FIRSTS, BIRTHS, and GIRTHS - A September 2013 TR - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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The alarm went off at 3:15am; I turned it off. Two minutes later, Tommy nudged me. I hopped out of bed realizing what today was! I ran downstairs and carefully carried my carry-on suitcase upstairs to the bedroom for last minute packing. I quickly weighed myself to note my “before-vacation weight” and was happy to see I was back to my lowest weight of 150 pounds. That would not last long! I continued my quick pace grabbing a shower and getting dressed. I went downstairs to blow dry my hair so that I would not wake Hannah prematurely. After brushing teeth and applying light makeup; I attached the balloons to Hannah’s new carry-on back pack and Tommy brought it upstairs to the living room.
While I finished packing last minute items into the carry-on suitcase, DMiL and DSFiL arrived to hide out in the foyer to witness Hannah’s surprise.
Tommy and I went into Hannah’s room to wake her up at 4:30am. We told her, “Mommy and Daddy have a surprise for you but we can’t give it to you until you get dressed first.” She hesitated for a moment; pulling the covers over her head. Once we repeated the “surprise,” she got up, got dressed, and I put her hair into a pony tail.
I sat in the living room waiting for Hannah to walk down the hall to video tape her. Initially, she thought I was taking pictures and ducked into her playroom halfway down the hall. Hannah is rarely in the mood to take pictures; double that at 4:30am (remember this as it will come up again during the trip). At this point, I was distracted trying to coax her down the hall and I shut off the video without realizing it until she was halfway through her back pack full of goodies.
So…you cannot tell from the video, but Hannah was actually very excited to get to the airport to go to Disney World! It did not really kick in until we were in the car; apparently it was official then. The drive to the airport was exciting yet uneventful. We put in a movie for Hannah to keep her occupied during the hour and fifteen minute drive to the airport. I also gave Hannah half of a Dramamine for Kids to prevent car and air sickness (she did awesome the entire trip). We stopped at a gas station in Finksburg, Maryland for some drinks and continued on until we reached the Express Parking Lot at BWI Airport in Baltimore. We unloaded the suitcases from the SUV and in about five minutes a shuttle came around and picked us up at our parking spot (spot 015).
Our shuttle ride was pretty interesting. At the last minute, just before pulling out of the Express Parking Lot, our shuttle driver allowed a last minute traveler to hop on. When the driver asked the young man what airline he was flying (to drop him off at the proper entrance), the young man simply said he was a “mystery flyer” and that this was a very last minute trip and did not know many of the details. Ohhh-kayyyy… The shuttle driver asked him again and explained he needed to know what entrance to drop him off and the young man said, “Oh…oh…oh…Air Tran.” I immediately sighed with relief because we were flying Southwest and I really did not want anxiety over this guy on our flight! The young man “tried” to hold a conversation with all of us but he was just all over the place; twitchy and could not finish a sentence. He seemed very anxious. At one point he asked everyone if they were excited and an older, stocky man responded with, “I’m just trying to keep from tackling you right now; but I’m prepared to if necessary.” Tommy and I laughed but apparently it went right over the young man’s head; he didn’t get it. When the driver was close to pulling up to the entrance for Air Tran travelers, the young man stood up and went to the stairs while the shuttle was still moving. If you look carefully, you will notice that the airport shuttles have a nice little white line at the front of the aisle; this line is the “do not cross by law” line. You are supposed to remain seated until the shuttle stops at your location but the young man apparently didn’t get the message. The shuttle driver was expectedly stern with him and told him to get off the stairs until he parked at the entrance. Rather than return to his seat, he sat on the top stair instead. The shuttle finally pulled up and thankfully the young man hopped right off in one bound. The remaining shuttle riders breathed a collective sigh of relief!! I think we tipped the driver a little extra for handling the situation so well!
After collecting all of the luggage we headed inside to check in. Luggage check in went smoothly and we were on our way through security. Hannah and I went through the older scanner while Tommy went through the new scanner. DMiL and DSFiL had to go through an additional search after their carry-on bags went through the magnetometers. Once everyone received thorough searching, we collected our shoes and carry-ons and continued on to the gate. It was a short 3 minute walk. We immediately dropped our stuff and Hannah and I walked over to Auntie Anne’s for breakfast sandwiches and strawberry and mango slushies. As we finished our breakfast (about 20 minutes later), DA1, DC1, DC2, Dawn, and Ariana arrived at the gate. They all walked over and surprised Hannah; she had no idea they were also headed to Disney World! Hannah was very excited to see Ariana. Unfortunately, Ron and Christopher decided to stay home so Christopher wouldn’t miss school. Apparently, Christopher did not care one way or the other if he went to Disney World. After saying all of our hellos, DA1, DC1, DC2, Dawn, and Ariana went in search of breakfast.
At around 8am, Southwest began boarding group A, followed by family boarding, then group B. We were all in group B; however, since both girls were four we were able to board with family boarding. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 8:25am and we left on time. It was a 2 ¼ hour flight that would have us landing in Orlando at 10:40am. Hannah was very excited about the plane ride and could not wait for take-off! She loved that it went fast. We did give her Earplanes but she seemed to have more trouble with them on the way to Florida than without on the way home. We switched to gum about half way through the flight and that seemed to work better. Hannah pulled out her new crayons and coloring book and colored for quite a while…
then this happened…
Hannah napped for about 45 minutes! I was thankful because I knew this was going to be a long day. We arrived in Orlando about 15 minutes early; however, we had to wait for the plane currently at the gate to depart before we could pull in. Once we de-planed (right on time) we located the closest restrooms for a quick potty break before the next leg of the trip. Since we did not use DME for luggage service, we all headed to baggage claim. As we rode the escalator to level two, we found DFiL and DSMiL waiting across from baggage claim. Their flight landed an hour earlier, but they wanted to wait for us before heading off. We said some quick hellos and then went to find our bags. DFiL, DSMiL, Dawn, Ariana, DA1, DC1, and DC2 then went to pick up their rental cars while the rest of us (Tommy, Me, Hannah, DMiL, and DSFiL) went in search of DME. I knew from previous research that we had to return to level three to cross over to side B of Orlando Airport so that we could get to DME on level one. So that’s what we did without any problems.
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Great video! What an interesting young man on your airport shuttle ride. I love the picture of Hannah asleep on the plane.
Thanks! The airport shuttle ride definitely had us a little nervous! I have another picture of Hannah sleeping and she starts with her forehead on the tray...too funny!
Just joining in late but wow that's a lot of peeps going kudos to you! Love the wake up your going to disney how cool is that???!!! So that guy would've offically freaked me out a lot! But glad you made it to Orlando! Cant wait to read more!
Ok I'm finally getting the time to start this. Life has been too crazy around my house. Glad you were able to get everything you needed done while DD was in preschool. I'm not sure how you did it. Is she in all day preschool or something? Cam only goes for 2 1/2 hours at a time so I have no idea how I'll get my pre-trip stuff accomplished.
Sounds like a nice start to the trip. I love the video of the reveal. I'm so glad you were able to keep your secret. As you know I didn't succeed with mine, but I'm glad it's out and I'm able to talk to DH about it. I love the sleeping picture on the plane. That wake up time was way too early for such a young lady.
Also, rereading your cast intros and such we have way too much in common. Not only do we plan the same (ie. crazy nutcase planner people (according to my DH)), but we're both 31 with husbands who are only 30. Do people question you about that? I often get the "oh he's younger than you". It's only 8 months difference people. We're both government employees (I'm with the state, but same difference). The shutdown effect you? And we both weigh ourselves before the trip! And my goal is to hit 150 before we go. Seriously I was reading and kept thinking "she's my Disney twin!"
Not sure how I missed seeing this start! I've also been a bit crazy since returning home. I still am in awe of your cast of characters, I can't imagine so many people on a trip. But it's great that so many wanted to share in the fun. I love the reveal and can't believe she was up so early for it. I also love her sleeping on the plane, that is a good thing with such an early start. Can't wait to hear more!
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I love the picture of Hannah asleep on the plane. 
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
kudos to you! Love the wake up your going to disney how cool is that???!!! So that guy would've offically freaked me out a lot! But glad you made it to Orlando! Cant wait to read more!
But it's great that so many wanted to share in the fun. I love the reveal and can't believe she was up so early for it. I also love her sleeping on the plane, that is a good thing with such an early start. Can't wait to hear more!
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