Our First Bounce Back Pre-Trip Report (9/13/14-9/20/14) - COMPLETED 9/6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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Starting your touring days at MK, love it. Got my fingers crossed for you with ELP. We saw it on our first night Lucille my DW for 1st time and she loved it.
Starting your touring days at MK, love it. Got my fingers crossed for you with ELP. We saw it on our first night Lucille my DW for 1st time and she loved it.
I'll be keeping my MDE close by and fingers crossed on getting MSEP for this night too.
Before I get back to our plans for our trip, I just want to let everyone know, that because it was so much fun on our last vacation, we’ll be wearing matching shirts again. Here’s a picture of the shirt will be wearing today:
(Bet you can’t guess where will be going that day)
Now… back to our current story:
Our third day of vacation will actually be the start of our first full day at Disney. I have quite a week planned here so, my family is either going to love me or I will end up being disowned by them when I tell them there is : sleeping in at Disney. This week I plan on scheduling our wake-up call to start each day at 6 o’clock. On our last vacation, we managed to be late to all our pre-rope drop breakfast ADR’s by fifteen minutes. We were still able to be seated without any problems, but I would have loved to have made to at least one ADR on time or even a few minutes early. Today we have our first ADR scheduled at 8 o’clock at Tusker House, so on my planning spread sheet I wrote down the following in order to figure out what time we should have our wake up call.
1. Time to walk from room to car: 10 minutes (approx)
2. Driving time to Animal Kingdom Parking lot and park car: 15 minutes
3. Walk to front gate and up to Tusker House: 10 minutes (approx)
As you can see from just these three steps, it’s already taken us a little past an half an hour. I didn’t realize how much time we were taking and on our last vacation with us waking up at 7:30 you can see why we never made it on time. So this time I told everyone we have no choice but to set the alarm for 6:00, since we all know it will take us another 10 -15 minutes before we’ll feel like getting out of bed. If all goes well we’re going to try our best to be out the door by 7:15 at the latest.
Another feature that I like about the new FPP system is that we can schedule separate attractions. I'm not a huge fan of roller coasters, today I’m splitting up the fast passes. I scheduled the following for the whole family:
• Festival of the Lion King (if available) or Nemo the Musical ( whichever one we don’t see will schedule it for the other day we visit).
DH and DS:
• Expedition Everest
• Primeval Whirl
Myself:
• Adventure’s Outpost
• It’s Tough to be a bug
We didn’t choose the popular Kilimanjaro Safaris as one of our fast pass because we are going to eating at Tusker House at pre-rope drop and we should be able to hit this ride first thing in the morning before the line starts building up. However, I may change one of my fast passes out and ride it again, since it’s one of my favorites.
Depending on how we feel that day, we may eat lunch at the park. If we do we will be eating at Flame Tree Barbeque. Otherwise, we’ll grab a bite to eat back at the resort. Either way will be heading back to the resort between 2 and 3 o'clock, in order to have a little down time before we head back out for the evening.
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 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.
Thanks. I'm trying to keep our schedule similar to home for Joshua, so he doesn't have a difficult time when he heads back to school, so getting up early should work well for us. The park hours during this time is really short compared to the summer. So for us, rope drop is extremely important if want to hit all the big attractions before the crowd comes along.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great plans!!
Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russi01
Great plans. Good luck getting up early!
Thanks. We're early risers at home, so it shouldn't be too difficult to keep it going while we're on vacation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iwonathomas
The plans for AK sound great
Thanks. I'm hoping will be able to get a lot done at AK.
A few weeks after I booked our ADRs, I ended up canceling our HDDR reservation for Thursday evening. I happened to notice “Ye Haa” Bob will be performing at POR that evening and I’m hoping to catch his show. I ended up rescheduling HDDR for Sunday evening. I went with the 6:15 showing along with the category 3 seating. Last year we attended the first showing with the category 3 seating and we were seated in the level 2 floor area, so it will be interesting to see what happens what when we go this time. In my opinion I don’t think there’s a bad seat anywhere. We’ll be driving over to Fort Wilderness and parking at the Outpost Settlement. From there will be traveling on the internal bus system to the Settlement Trading Post where we’ll take a short walk over to the Pioneer Hall. Last year when we attended the first showing I felt rushed. The food was good, but the server kept clearing our plates before we were done eating. I’m not sure why unless they were running behind and needed time to get ready for the next showing. I’m hoping I don’t have a repeat experience when we go in September. Afterwards, will head back our resort and settle down for the evening. I have a lot planned for later on the week, so I’m trying to keep our late nights to a minimum.
Next up…. Day 4 Plans
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Here’s a picture of the shirt will be wearing today:
: sleeping in at Disney. This week I plan on scheduling our wake-up call 
to start each day at 6 o’clock. On our last vacation, we managed to be late to all our pre-rope drop breakfast ADR’s by fifteen minutes. We were still able to be seated without any problems, but I would have loved to have made to at least one ADR on time or even a few minutes early. Today we have our first ADR scheduled at 8 o’clock at Tusker House, so on my planning spread sheet I wrote down the following in order to figure out what time we should have our wake up call. 
getting up early!
Deb
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