The Search For My Wits (or, "Toy Story 1-1/8"): a May solo PTR - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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.
What a great Mother's Day. I really want to do the Tea at GF.
Your TR is making me so jealous. DS is only 3 years old and would not let me go away for even one night without him anywhere, let alone "Mickey's House" as he calls it.
what a great update, looks like you had a wonderful Mother's Day. i love all your pictures. I love Grand Floridian High Tea as well, i had their scones and trifle and loved them
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.
Ham: I seriously doubt he's getting this kind of mileage.
It's hard to top a day like Mother's Day was for me, but the next day did not disappoint. One. Bit. How could so much magic happen to one person, in one trip?! Makes a gal feel special, I'll tell ya. But we're going to come close to topping it today!.....today, we are going to do three parks plus Downtown Disney!! Only on a solo, baby.....only on a solo!
The day began early, as usual. Coffee walk to fill my mug, return to room to get ready for the day, refill mug again on the way to the bus stop, and hop on the bus that you want that arrives just as you get to the bus stop! Woo hoo! I was on my way to the Studios. And again, my timing was perfect. It is SOOO quiet at the parks at this hour! A few early-morning go-getters like myself, milling around, snapping pics and waiting first in line at a turnstyle!
When we were allowed into the park, we went part way down Hollywood Blvd. to The Rope, where we were greeted by CMs who were from the various attractions and dressed to match. They gave us the spiel about how we would WALK to the attractions, how we would NOT pass them, and how it would be an orderly mass stampede! Then we got the little opening ceremony from some Streetmosphere players....
Now, I should add here that I have never, ever done the mad rush for Toy Story Mania. The last time I was here, we arrived just after opening and putzed our way through the park. We lucked out in that there were still Fastpasses available by the time we got to TSM at the late hour of 10:30am, but on this trip I wanted to ride and ride more than once. I followed the TSM CMs as fast as my vertically-challenged legs could move, and was FIRST to one of the Fastpass kiosks!! What an amazing feeling..... Now, this is where I should have jumped right into the standby line....it was already filling up, but what had also already filled up was my bladder (remember that double refill on the mug?!.....yeah.....That.) Fortunately there are restrooms right around the corner and in the time it took for me to detour there, the standby line didn't fill up terribly much. I think the wait was listed at 20 minutes or so, but since I had never had the chance to enjoy the queue area for this ride, I didn't mind the chance to do just that.
This ride is a BLAST. It needs no words. It needs to be experienced! Seriously I could do it over and over and over. This was my score:
When I finished with my first round, I had just enough time to kill before my FP return time to grab a quick bite at the pastry cart that was conveniently located smack dab across from the TSM exit.... I got a cheese danish but NO coffee. The World's Smallest Bladder had had enough exercise for one morning, thank you very much. So I went for my second go-round on TSM, enjoyed it every bit as much (more?!), and can believe I got the exact. same. score....!
After TSM I walked to the Backlot Studio Tour. Had missed that on the last trip due to a sorry combination of the Hurricane Ike torrential rain bands and not having Park Hoppers.... Now I hadn't done this since '96 so I barely remembered any of it. I didn't remember the boat scene at the beginning where the volunteers show what goes into making an action scene (and a wet one at that!). That was pretty cool. After that we went through a really, really cool store room for all manner of props. Onto the tram, and off on our tour!
Following the tram ride, you go through another section of props and costumes...All I could think was how much my boys would love to see this stuff!
Darth Maul costume...
King Miraz.....
...and Davy Jones' organ!!
After the Backlot tour, I turned back towards Pixar Place and wanted to see Walt Disney: One Man's Dream. This was really, really fascinating. I think a lot of people pass it by as uninteresting because it's not a ride, but as far as I'm concerned it's not to be missed, at least once in your life. After the walk-through section there is a short film, which has a lot of old footage and I really enjoyed that.
About now it was getting to be lunchtime-ish, and since all I'd eaten so far were two cups of coffee and a cheese danish, the ol' tummy was talkin'! I decided on Toy Story Pizza Planet for lunch; I happen to like the pizza served at WDW and wasn't in the mood for burger fare or the like. Since it was early I walked right up to place my order and took my meal of cheese pizza, salad, a choc. chip cookie and GINORMOUS Diet Coke outside to sit under an umbrella table. It was quiet, there was background music, and I was fairly well in solo-trip heaven....
I took this photo in the Muppet shop.....
And saw Lightning and MATER!!!.....
At this point I had done all I wanted to do here, and was ready to move on to the next part of my day, so I started back towards the entrance. The Streetmosphere players were out so I stopped to watch for a bit......They are SO funny and this director/actress pair were fantastic!!
I was sort of amazed at what I had accomplished in a mere 4 hours at this park, but again, that's the beauty of being by myself! And the day had really only begun...!
About This Page: 
Looking forward to the next update!
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Great pictures! 
PassPorter Guide Author
. I really want to do the Tea at GF.
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Linear Mode
