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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I love that feeling of being up early at WDW (no where else, lol) it is just so wonderful to me! I am NOT an early riser, except at WDW. It's crazy! My DH just laughs at me.
Love all the pics. Since we are probably not staying there now, I am definitely still going to have to stop by and check out the resort. It just looks so amazing!
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I love that feeling of being up early at WDW (no where else, lol) it is just so wonderful to me! I am NOT an early riser, except at WDW. It's crazy! My DH just laughs at me.
Love all the pics. Since we are probably not staying there now, I am definitely still going to have to stop by and check out the resort. It just looks so amazing!
I get up fairly early at home...but not that early every day like I do at WDW. LOL
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Getting up early to take pictures sounds like a great idea.
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Originally Posted by oldmom
your photos are stunning and made me feel like i was back 'home.' I love that resort!!
Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Great pictures! You were up before the sun!
I sure was!
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhinohunter
Your pix make me want to visit this resort. Not sure about staying but I would like to see it. Sorry about the dark walk.
This guy was handing out some Mardi Gras money. I wanted Claire to pose with him, but she wouldn’t.
We plopped down on a bench and waited for our bus.
And waited…
And waited…
I did see one of the new buses for the first time.
Katie, my co-worker, walked by and we said hello again and talked a bit. She was heading off the MK before she had to leave for home later.
Finally our bus arrived after some more waiting and we were on our way.
We soon arrived at Epcot and made our way towards the Guest Services.
I pulled my voucher out of my bag for my ticket….and my heart sunk. I brought the voucher for our Sea World Tickets for later in the week. OMG! How could I be so stinking stupid. I even looked at it twice.
I told Claire we would have to go back to the resort and get the right one…but then I thought about it and said let’s just try it out first. My voucher is in my name and I had all the ID info with me, so there was a good chance they could look it up.
BINGO! She found me. Whew! I was going to be so mad at myself if we had to bus it back to POFQ.
She takes my magic band and connects my ticket to it. No paper ticket is given. I asked if there would be a problem and she said no. OK…good! So I then tell her I need all of Claire’s FP’s copied to my ticket as well. I was told by Disney CM’s this would not be a problem at all when I called. So she copies todays for me and that’s it. I told her the system allowed me to pick FP’s for the whole week, even though we were only staying onsite for one night (at this time offsite guests could not pick FP’s till they got to the park and went to the kiosks). She said she couldn’t as the system wouldn’t allow her to do it and in fact she could not see any of Claire’s other FP’s. I was NOT happy. I pulled up my app to show her Claire’s FP’s and noticed that some of hers were not showing up on the App either. Good lord…NOT a Fan of FP+. She told me I could go in and see if the app would copy us, but that was the best she could suggest.
We then headed to the lines and I worked on copying Claire’s FP’s over to me. We got through the gates easily enough. And I took a few quick pictures as I walked….also working on the app and also texting my friend Deb and telling about the ordeal.
Sadly this picture turned out super blurry and is the only one I took of these the whole trip.
We had one thing that was a must do first thing this morning…..Soarin’.
Because of the extremely stupid tiering of FP’s at Epcot, we could only pick either Soarin’ or Test Track. We chose Test Track because it has been many years since we have been on it. In 2012 it was down for refurbishment, so we had yet to see the new version. So our plan was to get to Soarin’ first thing before the lines got too long. It was a good plan too!
In the meantime, my friend Deb said she would go into my MDE account and look to be sure everything copied. Of course once I got into the building I lost reception, so I was having issues getting her my password. The people we were standing by inline said they had full wifi, but my phone wasn’t. I found out if I went in and turned the wifi off and back on it would then reconnect. I had this issue a lot with Disney wifi over the whole trip.
I think we only waited about 15 minutes or so and then we were standing here.
Claire loves this ride…and so do I and we had a wonderful time on it. Sadly the screen does look pretty crappy these days, but we didn’t mind.
After that we were hungry. I hadn’t really eaten anything this morning. Claire was worried we would be wasting precious time by getting food, but I assured it was fine. She said I wasn’t allowed to get a full meal or I would be wasting time. So we decided on juice and strawberry shortcake. Claire said she would just want a bite, so we decided to share….Claire lied!
Claire started with the strawberry and then we fought forks the rest of the way through. I knew she was hungry and I knew we both enjoyed this cake….I should’ve gotten 2!
Time to make our way out.
A lot of the little water features were drained at Epcot…I am not sure why, but I took a few pictures of them here and there.
The fountain was working though.
I was back in contact with my friend Deb. She said that not all my FP’s copied correctly. Some had overlapping times and the one …the most important one….did not copy at all. That was the new Festival of the Fantasy Parade. I about had a heart attack and this was something we really wanted to see….and more than once. She did me a huge favor and contacted tech support…who could not fix it, but they told her to tell me to go to the FP entrance that day and tell them the situation and they would most likely let me in, as they weren’t going to let a child go in by herself. I was nervous, but I knew that it would work…..as I was not going to allow it to not work. They also gave us an extra FP for the viewing area of MSEP for that night as well (this would be for Monday), but I had no intentions of using it as we have seen the parade many times and it’s just not a favorite or a must do this trip. With all that taken care…..thanks to Deb….we moved on.
I am really dreading the FP+ thing. It may work out ok, but as of now, not really a fan. Hopefully in your next report it all worked out!!! Glad they were able to find you in the system and you didn't have to go back to the resort and get your voucher!
I am really dreading the FP+ thing. It may work out ok, but as of now, not really a fan. Hopefully in your next report it all worked out!!! Glad they were able to find you in the system and you didn't have to go back to the resort and get your voucher!
It still has issues from the reports I read. And people are randomly losing the FP's they select online even before their trip. And of course Disney says they can't help you get them back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Glad you didn't have to go back to the resort to get your voucher! What does the parade FP get you? A special viewing spot?
Yes, it's a spot in front of the Castle. Being that this was only like a week old at that point I wanted to be sure to get a good spot to see it at least once.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great early morning photos of the resort! What a mess with the FP+! Thank goodness your friend Deb could help.
It was extremely busy and Claire and I were assigned a spot together in the waiting room. I am not sure if during slower times you can get your own or not…but I am thinking you do.
Once were allowed in, we had to make a car together….and I am pretty sure I have seen in other reports where people can make their own cars. That’s ok, it was still neat to see…and for the most part I wasn’t allowed to help. LOL.
Claire did most of the designing and I was only allowed to help when needed.
Next we are scooted off to the loading area.
Claire’s band wouldn’t scan our car, but mine did. I think because I was the one who scanned when we designed it. I am not sure if we both were supposed to scan in or not. I did scan my band in her spot too as we entered the car though.
We loaded in and were ready to go. The guy next to me videoed the whole thing. I am sure he has my dorky laugh in the background.
We came in 3rd for whatever test this was, but for the most part, we were 1st or 2nd through most of them…..Good job Claire.
In the end, our car was the best overall design. I guess Claire knew what she was doing.
Needless to say, we had a blast on the ride and loved it. It is still pretty similar to the old version in the way the ride works, but the new stuff is neat. I wouldn’t say better, but still really neat.
When we exited, we pulled up our car on a big screen and looked over the info.
And then took a quick look around the show room.
I asked Claire if she would be interested in riding again using the single riders line, but she informed me she is too young to go by herself yet. UGH! Ok, I’ll work on her some more…..but hopefully in the future she will get over that fear.
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What a mess with the FP+! Thank goodness your friend Deb could help. 
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