A Hop, NO Skip, and Many Mishaps to a Disney Dream - Page 49 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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What a trooper - what a pair of troopers!! That is such a long day.
I am still peeved about the monorail and lack of characters at EMH. I wouldn't be surprised if they limited EMHs to only busy times of the year. THAT would be horrible and i would be tempted to stay off property.
Now if they do that, I won't be staying on property as much, unless I get a great deal. Skip LOVES the night EMH's and if they take that perk away, then I know he will really grumble about the prices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nalexander
I love the sword and the stone pictures.
I am impressed that you guys made it out so late.
She was so funny trying to get it out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Baloo
What a determined girrrrl face she had on--good for her! Can't wait to see what time you two managed to get going the next day--I think if it were me, it wouldn't have been early at all!
She really wanted to get it pulled out. She was determined.
Actually fairly early for as late as we were out. We had limited time and had to get it all done.
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Originally Posted by kingfamily1129
awww sounds like you all had a very VERY productive day!!! And Claire looked beautiful!!! Glad you all had such great character interactions! Can't wait to read more!
It was a very productive day. Long, but fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
You definitely made the most of that day! I don't know how you both kept going, but what great memories.
I can't do that at home, but at Disney, the pixie dust must help.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Wow, that is one heck of a long day!
yes it was!
Quote:
Originally Posted by smcnaught
I wish you had gotten a picture of her asleep in the stroller, that would have been funny to see!
I should have. I had put the camera away at that point and it would've been a pain to pull it back out. But it would've been a great picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhinohunter
Let's see in at 3am, should be able to make rope drop at one of the parks.
Looking forward to your adventure the next day.
Ok, I confess, I could have made rode drop somewhere the next day, but we didn't. Claire wouldn't have though.
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Another early day for me. I don’t know why I can’t sleep, but why try and fight it. I believe I didn’t actually lie down till 4 AM the night before. I didn’t write down what time I got up, but I know my first picture was taken by 8:30. I am pretty sure when I got up I showered before going out, so I would say I had to be up no later than 8. Yeah, that would equal about 4 hours of sleep. I grabbed my mug and went up to get a refill. I took pictures along the way, and also called Skip to see how things were going at home.
And a look across the lake at Art of Animation.
I then headed back to the room to make sure the family was starting to stir. Also we had to be packed AGAIN! We were moving over to Residence Inn near Sea World today. In the future, I don’t know if the money we saved going there (it was free with my Moms rewards points) is worth the moving. It became tiresome. And I have just found that I really like being immersed in all things Disney while staying on property. My Dad got up and tried tip toeing around so Claire could sleep longer. My Mom let him know that a bomb could go off and Claire wasn’t going to budge. LOL! As I packed I plugged in my camera battery into the outlet under the table. I had 2 batteries for my SLR and one was pretty low, so I thought I would give it a quick charge so it would be ready when needed. I also gave my phone a little extra charging as well. My phone seems to love to eat the power! I charge the heck out of it and it seems to die fairly quickly when you use it a lot.
Nice pics around the resort! I'm hoping they get lots of negative feedback about the cutbacks and re-think it all. While we're on the subject of cutbacks, I wish they'd bring back the little show they used to do at the Sword in the Stone. Ever see it? Merlin would pick an adult and a child out of the crowd. First the adult would try to pull out the sword and not succeed, then the child would slide it right out and was given a crown and certificate. It was a very cute show!
Nice pics around the resort! I'm hoping they get lots of negative feedback about the cutbacks and re-think it all. While we're on the subject of cutbacks, I wish they'd bring back the little show they used to do at the Sword in the Stone. Ever see it? Merlin would pick an adult and a child out of the crowd. First the adult would try to pull out the sword and not succeed, then the child would slide it right out and was given a crown and certificate. It was a very cute show!
I have never seen that show, but heard of it. I do know that randomly the sowerd does lift out and then they do some sort of presentation to the kid that lifted it out. I have had a couple of Dis friends whose kids were lucky enought to be one. I have no ide how it's picked, just randomly done at different times during the day.
It finally came time to start getting Claire up. My plan was to wash her hair this morning. She had all that gel in it from the day before. Claire had other ideas about waking up, and I have to say, I don’t blame her. She was up very late the night before. I would’ve let her sleep longer, but we had a very important breakfast to attend. I knew when I made this ADR, that it was going to be really pushing it to get there, but I also knew it was going to be well worth it. We were going to 1900 Park Fare. A breakfast with characters….and not just any characters, one we REALLY wanted to see…..Mary Poppins! Claire finally got moving and it was now getting late. Dad was loading the van with everything not needed at the moment as I got Claire moving. It was now too late for a bath or hair wash. That would just have to wait till tonight. Claire was cranky and actually complained when I put her dress on. She didn’t understand how special her dress is and thought she would rather go in just regular clothes today. I am pretty easy going when she wants to change out of costumes, but this time I didn’t give in to her way. She ONLY had to wear this dress to breakfast and then she could take it off…forever if she wanted to. I kept watching the clock and started to get a little panicky. I struggled with putting on Claire’s boots and I think the sweat was pouring off me at this point. Sometimes getting a 6 year old dressed is a major workout. I did a VERY quick look around the room as I stood to leave and rushed out the door. That is NOT how I usually leave anywhere. I am one of those people who usually looks under the beds, under tables in drawers, in the shower, etc. before I leave. I just didn’t have the time and I soon regretted not taking that extra look around. My Dad has a sarcastic since of humor and soon was joking with Claire on the way over to Grand Floridian. Claire, not being in a chipper mood at the moment, was NOT happy with is comments. I don’t think he understood the deal with dressing up for a breakfast at all either, nor just how special her dress was. As we approached Magic Kingdom, I got confused about which lane I was supposed to be in for the resorts. I asked at the booth and they told me to cut ALL the way across and follow that road on the other side. That was a treat, but I did it! Soon the Grand Floridian was in sight and Mom Oohed and Ahhed at the sight of it. She declared this was a place she most definitely wanted to stay at someday. We still had time to spare for our 10:45 ADR. Yes, we made it!!! I pulled to the gate and the CM working was kind of snooty. I gave him our name and told him where we were going. He acted like we just weren’t good enough or something. He asked if we wanted to Valet park. I said no, just the regular lot would be fine. He told me to follow the signs then. I did. DUMB mistake. I strongly suggest paying the extra money and using the Valet parking. We kept driving and driving and soon came back around to the road. We saw that regular parking was across the street. We almost went back around to Valet, but we didn’t want to deal with Mr. Snooty again. Now on this day, my body ached the worst! It hurt to even think, that’s how sore I was. So this walk to 1900PF seemed like 100 miles away. Plus with the walk, I started to worry once again that we would be late. As we walked up to the entrance one of the CM’s standing there told Claire that she was the most beautiful girl he had seen all day. My Dad started to eat this up. I told Dad then that the dress Claire was wearing was a creation of mine. This dress was not sold at any stores and a very rare thing to see at Disney. Claire on the other hand scowled. I think she was a bit embarrassed by the attention, but she soon got over that. We made it! And checked in right on time. We asked if we could add a 4th to our table. (Remember I had only made ADR’s for 3 people, because it was supposed to be Skip, Claire and I) They said yes, gave us a pager and we went out to the lobby. Mom looked the place over and again ooh and ahhed. I wanted some pictures of Claire. She kept giving me silly faces and poses.
Soon our buzzer went off and we went back to the check in area. We had some pictures taken before going in. They really liked Claire’s dress and made such a big deal over it. They did say there was another girl as Mary Poppins inside already too. What are the chances that we show up wearing a Mary dress and someone else is too. LOL! I did buy the pictures. I just had to have them. And then we had photopass access to all they took.
We were then led back to our table and guess what? We were seated right next to the other little Mary Poppins. And I have to say her dress was very cute as well. I think I like Claire’s better, but I might be bias. Claire’s was full, while the other girls was more straight lined, but still very cute.
I don’t know what it is about 1900 PF, but we always seem to have the worse service here. Nothing super terrible, but just SLOW. If you need something, it seems to take forever to find your waitress. We had slow service again this time around, but we still had a great meal. Claire got her autograph book out and waited for someone to come see her.
I went and got her some food so she could get started and warned her to be careful and not spill on herself.
Soon our first friend came around.. One of my all time favorites…Winnie the Pooh!
That Mary Poppins outfit is just exquisite! Where on earth did you find the hat and boots? I'm not surprised you had a hard time getting Claire up and dressed after getting to bed in the early morning!
That Mary Poppins outfit is just exquisite! Where on earth did you find the hat and boots? I'm not surprised you had a hard time getting Claire up and dressed after getting to bed in the early morning!
The hat is an old easter hat that i added to and the boots I found online with the help of a fellow diser. They were actually discontinued at the time I bought them and happened to find one of the last pairs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kingfamily1129
WOW!! What a beautiful Mary Poppins dress!!! She looks beautiful!!
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