The "5 Reasons to NOT GO" Versus "5 Reasons TO GO" Surprise Trip - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
I wish you the best of luck with the stroller disagreement. I mentioned it to my husband, and he was like "Just bring it and leave it in the room if they don't want to use it. What's the big deal?" When I explained what the big deal was, and reminded him of how much trouble we've seen people have with things like bringing the stroller on the buses, he was like "Oh, okay. That could be a pain I guess. I don't know what they should do then." Silly man!
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
They do sell umbrella strollers for like $40 if worse comes to worse and you don't bring yours. Cheaper than renting, but might be small for him too. Good Luck convincing DH!
You're so close! Can't wait to hear about the reveal!
In less than 24 hours, we'll be awaiting our flight at the airport. Having left so much to do has left me feeling queasy about getting it all done...especially with the company we have in town.
As for the big reveal. I'm afraid it was as lackluster as I was afraid it would turn out to be. DS isn't usually overy excited by much (unless it's inconvenient for him to be so ), so we were prepared for him to react in any number of differnent ways other than jumping up and down for Joy. Will he eventually look back and think of this surprise fondly? TOTALLY! In retrospect, he'll love it! So here's the run down.
Due to our coming and going in and out of the house over the weekend to visit our visiting relatives, DH's mother's birthday, and of course Mother's Day, the end of our week and our weekend were a little muttled from the normal routine. Although DS totally earned a trip to the treasure box at the end of his week, we never got around to getting into the 'box'. Fast forward to Sunday night after a wonderful Mother's Day during which DS went above and beyond to get along with cousin's often difficult daughter (about his age). We were so pround of DS's behavior that we decided to go ahead and tell him on Sunday night that it was time to get in the treasure box (as opposed to making him wait for Monday or Tuesday night's surprise at the front door). While I bathed DS and got him ready for bed, DH emptied the treasure box and put in all the "You're going to Disney World" props. Once DS was ready for bed, we called him down the stairs and he questioned why DH was taking pictures. Out to the garage we all went and DS excitedly opened up the foot locker to reveal the props. He excitedly grabbed the huge, tacky hat and put it on his head and then turned his attention to the shirt that gave away that he was 'going to WDW!' I asked him what it read and he said something like "Duh! It's says I'm going to Disney World." I then asked him when he thought we were going and he said "next year" and I said, "Nope, We're going on Wednesday in a little over 2 days!" He just stared at me, looked at the treasure box, looked at me and said "I wanted Bionicals!"
Don't get me wrong. DS is happy and excited, but I think he just has to work into the excitement. It's not a button to be pushed and activated....for him, it's definately a tank that has to be filled. We spent yesterday morning flipping through our prior trip scrapbooks and I let DS check out our itinerary a little bit. He was a little iffy on some of our ADR's despite them all being places he was asking to visit on our trip next year.
By Monday afternoon he was getting pretty excited. Thankfully, he contained his excitement and didn't get all braggy about it in front of the visiting relatives (especially counsin's difficult daughter).
While I have some video (on DH's camera), I haven't looked at it yet and I'm assuming it's pretty boring and dissapointing. I might post some of it when we get back. Sorry.
Well! Our other development has been our relative panic about the weather forecast. Last week, I laughed as I sent DH a picture of the Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain, Rain.....picture forecast from accuweather. I figured it couldn't actually be that bad and that as we got closer the actual forecast would clear up a bit. Nope! The only thing keeping me sane is that we've had rain forecasted on every one of our 5 prior trips to Orlando and it hasn't rained on us since 1999 during our Honeymoon (and then it was only for like 10 minutes on our first night). On the other hand, looking at it this way it makes it look like "we're due". I guess I could look at it as like a WDW right of passage. Everyone must have one epic waterlogged trip, right? Anyway, I'm thinking about one more trip to Walmart tonight to grab a few more of those little ponchos.
My Aunt, Cousin, her daughter, and my Grandmother are all due to visit at our house for today, so a few last minute chores around the house call my attention.
Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and advice for our trip. It's always so much fun having company while planning out our adventures. Especially from such competent and knowledgeable guides.
Oh! And as for the great Stroller Debate! Well, as of Monday morning, we were both still weighing each others points and trying to figure out what we'd do. While talking about the trip with DS yesterday, I reminded him of all the walking he's been doing around the neighborhood and told him that I was secretly getting him ready for walking all over WDW. I then asked him if he though he'd be ready to walk all over the parks or did he think he would need the stroller. He said, "Nah! I can walk." Suffice it to say, I had DS repeat his decision for DH last night and we are now decided NOT to bring said stroller to WDW. If it comes down to it, I'll suck it up and rent one a couple of times or see if he'll be able to squeeze into one of the umbrella ones they sell. I think another point that helped my case was DH coming home to look at the pile of bags to be checked/carry-on bags and remembering how annoying it is to add the stroller to the mix.
Whoohoo!
No more "get the stroller, where's the stroller, fold the stroller, get the stuff out of the stroller, why is the stroller squeaking, where do we put the stroller, get in the stroller, get out of the stroller for a picture, stop the stroller (I can't hear what DS is saying in the stroller), Sorry! I didn't mean to bump you with my stroller, Sorry! I know my stroller is in your way.....etc, etc, etc.
See you all soon! (but not too soon!)
__________________
Countdown to April/May 2014 Boardwalk Inn.....3 Generations trip with my mom (first trip) and DS9 (fourth trip). DS's gonna show his Gramma the world!
Last edited by dizzparkmom; 05-10-2011 at 10:49 AM..
Reason: Apparently I can't spell or type today!
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.
I just got an email from a great friend, who sadly moved away a couple of years ago first to Germany and then to Texas (Air Force ). Her husband has a conference to attend in Orlando and now they are going to be in Orlando the 19th to 22nd. She's planning on being at MK one for the same days we are and then at DHS for SWW on Friday too! Needless to say, we're planning on getting together a little bit. Awesome! Her DD was my DS's first friend ever, although he doesn't really remember her much anymore.
What a surprise! This will make a fantastic addition to our trip! Especially since it will be towards the end of the trip when we're feeling sad about going home!
__________________
Countdown to April/May 2014 Boardwalk Inn.....3 Generations trip with my mom (first trip) and DS9 (fourth trip). DS's gonna show his Gramma the world!
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.