Points make Paris... TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/29 - Page 22 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What a great morning you are having so far! Love all the pictures! You'd never know it was so cold! Your breakfast looked delish and Glad Dave finally turned up!
It was one of those days where it looks beautiful and you assume it's lovely and warm, but gorgeous as it looks in the photos, it was so cold!
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Sunday 1 May – part six: “I’ll get Fastpasses for Ratatouille”….
We started to make our way over to Ratatouille: The Adventure, but on the way, Daisy spotted the Magic Carpets of Aladdin, and that was it – she wanted to ride them. I told them to do that, and I’d head over to get Fastpasses for Ratatouille – brilliant plan, right? Wrong, so very wrong.
I found Toy Story Playland congested, and as I entered the Ratatouille area (they still haven’t actually given this part of this park a name… ), I could see a massive queue. I knew instantly it wasn’t in the right place for the ride, but surely it couldn’t be, but what else would people be queuing for? If you thought Fastpasses, like I did, you’d be right. The line, I reckon, was at least 20 minutes long, and already the Fastpass time was back to 3:40pm. Ok then, so this hasn’t lost any of its popularity then… I immediately gave up and headed back to the others and gave them the bad news.
We only had a couple of minutes to wait before Sara and Daisy boarded their flying carpet, and Mark pointed out a viewing area that we’d never seen before, so we headed over there, and got some shots of them flying around. I wish I could’ve caught Sara’s reaction when the ride first started, as it took them upwards and she so was not expecting that!
As we headed out, I couldn’t resist getting a shot of just some of the masses waiting for Crush’s Coaster…
By now, it was a 75 minute wait, with a 60 minute wait for single riders! I also took a photo of this sad scene…
This is Animagique. Remember me saying in the trip report how much we were looking forward to everyone enjoying this, and how pleased I was that it wouldn’t be closed, after the website first claimed it would be? Well, we were brought crashing down to earth when we checked in yesterday and discovered it was closed after all. I did mention that the British website didn’t have that detail on it, and they made a note of it, so hopefully they’ve fixed that glitch, so no-one else is disappointed, like we were.
Tom and Daisy were off to the Tower of Terror, and on the way there, there was a huge crowd going into the Magic of Disney Animation, and just as they made their way through the line, a woman handed them two Fastpasses for the Tower of Terror, saying she couldn’t use them. Tom didn’t register what they were, but I did, and thanked her profusely for them, before explaining it to a very happy Tom.
They disappeared off, and the others all decided they wanted to go into Disney Animation, which we haven’t done in years. I remember it not being that great, but I also thought they’d revamped it, and heck why not give it another go? We had a close call getting in, as Sara, Evie, myself and Mark made it in, but Dave and Barb nearly didn’t, until we all started yelling that they were part of our party, and the woman let them in. I don’t know what the problem was though, as they let plenty more people in after them.
We didn’t have as much time as I’d have liked in the first room to admire all the exhibits in here. It reminded me of a much smaller version of the Walt Disney Family Museum, and I do love things in the park that pay tribute to that wonderful man.
When the show got underway, it was a bit insulting to have both Roy and Walt Disney speaking, but dubbed into French with English subtitles underneath. We both felt it should be the other way round, leaving Roy’s and Walt’s tones intact.
We then headed into a theatre to watch a very cute compilation of Disney animation, which I loved. It was so fun to hear the audience’s reaction to some iconic scenes, such as Bambi after his mother is killed. This has clearly been updated since the last time we did this many years ago, as new movies such as Cars are now included.
Then you go into the animation section in another theatre. This isn’t actual animation, but it’s a guy explaining how Mushu from Mulan was created. I always thought he was an odd choice to anchor an attraction like this, as Mulan isn’t exactly one of the best known films. This was really disjointed, as there was no explanation from the guy about how to get the headphones next to your seat to work if you didn’t speak fluent French. In the end, I sussed it out through trial and error. You had to repeatedly press the button on the front until you got the language you wanted. Some explanation would have been very useful.
I think, by the time everyone was sorted out, we were at least halfway through the presentation, and although they have added a new bit on the end, featuring some of those involved in creating Inside Out, it felt a bit artificial just tagging this on the end. I did feel this whole attraction desperately needs a major renovation, as it’s really no longer working in its current form, which is a huge shame.
We headed out into the final area, which is where they do the animation classes, but no-one was interested in doing that, which was fine by me. Knowing our luck, we’d have got Piglet, and Mark would’ve been upset…
We headed outside, and found Tom and Daisy, both of whom who’d really enjoyed Tower of Terror, and I think it’s fair to say they were both a bit pumped by the experience, and told us about the “air time” they’d enjoyed.
Ahhh the old paper FP! What luck they were handed some! Glad they enjoyed the ride too.
Oh I wish you guys would have done the drawing! Always such fun. We miss it at DHS now.
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Tanya
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Nice time in the animation building! I always used to love the little show with the animator and Mushu at DHS.
We always enjoyed that too. Aren't they supposed to be revamping that and wasn't part of the rumour that they were going to introduce something similar or am I remembering that wrong?
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Ahhh the old paper FP! What luck they were handed some! Glad they enjoyed the ride too.
Oh I wish you guys would have done the drawing! Always such fun. We miss it at DHS now.
I would've happily done it, but no-one else was interested.
We always enjoyed that too. Aren't they supposed to be revamping that and wasn't part of the rumour that they were going to introduce something similar or am I remembering that wrong?
I don't remember hearing that. But it would nice if it were true!
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I guess I really was desperate to beat Mark!
not attractions - these are literally just shops and restaurants in there.
), I could see a massive queue. I knew instantly it wasn’t in the right place for the ride, but surely it couldn’t be, but what else would people be queuing for? If you thought Fastpasses, like I did, you’d be right. The line, I reckon, was at least 20 minutes long, and already the Fastpass time was back to 3:40pm. Ok then, so this hasn’t lost any of its popularity then… 
I also took a photo of this sad scene… 
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