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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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5-6-16 Question of the Day!
Tell us about your very first trip to WDW orDL!
Who did you go with? How old were you? What park(s) did you go to?
How many days were you there? What was your favorite thing that first visit?
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My first trip was in 1981 at the age of 19, to WDW on my honeymoon. It was only the Magic Kingdom back then. We stayed 2 nights in a pup tent in the Fort Wilderness campgrounds. My parents never went on vacations so this was the first time I had ever been anywhere so I was just fascinated with everything. Might be why I'm so crazy about it still. The thing that I remember the most is how dark it was in the area of our campsite. I went to the shower house one night and totally missed our tent on the way back. I ended up walking completely around the circle back to the shower house! So I started around again and luckily DH was getting something out of the car and I saw him. Years later he told me he saw me walk past the campsite and wondered where I was going!
My first trip was to Disney World in 1989 when I was 5 yrs old. Went with just mom and dad, left baby brother at home with the grandparents. I don't fully remember the trip and what it all consisted of, other than I'm pretty sure we stayed off property at one of the hotels close by and that we spent a lot of time at the Magic Kingdom. My favorite part or only what I can truly remember, is being on the Dumbo ride with my mom...to this day it is still my favorite ride! We joke to this day about the pictures my dad took and how my mom wouldn't let me "let Dumbo fly" because she doesn't like heights. Hopefully I'll be able to entice her to ride again when the entire adult family heads back for Thanksgiving!
My first visit to DL was in 1995. My dad lived in California at the time and my brother, sister and I were visiting him for Thanksgiving. We spent one day at Disneyland, I was 15 at the time. What I remember the most is riding Indiana Jones and meeting the Beast from Beauty and the Beast.
My first visit to WDW was in 1997 on my senior trip in high school, but I don't remember much of that visit as we only spent part of a day at MK. My first real visit was on my honeymoon in 2005. Of course I went with my DH and we stayed at AKL. We both fell in love with WDW on that trip.
My first trip was in 1996. It was our 25th anniversary and WDW's, too. The castle was decorated in the cake theme and it was exciting. I was there with DH and 3 of our children. We stayed at the Polynesian Resort.
At that time we didn't need any ADRs. We were able to walk into any restaurant and be seated almost immediately. And, this was Thanksgiving week. We actually had Thanksgiving Dinner in Cinderella's Castle that year. We did have a "meal plan".
You were given 2 "tickets".....One was used for breakfast or lunch....there other lunch or dinner. These were for table service and were for "complete meals" and included tax and tip. That same plan was in effect the next year, So, we ate in every table serve in MK and HS .....and some in EPCOT....,in those 2 years.
You were also, given a "gift".....1/2 hour time on a water craft....or a choice of small gifts. The only chosen gift I can remember after all these years is......one of my DD's got a Spaceship Earth that can be used for jewelry, treasures...etc. The ball part opens up in half to put items in and screws back together..... then you place it on the stand. It is big enough that I use it at Christmas tree along with DS's monorail (got at the same time) around the tree.
A trip to a water park was also included in the "eat & play" plan. We went to Blizzard Beach....both years.
We stayed for a week.
My favorite thing was my first walk down Main Street and seeing the castle for the first time. I cried......it is still a special moment every trip.
My first trip was in November of 1987. My DH took me there for our honeymoon. I think it was just Magic Kingdom and Epcot at that time. We stayed off site at the Hilton. We had a wonderful time.
My first trip was to WDW was in 1994. I was 14 years old. I was visiting my uncle in Miami and we went up to Orlando for 2 days. I visited Magic Kingdom. My favorite thing was riding the ferry from TTC and seeing the castle get closer and closer. It was truly magical and very exciting.
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I was about 8 when my parents took me to Disneyland while we were in California visiting my grandparents (that retired there after 40 years as missionaries in Mexico). I loved Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Matterhorn. (But, I loved Knotts Berry Farm more. )
My first trip to DL would have been in 1975 or 1976 and I would have been three or four. My mom's older sister lived in California at the time and we went down to visit her and three of us went to Disneyland. We only went to Disneyland because California Adventure didn't exist.
I was 35 for my first trip to DW. I went to all four parks and Downtown Disney as it was called back then. My aunt (same one as DL) joined me about half way through my trip and I spent the first half sick with a cold that hit me at the airport as I was waiting to board my flight to Orlando.
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I went with my parents in 1980 when I was seven years old and it was to Walt Disney World. In those days, very few people from the UK travelled to Florida, so all my friends were amazed we'd been there. It was part of a two week holiday and we spent two or three days in Disney. Sadly, I really don't remember any of it - I put it down to having been very ill at the start of our vacation.
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I was 3 years old when I made my first trip to WDW in 1979. I know I went with my parents and only visited the Magic Kingdom since that was the only part that was there. That is all I remember about that trip.
My first trip to DL was in 2011 and that was my 35th birthday trip. I made the trip with my DSis, DBiL and my niece. This was also my niece's first trip and she was only 5 months old. We went to the Magic Kingdom and California Adventure. We were there for 3 days and I absolutely fell in love with these parks. One of my favorite things was getting to ride all the different rides that we don't have here on the east coast. I can't wait to go back!
My first trip to WDW was in 1978 and I was 12 years old. I went with my mom, dad, and 2 younger sisters. I think we stayed at a Hilton hotel. The only park that was there was The Magic Kingdom. We went there for 2 days and then went to a few other places in Florida.
We went to Disneyland and California Adventureland as well as San Diego Zoo and the Wild Animal Park, Legoland and Sea World...Yeah, we went a little nuts!! In our defense, it was the first ever family vacation we had taken!!!
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Originally Posted by Luvsun
How many days were you there?
We were in California for 11 days!!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luvsun
What was your favorite thing that first visit?
My favorite thing...My son's amazement at silly little things...like the fact that it was dark and warm at the same time!! He's an Alaska boy and those two things just don't go together.
Also loved just riding the train around the outside of the park and people watching.
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Jennifer / Eeyore is my favorite!! OMG - He's sooooo grown up!!!! And an EAGLE SCOUT!! I can still remember my cute little Tiger Cub! 2016 Reading Goal - 75 books
1972. Tupperware Jubilee for dealers. They bussed us to MK (the only park) for an afternoon. Hard to believe how empty it was; so easy to take a Castle picture with no one else in it.
I returned that fall for a day while driving someone's car from NJ to FL with my then boyfriend. What I remember most was that we left our travelers checks at home and that Disney only took MasterCard (he had American Express). Luckily, Disney was willing to cash a $50 check for him, and we had a very nice day indeed. Lunch was the cheapest meal in the park: hot dog with fries and soda, $4.75, accompanied by Pooh and Tiger dancing on a stage in the Tomorrowland Terrace.
My first Disney trip was a year after high school graduation. A friend had an aunt who worked in the main offices at Disneyland. We flew to LA, stayed for two weeks with the relatives, visited the park (singular, of course) several times for free, and got all sorts of those tickets they used to give out for the rides. All it cost me was the plane ticket and some food and souvenir money. The kicker...I had no idea how cool the aunt's job really was. It actually never occurred to me that she worked for Walt Disney. Of course we were appropriately polite and thanked her family many times, but it never occurred to me that I might have gotten to meet WD himself, if I had only asked. We were actually in Los Angeles at the time that John Wayne died, and even in those days, it was big news in the (actual) newspaper.
I just remember loving Disneyland, and the most memorable ride was the Matterhorn.
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So I started around again and luckily DH was getting something out of the car and I saw him. Years later he told me he saw me walk past the campsite and wondered where I was going!
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