"Yes, The Past Can Hurt, But You Can Either Run From It or You Can Learn From It" - PTR - COMPLETED 9/20 #184 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Congrats on getting the dessert party!! We love it, and i hope you will too!!
the desserts they serve sound very yummy and the view of the castle should be great for viewing "Wishes"
Quote:
Originally Posted by alexsmommy0412
Congrats on the Dessert Party! We loved it when we did it. I understand the frustration with the Disney Website and making Dining reservations. We had the same problem yesterday and then we would call and for some reason got a snotty CM and the reservation wasn't available, then just like what happened to you we would go back and low and behold it was there. I wish they would fix the kinks in the reservation system cause it seems like since they changed it, it is so much worse.
Thanks! I too wish they would fix the kinks in the system. It sounds like the CM feel the same way, since I seem to hear the frustration in their voice more often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMA
Same thing happened to me while trying to make Dessert party reservations yesterday. so frustrating! I ended up calling DVC member services and the CM was able to book it for me.
Sorry to hear that. Glad to hear you were able to work things out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by iwonathomas
Congrats on getting the dessert party.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Sorry you had to deal with all those hassles, but congrats on getting the Fireworks Dessert Party!
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Well, we’re half way through July, and not too much going on the home front. Joshua is enjoying his extend school year program, which will run until the first week of August. He also started Occupational Therapy at school to help address his sensory issues. So far I have noticed he seems to calmer in the evening and not as hyper. Recently I noticed Joshua was having difficulty sleeping through the night. For the longest time, Joshua would fall asleep around 7:30 and sleep through the night, which was nice for Will and I since it gave us more time in the evening for us to relax. What is not so nice now is being woken up at 3:30 in the morning, by a teenager who can’t sleep and starts turning on all the lights and coming in to wake us up. I had to quickly analyze the situation and come up with a plan or totally lose my sanity from lack of sleep. It dawned on me that Joshua was getting around 8 hours of sleep when he was falling asleep at 7:30, so now we changing his bedtime to 9:00 at night. While it does give me and Will less time in the evenings, Joshua is now sleeping through the night again. Sanity restored
A few weeks ago, the company I worked for had to dismiss their Accounts Payable Supervisor because she missed too much time. This past year on average I could count one hand how many times she worked a whole week, so when they let her go I wasn’t surprise, only in how long it took for them to do it. Right now I’m doing some of the work that is usually assigned to her, which is keeping me quite busy. I don’t mind at all since it makes my day go by even faster. I will be celebrating my second anniversary with this company in two weeks and I have to say since my days working as an Assistant Branch Manager, I do enjoy my work and look forward to many more years with them.
A week and half ago, my husband’s aunt on his mother's side suffered a massive heart attack and passed away. She either fell behind or stop paying on both her life insurance policy and her burial plot, so needless to say it took a while for the family to come up with the funeral arrangements. The same thing happened when my DMIL passed away five years ago. His dad thought there was a policy, but somewhere along the line he missed payments and the policy lapsed. So afterwards we made sure he took out a policy for himself. Today, guess what...when we asked him about it he tells us that he couldn’t afford it and had it canceled. I couldn’t believe it , when was he going to tell us this if we hadn’t inquired? I guess he doesn’t care about what hardship it presents to his family. SMH
Now for an update regarding our Disney planning:
Last year, due to Joshua being easily overwhelmed by the very large crowds during December, we only went on the following rides:
· The Many Adventures of Winnie Pooh
· Peter Pan’s Flight
· The Little Mermaid “Journey under the Sea”
· Splash Mountain
· Thunder Mountain
· Tower of Terror
· Dinosaur
Hopefully this go around we will be able to do a lot more rides, since September is usually less crowded. I’ve been keeping an eye on the wait times on Touring plans app and right now the morning hours wait times look pretty decent. Our breakfasts are scheduled at 7:40 in the morning at the Contemporary, so I’m hoping will make it to the parks for the rope drop or close to it to enjoy the rides. The last couple of trips we have used the GAC, however I really would like for Joshua to try the standby line, especially the ones that are interactive, especially The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, BTMRR, and Haunted Mansion. I showed them today on You Tube and seemed very interested. The fast pass side is duller and not much to look at while waiting to ride. Right now my Disney planning is in holding status due to Fastpass +. I noticed they have it listed when I signed into MDE and from what I read on the Disney’s website it looks like we are going to be limited to the number of fast passes …three each day and only good for one park, so I’m going to wait until the sixty day mark to see if goes live for me and then utilize it in my Touringplan app to come up with each day’s detailed itinerary.
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This past Saturday, I started to go over my ADR’s for our upcoming trip. My original plans in regards to dining, was for us to attend Chef Mickey’s Breakfast each day early in the morning before the parks opened. Along the way we added a few evening activities; fireworks dessert party and Pirates and Pals Cruise, so the idea of having to get up early each morning to ride over to the Contemporary was starting to make me feel a little too confined and rushed . So to break it up a little, I decided to cancel Thursday and Friday’s breakfast with Chef Mickey’s. That way we would have a chance to catch up on some sleep . I told Will about the possible changes and he thought they were a good idea too, especially being able to sleep in a few days.
So now I’m sitting here with two table service credits to use and wondering how to use them. Then I remembered reading one of Cinderabby’s TR about their dining experience at Fort Wilderness and how their daughter enjoyed the time they attended the Hoop Dee Doo Review. It gave me wonderful idea and I quickly knew how those two credits were going to be used. The only thing I was slightly worried about was whether or not there would be any early time slots. So once again I decided to try my luck with online dining reservations and with a few clicks of the mouse I was able to snag a category 2 at 4 o’clock dinner slot on the evening of our arrival there. I was a little disappointed to discover that there song “Hoop Dee Do” had to be changed due to copy right laws, since this is one of Joshua’s favorite songs. However, he is familiar with a lot of their other songs so I’m pretty sure he’ll have a fun time singing and clapping along with them. So after making the changes to my ADR’s and feeling in a great mood over our new plans, I started watching my favorite movie, the Lion King, when I hear a knock at our door. My DH goes to see who it is and comes back inside...with a very unexpected package and message
Congrats on getting HDDR! I think you all will enjoy having a couple of days to sleep in a bit. You've left us hanging with the arrival at the door! More please!
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the desserts they serve sound very yummy and the view of the castle should be great for viewing "Wishes"
Deb
What is not so nice now is being woken up at 3:30 in the morning, by a teenager who can’t sleep and starts turning on all the lights and coming in to wake us up.
I had to quickly analyze the situation and come up with a plan or totally lose my sanity from lack of sleep. It dawned on me that Joshua was getting around 8 hours of sleep when he was falling asleep at 7:30, so now we changing his bedtime to 9:00 at night. While it does give me and Will less time in the evenings, Joshua is now sleeping through the night again. Sanity restored 
, when was he going to tell us this if we hadn’t inquired? I guess he doesn’t care about what hardship it presents to his family. SMH
. So to break it up a little, I decided to cancel Thursday and Friday’s breakfast with Chef Mickey’s. That way we would have a chance to catch up on some sleep 
. I told Will about the possible changes and he thought they were a good idea too
. Then I remembered reading
one of Cinderabby’s TR about their dining experience at Fort Wilderness and how their daughter enjoyed the time they attended the Hoop Dee Doo Review. It gave me wonderful idea and I quickly knew how those two credits were going to be used
. The only thing I was slightly worried about was whether or not there would be any early time slots. So once again I decided to try my luck with online dining reservations and with a few clicks of the mouse
I was able to snag a category 2 at 4 o’clock dinner slot on the evening of our arrival there
. I was a little disappointed to discover that there song “Hoop Dee Do” had to be changed due to copy right laws, since this is one of Joshua’s favorite songs. However, he is familiar with a lot of their other songs so I’m pretty sure he’ll have a fun time singing and clapping along with them
. So after making the changes to my ADR’s and feeling in a great mood over our new plans, I started watching my favorite movie, the Lion King, when I hear a knock at our door. My DH goes to see who it is and comes back inside...with a very unexpected package and message 
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