Dreaming of a Disney spring break - part three COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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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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Monday 18 April – part one: you’ve got no record of us?
We were awoken a lot earlier than we had planned, after discovering that Mark’s cell phone, which he had set as an alarm yesterday, turned itself on to give us another alarm call today at 6am. Great!
As we were awake, we got going slowly.
Then we headed out to the main building around 8am to get some tea and breakfast. We got chocolate croissants and hot water, although we got into trouble for not using the right cups. Apparently, the big ones aren’t built for hot drinks.
We caught the monorail to the Ticket and Transportation Center and caught the next monorail to Epcot a couple of minutes later, getting there about 8.30am.
We settled down to wait for our Inspiration Through Walt’s Eyes tour and quite a big group gathered, although most of them were for Backstage Magic. Because of the price of that tour, I always assumed that very few people would do it each day, but obviously not. :
There were about 10 of us on our tour, although there was no record of us. Of course, I didn’t have the confirmation with me, but I did have what I thought was the reservation number, but they didn’t recognise it. I told them that I had had three e-mails about this and where to meet and Walt (great name, huh? ) told us it was fine and he would still take us, but that they might call us later to get the confirmation details.
Relieved about that, we set off, donning our headsets, so that we could hear him. We had terrible problems with those the whole way around, as the system kept cutting in and out, probably worse than on any other tour we’ve been on.
We boarded our bus for the day and it was over to the Hollywood Studios. The tour follows a simple format in that it takes you through Walt’s life and you do learn a lot about the man, at first standing by the Fantasmic! theatre. There wasn’t much relevance to what we were hearing, but by the time we got out on to Sunset Boulevard, finally we were talking about the 1940s and it all came together beautifully, as you’ll see in a minute....
Walt was a wonderful guide and very easy to listen to, although he did walk quite fast and I noticed all of us lingering behind him, as he went off. As well as learning about Walt’s life, much of which I had already heard through various sources, we heard about other things, such as the Tower of Terror rehab, as that’s where we parked up. There’s an impressive crane that’s been there since we arrived and I asked about it. Apparently the work being done is to make it look older, which is interesting and they managed to keep the ride going during the work they’ve been doing. Hearing all the screams from there and the Rock’n’Roller Coaster was a bit disconcerting.
When we walked on stage, you could immediately see how busy the park was and that was quickly confirmed with the news that the wait for the Tower of Terror at 9.45am was 80 minutes.
We were taken to a part of the park that I had never seen before. It’s a Victory with Vegetables garden by the Sunset Ranch Market. This knitted in nearly with the tale about how the Disney brothers helped with the war effort, by producing films about how bad Hilter was.
From there, we walked down towards the Great Movie Ride, but by the time we got there, the tour had nearly brought us up to the 1970s and early 1980s with Walt challenging anyone to name a good film from then. He explained that this was Disney’s dark time and they forgot about how to entertain people. He also explained that a certain guy called John Lassiter had joined the company and told Disney that they needed to change how they did things. That didn’t go down well and he parted company with them, going on to form Pixar and, of course, by that point, that’s where we were standing, in Pixar Place. Very neatly done.
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Another great update - just finished your cruise TR, and now caught up with your days back on land. Sorry the server at CG was so horrid. I haven't eaten there in quite awhile (well at least not in the last three years). BLT looks wonderful, but like Heather, I can't justify the points!
Nice update Cheryl, Not too many good movies from 70's and 80's that was when I was seeing Disney Cartoons - I did like the Rescuers and Little Mermaid was 89? does that count?
Glad that even though you were not in Walt's system that there was no problem with you taking the tour, which sounds fabulous so far. Definitely a busy day at the studios with ToT with such a long wait so early in the morning. Can't wait to hear more about the tour.
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Another great update with fantastic pics! Yes HS was very crowded that week. Despite our best efforts, we were not able to get there before 10:30 on 4/18 and FPs for TSM were already all gone. I think the wait was something like 90 minutes ! Needless to say we did NOT ride. I cannot imagine waiting in a line that long for anything! Sounds like a great tour though! I'd love to do some of the tours someday!
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) told us it was fine and he would still take us, but that they might call us later to get the confirmation details. 
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! Needless to say we did NOT ride. I cannot imagine waiting in a line that long for anything! Sounds like a great tour though! I'd love to do some of the tours someday!
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