Just Me and My Girl ~ May 29-June 2, 2012 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Awww Liz, thanks. And you need to try CP!! I love the interaction with the characters there. When David and I went last year for my 40th b-day, they were just as attentive to me even though there were no kids with us. It was great!
That will be my next trip. The big 4-0! I am definitely putting it on my must-do list.
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What a great day at MK! Glad you guys had a great time with Kelly and her family!
Marnie! It was a pretty start to the day. And lunch was alot of fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKnott17
Great day! Sounds like a great lunch with Kelly and her family!
Other than the little pop up shower it was a super start to the day. Lunch was pretty cool too, dining with my favs Pooh and gang and the PP meet added in just made it even more special.
Quote:
Originally Posted by valegirl5292
What a great day MK especially a PP meet. Good thing you went to the other CM at Space Mountain, I know I wouldn't of kept quiet either.
Glad to know I'm not the only one who would have said something.
You know, I don't mind waiting til my time, especially if Disney wants to really enforce the rules but there was only the 2 of us and the groups I was referencing were 4 or more each, one was a group of 8. I just felt slighted a little, if they want to enforce policies then enforce them for all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
That will be my next trip. The big 4-0! I am definitely putting it on my must-do list.
I really enjoyed spending my 40th at WDW. I didn't feel all sad about the milestone and I am more than positive Disney had a lot to do with it. You'll have to let us know what you think about CP once you get out there and try it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Sounds like you had a great PassPorter lunch! Those Cast Members needed to sort themselves out over the Fastpass admissions.
Thanks Cheryl and I agree. They really need to either enforce or not but not this picky and choosy stuff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by honeybee723
Looks like a wonderful lunch/PPer meet. And what's up with the CM not following the FP guidelines? Geesh!
It was a great lunch! And I know, right? Let's just all get on the same page. Ok?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mommapants
sounds like a nice lunch. What is up with the CM and FP returns that sounds just plain stupid.
It was a very nice lunch. And the food wasn't too bad either. No one else was asked to step aside, just us. I guess two ladies aren't as intimidating as a big group of kids or mixed adults/kids. Enforce or don't enforce, just pick one and stick with it, ya know?
Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchdisneyfamily
What a great meet and fun breakfast! Crazy about SM. I'm glad you got to ride it!
Thanks! It was pretty crazy. I was glad we got to ride it to since Steph has never ridden before. We used to have a ride here kinda similar to SM and she loved it so she had been looking forward to it for awhile. She was quite disappointed when it was under refurb back in June 09.
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Thanks Laurie! Dylan loves the ladies! Kelly is going to have her hands full as the boys grow up. And you just wait til we see them again. I have some stuff to tell that's gonna make Kelly blush.
Dylan was go, go, go at lunch but within the walk to Main Street he was ready to pass out.
I'm so nervous about this conversation they had!
You got some cute pics. And that one on Main Street does look a little familiar.
It was so great seeing you again.
I'm glad Steph got to ride SM and enjoyed it.
I can't remember if you told me about Behind the Seeds, so I'll be surprised with everyone else.
Gotta remember to start reading the cruise PTR too.
Sounds like you had such a great time with Kelly and her family at CP!
Thanks Jodi, we really had a wonderful time with them and lunch. It was so good to see them again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhToodles!
I'm so nervous about this conversation they had!
You got some cute pics. And that one on Main Street does look a little familiar.
It was so great seeing you again.
I'm glad Steph got to ride SM and enjoyed it.
I can't remember if you told me about Behind the Seeds, so I'll be surprised with everyone else.
Gotta remember to start reading the cruise PTR too.
Aww Kelly, the conversation wasn't that bad. It was, however, very cute!
When I saw your PP pic of the 4 characters in the corners I laughed out loud and said Disney brains thinking alike.
Yes, please join me on the cruise report, especially since it looks like your not coming this way next year after all. Atleast you'll be able to join us in some form.
What a great time at MK, especially lunch at CP with Pooh and Gang and Kelly and Gang!
Thanks Cam! We had a wonderful time at the MK and lunch was super.
In case you aren't reading along in the cruise PTR/TR, I will apologize here too. So to leave everyone hanging for so long. We have had some ups and downs over the last few weeks and the replacement of the entire AC system in our house next week is a major one of these downs.
We did, however, attend The Lion King back on the 20th and really enjoyed it. I thought the costuming was great and the scenes were well done. The only thing that kinda was a downer and I think it may have just been me is that I thought our Mufasa was pretty plain as a performer. Not really interesting or animated. Steph didn't end up coming with us so our cousin, Debbie, took her place. We all went to dinner at Benihana's before hand. Yummy food and a good show, it was a fun night.
David and I then went to see Chicago and the Doobie Brothers at the Woodlands Pavilion on the 22nd. That was a really show. The concert went by so fast and they could've kept on playing with the amount of music between the two of them.
Anyways, without further delay a new update is a post away...
Okay, so where were we…oh yeah. We decided to leave the MK and head over to Epcot to see if there were any Behind the Seeds tours left seeing as it was already after 3pm. We hopped on the monorail at the MK and rode over to the TTC to transfer to the Epcot monorail. I riding the monorail. There I go sounding like a parrot again but I really do love riding it. I wish they had decided to build more.
Once inside the park, we bee-lined it to The Land. There weren’t any lines at the counter and the CM wasn’t helping anybody so we were able to walk right up to ask. The cast member said that there were 2 spots available on the last tour at 4:30 and how many did we have in our party. Lucky for us, it was just the two of us, sign us up! While the cast member was getting us all squared away with the name tags and receipt, I noticed the WWC donation pins and asked if I could make a donation in someone’s name here. Becca, the CM, said she would be more than happy to help me with that and so we made our donation to the WWC in Princess Stefanie's name.
Crush, the turtle (we think) towel animal we had received upon returning to our room that evening is keeping an eye on it for us.
We had just under an hour to fill before the tour started. I had heard about this new exhibit in Innoventions called “Vision House.” It just recently opened and is a mock house designed with the latest technologies and research on “green” living. We decided we’d head on over there and check it out. As we are making our way towards one of the entrances, we noticed the automatic doors kept trying to close and would immediately jerk back open. It was doing this repeatedly and constantly as we were approaching. Once we got close, we realized the reason. Thumper, or a small bunny, had found his/her way into the building and a few CMs and guests were trying to get the poor, scared thing to hop on back outside. Now, I don’t blame that bunny one iota for being in the building. It has been hot and muggy outside with all the recent rains and TS Beryl. The bunny probably just wanted a cool, dry place to hang out. Anyways, we found ourselves joining in on the effort to get the bunny back outside. Not much later, the bunny reluctantly admitted defeat and hopped on out the doors.
With the bunny back outside, we made our way over to the Vision House. The next tour group was to start in about 10 min and it lasts about 20 min so we still had plenty of time. There were some computers in the queue that had a game on it. If I remember correctly, the game consisted of a home and the object was to find things in the home that could be replaced with more efficient items or ways of doing them. We did pretty well, I think we missed 2 or 3 total. Soon it was time for the tour. I would like to take this time to apologize as we have absolutely NO for this at all. And at this point, I can’t remember the reason why there aren’t any. But since I don’t have any, I won’t go into the details about the tour. I will tell ya that the tour does cover all aspects of the home like bricking the outside for better insulation and indoor temperature control, zoning of the rooms, windows, energy efficient appliances, etc. I did find the tour interesting and pretty informative and if you’re into energy conservation and renewable resources, definitely check it out.
It was approaching 4:15 so we headed on back over to The Land. Soon we were “backstage” checking out the greenhouse. Our 1st stop was a room with some clear containers with plants and flies in them. The next set of containers had these tiny wasps and the flies in them with the plants. The wasps are the flies’ natural born killers. The process is set up to show how natural critters are used to control plant pests. Next, we were given some lady bugs to set free in the greenhouse. I thought this to be very interesting as I didn’t know it before but lady bugs hibernate when they are refrigerated (not frozen). It was pretty neat watching the lady bugs “wake up” from the cold storage. With lady bugs in hand, we moved on to the green house.
Touch-me-not plant. Can't remember its real name but its the one that the leaves close up when you touch or brush up against them.
These plants are hanging on wires and circling thru the watering system.
Vertical Gardening. I want to try and do something similar to this at home since we have a tiny little backyard.
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