Ditching the Hubbies for Mousefest - Final Thoughts COMPLETED 3/4/08 - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day 1, Part 2: Pop Warner hits us early, Our Room is Ready, and our first Visit to MK
I silently sneak back into the forum and update my trip report as it has been over a month. Now that life has gotten back to some normalcy and I have gotten all needed pics, I can update away. I am determined to get this TR finished before my next trip in less than 30 days. Can't have rollover, now can I? Now on with the show!!!
Day 1, Part 2: Pop Warner hits us early, Our Room is Ready, and our first Visit to MK
We make it down to the DME check-in area. I wandered aimlessly as Tiff got us checked in. She called my name and directed me to the cattle lines for the resorts. We were in line 5 for Old Key West and Saratoga Springs. It was amazing to see all the girls for Pop Warner go bopping by with their hair all curled and up in ponytails with ribbons, as their family members dragged the carts of luggage behind them. One thing that amazed me was the fact that they all had full luggage. I know and understand those who just bring carry-on luggage or feel the need to pick their baggage up and not use the full DME service of letting DME take care of getting the bags. I myself not worrying about my baggage and how it magically appears in my room when I return that first night. It just seemed like more of a hassle and the moods of the families around us were far from upbeat. I digress….
As we were waiting to be released, we overheard (not eavesdropping, right Eileen?) the family behind us wondering if they were in the right line as another portion of their family went to a different line. We asked where they were going and they said Port Orleans. Tiff and I double-checked our sign and mentioned that they might not be in the right line but then kind of left it alone. As we continued to wait, the family of 5 behind us kept complaining and wondering and would not ask a Cast Member anything as they were directed to line 5. Out of the kindness of our hearts (or for our sanity ), we called a CM over to assist this family.
Now at this point they saw the porter they had left their mountain of luggage start loading their luggage on a DME bus. The dad of the group started going ballistic and ran out to stop the porter while the CM spoke with the mom. They got the porter to stop loading the luggage and then called the family out of the line to try and sort out their situation. I could go on and on (and I won’t) of the conversation being held between the CMs and this family. DME eventually got their luggage onto another bus (Our bus) and POFQ became one of our new stops. We did a little seat dance when the bus driver announced that SSR would be the first stop, then OKW, and then POFQ. And that would be the last we encountered any Pop Warner issues.
We enjoyed the welcome movie enjoyed the ride to our resort. Tiff was excited to be going “home”, and I was excited to see SSR as I had never been to the resort. We disembarked from the bus and headed right into check-in. We got a wonderful CM who was more than happy to provide us with two of everything (gotta scrapbookers). We easily paid for the DDP and got all the charging privileges squared away. The CM advised us we were in the Grandstands (which is what Tiff requested) and that our room was ready. She tried to direct us on the map but both Tiff and I got a little confused. Luckily, we grabbed a Bell Services guy who took us by golf cart to our room. He literally took us to our door as we were right inside the walkway on the first floor.
We thanked him but forgot to tip him (don’t worry, we got him on our last day too and made up for it! ), and headed into our room. Talk about impressed!! Having stayed at OKW in June with Tiff I was really looking forward to seeing SSR as we weren’t overly impressed with our stay at OKW. I loved the room and how it was set up. We were in a studio which was plenty of room for the two of us. We dropped off our carry-ons and repacked our park bags. Before we knew it, we were headed to the bus stop which was an easy walk from our room.
I don’t remember if we waited long but a bus for MK came and we were all smiles as we boarded the bus. As we were riding along, we got in touch with the CLT and let them know we were there and headed to MK. Tiff called Karen back and they asked what time our ADR was for 1900 Park Fare, as they had a reservation for 5 @ 8:00pm. As Tiff finished talking with them, I called Disney Dining and cancelled our ADR. We made plans to give them a call once we were headed over to GF.
Once we got to MK, we headed directly to Guest Services so Tiff could upgrade her hopper to an AP and purchase DDE. The CM was extremely helpful in getting this all taken care of (not bad on the eyes either :wink: ), including letting Tiff keep her Hopper ticket for scrapbooking purposes. After that was taken care of, we finally made our way into the Magic Kingdom. Our first stop was Le Chapeau as I needed to get a pair of “My First Ears” for my niece as it is only fit that I get her started on Disney as early as possible. We had them sent them back to the resort and headed to find something to snack on as we had a late dinner now. We stopped to grab some pics in front of the castle and to get our Photopass for the trip. These pics are not my faves. My hair had a mind of its own.
Tiff wanted Figaro Fries and the only place that sold those were Pinocchio’s Village Haus, so that is where we went. The place was pretty busy being that it was 2:00pm but we managed to get our orders in quickly. Now, I wasn’t sure what we were getting but boy did it look yummy.
After munching away and satisfying our hunger, we headed to The Many Adventures of Winnie-the-Pooh for our ride through the Hundred Acres Wood before we headed to Tomorrowland. We had a 20 minute wait that went pretty quickly.
We headed over to Tomorrowland as our goal was to hit as many attractions as possible before heading over to meet the girls. The wait for Space Mosntain was 45 minutes so we passed on that and grabbed TTA. I this ride. It was a great relaxing start to the trip and we took some great pictures along the way. (Please note that the pictures are a combination of my pics, Tiff’s pics, and the Photopass pics.)
After TTA, we decised to conquer Emperor Zurg with Buzz Lightyear. I took some photos in the queue, and I have to thank Tiff for running interference with me with the other people in the line so I could get pictures. Tiff and I got separate buggies as I wanted a pre-fight picture. Of course, Tiff beat me as I had a lousy 22,900 points and she was up near 80,000 or something. Still, it was fun as always!!
Next, we headed over to the Carousel of Progress. We walked right into a theater and were off through the years. As a side note, it was on this attraction that I fell in love with my camera. This was the first trip I brought my Nikon DSLR. I read my owner’s manual before leaving in hopes of getting some good shots and this attraction was my first test. Without a flash, I finally got shots of CoP that are clear.
When we were exiting CoP, we noticed that Stitch was out for pictures and I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to see a character so we went to stand in the relatively short line. They had a Photopass photographer so that freed us up to just interact with Stitch. Now tiff definitely got some love from the little blue alien with one of his sloppy kisses.
I believe we decided to check out the Laugh Floor next. This was a first for both of us. The queue is very cool with so many “monster” related things. I think I enjoyed the queue as much as the show itself. After viewing the pre-show, we headed into the theater and enjoyed the corniness of the Monsters. I love how they really brought the audience into the show.
Mike’s Door
After a quick glance at our watch, we knew we had to start making our way back down Main Street and head over to the GF.
Coming Up: Leaving MK, Meeting up with the CLT, and Dinner w/ the Stepsisters
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Great update, Dawn!! So glad you were able to check in and make it to MK. We haven't been to Pinocchio's in ages....what exactly is on the Figaro Fries? When looking at the menu on AllEars, I always thought they were just regular fries!
Can't wait to hear about your meet with the CLT at the GF!
We haven't been to Pinocchio's in ages....what exactly is on the Figaro Fries? When looking at the menu on AllEars, I always thought they were just regular fries!
Fries, Cheese, Lettuce, Bacon, Tomatoes, and ranch dressing. You know...REAL healthy.
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Now I want Figaro Fries.
Glad to see you're updating. Something about a bunch of cheerleaders traveling in big groups makes me want to run in the opposite direction.
Fries, Cheese, Lettuce, Bacon, Tomatoes, and ranch dressing. You know...REAL healthy.
I guess the lettuce and tomato is supposed to be the healthy part! Not so sure how I would like lettuce on french fries.....certainly sounds interesting!
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not worrying about my baggage and how it magically appears in my room when I return that first night. It just seemed like more of a hassle and the moods of the families around us were far from upbeat. I digress….
We did a little seat dance when the bus driver announced that SSR would be the first stop, then OKW, and then POFQ. 
And that would be the last we encountered any Pop Warner issues. 
She tried to direct us on the map but both Tiff and I got a little confused. Luckily, we grabbed a Bell Services guy who took us by golf cart to our room. He literally took us to our door as we were right inside the walkway on the first floor. 
), and headed into our room. Talk about impressed!! Having stayed at OKW in June with Tiff I was really looking forward to seeing SSR as we weren’t overly impressed with our stay at OKW. I loved the room and how it was set up. We were in a studio which was plenty of room for the two of us. We dropped off our carry-ons and repacked our park bags. Before we knew it, we were headed to the bus stop which was an easy walk from our room.
What great pictures 
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