You can take the girl out of Disney, BUT……… - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 up this morning and starting reading your trip report from the start. I was almost late getting my kids up and out and me to work and now I finally got caught up. Jen, you really crack me up. Despite Skip being grumpy and Claire being hungry you all have alot of energy. My DH would not have gone out for dinner that late and my Claire would have had a tantrum from not eating (and she's 13) so good for you guys. What Quality Inn did you stay in?
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Sorry for so much confusion trying to figure out the evening
s dining plans but glad a choice was finally made and that everyone was enjoying.
Sometimes we just have to take charge and tell him how it's gonna be and then he will get moving.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great dinner! Glad you had a great time!
It was a fun night!
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Originally Posted by mommapants
HDD sounds like it was a lot of fun and sleeping in is always nice after a long night.
It was a fun night, and I can't sleep in on vacation...against my religion or something.... but those two sure can. Even an extra hour helps keep the grumps away.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Great dinner and a great show!! Weird that they can't sing the Hoop Dee Doo song anymore.
It's such a shame that it they had to take it out, but if you never saw the shwo before, you wouldn't know. The knew song is good and has almost a similar tune.
Quote:
Originally Posted by patclairesmom
I got up this morning and starting reading your trip report from the start. I was almost late getting my kids up and out and me to work and now I finally got caught up. Jen, you really crack me up. Despite Skip being grumpy and Claire being hungry you all have alot of energy. My DH would not have gone out for dinner that late and my Claire would have had a tantrum from not eating (and she's 13) so good for you guys. What Quality Inn did you stay in?
Thanks so much for reading along! Luckily I did bring a thing of capri suns and a few snacks in my suitcase, so we could give hre a snack to keep her calm. Actually bringing the capri suns was a great idea, since we didn't have a "refillable mug" this time around, we could get a drink when she needed one late nights without having to look around for a vending machine.
I am on vacation and I really try to have fun and if others don't...that's their own darn fault.
Our Quality Inn was formally a Fairfield Inn. I think it had only been converted a few months before we traveled. It's on Canada Ave. It was really close to Universal too. It was pretty decent for as cheap as it was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydeva
I love Hoop De Do, but I cant bring myself to pay the increased cost. Glad you had a good time.
Skip did grumble a bit about the price. The last 2 times we went, we used the dining plan, so he didn't feel the price then. This is what we do like about Disney...the dining plan. It's all prepaid, so we don't have to think about how is this meal gonna cost. It's not right for everyone, but for us it's great. If we didn't do it, we would probably eat all CS because he would complain each time he pulled out his wallet. When on the dining plan, he brags to his buddies about how much he eats...and it's all included.
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Originally Posted by dutchdisneyfamily
Hoop de Doo is on the must on our next trip. Your description and pics are fantastic!
I'm just now signing in! I was reading along and I kept thinking, "Gosh I love how laid back and normal this family seems to be...and that little girl looks sooo familiar." Then I thought it was because she looks like a little girl whose hair I cut, then it dawned on me....THAT'S THE LITTLE GIRL FROM THE CEDAR POINT TR!!! lol I loved that TR! Your family is a breath of fresh air! Your pics are always awesome and you're not afraid to admit that pixie dust doesn't always float out of your behinds! hahaha! I can't get over how much your daughter has grown since the Cedar Point TR! Anyway...carry on. lol
thats so funny. Someone just asked me recently about Cedar Point and I gave them the link to my TR and I looked at those pictures and she does look so much younger and it was only a year ago...and she was missing her front teeth!
I know some people buttercoat their TRS like everything is perfect, but honestly it's not always that way. I tell the good the bad and the ugly. Kids get tired, Dads get grumpy and controlling moms might get a little psycho!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Sounds like a wonderful time at the Hoop-Dee-Doo.
It was fun. We always enjoy it.
Sorry I have been MIA. We had a crazy weekend with dance recital and practices, wedding shower, and cleaning up the fire damage at my parents (I wrote about that in my PTR)
I no longer have notes to go by, so I am going to wing this by memory and pictures. (I wish I would’ve taken the time to finish up those notes!!!)
I woke up fairly early again. Probably around 6:30 and got myself ready and out for a morning stroll. I came back to the room to find this. It’s hilarious how much of a bed hog that Claire is.
I think Skip got up around 7:30 or so and he said his mission this morning was to get some inserts in his shoes to hopefully make them more comfortable. He went off for breakfast and I stayed in the room. I think I woke Claire up around 8:40ish. We had a slight change in our original plans. Skip had wanted to add a Magic Kingdom day after we booked the Universal trip. We decided this would be the day we would go, but we would head to Universal first and then after half of a day there, head over to MK…that was scratched. We were now making a full day at MK. Claire got up and I got her dressed while Skip ran off to a drug store to fix his shoe problem. When he got back, we were ready. He just needed to cut his inserts to fit his shoes. Being the prepared person I am…I had a scissors packed in our bags. You will be amazed at how many times this bugger has come in handy, and it’s a must on my packing list now.
Claire was impressed with the pieces he cut off and carried them around. LOL! She held them in the car like they were gold.
Off to Mk we went. I took a few pictures on my phone as we drove.
As soon as we got there I knew it was going to be crazy busy. We were in one of the further out parking lots from the looks of it. We parked and headed to the tram.
There was some confusion about where to line up (yes there were a ton of people waiting for the tram already and some missed the previous one). A CM directed people to go further down as where we were standing was not right and you “may miss the next tram”. Skip about flung me over to the right spot. LOL> He got a dirty look from me……. He was trying to prove he knew more than I did…..good for him. I must admit, when it comes to parking at MK, I am not super knowledgeable. It’s been years since I did it…and I really don’t like driving to the parks and the trams, etc. I prefer Disney buses/transportation much better.
Well good thing Skip did direct me to the right spot because we made it on the next tram and MANY did not. There were people LOUDLY complaining about not making it on for the last 2 trams…when the CM once again announced that they were in the wrong spot.
We arrived at TTC and it was a mad house. Ok, most were running to the Monorail, but we had to get tickets yet. Since this was an add on, we decided not to pre-buy tickets beforehand …just in case we changed our minds.
Believe it or not, we weren’t the only ones who needed to buy tickets, which kind of surprised me. There were quite a few people in line. Skip and Claire got in line and I kind of walked around and found a kiosk. I didn’t even know these existed. Skip saw me looking at it and hollered back to me and asked what it was. I told him it was a kiosk to buy tickets (mind you, not one single person was using them either) and you had to use a credit card to be able to purchase here. He jumped right out of line and pulled out his card. It was pretty easy to use (though I’m not sure he would’ve been able to, LOL, he doesn’t even have an ATM card), and soon we had tickets in hand!
We headed to the monorail and the line was extremely long. I don’t know if we even looked at the ferry line or not, but I told Skip we would take the resort monorail. He was so worried we would get in trouble for doing so. I told him anyone can take it. I did also tell him that it might not be a lot faster because it makes stops, but at least we weren’t waiting in a long line. We basically walked on the resort train.
Soon we were off to the Poly. Skip was just amazed this was “legal” to do. He kept asking people if they knew this train went to the MK. It was actually kind of embarrassing. LOL!
Our next stop was the Grand Floridian. Both stops were short and sweet.
And we made it to the Magic Kingdom! YAY!!!!!
As we walked off the monorail I heard a couple with a baby stroller talking about how crowded it was. They were amazed that so many people would take their kids out of school. I kept my mouth shut, but I know TONS of people, myself included, do this regularly. This year was not one of them however. Claire had spring break that week, along with several other schools in the nation. I guess because they only had a baby they weren’t familiar with spring break happening for a month or so prior to Easter. They must’ve not done much research.
I guess I was going for artsy here…or I was lopsided.
And the clock is wrong…..we arrived at 10 AM!
It was PACKED! We could tell right away that this would be a busy day.
Claire had to go to the bathroom immediately, so Skip said he would head off to the smoking section over by the Emporium. I told him it no longer existed…How would I know that he said. Well I have been here twice now in the last year and it was gone and fast pass machines are now there. He still didn’t believe me.
I rushed Claire off to the bathroom and went looking for Skip again. I thought he might be over there since he didn’t believe me and he wasn’t. I did pick up princess FP’s though for later. I don’t remember where we found him, but we did.
The plan was to head towards Pirates of the Caribbean, which is my favorite ride…but our plans never happen the way we plan them.
Look at the ugly skrim thing going on….takes away from a beautiful view.
Trying for the balloon shot that I never get quite the way I want.
Wow, it was crowded that day. We've done the resort monorail trick on busy days as well. I'm always relieved more people don't know about it, it's a nice trick to have up your sleeve.