Three trips in 13 months, The Anniversary Trip - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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After a much needed recovery from our vacation, I'm finally ready to sit down and hammer out our trip report!!
Who: My dh, Jason and myself.
Where: Caribbean Beach Resort, Pirate Room. (The end of the Earth! )
When: May 10th - May 15th
Day 1
We left for the airport a little earlier than I expected to, mainly because I was getting a little too emotional about leaving my cat Isis (who has separation anxiety) and had some McDonalds for breakfast. Our trip through security was exciting, as my dh's bag was pulled for extra screening because of our bag of pennies for our pressed penny collection.
My mil and fil were upstairs on the observation deck to watch our plane take off and apparently there was a group of Amish on a field trip. They sent us some texts about it and we had a good laugh while we waited to board our plane.
I was sorely disappointed that my netbook refused to connect to the Gogo in flight wi-fi, but I had brought along my dsi (with my brand new Professor Layton game) and my dh had "Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang" to read. So the flight was uneventful and soon we were in sunshine and beyond excited.
As is my luck, when we got to DME pickup, I pointed out the *only* bright yellow Mears bus and said flat out "That'll be our bus" and sure enough it was. I have yet to actually ride a bus that says DME on the side to our resort. When I texted our good friend who works for Disney about it, her response was "That's because Mickey hates you today". I about died laughing when I saw it. Of course we all knew that it was just random draw as to what bus went where and Jason and I were excited that our bus actually had a working DVD player so we could watch the welcome video.
We got ourselves checked in at the Caribbean Beach resort and were warned that our room was in the last building in Trinidad South. Not fully grasping just how big the resort was, we decided to take in the full beauty of the resort and walk to our room. It was gorgeous outside, but warmer than I would have liked it to be while wearing jeans. I loved the walk, especially the part where we got to stop at Old Port Royale and picked up our resort mugs (and filled them hastily). After what seemed like an eternity we found our room. It was absolutely worth the walk. It was adorable and perfect. (I'll post our pictures of the room later after they are done uploading ). We changed into more appropriate clothes and headed off to Magic Kingdom to meet up with our friend Amie for some rides and then dinner.
Originally, we were going to ride a few rides first, but we were both starving (breakfast at McDonald's seemed like it had been days before) so we made a bee line for El Pirata el Perico and shared some delicious tacos. After our snack we opted to ride the Haunted Mansion. The line wasn't terrible and I decided to splurge on a mystery haunted mansion pin pack for us after the ride. We met up with Amie and took a peek at watches and Dooney & Bourke bags (oh how I wanted one before Christmas). Then, for the first time in four trips, Jason got to experience Space Mountain. He learned that it is a ride that is not good for big belt buckles but enjoyed it thoroughly. Still hungry, we all decided to head over to the Beach Club for our dinner ressies at the Cape May Buffet.
First off, I give the Cape May Buffet two thumbs way up. It was amazing. I had crab legs, what my dh decided was my weight in clams, soup, salad, lobster tortellini, shrimp and heavenly chocolate lava cake. Jason was content to eat crab legs all night, as was our friend Amie. We stuffed ourselves to the gills and then headed back to our resort so I could finish my finals . I was not a happy camper about finishing school work while on vacation.
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Our second day was devoted to Magic Kingdom. Our morning started off with breakfast at the Crystal Palace. Which was beyond yummy. My only issue before breakfast was the group of 16 that wasn't paying attention to some of the children they brought along. The one in particular was sliding down the railing outside the restaurant and literally sat on my head until I said "excuse me, get off of me!" I mean really? What the heck! But after we got inside we got surprised with a card signed by Pooh and friends and enjoyed taking pictures with everyone!!
Then we went over and grabbed Fast Passes for Peter Pan before I tortured my dh with IASW. He hates the ride and because of that we must ride it every time we go. After IASW we wandered around a few shops, debating Christmastime purchases before heading back to Peter Pan. I had never experienced this ride before and I now understand all the hype behind it!! I loved it!
From Peter Pan we went and rode the Haunted Mansion (again). I really could ride that ride over and over and over again. It's in my top 5 must do rides.
We decided to ride on the Liberty Belle, which was a first for both of us. We had always said "oh we'll do that next time" and finally it was next time. It was definitely cute and a welcomed rest. We got some great pictures while we were on the boat but we were disappointed that we missed the "flash mob" nearby.
Because I had stayed up relatively late the night before working on finals (that still were not done) we headed towards the buses for a rest in our room. It was here that we encountered the most bizarre thing ever.
My only complaint with CBR was their horrible bus schedules. Every other resort (including AKL) had 2 buses come and go before we would get 1. The waits were a bit ridiculous at times. This was one such time. About five minutes after we got to the CBR stop, a family came up in line behind us. The little girl was proudly showing off to her father, the money she had found on the ground. Her mother promptly freaked out about her playing with money and made her put it away and hand sanitize. Five minutes after that she announces she has to use the bathroom. She was a fairly young girl, 4 - 6 (tops) and even though I realized it took forever for buses to actually show up from our resort, I knew they should have taken her to the bathroom then and there. Her father tells her to hold it until they get back to the resort. Another five minutes later she warns her mother that she has to go or she will poop her pants. At this point, I would gather (having been a nanny) that any normal parent would begrudgingly take their child to the bathroom and wait for the next bus, but not these parents. No, the mother decided to put her child behind the fence by a trash can and a tree and have her go to the bathroom on the manicured lawn.
Thank GOD the bus showed up then and there and the rest of us got on it in a hurry. Needless to say they were the last on the bus and everyone seemed freaked out by it.
When we got back to our room we had two surprises waiting for us:
and . Anniversary gifts from my mil and fil.
After a short nap I finished my finals and we headed back to MK for our dinner ressies and fireworks!
Once we got back into MK we hit up POTC and then Snow White. We noticed them starting to rope off for the fireworks and ended up just going to the castle to wait for our dinner reservations because one girl warned us we might not be able to get through to the castle without walking the whole way through Tomorrow Land and going in the front.
I was like, but its right there and the fireworks don't start for another HOUR AND A HALF. So we went over to wait patiently for our reservation time to be slightly closer so we could have dinner They actually took us a little early but it was packed inside with families who did the exact same thing we had done. We did go up early and our table was beside the window, sprinkled with confetti.
I meant to take pictures of dinner, I really did, but I was so hungry I devoured everything. Jason had the salmon crab cake and I had the BLT Salad with Ranch instead of their special vinaigrette (which sadly would have made me sick). A woman at the table beside us needed a specially cooked meal but was requesting her prime rib to be "shiny" and eventually her daughter told the chef (who came out to get everything coordinated) that her mother wanted medium. For our entrees we had Prime Rib and Lamb. Both were heavenly and we cleaned our plates. Everything was going perfectly, it really was. It was our anniversary dinner and I didn't think it could get much more magical, but it did. Our waiter told me to move my chair so I was facing the window and right after he brought us our dessert (chocolate cream cheese buckles) the fireworks started. I about cried I was so happy.
We did get to take pictures with the princesses, our favorites of the night being Aurora and Ariel.
As we headed out of MK, Jason got a beautiful picture of the castle
We were both exhausted and decided that a nice soak in the tub and an early night were just what we needed
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It was gorgeous outside, but warmer than I would have liked it to be while wearing jeans. I loved the walk, especially the part where we got to stop at Old Port Royale and picked up our resort mugs (and filled them hastily). After what seemed like an eternity we found our room. It was absolutely worth the walk. It was adorable and perfect. (I'll post our pictures of the room later after they are done uploading 
). We changed into more appropriate clothes and headed off to Magic Kingdom to meet up with our friend Amie for some rides and then dinner.
After our snack we opted to ride the Haunted Mansion. The line wasn't terrible and I decided to splurge on a mystery haunted mansion pin pack for us after the ride. We met up with Amie and took a peek at watches and Dooney & Bourke bags (oh how I wanted one before Christmas). Then, for the first time in four trips, Jason got to experience Space Mountain. He learned that it is a ride that is not good for big belt buckles but enjoyed it thoroughly. Still hungry, we all decided to head over to the Beach Club for our dinner ressies at the Cape May Buffet. 
. I was not a happy camper about finishing school work while on vacation.
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