CiavoFamily: First the Universe and then the World! - Day 1 - UPDATED 9/3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day 1
This day started as all our trips to USO and WDW do, everyone was up and at ‘em early and filled with joy. We quickly loaded up the van and were on our way to Winner Airport Parking, an excellent choice if you fly out of Philly. Our driver had us at the airport very quickly, we did our usual curbside check-in with Southwest and before we knew it we were past security. Philadelphia airport has changed a lot since we last flew out of it in September of 2008, it really is starting to look nice. My husband Lou stopped at the bookstore to get a book and the boys wanted Burger King for breakfast.
We didn’t have to wait long before boarding began. We had gotten seats A39-A43 and so we were able to sit together. The flight was full. Things got a little nasty when some woman who boarded in A group tried to save seats for her friends or family that had C boarding passes. Somehow she was able to save a whole row, I can’t believe more people than not actually listened to her, but no one sat there. Turns out she was saving the row for nothing. Oy.
We were away from our gate and in the skies in a matter of minutes, I’m not kidding.
Our flight was 40 minutes early, 40! I love Southwest. Instead of arriving at 11:45 we were at the gate in Orlando at 11:05. My husband went to pick up our rental van while the boys and I retrieved the luggage. We usually use National Car Rental, but their prices were insane this year. Last year we paid $231 (including taxes and fees) for 8 days, this year they wanted over $600. We found a good price with Thrifty, $444 for 8 days (taxes and fees included.)
We arrived at Portofino Bay Hotel at 12:15 PM, 45 minutes ahead of my schedule. We decided to use valet parking since it was only $8 more per day. Unfortunately check in was nuts and we lost some time there.
I took some pictures from the balcony off the lobby while Lou waited in line.
We stayed club level and received a deluxe room in the villa wing, room 2566. There is no balcony and the view is of the bocce ball court and if you look left you can see the villa pool. There is a pullout sofa which we had requested. It is a very short walk to the elevator to the pools and Mandara Spa/gym. The walk to the lounge was a bit far, but no hardship.
We had lunch at Sal’s Market and it was very good. Ethan and Zach split a small pizza and the rest of us had paninis (panini is already plural in Italian, but I think adding an s is correct in English.)
After lunch we took the launch to US to see if Rip Ride Rockit was running, it wasn’t. Ethan met Jimmy Neutron while we waited for Lou, Ben, and Zach to return from checking that out.
Next we decided to try the Simpsons since we hadn’t experienced it yet, very fun so we rode again.
It started to rain and thunder, but we wanted to get in a few more attractions. We rode MIB 2x and then the Mummy, Ethan skipped the Mummy. At this point it was around 3 or 3:30 so we headed back to wash up since we had 6 PM ressies at Mama Della’s with Lou’s aunt and cousin who were also visiting Orlando.
Mama Della’s was a lot of fun, the food was good, especially for Florida. We still like Café D’Antonio over in Celebration best. There were 11 of us and we ordered appetizers to share, 2 bruschettas (very good), 2 antipastos (very good), and 1 calamari (average at best.) I forget what everyone had for dinner, I ordered some kind of stuffed shell which was very bland.
Lou had salmon which he rated as good, his aunt had the special of the day which was mahi mahi with shrimp, she loved it. Zach had eggplant parm which he rated as good, it was a really thick slice of eggplant and he prefers it thin. Ben had veal marsala over polenta which he rated as very good. The kids pizza look horrible, but they ate it.
The best part of the night, besides the company, was the strolling trio of singers. We had a lot of fun with them. When they first approached our table they asked if we had any requests, Lou, being the joker he is requested Stairway to Heaven. The accordion player began playing it and my husband sang, it was fun. Then the accordion player had us all sing different parts of Funiculi' Funicula', coming up with 11 instruments was not easy and we did not keep it straight, but that's 1/2 the fun. Although we didn’t have them sing at our table the woman and man soloists were very good and we enjoyed them as they visited the other tables.
The night ended very well when Mama came over serve our coffee and brought us our dessert, stay away from the tiramisu by the way if you know what good tiramisu tastes like. The coffee was excellent, I think they sell it at Sal’s but I never did get over there to purchase some. Dinner ended at 8:30 and we decided to call it a night since we were up so early. Hugs all around as Lou’s family returned to their hotel. We visited the lounge to check out the offerings even though we had no plan on putting another morsel in our mouth. I have to say it really wasn’t very enticing this night anyway. I think we were all fast asleep by 9:30.
Next Up: Day Two: Do I make it to the gym? and IOA
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Last edited by Ciavobella; 09-03-2009 at 06:43 PM..
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