Just call us Holly, Heidi and Honey - Page 15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 got a bit confused about the dessert party too. I thought you had gone back to the MK for the party until I read about the rum. The dessert part at Epcot is just during F&WF, correct?
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I got a bit confused about the dessert party too. I thought you had gone back to the MK for the party until I read about the rum. The dessert part at Epcot is just during F&WF, correct?
That's right. I think it was only held one night each week during F&WF. I do hope they continue it because it was simply wonderful!
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That's right. I think it was only held one night each week during F&WF. I do hope they continue it because it was simply wonderful!
Jill
Sounds wonderful!
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
Now I'm kicking myself for not signing up for this event!! I'm all about sugar and my DH is NOT. So it would have been a huge waste of money for him to go. I should have went solo..... Oh well. At least I got to experience it through your TR!!!!
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Great updates, loved the character shots from the MK, Ramona sure looks like she was having a great time with Tiana and company (and they looked like they were having a great time with Ramona ). The shots of the three of you and the white rabbit were wonderful. You sure got a lot done in a half a day. Glad that you were able to take in another ride on Soarin before the dessert party, what an amazing menu. Hope Maddie loved her new Webkinz, Angel just got her first signature (the leopard) and they are indeed beautiful, I wanted one for myself. Just wanted to tell you I love your new sig pic....the girls look adorable (but they always do )
We would be leaving today after a morning at Epcot, so we were up, ready, packed and in the car by 8:30. Carol got us to Epcot with no problems and I was able to use my AP for parking for the first time ever! We even got a fairly good parking space.
Ramona’s knee was still bothering her a bit so we told her that we would just go slow and do the best that we could do today. As we were walking in from the parking lot (if you’re looking at the parking lot from Epcot, we were on the far right side), I was surprised to discover that there was another bag check just on the other side of the monorail entrance side and was thrilled that no one was there.
We breezed through that and then found a very short entry line to the left. I cracked up at the people running for Soarin’ FP’s because I told Ramona that I thought they held up everyone at a point until opening time. By the time we reached Innovations, it was about 10 minutes before opening and sure enough, there was a rope up.
I had never seen this opening ceremony before so it was cute to see the characters and the countdown. Ramona didn’t know if she would be able to walk up to The Land later, but Carol and I figured we would go ahead and get FP’s just in case her pain medicine kicked in later (and we hated for her to leave without riding her favorite one last time ).
We left her on a bench and then went with the rest of humanity to The Land. It was actually amazing to watch this big sea of people in front of us. The CM’s were pretty strict about making sure that everyone stayed to the right and the crowd actually flowed fairly smoothly.
Some of the CM’s who worked in Sunshine Seasons were lined up with Mickey gloves and Stitch paws giving high fives as we came off the escalator. It was just too cute! I just knew that the FP lines would be crazy, but apparently most of the people were going to ride because the lines were only about 8 people deep. Carol and I had our FP’s in hand and were headed back out by 9:10. We picked up Ramona on the way and then headed for Norway.
After I checked us in, my name was called pretty quickly. I was surprised that they used the correct pronunciation and then we discovered that they called the “Kinney’s” and not the “Koenigs.” I should have known! A few minutes later they called my name - - with the wrong pronunciation! Now that’s more like it!
We were soon taking our picture with Belle. I don’t know why but I was so touched when I heard Ramona tell Belle in the most sincere voice “You’re so pretty.” I think that Belle was touched too.
Once seated, we ordered our drinks and then went up for the cold buffet. Our platter of hot food arrived soon afterwards and then the princesses arrived one after the next.
Both Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid seemed concerned that we should have a picture together so they both solicited servers to be the photographer. Sleeping Beauty stayed in character while hunting down a photographer, but Little Mermaid was funny and said “I’ll find someone to take our picture and I’ll be right back. MMMkay?”
When Ramona first spotted Sleeping Beauty, she remembered her from our first day and said “Oooh, there’s that crazy one.” I thought I would die laughing.
Our breakfast was so very Disney and such a fitting last meal for trip. Our FP’s were ripe by the time that breakfast was over and Ramona’s medicine had kicked in, so she was game to go on Soarin’.
We just slowed down and took our time getting there. We walked right to the front and then waited about 15 minutes before we were assigned Row 1. We picked the perfect last ride!
A family with three little boys was behind us and we had fun watching the parents manage them (that’s so much fun to do when you don’t have any children with you ). Throughout our trip, we had perfected a code word “meltdown” to alert each other when said behavior was occurring or about to occur. Then we would try to determine whether it was a “I need a nap” versus “I just can’t take it anymore” meltdown. And sometimes it was actually an adult having the meltdown!
The entire week we had saved most of our snack credits for the F&W festival. The problem was that we also had all of these CS credits that we had to use too. We knew by our last day we would have a big breakfast, but still have 3 CS credits and 9 snack credits left.
We had discussed going around the booths and each picking out 3 things that we could wrap and take with us on the road, but after seeing the caramel shop the day before we changed our plans.
Most of the F&W offerings really weren’t transportable, so we went with what we thought was a better plan. I hate that I didn’t get to try any of the offerings, but I didn’t feel as if I missed out. Nothing really screamed to me, but I would like to dedicate a day of just sampling one of these years. Oh well, I’ll have to go back!
So our plan was to pick up sandwiches to go from Sunshine Seasons which we did after riding Soarin’. Carol and I got the turkey foccacia sandwiches with chips and cookies and the CM was super nice about packing everything to go for us. Ramona got a full meal with porkchop and mashed potatoes and crème brulee, but they were still able to pack it for her.
With our lunch all packed for us, we sent Ramona with the bags to wait for us at Mousegears while Carol and I took off for Germany. A Friendship boat was about to leave for Morocco so we hopped on and took the short walk to Germany.
It was actually stressful to have to pick out 3 treats since everything looked so good. I finally decided on the caramel marshmallow roll and two chocolate dipped marshmallow sticks for the girls. Carol said that she felt overwhelmed trying to select. The CM’s were so sweet and boxed everything for us in 3 separate boxes.
We walked back to Mouse Gears although I did stop twice along the way to pick up Christmas presents. We easily found Ramona on a bench outside of Mouse Gears and then I ran in there for my final purchases: a new collar for Heidi, Mickey grippers for Thom and two vinylmations for Mary Devall. Sometimes my “wrap up” shopping trips aren’t very successful, but I came away with everything that I wanted on this one.
We headed out of the park, found Carol’s car in the lot and were soon winding our way to I-4. We stopped once at the Georgia visitor’s center for our picnic about 3 p.m. and then once again for gas and a cafe mocha at McDonalds about 6 p.m. and then made it right at 8 p.m.
Thom and the girls were at a Halloween carnival when I got home, but they were home within 30 minutes. I had ended up buying them some things at Disney and decided to try a little bit of truth on them, so I left out the Disney bags on the kitchen counter. Of course, after , their eyes immediately went to those bags.
Their eyes grew larger as they sputtered out “You went to Disney?!?” I told them that our conference had ended early so we went to Disney for a day. And they were totally fine with it. Unbelievable! About an hour later, Mary Devall did ask me why I didn’t come home early instead of going to Disney, but even she started laughing at the craziness of that question.
Over the next few days, as I began showing pictures to the girls and telling them about our trip, Thom couldn’t help but make fun of me “Mommy, you sure did do a lot of things on your one day at Disney.” I was just happy that I had found a way to share this trip with my little girls because I guess it was time they understood that sometimes even mommies need a little time at their happy place.
Up next . . . Final Thoughts!
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Last edited by Jillybean; 12-13-2010 at 10:17 AM..