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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Of course, we had to get a picture and it was made even more special by Terry suggesting that we make the “Wilderness Explorer” symbol. We even stumped Eileen on this one when we posted the picture on Facebook.
Are you *sure* it doesn't mean "back to back losers?!"
Great day at DL! I like the idea of the staff in the concierge lounge serving the wine, but it would interfere with my taking the entire bottle back to my room!
Great day at DL! I like the idea of the staff in the concierge lounge serving the wine, but it would interfere with my taking the entire bottle back to my room!
lol! We also enjoyed the extra service, but never thought about taking a bottle back to the room. Maybe because it was Christmas and we enjoyed the tree and decorations and the fireworks piped in. Our room was 2 doors down so we had the same view but the atmosphere was so much better in the E-Ticket Club.
The other thing we loved about the E-Ticket Club was the CM suggesting we take milk and cookies back to the room - that became a regular habit I've found difficult to break.
We tried not to overindulge in the appetizers in the lounge because we had dinner at Goofy’s Kitchen coming up. Karen had planned this to perfection because it was located in the lobby of the Frontier Tower so it was just a hop, skip and a jump from our building.
Zack took off with the girls to watch a movie in a little room off to the side of the lobby, but we were called for dinner almost as soon as Karen paid for our meal. We took pictures with Goofy first and he was true to his character. We had so much fun with this photo op (as the pictures reveal ).
Our server ended up being the only “meh” part of the evening. When he came to take our drink order, Karen and I both decided to order a martini. Karen quickly ordered a Key Lime martini, but I was being difficult and asked if they could make a pomegranate martini. He said he would ask, but when he came back, he said they couldn’t so I ordered a superfruit martini. He ended up bringing two of these for Karen and me. She protested that she had ordered a Key Lime martini and he actually told her that she didn’t. We dropped it, but still . . . his attitude made me very happy that this was a buffet.
The food was really good, but the real fun was in the mixed variety of characters that visited our table. Karen had already told me that there was really no rhyme or reason in the character selection in a lot of DL character meals and I could immediately see what she meant.
We had such fun with all of the characters, but Suzy had to be the best. She gave Zack the “what for” when he tried to do his Dragonball Z pose. My girls got such a kick out of that.
At the end of the meal, our server brought Mary Devall a cupcake and Minnie Mouse even came back for the celebration.
There were so many characters there that we didn’t even get a chance to see all of them. We waited a bit for Alice to come out of the room behind us, but we finally gave up on her!
As if the food and fun wasn’t enough at Goofy’s Kitchen, we also snagged a real deal when the CM came around with our Goofy picture. When we decided to buy it, he mentioned that if we bought the Photopass Plus, then it would come with all of our character meal pictures and ride photos. When we heard that the price was only $99, we were sold.
We took a detour on the way back to the room to stop at the store in the lobby of the Fantasy Tower. Maddie was starting to get the shakes from the lack of shopping. Bless her heart, she went from fluffie to fluffie and I could tell that nothing really struck her, but she was determined to buy something. I finally managed to talk her down off the ledge and she agreed that waiting until she found something she really wanted was probably best.
We took the short walk back to our rooms where Karen showed us their rather interesting entry way and we discovered that we truly did have connecting rooms. We all unpacked and got settled into our rooms before we headed back up to the lounge for dessert. I think I ate my weight in white chocolate macadamia nut cookies on this trip!
Since we had the same view of Wishes from our room as the lounge did, we decided to head back to our rooms so that we could watch in our jammies. We all sat in front of both picture windows and took it all in. The firework show even continued for us after Wishes when we turned on the fireworks display on our headboards and the music that went along with it. That alone was worth the price of staying at DLH.
We were all quickly asleep that night not too long after Wishes ended . . . which was good since some time in the middle of the night, the fire alarm went off. Thom did not move and told Mary Devall to just go back to bed when she started to get worried. I’m assuming that all of his travels have made him immune to fire alarms going off accidentally.
Sadly for our next door neighbors, the connecting door was open. Karen finally came in to inform us that she thought the alarm was just in our room. Sure enough, we checked outside in the hall and . . . it was just our smoke alarm. Karen took Mary Devall into their room (shortly after I heard Zack ask if they just couldn’t shut the connecting door - - can’t blame him! ) while I called the front desk and reported the issue. The maintenance guy came up quickly and simply took it off the wall promising to come back during daylight hours to replace it. He never did, so I’m just grateful that there was never a real fire.
Right after the maintenance guy left, Maddie lifted her head and looked around. She had slept through the entire thing. I got Mary Devall settled back into bed and then we tried to eek out a couple of more hours of sleep! Thankfully we were all able to go back to sleep!
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Love the Goofy's Kitchen photos! I still remember the little girl who kept snapping her fingers and saying, "Goofy, come here!" so many years ago - lol!
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So happy that you started this TR! Wow! Karen is the planning master! Love all the pictures, even went back to the picture you took of the entrance to check for Zack lol. Crazy kid! I can not wait to stay at DLH when we finally visit my sister who now lives just a short 30 minutes or so from Anaheim. So I am taking notes for our visit to Disneyland and DCA. Keep it coming!
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Maybe because it was Christmas and we enjoyed the tree and decorations and the fireworks piped in. Our room was 2 doors down so we had the same view but the atmosphere was so much better in the E-Ticket Club.
Karen had planned this to perfection because it was located in the lobby of the Frontier Tower so it was just a hop, skip and a jump from our building. 
When he came to take our drink order, Karen and I both decided to order a martini. 
Karen quickly ordered a Key Lime martini, but I was being difficult and asked if they could make a pomegranate martini. He said he would ask, but when he came back, he said they couldn’t so I ordered a superfruit martini. He ended up bringing two of these for Karen and me. She protested that she had ordered a Key Lime martini and he actually told her that she didn’t. 
We dropped it, but still 
. . . his attitude made me very happy that this was a buffet.
Thom did not move and told Mary Devall to just go back to bed when she started to get worried. 
I’m assuming that all of his travels have made him immune to fire alarms going off accidentally. 
Karen took Mary Devall into their room (shortly after I heard Zack ask if they just couldn’t shut the connecting door - - can’t blame him! 
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Holly: 
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Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
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