How to Meet Friends and Alienate Children - *Updated 8/10* - Page 34 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Funny update! Cool pictures of ToonTown. Didn't know that Goofy had a house or that Chip and Dale had a tree house. Tina, your hand and foot massage sound wonderful! I'm these reports.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
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Just finished reading your trip report because I had to find out what the aspergus joke was about....omg I have never laughed so hard....the whole trips sounds wonderful and fun!! I so want to plan a DLR vacation now!
More please I hate when people get obnoxious and loud on tame rides...I'm sure you would have taken care of that with a fine taste of snarky had the CM not said anything
I was awakened from my nap when the mermaids returned from the pool – Miss Emilie’s lips were blue!! (Apparently, there had been a “bio-hazard” at the Disneyland Hotel pool, so they came over to the Grand Californian to swim.) Karen made sure that Emilie was well wrapped up for Sarah and Terri’s walk back to their hotel. Before they left, we made plans for dinner together and Karen made an ADR (or whatever they’re called at DLR) for the Carnation Café on Main Street.
We got ourselves ready to go and walked over to the park. Terri, Sara and Emilie were waiting there for us and had checked us in already. Still, it was a verrrrry long wait for a table and Terri was getting quite antsy. At one point, she offered to bus a table herself if it would get us seated faster. Right as the parade music started up, we were being led back to the very back of the patio when I noticed a table just being cleared right up front. I asked the CM if we could switch and – 30 seconds later – we had a great view of the passing parade. Some of the floats even stopped right in front of us for their “show.” I got misty seeing Miss Minnie way up on her float. *sigh* I still hadn’t gotten to see my girl up close. *sigh*
I ordered the pot pie (being a good PA Dutch girl ) and was delighted when the golden-crusted goodness was put in front of me. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was all dark meat. Yuck… that’s *not* the way to make pot pie!
Then it was off to Toontown to use our Roger Rabbit FPs from earlier that day. (I decided to sit this one out because spinning isn’t my favorite activity and I’d already done it once that day – and bonked my head.)
After the gang came out, we all played with the gags in Toontown – the zapper at the Electric Company, etc.
With the final hour before the fireworks quickly winding down, we decided to zoom through Tomorrowland’s main attractions. Space Mountain had a ridiculous wait, but Buzz wasn’t too bad. Karen and I paired up and… I found out that she wasn’t lying when she said she was *extremely* competitive.
Karen turns Buzz into a contact sport.
During the ride, she leaned into me several times (messing up my aim), grabbed my blaster, shoved her blaster into my face, whipped her arm across my field of vision and basically made it impossible for me to score anything. When we got stopped in one room, she started pounding away at one high-scoring target with one hand and tried to hold down my arm with the other.
Seriously.
I managed to sneak my arm under hers and pounded away at another target… struggling, spitting, fighting my way to matching her score. That’s when she hit me.
Seriously.
She bonked me in the head with her blaster as she tried to aim for a target on *my* side of the ride vehicle.
When we came out, I checked the e-mailable ride photos and was shocked to see that Karen had rigged the computers to reverse our scores.
As soon as I got home, I contacted the folks at Disneyland and asked them to check their records from that night. Sure enough, they saw the dastardly change Karen had master-minded and they emailed me the corrected version of the ride photo.
So… for all you truth seekers, this is the *actual* score as it should’ve appeared on those monitors.
As I limped out of Buzz, rubbing my head where she hit me, the gang wanted to head over to Star Tours. Still dizzy from the tooth-and-nail experience of Buzz, I decided to sit this one out. Terri joined me and we had a lovely chat while we waited for the group. After a bit, I heard the announcement for the fireworks and Terri and I conferred over whether to wait for the group or head over to find a spot.
We ditched them like a bunch of hot rocks!
Finding a good viewing spot was another matter. Everything was jam-packed with people and, after trying to get out into the middle of the hub, we ended up having to turn back and head for a spot on Main Street. But… we didn’t even make it that far. After swimming upstream through a sea of guests, we finally ended up right back near the entrance to Tomorrowland. Terri got a call from Sarah and told them where we were, but they had managed to snag a spot nearer to Main Street, so we decided to watch the show where we were and hook up afterwards.
Terri and I ooohed and ahhhhed through the whole thing and really enjoyed ourselves. We were so close to Tinker Bell that we could almost see her expression as she flew back and forth over the castle. And the tribute to the attractions (past and present) of the park is really delightful. I love the POTC and Star Tours parts the most.
Afterwards, we rejoined the gang at the Market House on Main Street and did a little looking around as the big crowd swept out of the park. When it was our time to head out, we all waved and sent air kisses to the Fire Station and said “Goodnight, Uncle Walt.” (Oh, did that make me verklempt )
That was it, I was toast. I collapsed into bed as soon as we got back to the room and barely had the energy to dig out my early entry paper to give to Karen (who’d lost hers.) Sharon and Karen would be getting up early, but I was happy to have some extra sleep to look forward to.
The weather was another picture perfect day. Wonderfully blue skies and cool. The best thing today was how low-key and easy a day it was. Plus, we kept running into PPers and having a blast. The worst thing today was that Dawn’s knee was hurting and we didn’t get to tour with her. The funniest thing today was the “real” biggest fan of Tower of Terror!! Today we tried Carnation Café on Main Street And the result was a really long wait for not great food – but, oh, what a view of the parade! The most magical moment today was getting klonked by Karen on Buzz. It’s silly, but it endears her to me even more
[Up Next: Sarah’s pink hair makes a big blue friend!]
Oh -- and don't believe Karen if she tries to deny her perfidy!!
All I have to say is look at the picture. Clearly, I am trying to slide as far away from dear Eileen as possible. If she happened to get her fantasy filled noggin in the way of my perfectly justifiable sight line, of course it would get knocked about just a bit. And, if I had tried so hard to hold her hand down don't you think that I would have gotten the higher score? Especially with my vastly superior knowledge of the D-land version of the ride after countless trips with Zack? So, either she's lying about the score, or she's lying about the arm holding down. The statements are simply mutually exclusive. I conclude that if she has proven herself to be a liar once, then you should not trust anything in this silly little tale. Simply not logical.
Besides, you guys know me. I'm FAR too sweet to pull any of those shenanigans. Right? I trust that y'all will keep an open mind and not trust the verbal bullying of Ms. Eileen. And stay clear of her for awhile. Pants, clearly. On. Fire.
Love ya' liar girl!
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Karen, aka Zack's Mom - Lover of all Things Disney and the San Francisco Giants!
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I would -- in my defense -- just like to point out that I'm holding my blaster with two hands by the end of the ride.... just because *someone* ain't as "sweet" as she lets on.
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I hate when people get obnoxious and loud on tame rides...I'm sure you would have taken care of that with a fine taste of snarky had the CM not said anything 
Suzie
) and was delighted when the golden-crusted goodness was put in front of me. Imagine my surprise when I found that it was all dark meat. Yuck… that’s *not* the way to make pot pie!
)
I trust that y'all will keep an open mind and not trust the verbal bullying of Ms. Eileen. And stay clear of her for awhile. Pants, clearly. On. Fire.
And now I know that riding Buzz with Karen is taking one's life into one's hands. 
Who knew that Buzz was a contact sport/ride 
will share the extra super secret 100,000 mark at WDW, my score usually hovers around 20,000 or so!
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