Eight is Enough - A July 2014 TR with cousins, club level and more Updated 3/29 DHS and Frozen Fun - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Eight is Enough - A July 2014 TR with cousins, club level and more Updated 3/29 DHS and Frozen Fun
Hello everyone. We just got back on July 17, and of course like only all of you would understand, I am experiencing serious withdrawal. What better way to cure the post-Disney blues than by reminiscing and sharing my trip with all of you?
Since I didn't write a PTR, I will start with some basic details.
My travel party included the following:
Me- aka Lissette, age 37
DH- aka Will, age 42
DS13, Jared
DS8, Aidan
DSis and DBIL
And my nieces, ages 14 and 10
We arrived in Disney on 7/4 and returned to Philadelphia on 7/17. We did a split stay including a studio room at Kidani, a one bedroom, club level villa at Jambo House, and a one-bedroom villa at Bay Lake Towers.
We had premium AP's for the first time and tried to squeeze in all of the parks and waterparks. Did we succeed? You will have to stick around for that.
I took really good notes this time around, therefore this TR should be much easier to finish quickly.
Thanks for reading about our adventures. Hope you enjoy.
The plan was to drop our dog off at the Best Friends by our house this morning, but luckily, my mom volunteered to watch him at the last minute. Will and Jared made the 2 hour trip to North Jersey to drop him off the night before, while Aidan helped me finish packing.
I had to work until 4 this day since I’d be away for 2 weeks. I’m a paralegal at a personal injury law firm and had a lot of things to take care of before I went away.
At exactly 4, DH picked me up at work and we were on our way to the Hampton Inn near the Philadelphia airport, with a quick stop at Rite Aid on the way. I needed to buy a memory card for my camera and some Advil (I would not survive Disney without Advil, lol).
We’ve stayed at this hotel before, but not since like 2010. For our last Disney vacation, summer 2012, we drove to the airport the morning of our trip and parked in a nearby lot. This time, we decided it would be easier to stay near the airport since our flight was at 6:10 a.m. We figured it would also be easier since we were traveling with a larger party and it would be harder to get everyone out the door in the morning.
I wasn’t sure what to expect at the Hampton Inn since we had one good stay and one not so good (think flooded room and staff entered our room while we were out to dinner and had our sheets on the floor soaking up the flood without even warning us). Turns out, I had nothing to worry about. The room was great, as was the service.
Anyway, we checked into our room, dropped off our stuff for the night, and headed to a nearby Wawa for a quick dinner. My family didn’t let me take pictures of my food until we got to Disney so I don’t remember what we ate. We brought the food back to the hotel and ate in the dining room near the lobby.
Once our bellies were full, we headed back to our room and played Uno. That didn’t last very long since the boys were getting antsy. We were waiting for my sister’s family to arrive from North Jersey and they were dying to swim. I finally gave in and let them change into their swimming trunks.
The boys had fun in the pool, for the whole five minutes they were in there. The unexpected lightning had to go and ruin the fun.
We headed back up to our room, got changed, and then headed back downstairs to dry the swim trunks and wait for my sister’s family. They arrived a little later than we had hoped, as they made a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at another Hampton Inn.
We hung out with them for a little while and my DH drove them to get food since they didn’t have a car. My BIL’s brother dropped them off. We were all in bed by 10 since I had a wake-up call for 2:45 a.m.
Great start! I'm completely jealous of your two week vacation in Disney. That would be a dream come true! Looking forward to hearing more of your adventures as I await my own trip!