Our Disney Vacation with Fay and the Crab Assasins - COMPLETE!! - UPDATED 9/16 - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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When we finally got to go into Andy's room it was no disapointment! Disney is great at detail, and they certainly didn't scrimp on it for this ride! Remember to click on my pics to see them larger!
We had lots of fun just goofing around and taking pictures. Because of all the interesting things to look at, it didn't seem like such a long wait. I love the game boards on the ceiling.
toy 6.jpgtoy 7 little cute baby.jpg We saw this oh so cute baby girl riding on her dads shoulders. She was so adorable, everyone was trying to get her to laugh, she had a cute low pictched chuckle, it was too funny. When you get almost up to the front, there is a lincoln log house, which bubby helped "build" in this picturetoy 8 bubby building.jpg
THen you get up close and personal with this guy , ,
He was so well done, and he actually talks to individuals in the audience, and makes comments about them. He gets a little rattled when people don't sing along with him. THis is the last view we had befoe we left Andy's room, about 50 minutes after we entered. toy 10 whole room.jpg It really didn't seem that long though.
Just one more twist and turn, and it was finally our turn to ride. This is the view you have when you are getting on the ride. I made John take this photo becuase I collect "Little Golden" books, and thought the giant book under the doornob was neat. toy 11 view gettin on ride.jpg
The ride itself was "awesome" as my son says. Boys rode together and girls rode together on this one. The boy were right behind us in the same car so we could hear each other. I love how in this ride you can really see where you are hitting. ANd the targets are interactive, If you get one target, another one pops up, also when you pop a water balloon, you get wet!!!! When you pop a glitter bomb, it looks like gitter is flying at you. It is so cool. We had such a good time. I got a much better score on this than on Buzz. But DH still beat me oh well. The ride lasts a lot longer than you expect, and to be honest, my arm started huting from pulling the string on my cannon. REALLY! I had to switch arms part way through. DD9 said the same thing! We would have loved to go on it again, but the line was still way long, and I had remembered that I had to pick of the rental car before 7pm and M&D called and were hoping we were still in MK. It was after 3pm and they were watching the parade. I knew it would take a long time to get back there, since you go bus to TRansportation Center, then boat to MK. So I decided we better just meet them back at WL for a last meal together, before they had to leave, then I would go get the car, then we would decide what was next. So we waited in lots of wind and some rain, in our ponchos for 20 minutes for the bus back to WL. The weather was no longer scary, just dark grey and rainy and also it had gotten a little chilly. It was nice to get back to WL. It has that warm homey feel, that is nice to come back to when you are wet, tired and hungry! We met up with Mom and Dad, and headed to Roaring Forks for one last meal together. It was sort of meloncholy since we hadn't spent any time together in the parks that day, but we had made some great memories, and would have fun telling everyone about it when we were all home again. So we had a CS take our picture at our last meal.6 of us Roaring Forks.jpg
Then the time came for them to get on their DME bus to head out for their flight. After a tearful goodbye between Grandma and GRandson, and lots of hugs, we waved goodbye as their bus pulled away. We went back inside. What to do? Well, I had to go get the car for one. So the kids and John headed back to the arcade, while I arranged for transportation. I got to Alamo, picked up our MID-SIZE, car and headed back to WL. Got parked and ran inside, drenched, it was now 7p.m. This was our last park-hopper day, and we wanted to get going early the next morning, but when we all got together and talked about it. We just didn't want to go back to HS, too crowded, too tired, we missed so much there but oh well, the only other place we would want to go is MK. We had done everything there, many several times, and no one had the inclination to go all the way back for only a couple hours. So we decided to stay at the lodge the rest of the evening. After all, we had to pack all our suitcases etc. So we settled in with every other guest who all seemed to be lounging in the lobby, or any niche they could find with a few chairs. It really looked like a ski lodge at night! Next up, Sheri's one big planning mistake, and Vero hear we come!
Glad you enjoyed TSMM We too complained that our arms hurt after the ride!! I switched hands a couple of times Sorry about the rain.....we too stayed inside at the BC that night! More please
Glad you had a good experience with TSM. I didn't remember the giant Golden Book - thanks for the picture! Sorry you weren't able to spend as much together time today. Looking forward to hearing about Vero Beach!
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We were not alone in our decision not to go back into the parks on the evening of the 19th. Seems like all 700 rooms were lounging around or in the arcade! I had mentioned the lifeguards in their jackets etc. and here is a pick for those who said they would like to see it. If you look closely by the guard who is standing, you will also see the resident ducks who are always in the pool. (don't forget to click on pictures)lifeguards with jackets and duck in pool.jpg
John and the kids spent more than a few dollars at the arcade, then got snacks at roaring fork before heading back to the room. Meanwhile, I had decided that clean clothes would be better to pack, so I headed down to the laundry room. I decided I would only do one load, so I put everything together, except a couple items that were to bright and might bleed. In between checking on the cloths, I went over to the arcade, which is a bit of a hike, and played with the kids. Once they went up to the room, I played the pinball machine quite a few times. I am a pinball lover, and you rarely find them anymore. I won several free games and probably delayed my laundry time because of it. Once all the cloths were on their last roll in the dryer, I went up to tuck the kids in. It was about 10pm and they were watching, what else, a disney movie!! So I packed some of the bags, and got them zipped. Laying out everyones clothes for the next day. Once the kids went down, hubby started watching the Olympics and I went back to get the clothes. Everyone was asleep when I came back,so I ate some chocolate cake, and turned on the weather channel. Tropical storm Fay had hit the coast pretty hard but was expected to be out at sea by Wed. the 20th and heading north, according to the news that morning. But what the weather channel now said, was that Fay decided to stop moving altogether. OF COURSE SHE DID! Now she was just sitting their off the coast of Melbourne spinning and dumping lots of rain. (Melboarne is about 40 miles north of Vero) No changing plans now. We will just have to make the best of it. So I turned off the tube and decided to add some extra prayers before I went to sleep, for safe travel the next day. In the morning I got up and showered first, around 8am, then woke DH. He went down for coffee and snacks. He brought back a peach pastry for DD9. It never ceases to amaze me how he can spend so much time with them and still not know what they like and don't like. She hates peach anything. But we still have poptarts,and whala! Dark chocolate chunk granola bars in the box that I had sent ahead of time. Score! Everybody is now happy. I continue to pack while everyone gets themselves together. Once all 4 of our big suitcases are packed I had DS11 ring for a bellman. We got it all together, 4 big suitcases, 2 smaller suitcases, 1 medium size carry on, and my extra large purse, and one cardboard box full of water pop tarts etc. Not to mention 3 stuffed animals and a small backpack! Hubby stays behind to double check the room etc. I run ahead of the bellman to go and pull up my MIDsize rental car. So any of you vertan travelers see a problem yet??? Obviously neither I nor my travel agent had really thought our tansportation situation through all that well. The poor bellman just looked perplexed when I pulled up with that Pontiac sedan. I opened the trunk and he just looked at me. " Is there another car coming?" he asked. I answered " no, why?" Yes I was really that dense that morning! "Ma'm how many folks are gonna be riding in this?" "Four" was the answer, and then I actually looked at the trunk! I have seen bigger foot lockers. Bless his heart he put as much as he could back there, but two big and one small suitcase was it. that left two big and one small to fit..nowhere! I saw my DH in the lobby, I asked the nice bellman to put the rest in the back seat and passenger seat, and I told hubby I would be right back, "Take the kids to the arcade, get food, whatever, I will be back asap." So off I went to the Alamo center, having no idea if I could get another car. Praying to God that there would be a bigger one available. The same attendant was on duty who had helped me the night before. She had actually asked me if I wanted to upgrade to a larger vehicle, and I had said no. There were several people in front of me and I was still praying.The couple directly in front of me were the bain in the attendants existance. No Kidding they were like a couple from an SNL skit. The couple who are always chewing gum and playing with their hair, and can never decide what they want.She wanted something with under 10,000 miles on it, and he wanted a Hummer! Problem was they only had one hummer and it had 12,000 miles on it. OH MY WORD! I would have taken the hummer at that point. THe attendant saw me and recognized me. I told her that I should have listened to her and upgraded last night. She laughed, tossed her head and said, I changed my mind, too late!!!! Then cackeled and handed me about 3 sets of keys, to look at cars. But I finally got a dodge suv and went out and transfered our luggage in the pouring rain.Took the keys back in signed the paper, and back to WL. The whole debacle took about an hour to fix and return. So at about 11am we took our last look at WL, filled our mugs and headed out for Vero! Goodbye WL we love you!!!
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All caught up! Boy, I would have gone over the edge if I saw the resort piling up sandbags! Glad you were able to extend your stay at WL and rectify the car mix-up. (That's too funny!) I am anxious to hear how you made it to Vero Beach and all about your visit. Come back with more soon!
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