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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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’m excited to start this TR as it was such a different trip than any we’ve taken before. In addition to DH Jeff and me, we took our daughter Liz and granddaughter Cora, who is just a couple months short of 3 years old.
Jeff and I have been to Disney many times, more recently as DVC members and we love every aspect of Disney…the attractions, the rides, the food, and the resorts all help to make our trips magical. Liz has been to Disney twice when she was young, and twice as an adult. And we were all very excited to share our love of the World with Cora as this was her first trip.
We had originally planned to go the first week of December and we even had our stay at BLT booked. Then Liz told us she was expecting baby #2 in early December, so we scrambled to rearrange things and decided on October 29-November 3. Liz and her doctor were both ok with travelling at 7 ½ months.
I had 4 table service meals planned, 3 were character breakfasts. Other than that, most of our meals would be in the room with groceries that we’d ordered from Amazon Prime Now.
We planned on lots of down time, either at the pool, in the room or doing activities other than the parks. This proved to be a good decision.
I brought quite a few activity type things for the plane and sitting at restaurants…coloring books, stickers, play figures, and a little Frozen play set.
Cora had been playing with a Polly Pockets Magic Kingdom play set which has the Dumbo, Peter Pan, the Railroad and the Carrousel. I’d also showed her YouTube videos of those rides, so she was pretty excited about riding them. She had also seen YouTube videos of character meets, so she was excited to meet some of her favorites as well.
I had made our FP+ 60 days ahead, but we were prepared to be flexible and skip any that didn’t pan out.
I took no notes on this trip, so this TR will be all from memory…and because of that, it may be a little out of order if I happen to remember something after the fact.
I guess that’s about it for a recap of the PTR, so, please join me as I share our Disney ups and downs!
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Looking forward to see how the trip enfolds with a three year old as a much different experience than the two are used to on your WDW trips!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Sunday, October 29
Cora and Liz stayed overnight at our house on Saturday and we were all up early. We were ready when my Dad came to pick us up at 6:30. We arrived at Buffalo Airport around 6:50 and checked our luggage. There were no lines at the luggage counter or at TSA. We all had gotten the TSA pre-check, so that was easy, with no one having to take off shoes or get out electronics. We got to our gate about 7:10 and sat to wait. After a few minutes Cora was not content to sit and instead wanted to ride the moving sidewalks. So, Jeff or Liz walked with her as she rode them around and around.
When they started pre-boarding our flight, we got in the “Family Boarding” line. With Southwest, this group is boarded after the A group, no matter what your number. There were about 3 or 4 families ahead of us. As we were waiting, we saw that our nephew’s fiancée was working as gate attendant. She noticed us and came over to talk. We chatted for a few minutes and then she left us and went to the main attendant to say she had another pre-boarding group, and motioned us up. I tried not to look at anyone, so don’t know what kind of looks we got, but I’m sure people were wondering why we were brought from the back of the line. She took us all the way down the jetway and told the crew members that it was Cora’s first flight. She wanted her to get her wings and a certificate.
We ended up in row 11, with me at the window, Cora in the middle, Liz on the aisle and Jeff in the seat across the aisle. Cora was excited to sit in her seat and buckle her seatbelt. She could see out the window a little bit, and was looking at some other airplanes. One of the crew members announced that we had a first time flyer with us and asked everyone to applaud for Cora. She was good all the while we taxied and for take-off. I was worried that she might be scared, but she was ok. A little while into the flight she started getting antsy, wanting to get out of her seatbelt. It was time for the surprises I’d packed in my carry-on. The stickers lasted for a little while, then she had some snacks and some of the fruit I’d brought. She was still not happy about wearing her seatbelt, and even though the FASTEN SEATBELT light was on, we ended up letting it go rather than have her pitch a fit. When I got out the Frozen playset she was enthralled! She loved it and played with the little Frozen characters for most of the rest of the way there…until it was time to put up the tray tables. She was not happy with this at all, and kept reaching for the latch to open it up. Liz and I were both trying to calm her, holding her feet so she couldn’t kick the guy in front of us. I finally ended up putting her on my lap and buckling my seatbelt around the both of us. She was content to watch out the window at the sights below until we landed.
It was nice being close to the front because we were off the plane sooner! We got to the monorail shuttle and rode that to the main terminal. As we were walking by the Disney store, Cora needed to stop and see Mickey.
Then we took the escalator down and walked all the way down to the end of the hall before realizing we were still on level 2. We quickly found an elevator and got down to level 1 where we saw the HUGE line to check in for DME. I had never seen a line here before. Usually there are two or three people ahead of you. There were 4 lines and we waited about 15 minutes just to be checked in. At one point I think the computers were down because no one was moving.
Cora watching videos on Liz's phone while we waited in line
We finally got through that and had to wait about 20 minutes for our bus. At one point I checked my phone I saw that I’d gotten a text from Disney saying our room was not ready.
We got on the bus, and were soon on our way to Disney. There was one stop at WL and then we got off at Bay Lake Tower. We walked over to the Contemporary to pick up the stroller I’d ordered from Orlando Stroller. Then we went to the Contempo Café for lunch. Liz got a kids’ meal cheese flatbread and some grapes which she split with Cora. Jeff got the meatlovers flatbread and I got a yogurt parfait.
We decided that since the room was still not ready we’d check our carry-ons with Valet services and head to MK.
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I had never seen a line here before. Usually there are two or three people ahead of you. There were 4 lines and we waited about 15 minutes just to be checked in. At one point I think the computers were down because no one was moving. 
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