The “Circle of Life” WDW Trip Report – September 10-19, 2009 (Fort Wilderness Cabins) - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Day 6: AK, rashes, swimming pools, and Kouzzina… oh my!
Day 6
Okay, so this day we were supposed to head back to AK for some more Animal related funness! Well, the day before I noticed MJ’s neck getting kind of a bumpy red rash and I just kept washing it off. When we got up this morning, she had a HUGE bumpy red rash all around her neck and down her back! She was clawing at it like crazy and just seemed kind of miserable. She has such sensitive skin; it could have been the excessive sun block application or even just a heat rash. Either way, all her clothes were bothering her, so I decided it was time for her to have a break and a nice restful mommy day. I’ve learned to trust my instincts now and I’m glad of it. We had a lovely day together. Before her morning bath.
I told everyone else to go on without us and after much protest about leaving us, they left happily enough to their own plans. My mom and Dad rented a car and toured Orlando, while Jason, Chris and Jager went to AK to continue with the original plans.
Obviously, I can’t explain what everyone else did this day since it was just MJ and I most of the day, but I have pictures and their second hand stories. Jager rode Dinosaur and loved it in the way you love being scared to death without actually dying. J He adopted this enormous ugly Carnosaurus at the ride’s store and Dino even got VIP treatment in the empty stroller seat next to Jager.
Meanwhile in Wildernessland, I gave June breakfast followed by a long warm bath to wash off any residual irritants. She had fun doing something more like a normal routine in a fun place, I think. We put on our swim suits and drove around the resort. We took ourselves and our fresh yummy navel oranges to the big pool at Fort Wilderness. They have a great pool, by the way! We were the only ones in our group to even use it! We put on sun block (only the sensitive baby kind this time) and got covered in orange juice. We got into the big pool and played, but then we went to the kid’s water area… not the kiddy pool, but the water playground. June was so excited! She crawled/walked up and down the rubber covered steps and enjoyed stopping up the sprayers under her feet by standing on them. She laughed as I helped her careen down the slide and she liked it when I lay down in the water (on the zero entry end), so she could play with my hair in the water and splash me. We left and hour or two later because she was pretty tired again. It was a really sweet time that I could really tell made a difference to her. I had as much fun as she did, I’m sure.
Everyone returned home and rested some more before dinner. My parent’s rental car saved us a ton of time getting to our dinner ADRs at Cat Cora’s Kouzzina. At the time, it was brand new and while we used to love Spoodles, we were totally unsure what awaited us there.
We piled into the car and we at the Boardwalk in no time! All our previous transportation nightmares originated at the Boardwalk, so we finally dodged that bullet! Yay, us! We walked around the Boardwalk a bit since we were so early thanks to the car.
Finally, we were seated and had a nice table near the open kitchen. So, here comes the review… our waiter was… he was… um, how do I put this… over excited? He spoke to us more like an actor on stage than a server at a restaurant. His recommendations where rehearsed and he kept interrupting us like he was doing a bad monologue. In fact, he bordered on obnoxious. We ordered and the food was good. Not great, but good. Honestly, this early in the restaurant’s career it might be a mistake to judge already, but I felt Spoodles was much better. I liked my seafood stew but the appetizers and most other’s food was mediocre by Disney standards. I’m sure they’ve improved by now though. I think they’d been open about a week at the time. Jager making his Kouzzina kid's dessert pizza.
June did have fun playing with my empty mussel shells and she actually liked my spicy seafood dish! So we had fun no matter what.
After dinner, there was a guy doing a small magic show on the Boardwalk and Jager loved him. He kept making the end of Jager’s shoe squeak mysteriously and he giggled so heartily. Stuff like that, those unexpected fun little moments are what make Disney so memorable… and addictive! J
We drove home and, as we say in OK, we hit the hay!
__________________
Previous Trips
May/June '96 - WDW Off Site, May '07 - AKL, May '08 - Pop Century, September '09 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, May '10 - POFQ, December '10 - WL, July '11 - DL - Offsite, November-December 2012 - Contemporary, May '13 - DCL Fantasy & WDW Art of Animation (Nemo Suite), September '14 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, April '15 - Beach Club (Club Level), May '16 - AKL (Arusha View) / Universal - LRPR...
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.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
That stroller looks like the Lexus of Strollers! WOW!
It totally is! It's a rental from Orlando Stroller Rentals and we'll never go any other way again. I need a OSR DVC type membership! I'm prepared to commit to them!!!
__________________
Previous Trips
May/June '96 - WDW Off Site, May '07 - AKL, May '08 - Pop Century, September '09 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, May '10 - POFQ, December '10 - WL, July '11 - DL - Offsite, November-December 2012 - Contemporary, May '13 - DCL Fantasy & WDW Art of Animation (Nemo Suite), September '14 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, April '15 - Beach Club (Club Level), May '16 - AKL (Arusha View) / Universal - LRPR...
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Susan
Deb
the re-enactment from Lady and the Tramp.
I'm prepared to commit to them!!! 
Linear Mode
