Snow White, the 7 Dwarves and the Ugly Witch Return to Disney Trip Report - 7/22 Pre Trip - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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WHO THREW A MONKEY WRENCH IN MY PLANS (WAS IT YOU SCOTT???)
Now that I had the kennel all booked, both mom and I were having second thoughts about it. Honey, our oldest dog, had only spent a few nights in a kennel and our other 2, Ben and Sadie, have never spent any time in a kennel. They are so totally attached to mom, we started worrying about them getting sick and/or being heartbroken due to spending almost 2 weeks in a cage. As it is, here at home they will not eat dinner until mom is home for the night. So that weighed on our minds and mom decided to cancel. The dogs are more important to her than a vacation. Paula, not being an animal lover, didn’t understand this and gave mom a hard time for wanting to cancel. I, being an animal lover and knowing my mom, thought mom cancelling was for the best. I knew that mom would be miserable and worried about the dogs the whole time (thereby making us miserable) but Paula somehow convinced mom not to cancel. Now on to plan B. If we didn’t kennel the dogs, who could we get to come in and watch them? We thought and thought and I finally suggested my cousin. He’s twenty something, out of college and home. Mom was okay with it, we contacted him and he agreed. Great, plans are back on.
Now that we got the dogs all settled, I was trying to light a fire under everyone to tell me where they wanted to eat. Nobody really wanted to go through menus. Mom kept saying she didn’t want to eat big so she’d probably skip most of the meals. Paula was narrow minded and all she wanted was prime rib or BBQ to maximize the DDP. Lenny said anywhere I picked would be fine and Abby doesn’t know what she wants when you ask her so the decision was up to me. So I went through the menus and decided for all of us where we would eat. Since there’s not all that many places at Disney that are (as I call it) Abby friendly, I stuck to mostly buffets this year. I made my ADR’s in February at my 180 day mark (they’ve changed since then though) and I was feeling pretty good about this trip.
Now this bring us to March. Things were going great, I was still happily planning away for 6 of us but that came to a screeching halt. I went to my cousin’s graduation party where he announced that he would be moving back to New York to pick up his life again - a bad experience at college had sent him home. However, he assured me that he would come back to watch the dogs. By this time, we had also adopted our bunny, Gertie. Mom and I were both upset by this new development. Not because George was going back to New York but because we started worrying about the dogs again and wondering if George could really handle it (he only has cats, not dogs). So after much back and forth, mom finally agreed that yes, she would be much happier with either one of us staying home with the dogs, not anyone else. So we approached Paula and told her in no uncertain terms that we all could not go together, that we would either have to do 2 trips at different times or mom would just stay home. Paula absolutely refused to consider going a different time with mom so mom ended up cancelling. Now we’re down to 5.
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Now that mom cancelled, I called Disney and changed our ADR’s to reflect that. And it was up to Paula to figure out what she wanted to do. I couldn’t add her to our train fare, it was already purchased and the sleeper was only for 4. Same with the hotel room going down. We have 2 rooms at AS Sports and Paual said "how much for ½ of your second room." I told her, as nicely as I could, that she needed her own room, that we were very uncomfortable at the thought of her sharing a room with Abby. Not to mention the fact that our portion of the reservations was already paid in full. Waiting for Lauren’s portion of the money was stressful enough. I didn’t want to be owed any more. I didn’t tell Paula this.
Paula of course was shocked - she looked like I had slapped her across the face. She had assumed we would let her stay in Abby’s room because mom had cancelled. With this new development, Paula didn’t know what to do. "I can’t afford a room on my own." I told Paula what all her options were but she was unwilling to listen to them and give a little. "But I promised Lauren. This is what Lauren wants" is what I kept hearing. It’s pretty sad when someone almost 60 years old starts to whine, but that’s what she was doing. Paula wanted everything we were getting because of Lauren but she didn’t want the price tag that comes with it.
Despite this, Paula asked me a few nights later to help her figure out totals for different things (staying the same amount of time, coming home early, etc). It was like beating my head against the wall. "The dining is so expensive. I’ll pay for Lauren and just share from her plate." "Scooter rentals are so expensive I’ll buy one, but then how do I get it there?" "I’ll take a red eye flight. I’m sure you’re mother won’t mind driving me to the airport." Paula wanted this, then she wanted that. She couldn’t make up her mind. Then every conversation ended with "I’ll have to double check with Lauren to see what she wants." I was getting extremely aggravated and stressed. I could have saved myself the stress by not helping her but my upbringing made it difficult for me to say no. But I finally had enough of the headaches (literally) when Paula came over and told us this little story. "Oh yeah, I was telling Mark and Mike (she works with them) how I’m gonna have a scooter for Disney and I won’t have to wait in any lines." Whoa, wait a minute, what was that??? I have no idea where she came up with this information. I had told Paula that for a couple of rides (Splash Mountain and SW in particular) that there is an alternate scooter entrance so she wouldn’t have to wait in the regular line but I never once told her she wouldn’t have to wait at all. It was at this point that I knew Paula would believe what she wanted to and not what she was actually told. Knowing this, I didn’t want to be there when Paual found out her perception and spin on things wasn’t reality. She also hadn’t made a decision about how and when she was going etc.
So at this point in time, I told Paula that she needed to actually listen to what I was telling her about Disney and that she also needed to decide what she could afford and what she wanted to do and just let Lauren know about it instead of asking for Lauren’s opinon. She didn’t like this so for several weeks. Paula avoided all talk of Disney except to say "I need to talk to Lauren." To hopefully get the ball moving, I just kept asking Paula every time I saw her if she had talked to Lauren. I kept getting "I haven’t seen or heard from her yet" so after something like 3 weeks, I finally sent Paula an email telling her she needed to make a decision. Time was getting short and I needed the money from her to pay for the trip. When I received an email back from her stating that she was just as stressed as I was (not possible IMO) I replied and told her point blank she needed to be the adult and decide what she could afford and what she wanted to do instead of letting her teenage granddaughter call all the shots. I also told her it wouldn’t work out us going together this year but Lauren was still free to join us. 2 days later, she came to the house and was planning a new vacation for her, Lauren and mom a week before us. Great, I no longer had the stress of Paula joining us but Lauren still wanted to go with us and Abby. So I still had some stress because Paula still owed me money (which I knew she didn’t have and was doubtful she could get it) for Lauren’s portion of the trip. So for the month of May (just like every other month since I booked), Paula didn’t even attempt to pay anything so that really, really bothered me.
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