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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So...I just spent two hours writing an awesome and detailed update...and my computer messed up again and deleted everything. Everything. Even the file I had saved just in case my computer messed up. I am now exercising great self restraint and NOT throwing my laptop out the window....I will try to update from David's computer tomorrow.
Day 12 - An Allergy Scare, A Near Fall, And David Finally Gets Me In That Wheelchair
We woke up at 8:30 that morning. My notes are pretty sparse for this day, so I think I may have forgotten to take any until later in the morning. I have it written down that we arrived at DHS at 10AM, and that David rode RnRc twice, and ToT once. After that, I was ready for some food (since I don’t think we had eaten breakfast) so we headed to Starring Rolls Bakery.
We decided on Black Forest Ham Sandwiches, a banana each, a cherry danish for David, a chocolate muffin for me, tea for David, and orange juice for me. We sat at one of the tables outside, and settled in to eat.
I opened the bread on my sandwich for some reason (I think to take the lettuce off, because I don’t like lettuce on my sandwiches), and I said “David, hang on. Don’t eat it yet!” He asked what was wrong, and I said I thought I saw egg.
Side note. David is allergic to egg, but in kind of a weird way. He can eat cookies and cake and things like bread pudding that have egg baked into them. But if he eats something like an omelet, or scrambled eggs, or even has too much mayonnaise on a sandwich, he gets violently ill. Strange but true.
Anyway, back to my story. I thought I saw a bit of egg in the spread on my sandwich. David opened up his sandwich and we both sat there studying the contents. (We probably looked pretty weird, come to think of it.) We decided it wasn’t egg. It was cheese. (I don’t know WHY we didn’t just ask, but it was a bad decision not to.) So we happily ate our sandwiches and then walked (David walked, I hobbled) over to Toy Story Mania. It was posted at a 35 minute wait, and we decided that wasn’t too long and got into line.
Sure enough, midway through the queue (no pun intended, lol), David started to feel very sick. I asked him if he wanted to step outside, but he said no, that he thought he could make it through the ride. I tried to insist, but he said “We’ve been in line for 20 minutes. I just want to ride it.”
So we rode it (with me continually asking him during the ride if he was okay) and at the end I had scored 142,000 something and David had scored just 134,000 something. This was a pretty big indicator he felt terrible, because I NEVER beat him. I tried not to preen too much, but I got the best score in the car. David told me it was okay to be excited, he knows how competitive I am. He did tease me though, that next time he would beat me by 20,000 points, just to get even.
David still looked pretty sick, so I asked him if he wanted to go back to the hotel. His response made me roll my eyes. “No, I want to go ride Star Tours.” I was dubious, because I’ve seen his stomach's reaction to eggs and it isn’t pretty, but he insisted, so away we went.
He looked much worse after the ride, and admitted it may have been a poor decision. (I was a good wife and refrained from saying “No, really?” or “I told you!”) I told him we were going back to the hotel, because he looked like he was feeling worse by the second, and told me his stomach and back were starting to cramp.
Sure enough, when we had nearly reached the park exit, he turned grey and curtly said “Restroom” before veering off to the left and hurrying into the men’s room. Poor guy. I went and bought us both a Sprite, hoping to help soothe his stomach, and found a bench to sit on near the restroom so he could find me when he emerged. I took out my notebook to start catching up on my notes.
After quite a while the hair on the back of my neck prickled, and I felt like someone was watching me. I looked around and jumped, because David was standing there behind the bench reading my notes over my shoulder. He swears that he was standing there for three minutes before I noticed him, but I don’t believe him. I think he was just teasing me.
He still looked very pale, so I asked him if he would prefer to take a cab back to the resort rather than waiting for a bus. He said that if we hurried and caught the next bus, he’d prefer that to sitting in the backseat of a “possibly smelly taxicab.” So I hobbled along as fast as I could, and we caught a bus within ten minutes.
Sitting on the bus, David leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes. When I asked if he was okay, he said “I’m concentrating.” On what? “On not throwing up.” Oh, boy.
When the bus arrived at Pop Century, I told David not to worry about me, to get up to the hotel room as quick as he could. He didn’t argue, another bad sign.
Long story cut a little bit shorter, my poor, poor husband spent the next two hours throwing up. I spent the next two hours with headphones on reading a book. I didn’t think there was room for two of us in that little hotel bathroom.
When he emerged, he immediately crawled into bed. I asked if we should take him to a doctor, and he said “no, get me some Pepto Bismol and a Benadryl and I’ll be fine.” So I did that, and then we watched television. Or rather, I watched it while the poor guy slept. He said that his body was sore from getting sick.
He woke up and took a shower. He said he was feeling up to dinner at Teppan Edo, and he didn’t want to miss it because he had really been looking forward to it the whole trip. So off we went to Epcot.
Another side note. All day long, my ankle had been feeling worse and worse. It had been painful the whole trip, but on that particular day, it felt like every step was more painful than the last. I had been doing my best to hide this from David, because I knew he’d insist on going to the E.R. and I really didn’t want to waste our vacation in a hospital.
David, of course, noticed anyway, and had been trying to convince me to get a wheelchair. I finally told him that I would go to the First Aid station at Epcot to ask them if they could wrap it for me with an Ace Bandage that didn’t have adhesive, and if they said I should have it looked at, I would. Well, we never got that far.
We were walking along the left side of the Leave a Legacy stones (so that David could check the price of a wheelchair “just in case”). As we passed the last stone, I put my left foot down (my bad one), and a very sharp, very severe pain shot up both sides and up the back of my heel, all the way up my calf. I cried out and almost fell, because my instinctual reaction was to immediately remove all weight from that leg. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my right leg in a good position to compensate/take the weight when I basically let my left knee fold under me. If David hadn’t already been holding my elbow to support me, and instantly turned toward me with his other arm out when I fell, I would have face-planted and landed on my belly on the cement.
I said a very un-family friendly word, quietly, but with a lot of force. It was more of a sob, really. It had HURT.
Once David was sure I wasn’t going to fall, he sat me down on a nearby ledge. He asked me what I wanted to do. When I said “I don’t know,” he let me know what he wanted me to do. “I want you to go to the doctor. I want you to stop being so stubborn. I want you to stop hiding how much pain you’re in and let me take care of my wife. I…” He went on like that for a minute or so, and I let him, knowing I deserved the rough side of his tongue. He’d been trying to get me to take care of it the whole trip, and I had just scared the living daylights out of him. Once he had calmed down, the negotiating started.
I didn’t want to go to the doctor. (Please don’t yell at me. I got my lecture back in September.) My reasoning was, all the doctor was going to say was that I needed to stay off it for a few days, and that wasn’t happening here, period. I promised that the very next day after we got back to Seattle, I would go to the doctor and do whatever she said. And I agreed to get a wheelchair for the remainder of our trip. I promised I would tell him if the pain got worse even when I was sitting in the wheelchair. And I gave him a hug. (That was part of the deal. )
I asked if we could ride Spaceship Earth before we got the wheelchair, since a wheelchair wouldn’t help there anyway, and he agreed. So we did that and then rented my prison, er, I mean, my wheelchair. We went ahead and bought tickets for rentals for the remaining days of our trip to save a couple of dollars. (I wish I had known then our resort would provide us with a wheelchair for free.)
By this time, it was about 6:20, and our reservation was at 6:50 at Teppan Edo, so we figured we had better head over to Japan.
Normally, David and I move at a pretty quick clip, as we’re both naturally fast walkers. So the last few days had really been making David impatient. Never outwardly! He always matched my pace and never sighed or made faces or complained. But I know my husband well enough to know that he was tired of moving slowly. So he TOOK OFF around the World Showcase once he got me in that wheelchair!
ZOOM ZOOM!
He actually scared me half to death a few times. I felt like I needed a megaphone, a horn, and a set of flashing lights to warn people out of the way. He was half running, no joke!
We made it to Japan in one piece, however, and checked in for our reservation at about 6:35. We took the elevator up to the restaurant and then parked my wheelchair with the other chairs and strollers in the waiting area.
We were seated fairly quickly in (where else) the room furthest away from the waiting area. Of course! I was moving so slowly on my injured ankle that the CM leading our group to the table had to stop twice so that I could catch up. I was mortified, but everyone in the group was nice and smiled at me in sympathy…which actually made me feel even more embarrassed because I was worried they thought I was only moving that slow because I was pregnant. My social anxiety at its best. Who cares what they thought, really? Other than me, I mean…
We really enjoyed this restaurant. The guy who cooked our food was enthusiastic and hilarious. It was nice to laugh after the very rough day that we had!
David ordered the pork chop, and I ordered filet mignon. Everything was delicious! David ordered iced green tea to go with his meal, and I ordered milk again. I craved it like crazy on this trip! For dessert, David ordered the green tea pudding, and I ordered the vanilla soft serve.
The one thing David didn’t care for his custard-like pudding, so after dinner we headed to the American Pavilion to get a funnel cake to share. We were going to use snack credits to pay for it, not realizing they didn’t accept them there. I started to pull cash out of my wallet, but the CM saw our anniversary pins, held up his hand, and said “No charge! Happy anniversary!” Aww! Another magical moment to end our day on a good note.
We decided that was a good place to end our night, so David wheeled me toward the exit of the park. I asked him if we could stop for a PhotoPass picture in front of the fountain with Spaceship Earth in the background. He reluctantly agreed. He wanted to get me back to the hotel so I could rest.
Our PhotoPass photographer was awesome. David helped me stand, and the photographer moved the chair out of the frame. That was nice, but what was awesome about this man was that he didn’t say a single word! He used gestures and sound effects to direct us and communicate with us. It made us giggle, and he was GREAT at it. There was never a moments confusion. He was so funny, too! And his pictures ended up being some of my favorites.
We turned the wheelchair in and caught a nearly empty AoA bus rather than waiting in the huge Pop Century line. (This backfired…we weren’t really thinking about the walk back across the bridge to our resort. It took forever because I was moving so slowly, and David ended up supporting most of my weight. Bad decision on our part.)
Back in our room, we found a towel butterfly.
David went down to the cafeteria to get us hot water for an oatmeal snack, and then we went to bed.
Coming up next: Animal Kingdom, DHS, and One Cheesy Pretzel Craving Fulfilled!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Oh my goodness, what a day the pair of you had! You were both real troopers to keep going like that.
This trip was kind of rough, but we expected it to be different/difficult because of my pregnancy. It was still a great trip though, because we're good at bouncing back...I just feel bad that my TR is coming across as so negative. I swear we had fun!
...ohh I am so glad you got a wheel chair. I totally understand your anxiety, I would have felt that too, but your right..who would actually care...plus as my husband always says ..when are you ever going to see those people again haha! I can't wait to read more!
What a day! Sorry that David got sick, and that your ankle was bothering you so badly. I'm glad it ended on a good note with a great dinner in Japan. I like the pictures you got when you were leaving, they are very cute!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I am glad you still enjoyed yourselves even with David's bad reaction and your ankle. It was a smart idea to get a wheel chair and I am glad David was finally able to convince you of that.
Sorry for the rough day! Glad David finally got you into a wheelchair, hopefully that will help with your ankle! My BFF's little girl has the same allergy to eggs.
What a day for both you and David! Poor things! Glad the dinner at Teppan Edo and the funnel cake surprise for your anniversary helped the day end on a good note.