Have a Happy Birthday - Part One - Updated 9/30 COMPLETE - Page 17 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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You guys are really tearing it up at MK! I love all the girlie pics of Mary Devall and Maddie's reaction....precious! Glad you could minimize your time in the rain and maximize your fun.
danielle
__________________
~Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will land among the stars~
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It was finally time for our LTT ADR, so back across the park we went (in hindsight, I guess we could have planned that better ) from Tomorrow Land. When I checked us in and mentioned the cake, the CM told me to let the server know! Geez! The buck had officially been passed on this cake four times now!
I could tell from the number of people in the lobby that we wouldn’t be seated right away, so I grabbed Maddie and took off down the street to look for Minnie figurines. I ended up in a pin shop in Frontier Land where I came up with the brilliant idea (okay, maybe it was just a desperate idea ) of getting a Minnie pin to put on the cake. I picked out a really cool pin and paid for it while Maddie looked at some stuffed Mickeys in a nearby bin. When I went to leave, I grabbed Maddie by the hand and was almost out of the door when I noticed that she was clinging to a Mickey with her other hand! I can’t tell you how many times that this has happened. Maddie seems to have no qualms about shop lifting at this stage in her life.
With the Mickey safely back in the bin, we high tailed it back to LTT where Thom and Mary Devall were still waiting. It wasn’t too much longer before we were called and seated at our table. After the server had arrived and taken our drink order, I followed him around the corner to let him know about the cake. He said “no problem” and I was thrilled that someone had finally taken ownership for this cake! I mentioned that I had something that I wanted to put on the cake, so he told me that he would come and get me beforehand to let me place it. With that taken care of, I could now enjoy my dinner.
We thoroughly enjoyed this meal and I’m pretty sure that I ate every bit of the flank steak on my own. It’s nice to have something other than chicken nuggets that the girls actually will eat and enjoy. Thom apparently enjoyed himself because I thought I was going to have to stab his hand to get it away from the stuffing.
Throughout our meal, the characters dropped by. Maddie was getting braver and braver and insisted on petting all of the characters multiple times. She actually petted every inch of Dale. Even though each character spent a good bit of time at our table (and some came by twice), Maddie would get angry when they had to leave for the next tables. She literally yelled one time “Hey Goofy! Come back over here!”
Notice how even when Maddie doesn't want to be in a picture with a character, her little hand makes its way over.
Mary Devall had such a blast being oohed and aahed over by all of the characters - - especially when her Minnie came by. I think she kept a on her face the entire meal.
It was a perfect birthday dinner.
At the end of the meal, our server, along with several other servers, brought the cake out and sang to Mary Devall. She was in seventh heaven.
I immediately realized that the server had forgotten to grab me to put the Minnie pin on the cake, but Mary Devall could have cared less when she saw the Mickey decoration on her cake. All thoughts of a Minnie cake had flown out of her head! While we were enjoying the cake, I pulled the pin out of the backpack and told Mary Devall that it was from Maddie. She it and all was right with the world.
While Thom settled up the bill, I took the girls outside. When we were leaving, our server approached me and apologized for forgetting to grab me before he served the cake. I told him that it was no problem and that it worked out perfectly.
What I have failed to mention is that I had been keeping Eileen up with our adventures via text messaging. Thom had decided to jump in on the fun and had asked Eileen to forward some texts of the more “competitive” nature to Karen. So they had been going back and forth all day while Eileen and I just sat back and waited to see who would break first. At the time, I didn’t have Sharon’s cell phone number, so she was spared (but not anymore) !
The phone had rung while we were in LTT and I was delighted to see it was Karen. When I got back outside with the girls, we immediately called Karen back and let Zack and her wish Mary Devall a ! It was especially sweet of them since they were on their way to Zack’s opening night performance in a play (where he “wowed” them of course ).
We went around the corner to use our FP’s for PP. We can still all fit in one pirate ship, so it makes it even more fun. As soon as the ride ended, Maddie declared that she wanted to ride again, but Mary Devall saved the day by suggesting Barnstormer. Good thinking girl!
Maddie showed her enthusiasm for the idea by raising her little arm in the air and yelling “Woo hoo! Rock and Roll!” We all cracked up at this crazy little girl.
After Barnstormer, we went back to Tomorrow Land where we rode Buzz Lightyear. Maddie rode with me and actually got her first score ever - - 100 points. She was very excited!
There still was time left before the SM FP’s ripened, so we decided to try something new - - the Laugh Floor. We waited about 10 or 15 minutes before we were lead into the theater and then the fun began. I’ve read some so-so reviews of this show, but we absolutely it. Each “comedian” was better than the next. Of course, our family ended up with a good bit of face time, so our opinion may have been swayed by that.
When “Sam ‘n Ella” asked for volunteers to quiz Ella about geography, Thom raised his hand and was selected. When he said that he was from Columbia, SC, Ella went on and on about Columbia and then mentioned something about the Eiffel Tower. Sam asked Thom if she was correct and Thom said . Ella then let into Thom. When a baby began crying in the audience (not sure if there was an actual baby or this was part of the show), she even told Thom that he had made the baby . It was hilarious!
Near the end of the show when Mike’s nephew comes out, he announced that they had a special guest in the audience and put the camera on Mary Devall. With her birthday button announcing her name, he immediately began calling her Mary and asking her all about herself. She did a great job of speaking into the microphone and answering all of his questions. She was so proud of herself.
Maddie was sitting on my lap and we were in between Thom and Mary Devall, so she was very aware that they were on the screen and that they were speaking into microphones. As soon as Mary Devall’s bit was over, Maddie got a little peeved that she didn’t get to speak into the microphone and wasn’t on the screen. We assured her that she was on the screen when Thom was so that seemed to make her feel better.
As we got up to leave, Mary Devall was jumping up and down and grabbing me around the waist. I had to laugh when she said “Oh thank you, thank you for Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo! They never would have picked me if I hadn’t gone to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.” Bless her sweet little princess heart. (And just so you know that I'm not pronouncing it incorrectly, Mary Devall ends BBB with a "Boo" and not a "Boutique." She has her own Disney language.)
We were walking on air from our Laugh Floor experience all the way to Space Mountain. Thom and Mary Devall rode first while Maddie and I waited in the shop and then we switched places and Mary Devall and I rode (we still had an extra FP from this morning when Thom had also snagged us a Rider Switch pass). There were several college age girls (a.k.a budding NRA members ) in front of us who were all packing rifles. Instead of taking them on the ride, I think they conned a young CM in the loading area to transfer them to the end of the ride for them. As he stood there holding all of these rifles, another CM approached him and seemed to be admonishing him for agreeing to do that. I really felt sorry for the guy.
Anyway . . . these girls rode in the front of our car and they had us in stitches before we ever took off. Mary Devall was all grins because she loves nothing more than sharing a favorite ride with enthusiastic people. As we took off, they were shouting exclamations of excitement, fear of death and total terror. The last thing I heard before we started our descent was Mary Devall yelling “That’s what I’m talking about!” I could so imagine her in 7 or 8 years whooping it up with her own girlfriends!
When we met up with Thom and Maddie in the shop, it was about 10:45. We had hoped to make it back to Toon Town before it closed so that we could get pictures of Mary Devall with Sleeping Beauty, but it wasn’t meant to be since Toon Town closed at 10:30. With only 15 minutes left until closing, we decided that we had packed enough into one day and headed for the bus.
Once again, we waited hardly any time for a bus. The bus was pretty packed by the time that we got on and a young man immediately hopped up to give Maddie and me his seat. He ended up standing beside us and we discovered that he was in the college internship program. He worked at MK and went back and forth from being a greeter at the gates and working parades. He said that he preferred the parades because you got to talk to people more. He said that he quickly figured out that if you tried to say more than “Have a magical day!” to people at the gates then you held up the line (I so thought of Eileen when he said that ). He was meeting his family at SSR and ended up getting off at our bus stop, so we had plenty of time to get to know him.
Mary Devall was absolutely worn out, but she managed to arrange herself on the bed so that her hair wouldn’t be messed up during the night. The things that princesses must endure!
I know that we all went to sleep that night with smiles on our faces. This had been such a magical day for Mary Devall and for all of us. She told us countless times that this was her best birthday ever - - and the funny thing is it’s the one that took the least planning. Sometimes things are just meant to be.
What an amazing night!! I'm glad the cake all worked out!! It looks delicious!! Love all the pictures from LTT!! And how great to be picked for the Laugh Floor........I love Sam 'n Ella A fantastic evening and great birthday for Mary Devall More please!!
So glad to hear Mary Devall had a !
Her cake looked yummy! Glad it all worked out okay! Maddie on her first 100 points!!!!
I was wondering if Mary Devall would want to wear her princess outfit again.....
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
What a great ending for her Mary Devall's birthday....dinner at LTT sounded perfect (I the flank steak - it just melts in your mouth) and Maddie is just so cute and getting really comfortable with her petting...next stop full fledged hugs (or at least a handshake )
Glad Mary Devall loved her cake and her "pin" from Maddie...glad you were able to enjoy some more rides and get to try out the Laugh Floor before the evening was over...
So by the sounds of it Mary Devall wanted to be a Princess the next day too....can't wait to hear more...
Maddie was getting braver and braver and insisted on petting all of the characters multiple times. She actually petted every inch of Dale.
Sounds like something SHARON would do.
Okay, if I wasn't totally in love with your whole family already, this update would've sealed the deal. Your girls' love of all-things-hoot-n-hollery is just a joy and I was practically crying with Maddie's reaction to a Barnstormer suggestion. Thom's love of stuffing and beating Karen warms me to the tips of my toes, and your delight in your daughters (despite their theiving ways ) makes me want to give you the biggest derned hug I can.
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That is just too funny so I had to comment on that one first!! Maddie is just sooo cute! Glad that Mary Devall had such an awesome birthday! I don't know how you could ever top such a wonderful day like that! Can't wait to hear more!
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) from Tomorrow Land. When I checked us in and mentioned the cake, the CM told me to let the server know! Geez! The buck had officially been passed on this cake four times now! 
) of getting a Minnie pin to put on the cake. I picked out a really cool pin and paid for it while Maddie looked at some stuffed Mickeys in a nearby bin. When I went to leave, I grabbed Maddie by the hand and was almost out of the door when I noticed that she was clinging to a Mickey with her other hand! 
It’s nice to have something other than chicken nuggets that the girls actually will eat and enjoy. Thom apparently enjoyed himself because I thought I was going to have to stab his hand to get it away from the stuffing. 
on her face the entire meal.
to Mary Devall. She was in seventh heaven. 
it and all was right with the world.
). 
When he said that he was from Columbia, SC, Ella went on and on about Columbia and then mentioned something about the Eiffel Tower. 
Sam asked Thom if she was correct and Thom said 
. Ella then let into Thom. 
When a baby began crying in the audience (not sure if there was an actual baby or this was part of the show), she even told Thom that he had made the baby 
. It was hilarious! 
Bless her sweet little princess heart. 
I really felt sorry for the guy. 
More please!! 
ANGIE
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