Surviving Sanibel: Sand, Shells & Sunsets Trip Report - UPDATED 7/13 - Page 4 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
So Grandma (FFF) arrives in 2 days and still have no IDEA that we are going to Sanibel, she thinks we are hanging out at the house with Nora and just having a day at Disney. Boy will she be surprised and I hope likes it! It has been nice not having to explain things about Sanibel 500 times before she gets here though. So what I did was finish my Scrapbook of our Trip last year and any extra photos went into a photo album. We will show her the album and the Scrapbook and let her get a feel for what we did and saw last year and couple days before hand we will say "lets take Nora on a road trip instead of just sitting home and go to Sanibel" if she says no...well I'll drag her out the door kicking and screaming LOL. Otherwise I'm sure she will be just as excited as we are!
So What does our
Itinerary look like? Well this is a relaxing beach vacation so we really don't have too much of one.
Day 1 _Friday
Pick up the Rental Car at Alamo
Go back to the apartment and load up our Stuff
On the Road by 11am
check in at the Residence Inn
Dinner at Buon Appetito
Day 2_ Saturday
Breakfast at the Hotel
Lunch at Bubble Room
Dinner at RC Otters
We will most likely hang out on Captiva Today since both restaurants are located here. Plus the Beach is great for sunsets so as long as the weather holds out for sunset time we will watch it tonight. We most likely will take an afternoon break back at the resort if storms come in. Whatever we feel up to doing, or want to do. No set plans, just general idea of where our meals will be.
Day 3_Sunday
Breakfast at the hotel
Lunch at Schanpper's Hots
Dinner at Island Cow
We will spend today mostly on Sanibel Island, since most of our meals are located on that end of the islands but again whatever we feel up to doing is what we will do. No set plans. We would probably want to catch a Sunset again, or if weather didn't cooperate the night before catch it today.
Day 4_ Monday
Breakfast at the hotel
Lunch at Red Robin for Mom's birthday
Might go into Fort Myer's Beach and show them the area maybe stop for a few minutes at the beach but not overly long.
Drive back to Orlando and whatever time we get back we will get back no set plans.
Now Tuesday we will return the rental car very early around 6am to Alamo, they aren't open where we are dropping off that early but they have a nightbox and are already aware of the fact we are dropping the car off that early. It's good to know the people working there! Then we are planning to Introduce Nora to Disney World She has NEVER been to a Disney Theme park so we are definitely doing the MK we have 2 meals planned: Chef Mickey's for breakfast and The Plaza for Dinner. We might try and park hop into Epcot for Soarin but depends on what tickets they end up getting. I do have to leave for a few hours during the afternoon to go to my math class YUCK but since I'll miss Monday's class I can't miss 2 in a row!
So that is our Itinerary! We have been getting Items for the trip which I'll explain later on! we only have 14 days to go and we are sooo excited!
Up next...Our Goodies and other fun stuff
__________________
Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust! Studying Hard to Make a Difference!
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.
Better late to an Amy TR than never finding it!!
But I'm all caught up now! Great deals on the car and hotel! I need to take your advice about continuing to check on rates... I guess you never know! Can't wait to see FFF's reaction! Great plans, Amy.
Soooooooooooo Sorry for going MIA, since Floor Foot Franny arrived in Florida it has been non stop madness I mean Fun add in 2 college courses (1 of which I am lucky if I get a C but that is all I need to pass so go with it) and everday life I just haven't had a moment to get to updating you all on what has happened since I last updated!
The Goodies we Bought
So....Let's start with the goodies we got for Sanibel! When we went to CT in May to visit family we went to our favorite store for getting all kinds of things "The Christmas Tree Shoppes" no they don't only sell christmas things (thats only during the holidays) you can find all kinds of junk I mean treasures there. Well we found Beach Huts for $5 so we got 2 of those! Last year we bought an umbrella and tried once to use it, lasted all of 2 minutes before the sea breezes took hold of it and well now we have a really mangled mess of a pole and its useless. So we are hoping the huts work better!
We got new Beach Hats to keep the sun off our faces (we want sun but not burns kwim?) they came in 2 packs on QVC made out of some fancy paper and well since they were pretty inexpensive if they don't work out then live and learn!
The Big Reveal!!!
The Surprise was revealed on Friday, we had to give Grandma the opportunity to comprehend what was the plan, where we were going, to pack as she is slow to warm up to the idea of "travel". She was completely Shocked that we would want to drive 3 hours to go to the beach but once she looked through the scrapbook I made from last years trip, and to the slide show we made of the photos for her, now she is counting down the days!!!
Oh YEAH I did it again!
Yep...Saved more money on our hotel!!!! Was showing FFF the hotel we were going to stay in online, and for ha-ha's checked the prices again. Lo and Behold the Price dropped again!!! We are still in the same size room but for $100 less then what we had originally booked for! We are getting a 2 Bed Room suite for $369 total including taxes!
I will continue to check up until we leave who knows might go down again!
I keep checking the car rentals but nothing is beating our $211 for a Tahoe or Similar. A big car I know but we are not light packers We need the space. So we are glad that we are saving on the hotel cost as that can go towards gas/dining now!
So For now I'm thinking this will be my last update until we return as this week is jam packed with last minute things to do and my online time will be very limited! So Until we return! Bye for now!
__________________
Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust! Studying Hard to Make a Difference!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Have a magical trip! 
Linear Mode
