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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So I’m going to be nice and make a little table of contents that links to the posts. I hope I’m smart enough to make that happen. I also hope I’m nice enough to keep it updated.
OK lets get this trip report started. You can read my PTR here For those of you who don’t want to bother reading the whole PTR I’ll do a little recap starting with the cast of characters:
Cast in order from left to right in picture. (Pretending Mickey and Minnie aren’t there of course.)
Jean – My mother-in-law. A social worker for the county. My son absolutely adores his grandma. She always gets the biggest smiles. Can drive me crazy sometimes, but she is a good person.
Nate – My wonderful husband. Works for Target as a store level lead. He has an IT degree and is trying to get into that field, but hasn’t had any luck finding jobs in our area.
Me (AKA Missy) - The planner of the family (some would call it OCD). Works as a computer programmer for the state legislature.
Cameron – My 18 month old son. Future Walt Disney World fanatic - if his mamma has anything to say about it. LOVES Mickey Mouse and the gang! Must be all the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse he watches over at Grandma's house.
Breanna – My sister-in-law. DH's younger sister. An administrative assistant to a county elected official. She’s a kid at heart and all around fun person.
Jim – My father-in-law. Runs his own construction company. Fairly laid back person who really enjoys architecture.
I started thinking about another Disney World trip after our honeymoon in 2009. I didn’t realize at the time that my next trip would include a toddler or my in-laws, but I started thinking about it back then. Since Nate only wants to go to Disney World every other year I knew 2011 would be the year we would go. But then Cameron came along and things changed a little bit (who would have thought?).
I really got the bug to go to Disney World in April of 2011. Nate and I already had a week off scheduled for the end of June in 2011. I ran the idea of a trip to Disney World in June 2011 by Nate and he was for it. Then the more we talked the more we thought it might be best to wait until Cameron was a little bit older. Plus Disney World is more expensive in June. And I didn’t have much time to plan that trip so we decided on January or February of 2012 instead.
I knew Disney sometimes offered free dining for January so I decided not to book the trip right away. Then while getting ready for Cameron’s first birthday party in July I asked Jean if she and Jim wanted to come too (they had wanted to vacation with us for a while). She wasn’t sure, but figured Breanna would like to go as well. Well free dining was announced not long after Cameron’s birthday party so I wanted to book the trip. I got a good deal on airfare so I booked that first. Then my in-laws finally decided they were going and I booked us all on the free dining promotion.
As any good planner would do I booked our dining reservations at my 180 day window. We got a reservation for breakfast at Chef Mickey’s and Le Cellier Steakhouse. There were some bumps along the way with planning, but you can read the PTR for those details if you want.
So that’s who went and a brief overview of the planning process.
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.
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
So this isn’t exactly a trip day, but it is kind of where the vacation starts. The day before with packing, not sleeping and more packing. I opted to work from home on this day. We’re not really supposed to work from home all that often, but there is someone in my office who abuses it so I decided if he can do it then I was going to just send out a working from home email and see what happens. I got a reply from my boss and he just said “thanks for letting me know” so obviously he didn’t mind. I managed to get a lot more work done than I had all week being in the office so I really didn’t feel that bad about it. I worked and did a little cleaning around the house. Then on my lunch break I worked on finishing our packing. And also went and got a mani/pedi which ended up taking 2 hours.
After my mani/pedi I stopped at the store to get Cameron some sandals. The guy at the store told me the sizes of the brand I was looking at run large. Cameron is a 5 1/2 , but because they run large I bought a 5. Once I got home I got a phone call from Jim. He had issues checking in for his flight. It was on my todo list so I told him I would try and get back to him. I got inside and checked in for our flight without issue. I called Jim and hold him we were checked in for the flight. He ended up calling Delta and it turns out that online check-in was disabled for him when we had to change our flights because of a schedule change. He got the issue resolved and sent me an email letting me know that they were all checked in.
I think during the course of the day Jean called about 30 times. Ok maybe it was only like 5, but it was a little annoying. She kept asking about how much food to bring with and I kept telling her we ordered a bunch from Garden Grocer. She was with us when we came up with the list of stuff to order from GG. Plus I sent them all the receipt for what made it in the order. She asked other questions too, but I can't remember what they were. Just that they were things that we had gone over once or twice before.
By the time Nate and Cameron got home I had finished cleaning and had everything packed except for what we needed for getting ready in the morning. I tried on the sandals I had bought for Cameron and they were too small! Stupid guy at the store. I did end up trying on his old sandals and they fit better than the new ones although they were on the smaller side.
We ate dinner and played a bit and then Cameron went to . I thought Nate and I would be up really late this night finishing getting ready, but since I worked from home I managed to get it all done. Nate and I took some time to discuss what time we needed to get up in the morning. My mom was going to be at our place at 9:45 AM and we wanted to be out the door by 10 AM. We figured with showering and last minute packing it would take us about 2 1/2 hours. Since we have a toddler we had to pad that with “toddler disruption” time. So we figured we needed to be up by 6 AM. I think we were in bed by 9:30 PM.
I didn’t end up sleeping all that well as I was really excited about the trip. I also remember Cameron getting up a few times in the middle of the night, but he wasn’t up for all that long. Maybe he was excited too?
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.
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I called Jim and hold him we were checked in for the flight. He ended up calling Delta and it turns out that online check-in was disabled for him when we had to change our flights because of a schedule change. He got the issue resolved and sent me an email letting me know that they were all checked in.
. I thought Nate and I would be up really late this night finishing getting ready, but since I worked from home I managed to get it all done. Nate and I took some time to discuss what time we needed to get up in the morning. My mom was going to be at our place at 9:45 AM and we wanted to be out the door by 10 AM. We figured with showering and last minute packing it would take us about 2 1/2 hours. Since we have a toddler we had to pad that with “toddler disruption” time. So we figured we needed to be up by 6 AM. I think we were in bed by 9:30 PM. 
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