You can take the girl out of Disney, BUT……… - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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We did some leisurely strolling. Skip’s feet and legs were killing him. I really noticed him hobbling around. I assumed it was his hip, but he swears it was his feet that bothered him.
I didn’t take a picture of (why I didn’t, I don’t know) but there were some fencing up around the lake area over here and it said it was a hot set. Nothing was going on, so we “think” they were taking stuff down from something earlier. We did see guys out in the lake on a boat though too.
Skip asked if there was a fireworks show going on later, and we were told no, which I was sure I had read wasn’t happening, but you never know. Someone did say they have something in the summer, and I know I have read TRs that showed pictures of it.
I think down this street is where the Nickelodeon studios used to be. I know we toured it a couple of times and Paige once went with her Dads family and got to do some sort of shout out on one of the shows she watched being taped. They gave them the day it would air and then we recorded it. I don’t know if we still have it on tape anywhere or not. LOL
We stopped and rested for a while and watched the guys in the boat and I kept taking pictures.
We headed over to Disaster. That was one thing I wanted to do before we left for the day, and Claire wanted to give it a try too.
It’s right by the famous Richter’s Burgers and we joked about it once again.
I laughed when we got in line because so many people asked what this was. The TM would say it’s an attraction that is a show and ride…and people look at him like he’s crazy. …..There are these youtube videos where they have these cartoon people being CM’s and the people ask what it is, and that’s the response they get…and it escalates to a frustrated CM. They are so dumb, but funny too, and this made me think of it immediately.
Here is one of those videos, it’s not the one I was thinking of, but it still is funny.
We waited in line and Skip kept asking me what this was like. I told him it was called Earthquake last time I rode it and it appeared to look a bit different on the outside, so I wasn’t sure how similar it would be.
We had a buddy hanging with us too.
We had a little wait, but soon we were headed into the first room. This has changed from when I saw it last (as Earthquake). I don’t remember it exactly, but I know it was different before. We had a girl who was casting people for a new movie and it was fun. She picked some people to be part of the “show” and she was pretty funny and the guys she picked were funny too. Claire just loved this…Skip didn’t care for it so much.
Next we went into the next room and the actors did there “thing” and it was taped. Again, I thought it was fun and funny. We were introduced to the owner of the studios and it was Christopher Walken….as a holograph. To me this was SO amazing. He looked so real and no flickering at all. He interacted with things and I really don’t think Claire even knew that it wasn’t a real person up there. I was impressed. I think we went to the ride vehicle next. This was pretty much the same ride (though I heard they did change it up for safety reasons because someone had gotten hurt (or killed?) several years ago when it was Earthquake. This time though, we are all part of the movie and the ride is part of the show…years ago, I do believe that we went on a subway ride and then “all of a sudden” there was an earthquake. This time was corny and we had to all pretend to be frightened. Claire loved it, Skip still wasn’t impressed ,but did like the ride portion a bit more.
On the way back to the station they play the movie they have just made. It’s pretty funny, and we laughed at the corny movie they made which also stared the “Rock” as the main character. They combined the guest actors in shots with him and it was so silly.
When we got off, Claire declared that this might be her new favorite ride, or at least tied with the Simpsons. Skip said he hoped not to ever go back on it. LOL!
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After we left Disaster we decided it was time to work our way back to the front and head out. Claire said she had seen something in the Shrek gift shop and she wanted to use her money to buy it. We walked slowly and even took a small break and just enjoyed the views.
I took these for Brook. She lives in NYC and there is a Starbucks on every corner practically.
We would watch this ride every so often…and there is NO WAY any of us would ever get on it. The 2 adults have lost all their spunk, and the little one is just smart.
We made our way into the gift shop.
And Claire went straight to him.
He was cute…but another plushy…oh well….
We did get 10% off with our AAA card.
And here are the princess dresses I had mentioned earlier.
And out we went, and I still had that camera clicking.
They are still working on the new Despicable Me ride.
Not a good picture, but here is the locker area.
I stopped in here and took a quick look around. They had the thing 2 tank top and I debated on getting it, but I decided to wait again and see if anything else caught my fancy first.
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That ride sure looks like fun. With all of the rides in IOA, not sure we will be able to get to USF and do that ride and the others there all in the one day I have planned. My BiL will be in an ECV which may slow us down a little.
Great updates! Funny how different Claire and Skip were on their reactions to the Disaster ride/show.
I really don't know why he disliked it so much, but I know he was tired and his feet were hurting.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhinohunter
That ride sure looks like fun. With all of the rides in IOA, not sure we will be able to get to USF and do that ride and the others there all in the one day I have planned. My BiL will be in an ECV which may slow us down a little.
Thre is so much to do it would be hard to get both parks done properly in 1 day.
We headed out of the park and made our way to the parking garage. It’s funny how Skip and Claire now were walking fairly fast, but I was lagging behind this time around. ….. Mostly due to taking pictures though.
I thought this was really cute and hadn’t noticed it when we arrived that morning. It’s a mini golf course.
This is where we found that people were using the people mover walkways as a ride. (Skip did too at this point) It drives me bonkers. I don’t mind if you ride, but move to one side so people can pass you. Claire and I kept walking and said excuse me a zillion times as we walked. People would look at us like we were the nutty ones.
This is in the middle area where you chose which way to go to your parking garage. It’s a little gift stand and has a Jurassic park theme. I remember this from the last time we visited.
We made it back to the car. Skip was really sore and a bit grumpy now. We also had to fight with the car door to get it to unlock. I was so annoyed at the car. Why can’t it just unlock like a normal car.
We drove back and traffic was literally bumper to bumper near our hotel. Not sure what was going on, but we ended up going a long way around to it so we could turn at a light, as just making a left hand turn with no light was never going to happen. It still didn’t take us too long to get back.
Claire and Skip headed down to the pool. It was around 8 PM now. I took a shower.
If you have read my past TR’s, you might have noticed my hair is a little shorter this time around. I cut it last fall fairly short for me. I wanted to get off old perm and drippy ends and wanted a change. It was cute, but after a month, I no longer liked it. I am a ponytail kind of girl and I like to just throw my hair in one daily and not mess with it. Not happening with short hair. So I have been letting it grow out. And it’s going so slowly. I also can’t just wash and fluff dry and have it look decent either. It’s still got some old perm on the ends and it just looks awful in general. So if I go in public, I have to straighten it to make it look halfway decent. This takes time of course.
So while they swam, I took my shower and did the straightening of the hair process again. I put on a sundress and felt clean and fresh and ready to do something.
Skip and Claire came back up and Claire declared it was the best pool ever because it had a hot tub too. (She says this about every pool we go to)
I asked Claire if she wanted to take a shower and she said no, she just swam so she is clean. LOL! Ok, we are on vacation, let’s let it go for today. We got her dressed and her hair combed and dried, and told Skip we wanted to go to Beaches and Cream for icecream. He grumbled a bit about not being hungry, and I told him we would go without him then…..well he got moving then.
He did say he better not have to walk a lot because he was so sore and tired from me dragging him around for 17 hours straight…a “bit” of an exaggeration there.
We got directions from the front desk on how to get the expressway to Disney area and once again fought with the door locks on the car, then took off.
It didn’t take too long to get there. We pulled up to the Yacht Clubs parking gate and we were told there was a hard close, so we couldn’t park. I guess that means they have too many people there right now and only guest resorts or those with ADR’s could park there. I asked about the Beach Club lot and he told me it was the same. UGH! He did say go over to the Boardwalk and we would be able to park there. OK. But I knew the “walking” would be longer, but I didn’t mention that to Skip.
We were able to park at the Boardwalk, and wow, what a walk that was JUST to get to the resort. Us lowly people who are not staying onsite have to park really far out. I just kept my spirits up and ignored the complainers in my family. I really don’t think Claire cared at all, but since Skip grumbled, she thought she should as well.
My BW pictures aren’t very good because I was on the move and it was dark.
We made it out to the boardwalk, and some entertainment was just finishing up. It looked like it was good, because it had quite a crowd dispersing at the moment.
I tried to figure which way around the lake would be faster, but honestly, I don’t think either is, so we headed in the direction of the YC.
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