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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We are Disney World veterans, but making our first trip to Disneyland.
Since I'm not sure when we'll make it back to Disneyland (and my daughter has never flown/been to California before), I would like to take a little time to get some pictures of my kids with some of the LA/Beverly Hills/Hollywood icons -- like the Hollywood sign, Walk of Fame, Rodeo Drive, etc. I don't want to take a lot of time, but want to get in a few pictures while we are there. And we're flying in, so we won't have a vehicle. What's the best way to do this? I haven't purchased airline tickets yet, but in shopping around it looks like we'd have a mid-afternoon arrival time and a morning departure time. So should we try to see some of the sights on the way from the airport to Disneyland (of course, we'd have luggage in tow, so it would be a "hop out of the cab and take a picture and hop back in" kind of thing.... Or is there some kind of shuttle or service we can have the hotel (staying at the Disneyland Hotel) set up for us on a day we are not going to the parks?
We only had a few hours to visit some sights in and around LA but we had a vehicle which made it alot easier. I think its going to be difficult for you if you don't have a vehicle and only a few hours. I would suggest taking a cab to Grauman's Chinese Theatre. From there, the Disney Store is across the street, you could hop on one of the Star Tours buses which we did and it was fabulous. It was an hour tour around LA and making photo ops possible of some icons. Hope this helps a bit. Ive only been to Disneyland and LA one time and we only had a couple of days to do as much as possible.
It's 34 from Disneyland Resort to Grauman's Chinese Theater (using this as an example) so that is quite a distance for a cab, and figuring in you would want to make multiple stops it could get spendy. Starline Tours may have options that would work well for you. Check this website for information: Tours from Anaheim and Buena Park, sightseeing bus tours.
I would really reconsider renting a car. I just got back from a DL trip in December and the car rental for the whole week was $90 through Alamo. It will make your trip from the airport to Hollywood much easier and you will probably find that if you cab from the airport to Hollywood--drive around--and then drive to DL you are going to be looking at cab fare in the neighborhood of $200. Just from Hollywood to the DL hotel is about $100.
I would really reconsider renting a car. I just got back from a DL trip in December and the car rental for the whole week was $90 through Alamo. It will make your trip from the airport to Hollywood much easier and you will probably find that if you cab from the airport to Hollywood--drive around--and then drive to DL you are going to be looking at cab fare in the neighborhood of $200. Just from Hollywood to the DL hotel is about $100.
I'm with Heather, I'd get a car as well. On our most recent trip to Disneyland, we didn't, but that was because we literally went from LAX to Disneyland and back again two days later and that was it. If I wanted to do any exploring, I'd want a car.
I am with those who have recommended you reconsider renting a car!
Disneyland is actually quite a distance from LAX and the cab fare for that alone will be pretty spendy (then you factor in stops, which will more than likely run up the meter even more). You'd be better off renting a car and running around the Hollywood/BH area on your own.
Though StarLine does offer bus tours around the area, the 1 hour tour doesn't hit Rodeo Drive (or, at least, at last check they didn't) and you also won't be able to get on and off for pics or the like. The Hop On/Hop Off tours (which are a 2 hour total circuit from start to finish if you don't hop off) makes stops at certain places but once you get off, they move on and don't wait for you to get back on after photos as they are on a schedule. Instead you'd have to wait another 30 minutes for the next bus. I wouldn't really recommend taking all of your luggage on a StarLine tour bus (or, honestly, anywhere near Hollywood Boulevard), though, personally! Just lugging it all on a bus might be a pain (and there can be some mighty shady characters on H-wood Blvd.
If you rent a car, you can drive to Hollywood and Highland and park it in the garage underground. You'll be able to see quite a bit there: Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater, the Disney Studio Store and Soda Fountain (and El Capitan Theater) are across the street. You can also walk into the Hollywood and Highland Center, take the elevator up to level 3 and get great shots of the Hollywood Sign from the outdoor bridge! It's just a few minutes from the middle of Hollywood to Rodeo Drive.
If you would really rather have a bus run you around Hollywood, StarLine does have a shuttle that runs from Anaheim to Hollywood which is separate from any booked tours. It only runs June through September but picks up at the Anaheim GardenWalk at 11am and takes you to either Jane's House in Hollywood (StarLine's home "office") or the Chinese Theater where you can purchase/catch another tour by them or set out on your own. Starline Tours - Anaheim Hollywood transportation They also have an LA City tour that runs from Anaheim up around LA but it is $57 per adult: http://www.starlinetours.com/Anaheim...our-1.asp?AL=A
For those prices alone though,I would just as soon rent a car and bring/rent a GPS! The times I have been in the area, we have either had a rental car (traveling with friends) or driven our own and it is not that hard to get around the city if you use maps/GPS. The biggest thing you'd encounter is traffic, depending on the time of day you are there.
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If you rent a car, you can drive to Hollywood and Highland and park it in the garage underground. You'll be able to see quite a bit there: Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater, the Disney Studio Store and Soda Fountain (and El Capitan Theater) are across the street. You can also walk into the Hollywood and Highland Center, take the elevator up to level 3 and get great shots of the Hollywood Sign from the outdoor bridge! It's just a few minutes from the middle of Hollywood to Rodeo Drive.
That's what we did last year! We rented a sweet SUV for the week. This August we're using my aunt's Saturn since they moved to NorCal and they're going to drive down and meet me!
I agree with others on renting a car. The last time I was on Hollywood blvd there were homeless people laying around on the sidewalk, maybe it's been cleaned up now as it has been a while since I was there. We tried to get close to Hollywood sign but is up in hills by Griffith park which is not too far from Universal studios but about 30 to 40 minutes North of LA, so you might get to see it from a distance depending on office buildings and where you are but not without a rental car.
they've "cracked down" on the homeless from what I was told when we were there, but they all dress up like "celebrities" to panhandle that way... there's a REALLY creepy Elvis who is a little "too friendly" And his breath smells like garlic... YUCK.
From what I understand you can't hike up to the sign anymore, you're a good distance away from it if you want to face it, or you can get closer but still not up close and personal and look at the backside. Such a bummer.
We were just at Disneyland and like everyone else I would say - if you want to see anything else in the southern California area - rent a car. The Hollywood area is creepy, but an experience none the less. We still enjoyed seeing the Graumin (sp) Theater and the stars on the ground. We didin't see homeless people in that area, but a lot of "wanna be" stars performing on the streets. "Mommy - that guy is dressed LIKE A GIRL!" was one of the many things said by my sweet 6 year old who had never seen such things. We only spend a few hours down there and we took pictures of the Hollywood sign from afar which was still pretty cool.
I would also recommend a beach trip. We checked out the Santa Monica pier. Very fun!!
Oh and I would take a day to do the other things. I wouldn't try to fit that in on the airport arrival or departure day. That is an adventure all by itself and none of these things are really on the way. You didn't say how long you were going to be in southern CA, but you really can do the Disney parks in 2-3 days so if you are there for a week you would have plenty of time to see other sights.
I agree, get a car. For what you'll pay in cabs, etc. Plus, factor in a lot of travel time. While the mileage may seem short, the trip with traffic at nearly any time of the day will take forever. Seeing the walk of fame is really great but, as mentioned, you cannot hike up to the sign. You can get some great pics with it in the background from the mall there at the walk of fame thoughl
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On our most recent trip to Disneyland, we didn't, but that was because we literally went from LAX to Disneyland and back again two days later and that was it. If I wanted to do any exploring, I'd want a car.
I wouldn't really recommend taking all of your luggage on a StarLine tour bus (or, honestly, anywhere near Hollywood Boulevard), though, personally! Just lugging it all on a bus might be a pain (and there can be some mighty shady characters on H-wood Blvd. 
It's just a few minutes from the middle of Hollywood to Rodeo Drive.
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