I'll be home for Christmas - Trip Report - UPDATED 1/5 - Page 7 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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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.
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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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Oh my, you poor things with all that rain! Sounds like you braved it for quite a while -- so sorry! Glad the Pop Warner kids quieted down at a reasonable hour though.
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Today was EMH at the Studios. I wanted for us to get there at opening so we could ride Toy Story Mania at least twice, one stand-by and get a FP for later. We arrived parked the car and rode the tram to the front. It was drizzling but not raining too hard.
Today I took my jacket with me, but left it in the car. Once the park was open we went with everyone to Toy Story Mania. I got to take some pictures of the queue area, as the wait was probably around 20 minutes, not too bad. When we exited the ride it was raining again outside. I put on my poncho and we went forward. Jim brought a poncho today, but never used it. From there we thought about The Great Movie Ride, but for some reason it wasn’t running during EMH. We went near ABC Commissary and over to ride Star Tours. There wasn’t a wait here either. When we got out we saw Muppet Vision 3D. We then wandered around the Streets of America,
on our way to One Man’s Dream. We stayed for the movie and when we exited we went over to The Great Movie Ride. While we at the end during all the movie clips my cell phone rang, well vibrated, it was Becky (auntminnie) from EoE, we were going to meet up at RnRC at about 11am. Jim & I wandered over to Rock n Roller Coaster, Jim didn’t want to ride so I went alone. When we get out it’s still raining but not very hard. We wait in the RnRC area for auntminnie. Jim spots her and her DH looking around, then she takes out her cell phone and mine rings. Bingo.
We meet up and talk for a few minutes. Our FPs are ripe for Toy Story so we say our goodbyes, maybe we will meet up at the Osborne Lights tonight. Jim and I then go and use our Fast Passes for Toy Story Mania. I bet Jim again, but hey he’s never played before so well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. From there we are getting hungry. We think to go over to Epcot for a while anyway and have lunch over in Japan.
We exit the park, and I take the tram to the car so I can get my jacket. I’ve been cold all morning and would just feel better if I had my jacket with me. Jim takes the ferry boat and I said I’d meet him over at the International Gateway. I got out to the car and back to the area where you walk to Epcot before he even boarded the boat. I just took my time because I knew that I’d beat the boat. I wandered around Boardwalk area and took a couple pictures of course.
When we got inside Epcot we wandered over toward France to go over to Japan. It was still rather overcast, but at least it wasn’t raining any longer. We got to Yakitori House & I ordered the Teriyaki Chicken, while Jim got the Japanese Curry. We both got the Ginger Cake for dessert.
The food was just okay. I thought maybe it would be a little bit better. Oh well I’m glad that I got to experience another counter service area in World Showcase. I tend to always want to go back to Tangerine Café so this was good. When we were done with lunch we wandered around “Timeless Beauty display in Japan. There wasn’t a sole in there except for the 2 of us. I took some pictures of course and then saw a sign saying “no pictures please” oops. From there we thought maybe we would head over to Canada.
We stopped for a while to listen to the Santa in Canada, but he was just ending his act so we moved on as well. Since we were in Canada already we took in a showing of O’Canada. I really love Martin Short in this movie and get a kick out of his saying in the end about having a Fast Pass for Soarin’.
When we got out we went over to Mexico to ride Gran Fiesta Tour as the last time we rode we were both sopping wet. When we got out of Mexico the Mexican Storytellers we out so we stopped to listen for a while. From there we went over to Norway for a little bit but didn’t ride Malestrom. We bypassed China, only stopping for pictures, and made our way over to see the Germany Storyteller. Then stop to watch the trains for a bit. I love the Christmas decorations they put in the “mini” city.
More picture of Italy as we walked by and made our way over to American Adventure.
The show was going to be starting shortly, and we hit the tail end of Voice of Liberty. We got some good seats in the show, as it was pretty crowded. I found a new setting on my camera where I can take pictures without a flash so I was pretty happy.
I got a really good picture of Walt Disney with Tinkerbell near the end of the show.
When the show was done we went outside and took a peak at Santa and Mrs. Claus. They had a pretty good line going. The Fife & Drum Corp were coming out so we watched them for a bit before moving on.
Our next stop was back in Japan where we watched the drummers. There was this boy who was near the front just having a ball playing his own “air” drums. That was fun to watch, he just seemed so happy. When we walked by Morocco, Aladdin and Jasmine were out, so I had to take a picture for my good friend Monica.
We then went over to Future World where we went to The Seas and rode the Clammobile, it was a walk on. Then wandered around the tanks to check out all the fishes. From there I wanted to check out Innoventions, to see the new Sum of All Thrills, so we wandered around and found it and watch for a while.
We were now done with Epcot for the day, so we grabbed a bus back to the Studios. We got back to the Studios it was near dinner time, so we made our way over to BackLot Express where I got the Chicken Nuggets with French Fries and I forgot what Jim got at the moment, probably a burger. We took our time eating as we had some time before the Osborne Lights at 6pm. We made our way over to the Streets of America just before 6pm and snapped some more pictures of course and waited for the start of the Osborne Lights.
Tonight it was super crowded, wall to wall people. I did some videotaping on Qik for everyone back home and we called it a night early. It was just too crazy. We both were like get me out of here.
We made our way back to the car and got back to the room. Tonight we were going to meet up with Jeanne and her friends from New York at POR to see Bob Jackson. When we got back to the All-Stars Jim decided that he didn’t want to go, so I left alone and met up with Jeanne and her friends.
We had a great time with a lot of laughing. I made it back to the All-Stars around 11pm I believe.
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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