Taggin' Along Compliments of Disney! - Page 40 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Another great update Melissa. SAB sound wonderful and very relaxing. I loved when Evan was small enough to fall asleep on me too. Hope looks so cute "I'm a lean mean baby and I wear my diapers low" Now just get ready for when she pulld them off and runs around naked.
That is too funny! She just started running around naked after bathtime, but at least when I put the diaper on she keeps it on...for now.
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Originally Posted by Stephanie P.
YES! I commented many times in my trip report about how hot it was and I am from Atlanta! On the Friday that you were there, it rained some and it felt like we were walking around in a sauna all day. We went to the MK that Saturday morning before we left and I remember it being very sticky by the time we left, which was probably 11:00am!
Friday was like a sauna after that rain. I thought it would cool things off but it didn't at all. And it's funny, because that Saturday I said to my mom that it felt like it was going to be a really comfortable day...boy was I wrong!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linnynad
Great update!! SAB really does look awesome, and that sand area. I haven't seen or heard about that before.
I wish Josie would still nap on me like Hope did with you. That is the best!!!
I loved your hot dog lunch!! I'm a hot dog girl myself, and it's so funny but, I haven't gotten to the point in my trip report when I talk about my most favorite meal on the trip.............all I have to say is it was at a place that is one word, begins with a "C" and invloves a hot dog
Hmmm...I wonder what place you could possibly be talking about??? Just think, when your brand new baby arrives, you'll have someone to nap on you for at least two years! Then I will be the jealous one.
OK, all caught up! Glad you (and your stroller ) made it safely. Glad you liked the BC and were able to spend some quality time at SAB. Hope running around with her diaper hanging low is too funny! Ready for more.
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
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So far so good! The pool looks so nice! I am really looking forward to it in March-our waitlist came through. We'll be at BCV for a week! YAY!
And my 9 year old has plumber's butt often. Hope is so cute!
Can't wait to hear more.
So what you're telling me is that Hope won't grow out of the butt issues until she's a teenager? Congrats on your waitlist coming through!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by PrincessSharon
OK, all caught up! Glad you (and your stroller ) made it safely. Glad you liked the BC and were able to spend some quality time at SAB. Hope running around with her diaper hanging low is too funny! Ready for more.
So am I! BC was fabulous and I will definitely be going back there again, but now I just have to make the decision when. Those are the best decisions to make though.
LOL Melissa!!! I hope not. But just yesterday Isabelle's butt crack was hanging out again and I thought about you guys!
I had to laugh at this...I'm glad your daughter's butt crack reminded you of us. What a way for someone to think of me. "Oh look, my daughter's butt crack is hanging out again. That reminds me...I wonder how Melissa is doing?"
Before we could head out to Downtown Disney, I needed to make a stop outside by the lagoon to see if there were any Photopass photographers out. I really wanted to try to get a nice picture of Hope and I for this particular picture frame I had at home, but when I got outside I couldn’t find anyone. I walked back into the lobby and found the photopass desk, and they told me that all of the photographers were busy with the family photo sessions, but if I were to come back after 7:00 they should be out. That obviously wasn’t going to work for us because we weren’t going to be here at 7:00. I looked at my mom and asked her if she thought she could get a halfway decent shot of us.
Not knowing what I was doing with my camera I couldn’t very well explain to her what to do with it to take a nice picture, so here was the first one…
Just a little too dark for my liking.
Then I adjusted it to add the flash…who knew.
That was the best I think I was going to get. While I was out there and it was such a nice evening I took a couple of photos by the beach. Trying to play around with some of the settings, and still not knowing what the heck I was doing.
Finally, we headed to catch a bus to DTD, and get something for dinner. We knew our first stop would be The Earl of Sandwich, a must-do for us on any trip to Disney. I wish they had one of these in Baltimore, but sadly, the only time I can get my beloved sandwich is when I’m visiting Disney World, although if they were to put one in Baltimore it would take the fun out of needing to get one while I’m on vacation.
During the holiday season, I always get their holiday sandwich (my all-time favorite), but during the regular season I get what I think is a very close second…The All-American.
So that’s what both my mom and I got, with plans on sharing mine with Hope. I also bought her a cup of the jello, thinking she would really enjoy that, but I was totally wrong. She didn’t even touch it, and after I tasted it, I can honestly say I didn’t blame her. It wasn’t very appetizing if you ask me.
After we finished eating our delicious sandwiches, we headed over to The World of Disney. While I was here I picked up two Halloween rice crispy treats for Chad since he loves the crispy treats here, and my mom tried to find something to take back to my 6 month old niece. She didn’t have any luck, but I did find a couple of opportunities to play around with my camera. Here’s where the aggravation started.
I saw this set of golf Mickey ears that I hadn’t seen before so I told my mom to put them on so I could take her picture…
It is a lot darker than I thought it would be, and this is with a flash.
I’m thinking, for an expensive camera this flash sure does suck, but I kept on taking pictures. Hope found a Winnie the Pooh stuffed animal that she really liked, but I didn’t end up buying it for her because we have enough stuffed animals at home already. I started snapping away…
And still the pictures were too dark for my liking. What’s with this camera???
So we go outside, and I tell my mom that I would like to get a photo of her being funny with Cinderella and all of sudden I’m looking in the viewfinder and I see these little numbers for the flash, and when I move the little dial it brightens the screen up a bit. I put two and two together and I finally got a picture that was a lot brighter.
I figured after Cinderella got all of the attention, Sleeping Beauty might feel a little left out so we hung out with her for a second.
I snapped this one too to make sure it was still brighter when looking at something else...By George, I think I've got it!
We didn’t really have any plans, so we just walked in and out of a few stores and then headed through the Pleasure Island. While on the way we noticed this big tree with a bunch of white dots scattered throughout. After getting a closer look we realized it was a bunch of white ibis’ settling in for the night. We thought that was kind of neat.
We made our way past all of the old clubs and it was just sad seeing Pleasure Island looking all empty and ghostly. We were almost through it when we stopped to listen to a really good band playing some music. Hope loves music, and even though I could tell she was getting sleepy, she still clapped her hands. I thought for sure she would have been asleep by now.
With another chance to test out my camera, I decided to take a picture of the balloon. This time I only used the night setting because I didn’t know how else to get a good shot of it.
With more stores to go into, we made our way through The West Side area. We didn’t buy anything, but I did think these were really cute.
By this time, we were all getting tired. It had been a very long day, and we needed to get up extra early tomorrow, so we decided to head on home. Again, while on our way out, we stopped to listen to another band, but this time I tried to get Hope dancing a bit.
One more test of the camera before heading to the bus...
Now, the bus system from DTD is horrible. BCV was the second to the last stop, and when you’re tired and you just want to get home, it can be a bit much. Our bus driver was excellent though. Right when we got on the bus, he gave all of the kids, including Hope, a pirate bandana, a pirate ring, a pirate bracelet and two bus pins (one to keep and one to trade). I thought that was really sweet of him. And when he finally arrived at our resort to drop us off, we were the only one’s to get off the bus, and while we were on the sidewalk getting our stroller opened, he waited to make sure we were okay…that’s what makes Disney so special…people like that.
Finally, back in our room, I put Hope to bed while I could hear the fireworks from Illuminations going off. After putting her down, I went out on the balcony and watched them until it was over. I only wish I would have had my camera, but it was nice to just enjoy them without the aggravation of trying to take decent pictures of them. It was the perfect ending to our day, and it just made me fall in love with this resort even more.
What a great way to end the day! I think you are making quite a few people fall in love with BC! I know I can not wait to stay there especially after just reading your TR!
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Teresa
Sammy 5 years and Peyton 15 months - September 2013
I had to laugh at this...I'm glad your daughter's butt crack reminded you of us. What a way for someone to think of me. "Oh look, my daughter's butt crack is hanging out again. That reminds me...I wonder how Melissa is doing?"
NO! NO! NO! And I knew you would take it that way! LOL!!!! I should say that it reminded me of your trip report with Hope's little butt hanging out.
Sorry Melissa!!!
Sounds like you enjoyed yourselves at DTD. Glad to hear you are getting the hang of your new camera. And what a great way to end your day, getting to see the fireworks from your hotel.
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The picture your mom took was adorable! You had a ton of great pictures in this update - I think my absolute favourite was the one of the balloon reflecting in the water. I forget if you mentioned what kind of camera you got??
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Stacey
Why do these kids look so pathetic?
Find out in: A New Grade, A New House, and A Surprise!Final Thoughts 01/30