Celebrating Like Superstars - updated March 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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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.
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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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At long last, the trip report!! My surgery went well, I think I'm almost completely recovered. So it's time to get down to business here!
Before I get started, I have to say that I knew this was going to be a heckuva vacation. But I had no idea just how absolutely amazing it really was going to be. I frequently found myself saying "This just can't possibly get any better". And then it would! I mean it was absolutely fantastic and then it just kept getting better from there.
I'm not going to rehash much from my Prequel. The preparations for this trip took about a year, and there were many changes along the way. I researched our Disneyland part of our vacation on the Disneyland forums of these boards because it had been 10 years since we were there last. I researched our cruise mostly using the Cruise Critic message boards. I kind of neglected researching the Florida part of our vacation because I have been there a lot of times in the past few years. Despite some anxious moments, mostly pre-trip, everything did work out for the best and we had many pleasant surprises while we were on our trip.
So without further ado....
November 14th - Final Preparations
This was the Last Minute Day. We had taken our dog to Dan's sister's place yesterday so we knew she was going to be well looked after while we were away. We did the final tidying up around the house. I got a mani/pedi even though I had promised myself I wouldn't bother. Believe it or not the mani/pedi was really the only disappointment of the entire vacation! The nail polish didn't even last 24 hours before it was halfway chipped off. So there's a hint about how great our trip was if chipped nail polish was my biggest problem!
We finished the last minute packing and managed to scrunch 4 weeks of clothes and essentials into 4 suitcases, 2 carry on bags and 2 "personal item" bags. Thank goodness for space bags! I had painted our black suitcases because I had read on Cruise Critic that when you are on an airplane there's only about 300 peoples' luggage to worry about mixing up bags with. But on a cruise, there are over 2000 people! So the chances were greater of somebody grabbing your bag accidentally. So I painted a cartoony parrot on the sides of the black suitcases using a white paint pen that I bought at the dollar store. I wasn't too worried about the others because they are a little more distinctive. We lined up the suitcases at the door because the cab was coming very early in the morning! And I took a photo for identification purposes because Dan & I have both had suitcases go missing at the airport.
You can kind of see the painted parrots in this photo.
November 15 -The Journey
We had pre-booked a cab to pick us up at 04:30. He was there on time and with a mini van so we had lots of room for all our bags. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7 am but we were quite late boarding. They did manage to get us all on board quickly though, in fact I think that was probably the quickest I’ve ever seen a jet loaded, and before we knew it the door was closed and we were moving!... to the de-icing pad Yeesh – it felt like we were never going to get out of Winnipeg! Finally we were all gooped up with whatever de-icing stuff they sprayed all over us and we were off to the runway! The pilot made up some time in the air and we arrived only 20 minutes late. As soon as we were on the ground, Dan was texting Paige to let her know we had arrived and were still going to be able to meet them for a few minutes before we would have to clear US Customs and Immigration. We hurried to our meeting place and found the kids waiting for us! It was only the second time I’ve seen Paige since she was married so it was awesome to see her and Jon again!
The clock ticked along much too quickly and before we knew it we had to leave and get through Customs and Security. Yikes! The line for Customs looked crazy long but we lucked out because they split it in two and we got in the fast lane. We had a very pleasant Customs Officer and were off to Security lickety-split. That also went fairly quickly and pretty soon they called our flight and we were off to LA!
I hope those 2 guys in the background know each other!
I just want to get to LA already!!
A really crappy picture of the Hollywood sign
We landed and quickly found our luggage but were very confused about where to find the Disneyland Express Bus. Finally we got that worked out and discovered we just had to go out the door, cross the one or two lanes of traffic and stand on the median. Soon our bus showed up, we gave him our email confirming that we had paid to ride and we ended up with the bus all to ourselves all the way to Disneyland Hotel!
All those balloons can only mean one thing!
Pretty soon Mickey was welcoming us
Finally! We are here! It took a few minutes for Bell Services to get a luggage cart to us, but eventually our stuff was loaded up and we were given our claim ticket and then it was time to check in!
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So glad your surgery went well! Great start to the report, and great tips about packing and identifying suitcases for a cruise. You had to cross 2 lanes of traffic and wait on the median for the DL express? Yikes!
What a fantastic idea about the luggage!!! I'm going to borrow that one as I am always getting confused with our luggage when we fly to the UK. Can't wait to hear about your trip!
I didn't mention yet about how this was the "Trip of Upgrades". We were absolutely spoiled rotten on this trip! And it literally started right at the beginning. We walked into the lobby and saw the beautiful mural on the wall:
We also found Goofy but he was hugging some cute little kiddos and we'd been up since 4:15 (which is 2:15 LA time!) and it was mid-afternoon now so we bypassed him. We just wanted to get checked in and chill out. I had contacted Disney Planning and the Dream Maker folks to arrange some priority seatings for us and asked my Dream Maker/Planner, Brad, if he could tell us what room type we had been assigned. I had booked pretty much the bare minimum, cheapest available room at the Disneyland Hotel. But it could have been a pool view or a Downtown Disney view on any floor below the 6th. I was disappointed to find out from him that we had been assigned a pool view because the Disneyland Hotel Neverland Pool is currently under construction. I said that I had hoped to be on the other side since this was to be a relaxing 25th anniversary vacation and construction is not exactly relaxing. Well, I don't know if my whining had something to do with it or what but... At first the CM told us that our room wasn't ready. Oh poop! We're tired and we've been up 14 hours already. Just as I was about to tell Dan that we may as well go to DTD and look for something to eat, the CM told us to hang on and she'd call to see if they were done with it yet. Ok, I'm dense and I'm thinking that she was talking about housekeeping, right? After a short phone call, the CM smiled and said that they had just finished up and she coded our keys and told us that we were on the 9th floor of the Dream Tower overlooking Downtown Disney. "Cool" I think, "we got an upgrade!"
First of all, the door to our room was behind 2 other doors.
There were only 2 sets of these types of rooms on our floor, all the others were regular-style hotel single doorways. This in itself made me feel special. But when we got on the other side....
There was a small semi-private foyer area and two more doors behind these doors. We had neighbours but nobody else had access to our little foyer.
It was one of the renovated rooms. The Disneyland Hotel is old and they're renovating the entire property. But that wasn't the best part. We opened our door and were greeted by this:
And this:
I think both of our jaws hit the floor. Chilled sparkling red wine, 2 Disneyland wine flutes, a basket with Basin bath bombs and a massage bar and 3 battery operated candles, personalized Disneyland Hotel bathrobes, 4 chocolate roses, a box of exquisite chocolate squares, rose petals, Cinderella confetti and Tinkerbell casting a little pixie-sized shadow on our bed. Dan still doesn't know how they got there. He thinks that either Disneyland did it or a bunch of my very nice friends, pooled together and ordered this surprise for us.
Dan had to try on his new bathrobe and check out the chocolate roses!
And we poured ourselves some wine:
We'd already been in our room 15 minutes and we haven't even opened the curtains to see what you see from a 9th floor DTD view room. So we decided to check that out.
Yes, it's a Downtown Disney view, but look way in the back -- it's the mountains! Ok, yeah, there's the mountain mountains, but I'm talking about the Disney mountains -- Matterhorn, Splash and Space! We could see Disneyland Park from our room! We could also see Tower of Terror, Mickey's Fun Wheel and California Screamin over at California Adventure. We couldn't see Sleeping Beauty's Castle due to the trees, but we found that we had a wonderful view of the fireworks every night!
Ok I guess I've gone on and on enough about our room, but we really were bowled over by it! We drank some wine and decompressed after our travel. But pretty soon, our tummies were telling us it was supper time! All we'd eaten today was a breakfast platter that we shared at our gate in Vancouver, and according to our tummies it was 6:30, even though it was only 4:30 Pacific time. We could see the Rainforest Cafe from our window (it's the tiered tan-coloured building beside the big white one) and we knew we could find something monstrous to share there.
When we got there, our attitude about sharing a meal had changed because we were both ravenous! So we both ordered burgers, Dan's was beef, mine was chicken. And we had a couple of drinks. It was expensive but it tasted good and it filled us up. And our waitress wished us a happy anniversary because we were wearing our Anniversary celebration buttons they had given us at the hotel when we checked in. After we ate, we headed back to our room to unpack a few things so they wouldn't get wrinkled and Dan finished the bottle of wine. (I didn't really like it.) It felt crazy to be getting ready for bed so early, but we'd had a long day, so believe it or not, I snuggled into our super-comfy king sized bed at 7:00! At 7:30 we turned our TV on to the special Disneyland channel for the soundtrack to the fireworks and I watched "Believe in the Holidays" while I was laying in bed! I took photos on my cell phone and texted them to a few people, but I didn't bother with my camera tonight. Don't worry though, I brought it out a few nights later! As soon as the fireworks ended, I think my eyes shut and I was zonked for the night.
The weather today was - cool in Winnipeg, rainy in Vancouver and comfortable and sunny in Disneyland
The best thing today was - seeing Paige and Jon. Walking into our room at Disneyland Hotel. The fireworks headboard (when you turned it on it played a music box version of "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes")
The worst thing today was - our late arrival in Vancouver because it cut into the time we had available to visit Paige and Jon.
Today we tried -
1) Magicale Sparkling Wine. It's a wine that's bottled for Disney.
And the result was - Dan liked it, I didn't.
2) going to Downtown Disney. And the result was - we just couldn't stop comparing it to Disney World's Downtown Disney. Lots of similarities but many many many differences! One of the biggest differences we noticed was that you can't walk around with alcohol outside of the restaurants here like you can in Florida. We found that out because I had wanted to finish my drink in our room instead of sitting in Rainforest Cafe drinking it, but was told nuh-uh.
The most magical moment today was -
1) having the Disneyland Express Bus to ourselves and our bus driver was happy to chat with us
2) our upgraded room, all the wonderful decorations and gifts and watching Believe in the Holidays while laying in bed.
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I had painted our black suitcases because I had read on Cruise Critic that when you are on an airplane there's only about 300 peoples' luggage to worry about mixing up bags with. But on a cruise, there are over 2000 people! So the chances were greater of somebody grabbing your bag accidentally. So I painted a cartoony parrot on the sides of the black suitcases using a white paint pen that I bought at the dollar store. I wasn't too worried about the others because they are a little more distinctive. We lined up the suitcases at the door because the cab was coming very early in the morning! And I took a photo for identification purposes because Dan & I have both had suitcases go missing at the airport.
Yeesh – it felt like we were never going to get out of Winnipeg! Finally we were all gooped up with whatever de-icing stuff they sprayed all over us and we were off to the runway! The pilot made up some time in the air and we arrived only 20 minutes late. As soon as we were on the ground, Dan was texting Paige to let her know we had arrived and were still going to be able to meet them for a few minutes before we would have to clear US Customs and Immigration. We hurried to our meeting place and found the kids waiting for us! 
It was only the second time I’ve seen Paige since she was married so it was awesome to see her and Jon again!
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
I've been really looking forward to hearing all about this. 
Glad you've made it to LA! 
TinkBrat
Chilled sparkling red wine, 2 Disneyland wine flutes, a basket with Basin bath bombs and a massage bar and 3 battery operated candles, personalized Disneyland Hotel bathrobes, 4 chocolate roses, a box of exquisite chocolate squares, rose petals, Cinderella confetti and Tinkerbell casting a little pixie-sized shadow on our bed. Dan still doesn't know how they got there. He thinks that either Disneyland did it or a bunch of my very nice friends, pooled together and ordered this surprise for us. 
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