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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This is my very first attempt at a PTR - so please, bear with me.
The parties involved - DH, Chuck, age 54. He has been to Disney exactly twice. Once in 1981. At that time he remembered that they were working on the Epcot "ball". He said "there was only the bottom rung done when I was there last". . Then his second trip was in November of last year, when we went on our honeymoon after 14 years of marriage. Yes - you read that right. We had never traveled alone together in 14 years of marriage! A friend of ours from work gave us her DVC points because she was going to lose them. I know - GREAT gift! But more on that later.
Me, Tracy, aka Coop, age 44. I have also only been to Disney twice. Both times - last year. The first time was in April 2010 at CSR with my BFF and her kids for spring break and we had a blast! And the second time was our honeymoon at AKL (and we had a blast)!
This is us on a photopass photo session at AKL last Nov.
Our journey: We are planning on going November 2-November 15. We plan on staying at BLT, lake view studio on DVC points (more on that one later as well).
Our mode of travel - driving. We are driving from Michigan so it will be a 2 day drive. That way we have Disney from Nov 3-Nov 14 but we added an extra day each way for the drive. We also drive down in our Mini Cooper! Great road trip car!
Now - mind you - my DH is 6'4" but this car works! (our second car is a VW bug anyway ) We love it! We drove it last year and this is our preferred mode of travel! (if anyone read "To Drive or Fly" in the Getting There thread knows that I can't stand flying!)
So there's the basics. Just us. I am going to do my countdown with a Walt Disney quote a day. (I know, probably been done before but not by me!)
“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” - Walt Disney
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Before I get into our travel plans - just a little more information/background for you.
As I said, I went to Disney for the very first time in April 2010 with my BFF and her 2 kids (DD 16 and DD 12) for spring break ! My BFF is a major planner and basically took care of everything. I didn't know anything and was "just going along for the ride" but little did we know - she created a monster! We had a great time despite the spring break crowds and the convention of nursing students at CSR. (Now I'm a nurse of 20 years but I'm sure I NEVER acted like some of these kids!)
So fast forward to July 2010 when my supervisor at work asked me if I wanted to go back to Disney. Duh! She then told me about the DVC and how she wasn't going to be able to use her points before they expired. She wanted to give me her points! I asked how much and she said "Nothing". The only catch was we had to use them before the end of November. OMG! WOW! YES! Then I had to explain all this to DH. He said "I didn't think you would want to go back so soon". Yeah - right. So now all we had to do is figure out when and how much $ we would need to save. DH and I had never traveled anywhere alone together so we figured this would be our honeymoon! Yay! So we had a studio savannah view at AKL with DDP for a week in Nov 2010 and this was our honeymoon! Thanks Sandy!
Now - during that week, I kept telling DH that we should go talk to the DVC people. Sandy gave us the name of the guy she worked with. We could at least listen to what they had to say. I told him this almost every day passing the DVC podium at AKL. Well on our last full day - he finally said yes when we passed a DVC podium in Epcot. So we set it up and went after lunch. We had a really great salesman and they gave us $100 in gift cards! (DH says that's because they KNEW we were going to buy!) But there was no pressure - we discussed it on the drive home and bought before Thanksgiving! Now we are proud owners of a chandelier at BLT!
So that brings us (round about) to this trip - our first as DVC owners in our home resort! This year we also bought AP's to be activated in Nov. (we are going to try to get at least 2 to 3 trips out of them) We also decided to get the DxDP this time - "going all out" as it were!
Nov 2: Our plan is to get up early. And I mean EARLY - we want to be on the road by 4 am. (I normally work afternoon/nights so I will probably STAY up and be first shift driving). We will probably stop at Waffle House (the nearest one to us is in Bowling Green, OH). We always stop for gas in Jellico, KY and then we will drive through and stop either in Macon, GA or Tifton, GA. We will need to stop at a Zaxby's (or two) on the way as well. We were turned on to Zaxby's last trip and have been craving it ever since! Who ever is not driving has control of the music selection and is navigator. (Last year - DH fell asleep and we almost missed our Disney exit!) That part of the trip will take about 14-16 hours (depending on traffic, etc)
Nov 3: We will get to sleep in a bit. Plan on leaving the hotel at around 9 am so we can make it to Disney by 2 or 3 pm. Hopefully our room will be ready at BLT. Studio, Lake view. We will get settled in, maybe go get our AP from MK Guest relations and then we have our first ADR - Boma at 6 pm!
Boma is not new to us - it was our first ADR last year as well. But DH loves it so much that whenever I ask him what he wants for dinner, he says "BOMA!" I always have to stipulate - what do you want HERE for dinner!
OK - this one's long enough. More tomorrow.
“When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.” - Walt Disney
Your plans look great so far. Hoping to get my wife hooked enough that she will want to invest in DVC even if we only do a resale. Followed your other thread and not suprised your driving
Love explaination of screen name and play on title for this thread
I am so happy you decided to do a PTR Coop! I know your name is Tracy, but I like calling you Coop. Just like I love my nickname on here of Sparky. It has inched it's way into my everyday life, bc I am friends with 2 girls from PP on FB as well and they call me Sparky or Spark. My friend Jess (Jessie092408) calls me Miss Sparkle Pants...which I .
You plans look great so far! Love your mini-coop, that is so funny too! We haven't been to Boma, my DH is such a simple eater...hamburgs, hot dogs, chicken, steak...plain eater. I think Boma is just a tad to exotic for him. Maybe even for me, I am a pretty plain and simple eater, just not as bad as him. DD-7 is even more adventurous than him.
Can't wait to hear more of your plans! Great start!
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. Then his second trip was in November of last year, when we went on our honeymoon after 14 years of marriage. Yes - you read that right. We had never traveled alone together in 14 years of marriage! A friend of ours from work gave us her DVC points because she was going to lose them. 
I know - GREAT gift! But more on that later. 
)! 
) We love it! We drove it last year and this is our preferred mode of travel! (if anyone read "To Drive or Fly" in the Getting There thread knows that I can't stand flying!)
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Pixie Dust
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Susan
We had a great time despite the spring break crowds and the convention of nursing students at CSR. (Now I'm a nurse of 20 years but I'm sure I NEVER acted like some of these kids!)
So now all we had to do is figure out when and how much $ we would need to save. DH and I had never traveled anywhere alone together so we figured this would be our honeymoon! Yay! So we had a studio savannah view at AKL with DDP for a week in Nov 2010 and this was our honeymoon! Thanks Sandy! 
I am so happy you decided to do a PTR Coop! I know your name is Tracy, but I like calling you Coop.
. 
"Sparky"(My first trip.)
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