen them, they are neat-o, and actually I think the first form of animation, though i'm no expert). We also missed TT, which I'm going to see in Epcot, on the benches, apparently. Keep the entries coming, I'm learning stuff!
There is so much neat stuff there. I know I still missed a lot and of course I need to go back!
Quote:
Originally Posted by FanOfMickey
I also like Disneylands Turtle talk with the seats.
It's nice!
Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchdisneyfamily
Good to know about Turtle Talk. I love all the details you are getting.
After we had fun with Crush we headed out and I noticed there was an area down some stairs so we decided to take a look that way. This area was really cool and I am not sure how to describe it, but it had stations of interactive stuff and Cass and I both thought our girls would love this area.
The next room we came to was Beast’s library. Very cool! I am not sure when this was made, but it had some similar things to what the new Fantasyland has in WDW. I had never heard about this area at all. Again it did have some interactive things in there as well.
A really bad picture of me from my phone.
We left that area and went to the next room. I have no clue what this next picture is of.
Again, more interactive things in here and I played with one.
We did some sing along thing and Cass and I both did the practice run of singing Hi Ho…and then when it came time to do the real deal…..Cass became completely quiet…..that stinker!
They then played back what you sang……let’s just say I won’t be winning any awards anytime soon.
Here is another picture I took, but again, no clue what it is or why I took it.
And then we headed back outside.
I believe we went through a dump shop once again.
And we did browse a bit. I found a lot of things I wanted to buy this trip, but I just didn’t want to pay what the price tags showed for them.
It was now time to head to Tower of Terror.
It is similar inside, but a bit different.
When we came to the boiler room, it was very different and there were 2 levels and we went upstairs.
Soon we were in our seats and I knew this was different than WDW. I knew we didn’t get pushed out in the hall like the WDW version does. I am trying to remember how it exactly worked, but we went up so far and then doors opened.
I believe we then went up some more and the doors opened again and more of the story was told/showed…..and then BAM! We are dropping. I knew to expect it yet I didn’t. I was laughing so hard and we were going up and down and up and down. I think this went more than any WDW version I have done. Oh…and this one has just one set version, it doesn’t randomly select a drop sequence like at WDW. We were squealing and laughing so much. When we got off we went to look at our picture. I had to crack up again, as of course Cass has the cool pose going on and I look like I am about to wet my pants.
So you will go on the Tower of Terror death trap, but not the Ferris wheel. Funny! That is a need kind of hidden area you have stumbled across. I haven't seen that before.
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