The Neverland Gang Is Back...And I Don't Wanna Grow Up!! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Well I hope I haven’t lost everyone because it has taken me soooo long to get another update on the boards. These holidays just ate up all my time. We celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas and also have Craig’s and Zach’s birthday in December. But, I’ve written a bunch and hope to have a few up soon…starting now…
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Once I had everyone ready for the party we headed out. We stopped at the concierge desk and the CM there was kind enough to get our picture before the boys got too disheveled.
We got a lot of compliments and comments while we walked through the lobby to the bus. We looked for Teena, but found out the next day that she must have been on her break when we were looking for her. We waited for the bus with some other party goers and I have to say that our only complaint at the BC was the MK buses. We waited on both ends coming and going for buses on a few occasions.
When the bus did get there we headed over to meet the rest of our party crew. Two other families that we are friends with were going to be down in Florida at the same time we were and staying at the Grand Vista so we all decided to hit the party together.
First we stopped for a Photopass pic by the castle (where the photographer posed us to get in character…or at least Peter and I played along. John and Michael look pretty miserable )
We had dinner ADRs at CP so we waited for the rest of our group over there. We couldn’t check in ‘til everyone got there so the boys grabbed a couple of hula-hoops to pass the time.
I had to get a cute jammie-butt shot…
(As an aside, Santa brought the boys Hula Hoops this year and the first thing Jason said was “If Minnie could see me, she would love me now” aawwww)
Poor Jason was soaked when he was done. This year was so much hotter than last year and he’s in flannel jammies!! But, pretty soon the gang all showed up. We needed a picture of the whole gang (the Neverland crew, tinkerbell, Peter Jr., Mr. Smee, the Croc…and a bunch of pirates) so I accosted some poor man to take a few for us. He looked a little scared and almost tried to run, but I caught him and hung all of our cameras around his neck and went to pose with the group. He was great and took pictures for all of us.
Not long after, we were called in for dinner…ah cool refreshing A/C!! We had 2 tables, the grown-ups and the kids. Peter had a hard time picking a table. The characters are adorable and the food was good. The chef came out and walked the line for me and there was plenty for Jason and Tyler both to eat.
We got some cute pics with the characters.
(For those of you who read last year’s TR…You’ll notice I kept my hands to myself in my Pooh picture )
And then before we left our server brought out a cupcake and a card for my birthday. Everyone sang and the boys helped me blow out the candle. (Love those birthday buttons)
After dinner we headed toward Tomorrowland and on the way stopped for a photopass pic by the castle of the group.
Then everyone took a ride on Buzz. Craig and I actually got to ride together because our boys love the families we were with. Tyler and our version of The Cap’n rode together…
and Jason and his BFF Jenna rode together too. As long as Jenna is there, I lose Jason as a ride buddy. After that we all hit TTA. There’s never a line and we took up an entire train for ourselves. Then we left the future and headed toward colonial times and the HM. We just had to ride this for the party. One of the other moms didn’t want to ride and stayed with Jason. Just so cool to ride this on Halloween night. There was a ‘ghost’ sitting and chatting with the guests on line. She called out to “Wendy” and I waved back. Tyler likes to say he was ‘sort of brave’. He doesn’t like the ghost host hanging from the ceiling or the hitchhiking ghosts but other than that he did fine. After that it was off to adventure land and PoC. I was disappointed to see JC was not open. I had wanted to try that in the dark. But we walked right up and onto PoC (all of us except Craig and Jason, I can’t figure that kid out). Afterwards we saw Captain Hook and Mr. Smee and got on line to have a picture with them. I had wanted a picture with them and our little Neverland gang. But, they were pulled away to attend the early parade and we never did get back to them . So, instead most of us rode on Aladdin’s carpets.
And this is the first time I actually got spit on by the camel. And then…we got trapped in adventure land by the parade. We didn’t want to see it until the later parade and we had done all we could in adventure land so the kids went up and down the same candy trail about 4 times. When I could see Goofy coming I knew the end of the parade was near. We started toward SM and lost each other in the mob of people waiting to cross the parade route. Once we made it across, we couldn’t find the rest of our party. (we had to get the stroller through the crowd) We waited and called and waited and called…and then they came off of BTMRR. (oh well, I guess WE won’t ride that tonight ). The other 2 moms who didn’t want to get wet, waited with Jason in the Splash playground while the rest of us took a ride to the briar patch. My Fave!!
After SM it was time to find a spot for Hallowishes. First we hit a candy trail by the Tom Sawyer island boats and then found a great spot on the bridge across from Tom Sawyer Island. We couldn’t see the projections on the castle, or all of the lower fireworks, but what we did see was amazing. And we were in such a great spot for the in-the-round fireworks. It felt like they were all around us and it was fabulous!!
Now, the one thing Jason had been talking about for the last 6 months or so, ever since we found out the other families would be there with us, was riding Small World with Jenna. So, that was the one thing we needed to make happen before they went home.
We had just enough time to head to fantasy land and get on IASWA before we had to find a spot for the parade. After IASWA one of the families pooped out and left, but the other family headed to Frontierland with us to pick a spot to watch the parade. There was a young couple that was so nice to scoot back and let the boys sit in front of them. Not much of a wait later and you could hear the headless horseman’s mighty steed’s hoof beats on the street. I LOVE the headless horseman and would pay just to see that part of the parade. Gives me goose bumps!!
We all loved the parade and after that we lost the last of the two families to exhaustion. But, we were determined to go on!! I’ll tell you, we had a lot of fun with our friends, but it was really nice for the last hour to be able to just do what we wanted and not worry about what 8 other people wanted to do. We just hopped around from place to place doing whatever the boys wanted. We hit the trick-or-treat path in toon town…the indy cars because Jason was sooo excited he could drive a real car…and while on line for the cars, we saw this guy dressed as Princes ????? Leia.
Of course we had to take a ride on Peter Pan’s Flight before we left. How could we Not go on Peter Pan?
After Peter Pan, we decided to head out and went around the castle…
We were really starting to drag and it was beginning to mist so we headed for the buses. And apparently so did everyone else at MK. WOW!!! It was so crowded it was hard to tell where the lines began for each bus. We found our line and waited. The first bus came and went and then we waited some more. About half an hour later we were finally on a bus. Jason had already fallen asleep and Craig and I took turns holding him. Tyler was half asleep sitting on the ground and fell asleep on the bus ride back.
We carried our little sleeping “John” and “Michael” back to the room and tucked them in. Luckily we gained an hour sleep that night and we didn’t have to get up too early because we had breakfast at our resort the following morning.
Yay, so glad you are back! You guys just have the most fabulous MNSSHP costumes ever I'm sure you all got a ton of compliments. Glad to hear it was a fun night and looking forward to reading more!
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What fun! I LOVE your costumes. You are so creative and talented... if only I could be "crafty" like that! I'm afraid our costumes were right off the rack from Party City. We were at the party the same night, but didn't see you. (I did keep an eye out for the "Peter Pan" family, though!) We had a great time, too. Our kids were more interested in the candy than anything else (which I admit was a bit disappointing than past years), but we managed quite a few rides without long lines. Can't wait for your next update!
Once again your costumes are awesome! The hula hoop comment is priceless! You all packed so much into the MNSSHP! That Princess Leia is just a bit on the scary side.
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We waited for the bus with some other party goers and I have to say that our only complaint at the BC was the MK buses. We waited on both ends coming and going for buses on a few occasions. 
)
and almost tried to run, but I caught him and hung all of our cameras around his neck and went to pose with the group. He was great and took pictures for all of us.
)
). The other 2 moms who didn’t want to get wet, waited with Jason in the Splash playground while the rest of us took a ride to the briar patch. My Fave!! 
Luckily we gained an hour sleep that night and we didn’t have to get up too early because we had breakfast at our resort the following morning. 
I'm sure you all got a ton of compliments. Glad to hear it was a fun night and looking forward to reading more!
the pictures especially the hula hoop pics!! Too cute!
Susan
Katie's graduation
Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
Deb
Aimee
That Princess Leia is just a bit on the scary side.
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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