Nala & pride "A Bucket Full of Magic" TR - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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As we made the short walk back to the BC, Grumpy and I had a quiet discussion about why we had left Epcot so soon. When I explained the condition that Sarafina was in, he understood. When we reached the BC, he decided to make a stop at a DSA, and Sarafina, Kiara and I headed to the room. We were no sooner in the door when Kiara began to peel of f her clothes to change into her bathing suit, and Sarafina made a beeline to the bed to lie down. By the time Grumpy got to the room, Kiara was ready for the pool, and Sarafina was drifting off into a well deserved nap. Grumpy headed down to SAB with Kiara, and I told him I was going to spend some time unpacking and then join them.
After about a half an hour, the unpacking, or as much as I was going to do, was done, and I made my way to SAB. I found Grumpy in our usual spot, at a table close to Hurricane Hanna’s, and joined him at the table and I spotted Kiara in her favorite area of the pool. Grumpy was glad to see me, as since he had missed having fish and chips for lunch, he was starving and wanted to head to the counter to order a burger and something for Kiara.
He headed up to the counter and when he returned, he stated that the was calling a local rental company and ordering a scooter for Sarafina for the week. At first, I wasn’t sold on the idea, but Grumpy assured me it was the way to go. Somewhere between our room, and reaching SAB, Grumpy had received a tip that renting one for a week from the outside company would not only be more convenient, but also more cost effective than renting one each day at a park. The information came from a very trusted source, and after learning that, I gave Grumpy the nod to make the call and place the order. I kept my fingers crossed that Sarafina would not be offended, and would appreciate the fact that she would be able to keep up with us.
By the time Grumpy called and placed the order for one scooter, to be delivered the next morning by no later than 9:30 AM, the food buzzer went off. He headed to the counter to pick up the food and I managed to coax Kiara out of SAB long enough to get something to eat. As they were eating , Sarafina appeared, looking fresh and rested after her short nap. Grumpy left it up to me to tell her what he had done, and when I told her, her first response was “Why?”. I explained to her that not only was it cheaper, but there was also the fact, that due to limited availability of scooters at the parks, she may not get one. I also pointed out that it just wasn’t walking around the parks that could wear her out, but just the walk to get to them, either from the resort, or even from the bus stop.
Sarafina actually got on board with the idea much quicker than I expected, and was very touched that it was her son-in-law who made the decision and ordered the scooter for her. And I was keeping my fingers crossed that she didn’t run over a small child, or anyone else, while on the thing. I told her that when it arrived the next morning, she was going to have to take it on a supervised practice run around the BC, and show competence in operating procedures, before I would turn her loose on the general public. Sarafina agreed.
Our time at SAB passed so quickly, and much too soon, dusk approached. The warmth of the sun soon faded as it set and we knew it was time to pull Kiara out of the pool. We headed back to the room, changed clothes and headed to the lounge to take advantage of the evening offerings. We found the food more than enough for a light evening meal and really enjoyed it. The night was still young, and as Grumpy and I discussed heading back to Epcot, Sarafina declined and stated she would be fine in the room curling up with her book. I felt a bit guilty leaving her behind, but she really looked comfy in the lounge chair in the room. So, off the three of us went and made our way back to Epcot.
Kiara’s Kim Possible pass was well past ripe, but we figured we would try to use it anyway. Much to our delight, the FP was accepted and we were soon on our way to save the UK. We did pretty well finding the clues on this mission, and at the end, found ourselves walking past Father Christmas and his presentation. And the final location of our mission positioned us in a spot parallel to the jolly, old elf. I was terrified to push the button, the one I was sure would cause a very loud demise of an evil villain, but Grumpy urged me to just do it. So I did.
Sure enough, loud noises erupted from the window at the back of the shop we were standing in front of. The sounds of water filling a small area, and a villain meeting his end, echoed through the night. Kiara was thrilled we had defeated the evil dude in a kilt, and squealed with glee. I on the other hand, wanted to crawl under a rock, as I am sure the noise from our victory interrupted Father Christmas and his telling of his story. With our mission complete, and conveniently the drop off for our Kimmunicator right behind us, we quietly slithered out of the UK unnoticed (or so I hoped). Off to Future World we went.
The Living Seas with Nemo was high on our list, and after our walk, I was glad Sarafina declined to tag along, as I am sure it would have worn her out. The posted wait time was five minutes, but the ride was a walk on. I guess if you counted the time it took to walk through the very long queue, it actually was five minutes. We loaded up into our clam mobile and were on our way. I must admit, I was very nervous about this ride, due to Kiara’s recent diagnosis of epilepsy, and I literally held my breath when we came to the Eastern Atlantic Current section of the ride. I was terrified that something about that section would trigger a seizure, and what was probably only 20 seconds, seemed to take four hours to be over. But over it was, and Kiara was fine. I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
As we made our way out of the gift shop, Kiara stated she wanted to ride Nemo again, and with the same wait time of five minutes still being posted, we agreed as we knew it was just another walk through the empty queue. Kiara enjoyed the second ride as much as the first, and I enjoyed it much more than the first. Gone was the fear that the ride would have an adverse effect on my child, and I was able to not only enjoy it, but also Kiara’s reaction to it.
It was about 8:15 by the time we finished our second ride on Nemo, and Kiara wasted no time noticing the dark. In her mind, dark equaled fireworks, and she started to get nervous about being in Epcot when they started. Grumpy and I assured her that we had plenty of time to get back to the BC, and wanting to stay true to our promise, we decided it was time to make our way back. Forty five minutes should be more than enough time to make it from Future World to the BC, but I knew a large crowd along the way could impede our progress.
All the way through FW, the coast was clear, so I felt good about making it back to the BC in plenty of time to shelter Kiara from the fireworks. That was until we hit Canada and met a huge wall of people. Slowly we made our way through the masses that were forming on the street, and I feared that if the rest of the WSC was like this, we would be hard pressed to get out before Illuminations began. But once past Canada, the coast was clear. In fact, the crowd was the lowest I have ever seen a half an hour before Illuminations. As I looked towards the fence that lined the lagoon, I expected to see people four or five deep, but instead they were only one deep. And in many areas, there was no one standing. If ever there was a night to get a spot to view Illuminations at the last minute, this was it.
But we, unfortunately, were not able to take advantage of the once in a lifetime low crowds. Kiara’s fear of fireworks was still our driving motivation to get out of Epcot, and the lack of a crowd did nothing to calm her fear. So on we walked until we were safely inside the walls of the BC.
We made it back in time for the dessert offerings in the lounge and stopped in to pick up a few sweet treats as well as a nightcap. We then headed back to the room to find Sarafina still awake and reading, and I noticed her ankles, which were propped up on several pillows, looked much better, and were far less swollen then they were that afternoon. That was a good sign, but I was still glad Grumpy had insisted on getting her a scooter. Kiara wasted no time getting into her PJs and crawling into bed, and Grumpy and I were close behind.
With all of us snuggled up in bed, one by one we all drifted off to sleep. As always, I was the last one awake, and I decided to give up the fight and turned off the TV. I found it easy to drift off to sleep, not only because the bed I was laying in was so plush and comfortable, but because I felt at home. And at home I was.
Up next: Possibly the best Disney day EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was another wonderful update, Nala! I really love your writing style. It just kind of sucks you into the story. I'm sorry that Sarafina was having troubles with swollen ankles, but Grumpy did the right thing with renting the scooter. And your source was very right in that it is much cheaper to rent from off site for a week than it is to rent day by day at the parks. You are also guaranteed to have a scooter AND you get to have it at the parks and the resorts, unlike the park ECVs that are not allowed out of the parks.
Sounds like a perfect day. Sorry Sarafina's ankles swelled up, but I'm with Grumpy, a scooter is the best solution so everyone will be comfortable. Can't wait to hear about the best Disney day ever!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
Another great update. I'm glad Sarafina's ankles were less swollen after she rested. Your husband had a great idea of renting a scooter for the rest of trip. It makes everything so much easy for everyone.
Liz
What a great day you guys had!! I'm in agreeance (is that even a word??) with everyone about the scooter!! Grumpy and kudos to Sarafina for welcoming it! I hope it works out great!! Can't wait to hear about your excellent day coming up!!
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I kept my fingers crossed that Sarafina would not be offended, and would appreciate the fact that she would be able to keep up with us. 
With our mission complete, and conveniently the drop off for our Kimmunicator right behind us, we quietly slithered out of the UK unnoticed (or so I hoped). Off to Future World we went. 
I must admit, I was very nervous about this ride, due to Kiara’s recent diagnosis of epilepsy, and I literally held my breath when we came to the Eastern Atlantic Current section of the ride. I was terrified that something about that section would trigger a seizure, and what was probably only 20 seconds, seemed to take four hours to be over. But over it was, and Kiara was fine. I was able to breathe a huge sigh of relief. 
As always, I was the last one awake, and I decided to give up the fight and turned off the TV. I found it easy to drift off to sleep, not only because the bed I was laying in was so plush and comfortable, but because I felt at home. And at home I was. 
I'm sorry that Sarafina was having troubles with swollen ankles, but Grumpy did the right thing with renting the scooter. And your source was very right in that it is much cheaper to rent from off site for a week than it is to rent day by day at the parks. You are also guaranteed to have a scooter AND you get to have it at the parks and the resorts, unlike the park ECVs that are not allowed out of the parks.
More please! 
Grumpy for reserving a scooter! The teaser for your next instalment sounds great!
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