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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Long time lurker, this will be the 2nd trip report I finish (we won't discuss all those false starts 'k? )
This trip started off as a 50th birthday couple's golf trip for my husband. We were booked at POFQ for 4 nights. I had reservations for all those special restaurants you just don't make it to when you're traveling with children. CG, AP, FF, and Jiko. The plan was to book 18 holes at the Lake Buena Vista Golf Course and the Wild Africa Trek. That sounds pretty good right? It lasted from November 5th until sometime after the new year.
Plan two came into action because my husband felt bad leaving our 11 yo home. Around the same time the spring room only offer came out and POR was cheaper so I traded in POFQ for POR and added our son to the ressie. I then canceled all our fancy schmancy dinner reservations except for the California Grill although I had to change the time to add ds11. Dh thought 4 nights wasn't enough now since we brought the ds11 so I then added 2 nights on the front end for the Royal Pacific Resort, at the time only club level was available so I took it. I wondered why RP was booked so full on a week showing as moderate. I've since found out why. Tell you later.
Ok, so here we are: May 16-18 at Royal Pacific, May 18-22 at POR. We're booked. We're good. I rebook some meals, Tchoup Chop on the 16th, Cali Grill on the 18th, Biergarten on the 19th, Brown Derby for lunch on the 20th, Boma for breakfast on the 21st, hadn't decided on dinner for the 21st yet. I was content. I was so content that yesterday I wrote everything in my beautiful paperblanks planner. In pen. Of course writing in pen is always tempting the fates as they say. Last night at dinner when my husband found out that ds19 will be out of school before the 16th he invited him along. Why stop there? He also invited ds19's girlfriend and our 21 yo son.
Now I will back up a little. So we haven't been to Disney in almost 5 long years. Our last trip was in 2009. There are two reasons why we haven't gone, actually they are both the same reason - money. My husband's business took a hit when the economy soured in 2009; he owns an ad agency. When the economy is bad one of the first things companies do is cut their marketing budget. Bad news for us. Reason number two is we have two sons in college which = no money. Ok, so on the one hand we have no money and on the other hand we have my husband inviting everyone he knows (alright, hyperbole ) to go on vacation with us to WDW. :sigh:
Thankfully, although I will miss him dearly, ds21 bowed out. He needs to save his vacation time for an out of town wedding later in the summer. We would have gone with a cabin at FW but I really wasn't looking forward to sharing a murphy bed with my son's girlfriend. Truth be told I think POR will be tight, 4 adults, 1 bathroom? Not my idea of a vacation.
So today finds us at Trading Spaces #2 - we have decided to rent points and stay at AKL or OKW. My dining reservations are a mess and we have decided to drive instead of fly - we figure since we will have 4 drivers we'll be ok. So according to my spreadsheet we are only $700 worse off due to the extra baggage, I mean ds19 and dgf19. And they have offered to pay for their park tickets so hot dog, maybe it will even come in at less then when they weren't coming. I have some feelers out to some friends to see if they want to rent me points, if not we'll go with David's. Unless someone can recommend a cheaper option (David's is $14 a pt)
Sounds great!! But I feel you on the family members causing plans to change! Maybe your DH should meet my mother and they can invite everyone they know...
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I used DVC Rental Store, they were great. The price per point is the same, $14, but they don't require a deposit to check availability. And you don't have to pay the whole balance at once. You can make payments, with the final payment due 45 days before the trip. I highly recommend them.
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
Sounds great!! But I feel you on the family members causing plans to change! Maybe your DH should meet my mother and they can invite everyone they know...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sounds like a plan
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
I used DVC Rental Store, they were great. The price per point is the same, $14, but they don't require a deposit to check availability. And you don't have to pay the whole balance at once. You can make payments, with the final payment due 45 days before the trip. I highly recommend them.
Thanks. I was wondering about how much of a hassle that $98 deposit would be to get back. Taking it out of the equation is better.
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Despite the fact that this has morphed into a family trip it is still my husband's birthday trip so I will start with him.
This is my husband Louis, age 50. I've been saving for this trip for a while and surprised him with it back in November on his birthday. He was at first suspicious about who the trip is really for. It's for you honey.
His favorite resort is the Poly and his favorite ride is RRC. He has taken the Segwey tour around EPCOT numerous times. I was hoping to book that for us this trip but sadly it is no more although I hear it may come back.
Next we have me. The person who does her best to keep this family in Disney. It's a hard life, but we all have our burdens to bear.
This is me on my coffee walk* during our trip in 2009. (*thanks for my new vocabulary word LegoMom aka Maria). We often split our stays between USO and WDW. We loved Portofino Bay.
One of my burdens has been that since I have all boys no one has ever wanted to do things like meet princesses, go to story time with Belle, or dine at Cinderella's table. Finally, in 2009 I met a princess when I least expected it. Good things come to those that wait.
My favorite resort is also the Poly which came as a complete shock to me. My favorite ride is TOT.
Next up in order of invitation is ds 11 aka Ethan. He is my buddy and pal. I have the privilege of being able to homeschool him so we get to spend lots of time together.
He doesn't have a favorite resort but he does prefer that the resort pool has a slide. His favorite rides are TSMM and Soarin'. He has a heart defect and in the past it has been easy to keep him off the looping rides. His cardiologist says they are ok but I still worry. Prayers appreciated on that score, for me the worrier and for Ethan. Thank you.
Here's a picture that includes all my boys. Notice the border; that is just me getting back at them for not visiting any princesses with me.
Ben, the 21 yo who won't be joining us is on the left, you've already met Ethan, Zach, ds19 is on the right.
Zach's favorite resort is the Beach Club because of the pool. His favorite rides are EE and RRC. He's a thrill seeker. Which leads us to our final introduction, Casey, dgf18 formerly known as dgf19 (I can't be expected to keep track of Disney park hours and people's ages, I mean, come on right?)
Casey and Zach met through our local homeschool group years ago. They fell in love last year when they had the leads in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.
I think Casey went to WDW 6 or 7 years ago with her family. I'll have to ask her about it and report back. She loves Frozen and Tangled. I'd love to see her and Zach reenact the smolder in Fantasyland. She and Zach are super excited to visit Wizarding World during our days off property.
That's the intros.
Next up: Do we have any room or dining reservations?
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Last edited by Ciavobella; 03-16-2014 at 09:44 AM..
Out of interest, where did you hear that the Segway tours may be returning? If they are, I know my DH would love to do them and we may be able to persuade someone else who's travelling with us on our next trip to get it a go as well....
Out of interest, where did you hear that the Segway tours may be returning? If they are, I know my DH would love to do them and we may be able to persuade someone else who's travelling with us on our next trip to get it a go as well....
I heard it on another message board in the rumors section. The rumor reporter is usually pretty good, but he does have a disclaimer that it's just a rumor for now.
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