Ditching the Hubbies for Mousefest - Final Thoughts COMPLETED 3/4/08 - Page 16 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day 5, Part 1: Some Shopping and Finally Seeing the AK Parade
Some Shopping and Finally Seeing the AK Parade!!
I apologize now as some of the details of this trip are not as clear as they once were and my notes kind of died off by this point in the trip.
We slept in a bit and then got ready as we planned to head to DTD for some shopping as this would be the only time we would have to spend there. We had three stops that had to be made: Wonderful World of Memories, the Pin Shop, and World of Disney. We grabbed the bus and were dropped off within minutes.
First stop was Wonderful World of Memories. We were both on the look out for a Holiday themed scrapbook for this trip and had been disappointed thus far in our search. Unfortunately, this store didn’t have anything that was a must buy so we wandered through the Art of Disney store that is hooked to it and said we would take the whole store. We did look for the “Vision” poster for Tiff that I had purchased via eBay, but they were out of it.
We made our way to the Pin shop to look for some DVC and AP pins for Tiff to get her DH. She was able to find some and made the purchases while I looked to see if they had any new Eeyore pins that needed a new home. Fortunately, nothing new on my end. We headed over to WoD next. Once inside, we set a time to meet up and off we went. Like many others have said, there was really nothing outstanding that was a must buy. I picked up a Mickey polo as it was on sale for 30% off and a MK magnet. I found Tiff in the scrapbooking supplies and we were both disappointed again about not finding a holiday themed book. We ended up asking a CM and she said she had seen some and thought we should try the Christmas shop. Well, that made sense! Tiff picked up a t-shirt if I remember correctly. We made our purchases and off we went to the Christmas store.
We walked in and made it through ¾ of the store before we both spotted the scrapbook. It was the fastest $25 spent on this trip. Now that we had our scrapbook album for the trip, our shopping was complete. We went out to the bus stops and waited patiently. We then encountered a rather grumpy gus waiting on a bus for the Contemporary. Apparently, they had been waiting close to 30 minutes and still no bus. Every bus that showed up, he was asking the bus driver when “his” bus was going to arrive. Having been on the receiving end of long bus waits, I felt for the guy but also thought he was quite annoying. Our bus arrived within 10 minutes and we were headed back to SSR.
After dropping our packages off in the room, we went right back out to the bus stops to grab one for Animal Kingdom. Prior to the trip, I told Tiff that I had never seen the parade at AK in all my trips, so this became a must do. Now the parade was still a ways off but we found ways to occupy our time. We arrived at AK and took the opportunity to get our picture in front of the AK Christmas. After traveling from the Oasis, we got the traditional picture in front of the Tree of Life.
We both wanted to make sure and see Festival of the Lion King, so we headed over to Camp Minnie-Mickey. Along the way, we ran into Stitch in his holiday shirt Here’s Tiff’s picture but I mine turned out horrible so I deleted it from my PhotoPzss CD. The photographer seemed to get more shots of my behind then me and Stitch. Anywho…we headed on back to FOTLK and got in line. While we were waiting, I texted Eileen to let her know that Tiff and I were in AK and if they were in the park to let us know.
We waited about 20 minutes before we were allowed into the theater. Tiff and I were in the Lion section (roooooaaarrr). I never have taken pictures of this show as they never came out but was hoping my primo camera would help this time around. As always, this show is spectacular, and it never gets old.
After the show let out, we headed over to see if the lines for the characters were too bad. Donald’s line was rather short so we meandered up that line for some time with the #1 duck.
After visiting the duck we saw Karen and Eileen wandering around the area and taking pictures of the character Christmas trees that I never noticed prior to this trip. We chatted with them for a bit as they were getting ready to go see FOTLK as well. We made plans to meet up near Pizzafari for the parade and went our separate ways. Tiff and I decided to try one more character line. Mickey and Minnie’s lines were outrageous, but Goofy had just come out so the line was short. Guess who we went with??
Tiff and I headed out of Camp Minnie-Mickey and wandered around a bit. We ran into Terk along the way and just had to stop.
After that impromptu meet, we headed toward Pizzafari to find a spot for the parade and grab a little snack. I sent a text to Karen/Eileen and let them know where we were sitting so when the show was over they could head our way. Tiff and I made ourselves at home on the ground. I went and grabbed a Coke for me and a Mickey ice cream sandwich for Tiff.
2/3 of the CLT arrived at our resting spot and the parade began shortly after. Since this was the first time I have ever seen this parade, there are tons of pictures.
So…after the photo frenzy of Mickey’s Jingle Jammin’ Jungle Parade, the fours of us headed over to the Discovery Landing to have some quality time with the the characters from the Hundred Acres Wood gang. Tiff and I were pretty excited as we hadn’t seen Tigger or Eeyore on this trip. We had to wait a few minutes while the characters went and got a snack but as soon as they arrived, we had a great meet and greet with them all.
First up was Pooh and although the bear is cute, we grabbed our picture and hurried on to our next character….Eeyore!!! The girls let me have a moment on my own with my gloomy pal and then we grabbed a group photo.
Now next up was Piglet. Funny story was Eileen asked the question that a lot of us wonder about (Ok..maybe not a lot of us but I’ve always wondered). She asked if Piglet was a he or a she. We all were laughing but I don’t think Piglet thought it was that funny. Piglet is a he just in case you wanted to know. We hurried up and got our group picture and went on to Tigger.
We gave Tiff some one on one time with her fave and the PP guy got some great pictures. Tigger was just as excited. After posing and bouncing, we got the group shot as well.
After leaving the characters behind, we stopped and went shopping at the Island Merchantile. Eileen picked up a few things for Calder and I picked up a Princess Crown pen for my mom and some Mickey parts magnets. The girls asked Tiff and I if we wanted to join them for dinner at WCC as they had a reservation for 5. We had am ADR for Raglan Road but cancelled that and joined the CLT for one more dinner before an evening at PI. We grabbed the bus back to the Wilderness Lodge with Karen and Eileen.
Coming Up: A few pre-dinner drinks, a fulfilling meal, and a fun time at AC with a bunch of PassPorters!!
Great update Dawn! Glad you were able to find your scrapbook, and got to see the parade (I'm still waiting myself on that one)! Fantastic pictures More please
What a fun day AK! I've never seen the AK parade either but it looks like a lot of fun! So glad that you found your holiday scrapbook at DTD! Looking forward to hearing about your night.
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Tiff picked up a t-shirt if I remember correctly. We made our purchases and off we went to the Christmas store. 
Anywho…we headed on back to FOTLK and got in line. While we were waiting, I texted Eileen to let her know that Tiff and I were in AK and if they were in the park to let us know. 
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