It's going to be an "Incredible Summer" - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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The last week before we left for Disney went oh so slowly - which in a way was a good thing. I didn't want the summer to continue to fly by the way it had. It also gave me the chance to get things done that I needed to but couldn't wait for Saturday - place our grocery order with Walmart and reserve our pick up time, notify Abby's van driver and her school the last date she would be attending the summer program, etc. On the other hand it stunk that the week went so slowly as I was getting anxious to go on this "Incredible Summer" vacation. The Friday before I even had to work both jobs - and that's only because I didn't put in for time off from the station early enough. It would have been nice to start vacation that day - and by vacation we all know that means having time for all of the last minute "work" that has to be done - but it was fine. I make so many lists and spreadsheets that I was in really good shape and by going to work at both jobs, I could actually have something to do instead of being home wondering "what is there to do today?"
Saturday, August 4th I was up nice and early at 5:20. I had woken up for some reason but I couldn't get back to sleep. It didn't matter much because I had to get up early to check in at Southwest. At 6:10, I was online at my 24 hour mark and I couldn't believe that I got C boarding passes! We pre board so I didn't worry about it but I was still surprised. After that the rest of Saturday was pretty much pre vacation routine. We all got our hair cut, I ran to the store for stuff for Mom, I finished packing, Abby helped me load the car, etc. Dinner consisted of salads to use up as much of the produce we had that we could. What was left I told Mom to give to one of the people we work with at the gas station for him and his family. I don't know if she ever did it or not.
By 5 p.m. I was getting tired so after dinner was done and all cleaned up, we went upstairs. Abby was good. She tried to go to sleep at 6:30. I was pretty tired so I closed my eyes at 7:10. Lenny however was in pain from working seven days in a row and could not fall asleep. That means since he couldn't fall asleep whatever he was doing - moaning or groaning, changing channels on the tv - it kept waking me up. At 11 he was still up so we turned the TV back on (it had shut off) to hopefully help him fall asleep. It did but unfortunately it kept me awake. At midnight, I heard Abby coming and going from her room and it made me curious as to what she was doing. She cleaned her room, made her bed, packed her friends, showered, dressed and brushed her teeth all before the time I had planned on getting her up.
All the while she was doing this, I was in my room playing games on my iPad hoping it would make me sleepy. It did - but by the time that happened, it was time to get up for the day. I did everything I needed to, I got Lenny up and at 2:45 a.m. we were in the car and ready to go. There was next to no traffic so we made it to the airport at 3:40 and were first in line at curbside check-in. No one was there so we just stayed there and waited. Around 4 is when it opened. We made it to the wheelchair line for TSA and it didn't take long to get through there. Once we got to the screening area though things did not go that smooth. Instead of giving us time to do what we were supposed to do - take off our shoes, empty pockets, etc. - the TSA agent kept asking Lenny if he could walk. He kept telling her he couldn't without a cane. Instead of telling him he would be provided with one, she said "I can't give you yours back." This back and forth went on for a few minutes which means Lenny never took off his shoes or his Nitro lanyard before going through the scanner. He finally got straightened away with the help of other TSA people and we had no further trouble with security after that. I even forgot to take out my 3-1-1 bag but nothing got flagged.
We made it to our gate at 4:16 and even though Dunkin Donuts was not open yet, I went back to get in line. When they finally did open, I ordered an iced coffee for Lenny and a hot chocolate for Abby but the hot chocolate machine was not working. When I got back to Lenny and Abby, she was a little disappointed.
The time went quickly and it didn't seem like it was all that long before we were boarding the plane. As we waited, we looked through the things in the seat pocket and we saw Abby could get a hot chocolate on the plane. As soon as they started the announcements Abby's joy at getting a hot chocolate was soon taken away. They were having problems with the hot water so coffee and hot chocolate could not be served. Everything else about the flight was fine. Lenny slept, I slept and then played games on my devices and Abby watched Pinocchio. We landed at 8:45 - 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We went to the bathroom, literally only walked through the Disney Store and went to DME. We waited maybe a minute or two before being let on the bus. We were the last three let on before it left. It was only 9:18 - earlier than I expected for us to leave the airport.
While on the bus, I texted Kate (lovewdw2) to let her know we were on the bus. A few minutes later, my phone went off and I sat there looking around and thinking "what is that beeping I hear?" It was my phone. I had changed my message tone so I could hear it and hear it I did - I just didn't recognize it as mine. I pulled out my phone and I looked at it. I was pleasantly surprised to see a text from Disney telling me my room was ready. About 9:45 we arrived at All Star Music which today was the second stop. In the past, this bus has also stopped at Coronado Springs but this year it didn't. After we got off the bus, Abby and I set off to find a wheelchair for Lenny because we wouldn't be getting the scooter until later in the day. Bell services didn't have any and we were told in the past to look in the stairwells for one as that's normally where one would be found. We eventually found one in the Country Fair section and once we had Lenny in the chair, we went to Guest Services to update our Magic Band pins and to get celebration pins. By 10:25 we were in our room and we unpacked what we had with us and enjoyed the AC for a bit - especially me. I was cold when we left home so I had put on a pair of jeans to travel in. Our bags weren't with us yet so I couldn't change out of them.
After a little bit, we went to the food court for something to eat. Since Lenny ate six of the seven sandwiches we took with us, he wasn't hungry but Abby and I were. I forgot to take a photo but we got a bacon cheeseburger to share. We also got our refillable mugs too. After lunch, Alamo came to pick us up. When we got to the CCC, we did get the SUV we reserved but it was actually a Cadillac SUV instead of the Hyundai Santa Fe "or similar" that was listed. Does anyone remember when Lenny wanted a Cadillac and it wasn't the exact one on the website? Well this year we didn't reserve a Cadillac SUV and we didn't pay for one - we only paid for a regular SUV - but we got a Cadillac SUV regardless. It was only okay. It was too computerized for us and it didn't have a CD player! We solved that problem by buying a portable one at Walmart along with an aux cable when we went for our grocery pickup.
Talking about our grocery order, that was our next stop and I am so glad I ordered the groceries the way I did. It was such a breeze picking them up and everything was good quality. I was very happy with the service and would recommend it. Going into the store however was a different story. What a complete madhouse it was! I couldn't wait to get out so needless to say Abby picked only a few small souvenirs for someone I work with, I found the CD player and cord, and we got out as soon as we could. I brought a bunch of batteries with us so I didn't have to find or buy them. After we had everything we needed, we went back to the hotel where Abby helped me take the stuff to the room and then I used the wheelchair to take the rest of the stuff (cases of waters and cans of soda) up to the room. I then went back for Lenny and took him out to the front of the hotel as Walker had called and would be there very soon.
They came about 2:20 and as we headed to the room to leave the scooter, Lenny said it wasn't steering right. He took a few minutes to look at it and some sort of plastic was wrapped tightly near the wheel. While he and Abby worked at getting that undone, I started to unpack our bags as they had made it to the room. There were no TSA papers in them so I don't know if they were searched or if we just didn't get the notices. It didn't matter to me one way or the other - it was just something I made note of.
About 3:20 we left the hotel again to go play mini golf. Lenny stayed in the car to nap while Abby and I played the summer side of Winter Summerland. It was busy so we had to wait about 30 minutes before we could play and it sprinkled here and there but it felt good. I was still wearing my jeans. I didn't want to go through two bottoms in one day so I just stayed with what I had on. Abby did well. She got a low score of 33 and earned herself another certificate. A couple of the holes she got a hole in one but the most surprising one of all - for those that know this course - was the one with the ribbon. You have to hit the ball into the ribbon and it goes up and around if you hit it right. If not it drops like a lead balloon. Abby hit it just right and it went up and around and right into the hole for a hole in one.
After we finished playing, we headed to the Studios. We didn't have a park ticket for today but I wanted to know which entrance we would have to use on our DHS day. With all the construction going on, I didn't know if the one we typically use would be open. It was so after going into the parking lot and then promptly leaving again, we headed out to 192. We wanted to hit one of the gift shops, then Walgreens, and finally the Texas Roadhouse for dinner. At dinner, I finally remembered to take photos of our food. We got the loaded potato skins to start for all of us to share and Lenny and I got the salads which we shared with Abby. For main meals, Abby got the cheeseburger, Lenny got the fried catfish, and I got steak tips. Dinner was good but it was not as enjoyable as two years ago. It was really busy and noisy inside the restaurant and just not what we are used to. We typically go when it's quieter and we didn't make it there early this year.
After dinner, we went back to the room and Abby was bummed because we said no swimming. We were all tired and I still had some unpacking to do. She went to bed about 8:30 while Lenny and I went to bed about 10.
Great start! Wow you all had to get up really early! It's hard to go to bed early and try to sleep especially when you're going to Disney the next day and luckily your room was ready.
Great that your room was ready and you were able to get all your running around done. I know the hole with the ribbon, I always have trouble with that shot, its great that Abby was able to get it in one shot.
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Good day one once you got past the airport issues! It's always a good thing to land early! How neat your room was ready right away! We never seem to luck out like that.
Your dinner looked good....I especially thought Lenny's catfish looked mighty tasty!
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Great first day, especially at mini-golf. 
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