Your Key to Happiness . . . might not work - Page 6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great start Jill and I am all caught up now..................but I have to ask........what is Drawn to animation with Mushu??? I am shocked I have never heard of this before, it sounds right up Josie's alley though.
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All caught up now. Loving your TR as always. Can't believe how big the girls have gotten. Trying to figure out if they're the same age as my boys. How old are they?
All caught up now. Loving your TR as always. Can't believe how big the girls have gotten. Trying to figure out if they're the same age as my boys. How old are they?
Mary Devall just turned 12 on July 30th and Maddie is 7 (turning 8 on October 4th). Your boys are about the same, right?
I have loved watching your beautiful boys grow up!
Great start Jill and I am all caught up now..................but I have to ask........what is Drawn to animation with Mushu??? I am shocked I have never heard of this before, it sounds right up Josie's alley though.
Linny,
You walk into the "official" entrance of the The Magic of Disney Animation building which is really a breezeway. You veer around to the right. The entrance for the character area and Animation Academy is straight ahead, but there is another entrance on the left for this show. A CM is usually posted there to direct you. The show is really cute. I bet Josie would love it.
How is Heidi adjusting? Our second dog is very dependent on the older one, so I think when Buddy's day comes, we'll be getting another one shortly thereafter.
Thanks for asking about Heidi. She is struggling without her buddy and probably taking it harder than any of us. They were constantly together and she was trying to play with him until the bitter end. Ralph was 3 years older than her and very much the "alpha" male so she was used to having him for guidance.
I'm sure that we will get another dog at some point, but I'm not ready yet (although everyone else in the family is ).
When the girls finished their second ride on RnRC, we took the short walk over to HBD. The time had finally come for Cam and Bob's big retirement dinner!
Charlie and Lucius soon joined us and then we all sat outside while Monica checked us in. Once Monica was back outside with us, managers kept coming out to check with her about this and that. At one point, they took her inside to see if the table set up met with her approval. I have never witnessed such care and thought put into an event at Disney. As much as I already love HBD, it rose even higher in my esteem that day.
It wasn’t long before Cam and her family arrived. It was great to see Cam and Luke again and meet Cam’s sister and her family. I felt as if I already knew Morgan after Cam’s trip report from last summer. I had no idea until after the dinner that she and Mary Devall were the same age. They probably could have had quite the conversation if they had sat together. Right after Cam and family arrived, Macy and Lucius left us to ride ST and eat at Sci Fi.
Since most of us were there, they lead us into the dining room through the French doors on the patio and sat us at two tables right inside the doors. As soon as we were seated, I saw Lesley and Tom being lead to our table so the party was getting bigger!
We had such a crowd that they didn’t have enough room to seat us at one table, so the girls and I sat at a smaller table right behind the long table. We barely had time to get comfortable before a server was soon telling us that they were going to try and put one more table at the end of the long table.
About the time that they added another table, they went in a totally different direction and decided to move us to the private Bamboo Room. After a few moments, we were lead in that room and seated at two long tables.
It was a cozy room and a perfect atmosphere for a celebration. The manager came in and gave us the background on the Bamboo Room from the original HBD. Apparently, it served as the setting for many impromptu jam sessions back in the day and was where the idea for where the Grammy awards was conceived.
Not long after we were situated, our other retiree, Bob, arrived with Larry and Joan. Ann and Carly stopped by shortly afterwards to say hello, but they didn’t stay. I had missing meeting Ann so many times, so it was such a delight to finally meet her.
Earlier in the day, Karen had sent me a text to a couple of us letting us know that she had contacted HBD to arrange buying the first round of drinks for everyone. That was so sweet of her and it really kicked off our celebration. Most of us ordered the margarita flight which was .
Monica and I weren’t sure what we would be able to eat with the DDP since we were also on the Fantasmic dining plan, but were surprised to discover halfway through ordering that we got an appetizer, dinner and dessert. Some of us had already ordered, so we had to go back and order an appetizer! What a sweet deal that was!
I went all out with the Cobb Salad and the Filet. Mary Devall was on the adult DDP, so she really wanted to order off the adult menu but, in the end, she ended up ordering off of the kids menu. She has been trying to expand her food horizons, but as is her nature, she is very cautious with it.
At one point, the manager came back into the room to ask if he could take our picture outside. I was totally befuddled (as were most of us ), but we went along anyway. I think we all felt like celebrities by this time (except for Charlie and Tom who hinted to the manager that they may or may not be in the witness protection program and couldn't have their pictures published)!
Once our photo shoot on the patio was over, we went back through the French doors and shut out the theme park going on around us. It was hilarious watching people walk up to the doors from the outside and peer in with some even opening them. Just as they were about to walk in, they would spot our party inside . . . and then quickly close the doors.
Our curiosity about the picture was soon satisfied when the manager came back to give the children bags of pixie dust and light up Tinkerbells and the adults beautiful mementos of our celebration.
Cam and Bob were also given special keepsakes which were individualized with pictures that Monica and Larry had secretly provided behind the scenes. The CM’s really went above and beyond for this dinner.
Everything was fantastic about this entire experience - - the conversation, the drinks and the food. In between courses, everyone moved back and forth from the two tables to socialize so we were all in the party mood.
Charlie, Maddie and I took turns visiting Joan, Bob and Larry. You can tell that Maddie was in rare form that evening.
After dessert was served (I went with the signature grapefruit cake ) and our bills were paid, we finally pulled ourselves away. We were all heading in separate directions with only Cam and her family actually staying for Fantasmic, so were exchanged before we said goodbye. Kudos to Monica for pulling off a perfect evening!
Our dinner had taken so long that Macy and Lucius were already back at BCV having ditched Sci Fi in favor of Hurricane Hannah’s. Macy sent Monica a text wondering just where we were!
We didn’t wait too long for a boat and the actual boat ride itself flew by because we had entertainment. Charlie showed Maddie how to cross her eyes by looking at the end of her nose and the way that she contorted her face had both Charlie and me crying with laughter. She got funnier each time especially when she would stick out her tongue at the same time. Monica thought that she looked like a lizard.
Once back at the villa, we all put on our bathing suits and headed down to the quiet pool. Monica and I took a bottle of wine and ended up sitting at a table near the hot tub and not even getting in the water.
At one point, a lady in the hot tub struck up a conversation with Charlie and the two of us. She lived only an hour away and was a DVC member, but never went into the parks. Everything we talked about, she would come back with “that’s so expensive.”
Monica mentioned taking the guided fishing tours and, once again, those were too expensive and her family brought their poles and fished in random ponds around SSR. Even Mary Devall mentioned later that the woman seemed more concerned with the price of everything than just enjoying herself.
Now both of our families are all about saving money and staying on a budget, but this woman seemed downright miserable at the thought of spending any money. She actually just seemed downright miserable period. She even looked at Monica and me drinking a glass of wine and commented that we knew how to have fun. It’s not that hard, lady. As we tell our girls often, choose to be happy.
Of course, it didn’t help matters much during our conversation when Maddie marched over and declared “That little girl won’t leave me alone.” The mom said “Oh, do you mean Sophie? Yes, she’s a talker.” Oh great! The mom must have been used to it because Maddie’s declaration didn’t seem to phase her.
While we sat by the pool, I had also been tracking Thom’s progress too. He had landed by now and was just trying to make his way to us on DME.
After a while, everyone but Monica, Maddie and I had gone back to the room. Maddie was in the pool playing with some other children and we were still chatting and finishing our wine, so it was just a nice, peaceful way to end the evening.
That is . . . until we saw a security guard come up and talk to the other family in the pool. She then came over to us and told us that there had been complaints about noise at the pool.
It was only about 10 p.m. by now, so this was ridiculous especially since there were only us and another family in the pool. She was an elderly little lady and almost seemed embarrassed to have to tell us, but still . . . It sounds like some people need to request a non pool view room next time. After a bit, we had finished our wine so we collected Maddie and went back to the room.
Thom showed up about thirty minutes later and immediately searched the refrigerator for something for dinner. He got permission to eat Macy’s leftovers from when the Mitchells ate at Mama Melrose’s the night before the girls and I arrived and thoroughly enjoyed his meal. It wasn’t long afterwards that we were all asleep.
__________________
Sometimes words aren't needed . . .
Last edited by Jillybean; 08-14-2013 at 11:09 AM..
The retirement dinner sounds like it was a blast!!! What a great celebration!
What a bummer about the noise complaint I mean, you are at Disney World- not a deserted island and its 10pm, not 3am. Sheesh, there's always a party pooper somewhere
Glad Thom arrived safely- looking forward to reading more!
Mel
What a great day! The dinner sounded absolutely wonderful! Glad everyone enjoyed themselves. So silly about the noise complaint. Seriously, that is why we always request a room facing away from the pool. If you don't like the noise don't book there. Looking forward to more.
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).
As much as I already love HBD, it rose even higher in my esteem that day. 
After a few moments, we were lead in that room and seated at two long tables. 
That was so sweet of her and it really kicked off our celebration. 
Most of us ordered the margarita flight which was 
. 
Mary Devall was on the adult DDP, so she really wanted to order off the adult menu but, in the end, she ended up ordering off of the kids menu. She has been trying to expand her food horizons, but as is her nature, she is very cautious with it. 
), but we went along anyway. I think we all felt like celebrities by this time (except for Charlie and Tom who hinted to the manager that they may or may not be in the witness protection program and couldn't have their pictures published)! 
were exchanged before we said goodbye. Kudos to Monica for pulling off a perfect evening! 
She got funnier each time especially when she would stick out her tongue at the same time. Monica thought that she looked like a lizard. 
It sounds like some people need to request a non pool view room next time. 
I mean, you are at Disney World- not a deserted island and its 10pm, not 3am. Sheesh, there's always a party pooper somewhere 
Looking forward to more.
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