Trip Report - Jan 14-22 Cruise/WDW: A Disney Trip Full of Hope! COMPLETED!! 7/15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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.
Sorry about the missing shoe. Maybe it will soon magically turn up (before she outgrows it). I your pictures of tea w/your Mom! I know my Mom would love doing that too.....now, if I could just get her to WDW!! How spotting the "poodle" lady!!! Is it stuffed teddy bears in her bag???? Can't wait to read more!
I have no idea what is in her bag They have to be stuffed animals. My mom wanted us to go and talk to her but there was no way I was doing that . I mean, I'm a friendly person, but what would I say, "We were just upstairs stalking you and wanted to know what's in the bag?"
I have no idea what is in her bag They have to be stuffed animals. My mom wanted us to go and talk to her but there was no way I was doing that . I mean, I'm a friendly person, but what would I say, "We were just upstairs stalking you and wanted to know what's in the bag?"
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I am ing your TR!!! Can I just say that Hope is the cutest little baby ever?! Can't wait for the next update!!
and thanks for following along!
Sunday, January 17th: Part two - Now that’s what I call a rice crispy treat!
When mom and I got back to the room the guys had already started unpacking our suitcases and putting things away, or at least trying too. Because of that, I will apologize now for the room pictures not looking nice and fresh . We were staying in a 1-bedroom villa which was great because of the kitchen and the washer/dryer, especially with a baby.
I fell in with this shower!
Our View
We started organizing things a little better than they did, and as I started getting into things I noticed a tiny green army man on the floor . No big deal, it must have been left behind by the people in the room before us, however, why didn’t the mousekeeper catch this, and what would have happened if Hope had put it in her mouth and tried to swallow it ? After that I started noticing that the floor was extremely dirty, like it hadn’t even been vacuumed, and I began to get a little more upset. Again, this was no big deal since we had a vacuum in our room and we could take care of it ourselves…we shouldn’t have to , but we could .
We gave my parents the main bedroom and Chad and I were going to sleep on the pullout sofa bed, so while my mom was in her room, she found a empty sandwich bag behind the curtain !!! Now I was getting more and more upset. We were staying at The Boardwalk for goodness sake, this shouldn’t be happening, but oh yes, it was. Now, I’m not a complainer, I don’t like to cause problems and if I can take care of something I will, but the last straw was when I was putting her bottles in the kitchen and I noticed a sticky substance on the countertops. I touched it, and it was disgusting ! It had to be syrup or something, and it obviously meant that they hardly cleaned our room. That was it…I had to complain .
I called guest services and explained the situation to the CM on the phone . She told me she would give this message to the housekeeping supervisor and apologized for the inconvenience. My mom and I then got to work cleaning the room, not wanting to return from DTD with a mess to deal with. About 10 minutes after we finished, there was a knock at the door…it was the housekeeping supervisor. We explained the situation again, and she asked to see some of the problems, but we had already cleaned everything! If I would have known someone was coming to our room, I would have let it be, but they never told me she’d be stopping in to have a look for herself. She apologized again and offered to give us a free dinner, but I told her that was nice of her but all I would like was a nice room cleaning on our trash/towel service day (for those who are not DVC members, we don’t get regular room cleanings like the other hotel guests, we only get a day of towel replacements and trash removal). She said she would have that done for us, and we left it at that.
After playing Cinderella for a while, we got cleaned up and headed out to DTD. Once we got there we made a bee line for EoS…my favorite place to get sandwiches. My parents and I got the All-American and Chad got the Hawaiian sandwich. Mmm Mmm Good !!! After we ate we walked around and played for a bit.
Chad decided he wanted to get a make-your-own rice crispy treat at Goofy’s Candy Co.
We’ve never done this before so I was excited to see how the whole process worked. He decided he wanted it dipped in white chocolate, covered in Resee’s Peanut Butter Cup pieces, and drizzled in milk chocolate at the end…it didn’t sound too appealing to me, but hey, it’s not my rice crispy treat. After the girl did all of this the rice crispy treat looked HUGE !!! She put it in the oven to bake for a second, and when she pulled it out it was GINORMOUS !!! I had no idea how he was going to eat this thing, they even had to put it in a souvenir box to get it back to the room.
He didn’t eat any that night, but he munched on it throughout our vacation…here are a couple of pictures of the Holy Grail of rice crispy treats ! These pictures really don’t show the size very well.
It has completely lost it's "Mickey" shape
Yes, I know he has a big mouth, but there is no way that thing is fitting in there
After we visited DTD for a while, we made our way back to the resort and headed off to bed so we had plenty of rest for our first full day at the parks...tomorrow AK!
We would not have been happy about that room either and would have done exactly the same thing. Its not like you are complaining to get something free, you just expect more, it is disney after all!
__________________
Teresa
Sammy 5 years and Peyton 15 months - September 2013
Shame on housekeeping! There is no excuse for a room to not be completely cleaned before a new guest enters. Glad you enjoyed EoS! That is a very large rice crispy treat!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
About This Page: 
. Maybe it will soon magically turn up (before she outgrows it
). I 
spotting the "poodle" lady!!! Is it stuffed teddy bears in her bag???? Can't wait to read more!
They have to be stuffed animals. My mom wanted us to go and talk to her but there was no way I was doing that 
. I mean, I'm a friendly person, but what would I say, "We were just upstairs stalking you and wanted to know what's in the bag?" 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Congrats on booking another trip to Disney!
Susan
PassPorter Guide Author
*Melissa
and thanks for following along!
. We were staying in a 1-bedroom villa which was great because of the kitchen and the washer/dryer, especially with a baby.
. No big deal, it must have been left behind by the people in the room before us, however, why didn’t the mousekeeper catch this, and what would have happened if Hope had put it in her mouth and tried to swallow it 
? After that I started noticing that the floor was extremely dirty, like it hadn’t even been vacuumed, and I began to get a little more upset. Again, this was no big deal since we had a vacuum in our room and we could take care of it ourselves…we shouldn’t have to 
. 
!!! Now I was getting more and more upset. We were staying at The Boardwalk for goodness sake, this shouldn’t be happening, but oh yes, it was. Now, I’m not a complainer, I don’t like to cause problems and if I can take care of something I will, but the last straw was when I was putting her bottles in the kitchen and I noticed a sticky substance on the countertops. I touched it, and it was disgusting 
! It had to be syrup or something, and it obviously meant that they hardly cleaned our room. That was it…I had to complain 
.
. She told me she would give this message to the housekeeping supervisor and apologized for the inconvenience. My mom and I then got to work cleaning the room, not wanting to return from DTD with a mess to deal with. About 10 minutes after we finished, there was a knock at the door…it was the housekeeping supervisor. We explained the situation again, and she asked to see some of the problems, but we had already cleaned everything! If I would have known someone was coming to our room, I would have let it be, but they never told me she’d be stopping in to have a look for herself. She apologized again and offered to give us a free dinner, but I told her that was nice of her but all I would like was a nice room cleaning on our trash/towel service day (for those who are not DVC members, we don’t get regular room cleanings like the other hotel guests, we only get a day of towel replacements and trash removal). She said she would have that done for us, and we left it at that. 
My parents and I got the All-American and Chad got the Hawaiian sandwich. Mmm Mmm Good 
!!! After we ate we walked around and played for a bit.
!!! I had no idea how he was going to eat this thing, they even had to put it in a souvenir box to get it back to the room.
! These pictures really don’t show the size very well.
Teresa
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Linear Mode
