Our 2014 Christmas Trip Report - Final installment and thoughts (updated 5/22) - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
What a great trip report! The 3 of you are so cute and what a nice thing to take your DGD!! I am so sorry that your wife isn't feeling well. I hope she is better soon. Your pictures are beautiful!!
No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. It might just seem that way as I haven't updated our Christmas TR in a few months. The main reason is we're about 3 weeks or so from going to WDW again. This will be a trip for our 10th anniversary.
However, I wanted to finish this TR before doing a PTR for that trip. Since it's been nearly 5 months since we went, 2-1/2 months since I last posted on here and we're going back in about 20 days, this will be an abbreviated form of the TR.
We are down to the final 2 full days in the park and then our 2-day drive home. To be honest, I can't remember times, etc., just kind of what we did. So, this final installment won't be in as much detail.
Thursday, Dec. 18
Our plans consisted of Hollywood Studios on this day. We had ADRs for lunch at 50s Prime Time, FPs for Star Tours, Tower of Terror and Toy Story Midway Mania.
Here's the picture of us ready to board to HS:
We started the day with DW and DGD riding Tower of Terror. I walked around and checked out pins and shops around the area. Afterward, we headed over to Star Tours and did that FP. A ride through the movies followed our trip to outer space.
Things worked out for our lunch ADR right after we got off of the Great Movie Ride. DW and I had meatloaf and DGD had chicken. We also split one of the brownies with ice cream and M&Ms.
After lunch, we watched the Beauty and the Beast Live on Stage show, then headed to Toy Story Midway Mania to fulfill that FP.
We then walked through Pixar Place on to the meet and greet with Mike and Sully before going on over to Lights, Motors, Action. DW got another selfie.
DW and DGD wanted to ride Rockin' Roller Coaster, so they went there next. On the way, another picture:
I walked with them over there, then I went to the One Man's Dream show/walk through. That is one of my new favorites on the entire Disney property.
After Rockin' and One Man's Dream, it was dark and so we decided to head to the resort as my feet were really hurting bad this day and we wanted to be fresh for our final day.
We rested at the resort for a bit (and DGD fell asleep, surprise, surprise). DW and I decided to leave the property to find a Target and get some padding to put in the bottom of my shoes. Since we didn't have dinner ADRs, DW decided to get McDonald's for her and DGD. I dropped DW back at the room and went to the food court to eat something there. We again called it a night early.
Friday, December 19
Our last day in the parks was spent at Magic Kingdom. Here we are on the bus:
Headed into the park and got a picture in front of the Christmas tree:
DGD got a couple of Magic shots:
DW and I got a rare shot of just us:
We spent time in Tomorrowland where DGD and DW had FPs for Space Mountain. We had another FP for Peter Pan and a final FP for Pirates. However, Pirates was messed up, so we wound up with 2 FPs as there wasn't anything available that we wanted to do.
Our lunch ADR was at Crystal Palace with Tiger, Pooh and others.
We did not go back to the resort this day like we did on all other days because it was our final day at MK and they were having the MVMCP that night.
We took a neat shot of the Castle:
We met Merida (I believe), rode the Teacups, Dumbo, Goofy's roller coaster (can't remember what it's called) and the Little Mermaid ride.
The final ride was on Haunted Mansion as DW and DGD did that while I sat and took in the sights of MK at dusk. As we were headed back toward the castle, we noticed the wait for Anna and Elsa was around 60 minutes (it had been 90+ throughout the week). DW decided we would wait that time to meet them. It wound up being about a 35 minute wait and DW got one final selfie for the trip.
After the Anna and Elsa visit, we headed back to the gates for the final time and then got one final picture of the park before we left. We were all crying as we left the park for the final time.
We went back to the resort for a few minutes, then headed out to DTD to eat some dinner. We wound up at Planet Hollywood (it was our final meal on our first trip in 2013, so decided to do it again). DW had a plate of fries, and DGD and I split a rack of ribs. I think I had 2 ribs and she cleaned the meat off the bone on the others.
We were all tired and sad, but none of us were ready to leave. We closed down the Marketplace side of DTD at about 11 p.m. and headed for the buses. On the bus, we broke into Christmas caroling and that was really neat (something you don't' see all the time). Finally called it a night. We slept in a bit on Saturday, the 19th, before loading up, getting breakfast and hitting the road about 11:30 a.m., all 3 of us crying as the EPCOT ball and Contemporary resort slowly disappeared in the distance. We made it to Mobile that night and went the final 8 hours to our house the next day.
Final thoughts:
All in all, it was a great trip as always. Yes, they messed up ALL of our ADRs and wife got sick twice. But it was an unforgettable trip for a couple of reasons: it was DGD's first trip and it felt like she was our kids, so seeing her face on all week was worth the trip. Next, it was during CHristmas as we had never been there at Christmas, and all of the decorations in the parks and resorts were just amazing.
We found a few new places to eat and had lots of character meals and buffets. Our travel agent did a great job of suggesting the places to eat to get the most out of our meal credits.
As I said earlier, we enjoyed the MVMCP, but probably won't do it again. We won't be making a special trip just for it anyways as everything else Christmas related made the trip worth it.
Coronado Springs was nice, although had we not had a car, it would've been tough to get to El Centro (main building) from our rooms for drinks, meals, anything we might need. The rooms were spacious enough, but nothing extraordinary. We might stay there again once we've stayed at all the places we want to try.
Thanks for following along. I am about to start the 2015 PTR (we leave in about 3 weeks), so be sure to follow along with that one too.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Thanks for sharing your trip with us! So great you could take DGD.
Looking forward to your anniversary trip! We're planning one for our 10th next year.
About This Page: 
The 3 of you are so cute and what a nice thing to take your DGD!!
I am so sorry that your wife isn't feeling well. I hope she is better soon. Your pictures are beautiful!!
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
for sharing your adventures with us, and I'll be checking out that new PTR.
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Linear Mode
