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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Still hasn't quite sunk in yet ..."We are going to Disney.!!"""
I'm not even sure when I started loving Mickey Mouse ..?? I do remember having him plastered all over my school books (. Well ...in between the NKOTB pictures..lol) but he was there the whole time.. Anything I could get my hands on I had... Loved him
As I grew older nothing changed and my life long dream was to go visit him in his home 😀😀 once we got close ,my best friend and I planned to go,A big trip in 1999 but it just never eventuated. Life goes on you get married ,buy a house get great jobs and along comes the babies.. We kept planning the holiday but once kiddies come along things change. I would love to have gone without them but now I have them I couldnt do it without them. Hence why we waited so long to go. I want them to remember this holiday, our youngest boy is now 6 which I think is a perfect age.
We finally booked .. The first part was the Cruise.. I new after reading the pass porter and reading this forum that we could book I think almost 18 months in advance ,so October 2011 we booked the first part of the holiday..we are now officially going on a cruise..woohoo!!!! Now we work the rest of the holiday around the cruise which we have now done and we are 49 days out and scared as crazy.!!!
Ok, so coming from the other side of the world this is going to be crazy expensive... Well yes it has but who cares...it's going to be so worth it. Originally we booked for 4 weeks which was going to be land in LA and spend a few days a DL and then Vegas for a few days then the 2 weeks on WDW and 1 week on the cruise. We don't want to do Vegas when the kids are little so we cancelled this first week and change it to an extra week in Florida to spend at Orlando.
We could not get the fights cheaper that $2500 each but after more researching we realised that there was a holiday the week we were going to try fly out so we had a look at pushing the dates around and realised if we left a week later we could rip our flights down by $2000 so we took off the first week of the holiday ...it is all about Disney after all. So now instead of 4 weeks we only have just over 3 weeks but we saved $2000 on fights..woohoo more for Disney!!!!
Then it's deciding where to stay...boy o boy what a choice...!! How are you supposed to decide..??? I wanna be close to the parks,I want to have views of the animals when I wake up and sit on my balcony, I want an awesomely themed room and I want to see the fireworks too... Not to much to ask is it..???? Such a hard decision to make I wanted to stay at AoA because it was themed and the kids would love it, it is new and exciting but how much time would we be spending in the room for the price..?? Probably not enough time as I'm just going to wander consistently and the kids will be coming..lol so after reading lots of TR's we ( well me..). I decide that POP would be where we stay... So many good comments hardly any bad at all...great bus services,very friendly staff, great price. So I booked. Kids where happy with the choice...I showed them lots of pictures and they love the figurines at each complex.. Hard to wipe the smiles really
Ok so for plans...
We are flying out of Perth on the 21st April at 11:45pm we will fly to Sydney and the on to LA and then on to Orlando landing at 6:10pm on the 22nd.
We will catch the DME back to POP and then just relax and sleep most likely that night..if I don't go for a wander anyway...lol we will eat at the hotel as I can't imagine we will have the energy to do much after 30 odd hours on a plane.
The 23rd will be our first Disney day...wow!!! We ok I have decided i think our first day will be at EPCOT. This to me seems like an obvious decision... Whenever you see anything about Disneyworld the big globe is always in the picture and I think this would be our most relaxing of the parks just in case we are still a bit tired and it has EMH so an hour of partial quietness before we see more people that actually live in our town...lol I think Epcot would be a perfect start for us..and I can go on soaring straight away....hehehe
The 24th of April will take us to Hollywood Studios, I'm excited about this place, so many shows to see and I am going to try my hardest to get the kids into the Jedi Knight Training...ooh. to see there faces when they are on stage...❤❤❤ so exciting. We also have Dining reservations tonight..our first of a few, we have dinner at Mama Melrose's which to mean sounds like a fantastic restaurant ,we booked it as a fantasmic dining experience so we have to show afterwards..yay.!!! The only issue I have with this though is that we are having dinner at 4pm which is kinda early for us but that's ok it will be nice to have tea and then just cruise on over to seating...no rush we are on holiday..😉
The 25th we are going to try Magic Kingdom, it has EMH but if it gets to crazy busy as it says to avoid this park this day we will just head on out and over to Animal Kingdom . I am dying to see MK and all the fun rides.. Devastated I won't get to go on the tea cups as its being refurbished but I shall take a photo of the fencing around it...lol Have no real set plans in the parks as I think we will be a little overwhelmed with the magnitude of the place but this first day in each park will give us an idea of what we are dealing with... Then when we go for the 2nd time around we will be more prepared.
The 26th will take us to the first of our water park days... Hopefully it is still nice and warm and we will have a blast... Blizzard beach is on the top of the boys list so that's what today shall be... We have our 2nd ADR tonight at 6:30 we are off to Chef Mickeys...😍😍😍. This one is for me.... If I have not met the other man of my dreams, hopefully I will tonight...hehehe
So looking forward to this one... If we are still energetic we may go to Epcot for the evening and enjoy the EMH's
The 27 th we are going to Animal Kingdom finally, Kali River Rapids here we come... I will wait all day if I have too...hehe this is the ride I'm most looking forward to, now that I can't go on the tea cups..😜 We are hoping to do a safari but I haven't really looked into it yet....oopsy. We may check out Downtown Disney this evening . I think most days will be broken up but I think we are going to play it by ear.
The 28th we are going to have a DTD day ...maybe have a game of mini golf or go to splitsville for a bowl just a chill out day I think...not that we can chill much when I'm near the shops...hehe. Bank balance disappears here..lol. The evening we will spend at HS as again there are EMH'S
The 29 th we will have our 2nd water park day heading over to Typhoon Lagoon today for another day in the sun..:-). I think we will miss the beaches here as we are surrounded by ocean as we live on the tip of the North West Cape....water , sand and more water. What more could you ask for.!!!! We will head back for a night at MK as it is open late tonight and sitting watch all the fireworks is going to be a wow factor for me...I will probably cry this day...hehe waited way to long to do this...
The 30th will be an AK day for usI a good look around day and do anything we may have missed on the first time around... More scenic day maybe...and of course another go at the Rapids...( maybe even a few more than one...)
The 1st of May...wow. Even typing this it is going to quickly already!!!! Going to be another MK day... Has a crowd score of only 4 today so i think this will be a good day to get lots of rides out of our systems..lol. I am assuming this is the busiest of all the parks I more fireworks and parades...yay!!!!! Do we really have to leave this place... Why can't we all just move in.... I'm excited y
Just typing.!!!
The 2nd of May is a wonderful day..😍😍😍😍this is me and hubby's wedding anniversary.... 7 years married..!! What a place to spend it.. Another day at EP for today and then dinner..woohoo. We only had 3 ADR's I didn't want to be set out for certain times for dinner...hopefully this doesn't cause us to many problems.
Coral Reef Restaurant for dinner tonight..seems fitting as we live on the coral reef here and may be our missing home dinner...lol. W are booked for 6:50pm. I think the kids will love this place.. I shall keep the boys under control though as this seemed to be the biggest complaint about this restaurant....the unruly children running all over the place.
May 3rd This is our last day at Disneyworld so we are spending the day at HS again, watch show's we haven't got to see yet and enjoy a few more rides. Have a few more hours at EP or DTD in the evening , let the boys have there pick of what to do...Alex may want to go to DisneyQuest again...see how the night finishes I think.
May 4th.. We are checking out of POP today...😢😢😢 it will be sad finally leaving but it will be redeemed... W are catching the Disney Bus and we are off to the Disney Fantasy for our 7 day Caribbean CRUISE....WOOHOO!!!!
How exciting... The boys are so so excited about the boat it's not funny...!!! Good bit of freedom for them and a little trust to be able to look after themselves a little if they want to go in the kids areas. Have not really booked much for the cruise... I think it will be a lovely time to rest as we would be stuffed after 14 days at WDW .. We will be celebrating Alex's 10th birthday on the 6th May so a celebratory day at sea for him... I still have to organise him a nice cake and I'm still deciding on a birthday present...kinda gonna be hard to top his holiday with a present...lol. It's gonna have to be good.
May 7th is the first day at port ,we are going to St Maartens. We are going to spend the day at Malo beach where the planes land real close...we are all very excited about Watching these...Its going to be funny..😀😀😀 we have not organised any adventures here.. Just enjoy the sights.
May 8th is a stop at St Thomas/ St Johns we have a port adventure here.. Our only real booking..we are going to do the Coral World Ocean by land and Sea tour which I think will be great...we will be able to see the difference in the reef systems between here in Exmouth and over in the Caribbean...kinda exciting...
May 10th is at Castaway Cay... We have just booked snorkel gear for us all this day...just a nice beautiful day in paradise is all we want here... It will be a toast to the beautiful time we have had with Disney..😔😔😔
On the 11th we will disembark from the Disney Fantasy and have booked a minivan to take us to the point Orlando resort near Universal studios. I have read a hundred great reviews for this hotel and for its price it was a must for me... We will have 2 days at universal studios and the on the last day which is the 14th we will try squeeze in a little sightseeing around Orlando before we hav ego head to the airport to fly home at 7pm.. Thus ending our Disney magical Fantasy holiday...:-(
It will take us the full 2 days to fly home because of time zones.. We won't get back to Perth until 3pm on the 16th of May.
I am so looking forward to this trip ...I have waited so long for it and it is almost upon us... I am almost at the stage where I want to cry as I can't believe it is actually happening..!!! Hubby has been such a trooper during this crazy 2 years of non stop talk of Disney and not allowed to spend any money.. It's been hard keeping him Off his boat every weekend spending $$$$ I have been a full Scrooge mcduck with every penny we have but it has slowly paid off and I apologise to him but he understands thank heavens... I'm sure he is going to have a blast and enjoy sharing the joy we will all have... He has put up with my Disney obsession for so so long.... Next holiday is his decision....(. But I may try to push him to an Alaskan Disney cruise...hehehe)
Thank you all so much for reading this big long pre trip report...I'm sorry if you have all lost a few brains cells doing so. If y ou can think of anything I have not included in here and you think I should do it please let me know... I I would hate to miss something due to over excitement...lol. Oh and I still have to b ok my PhotoPass +. I have not booked this yet but I will.
Thanks. Again everyone for your years of input onto this forum so that is easier for people like me to organise a trip of a lifetime...xxxxx
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WISHING I WAS CRUISING AND WDW AGAIN
2013 DISNEY FANTASY.. CARRIBEAN CRUISE AND 2 AND A 1/2 WEEKS WDW
2015 DISNEY WONDER.. PANAMA CANAL AND 9 DAYS WDW
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Thank you all... I never realised how long this post was until I came back in...oopsy. We are so excited about this holiday, it's coming so quick now and it's a little overwhelming really..
I promise the rest of my trip report posts will be smaller...lol
__________________
WISHING I WAS CRUISING AND WDW AGAIN
2013 DISNEY FANTASY.. CARRIBEAN CRUISE AND 2 AND A 1/2 WEEKS WDW
2015 DISNEY WONDER.. PANAMA CANAL AND 9 DAYS WDW
I hope that you and your family have a magical time at the world
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Heather - "I'm Tinkerbell's biggest fan!"
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Only 26 days to go..!!! Sneaked up so so quickly. We made our last purchase today.. Not Disney but 2 day universal tickets for the 12th and 13th of May. Now just savings to finish.
In 3 weeks and 1 day we leave Exmouth to get ready to fly out from Perth..
__________________
WISHING I WAS CRUISING AND WDW AGAIN
2013 DISNEY FANTASY.. CARRIBEAN CRUISE AND 2 AND A 1/2 WEEKS WDW
2015 DISNEY WONDER.. PANAMA CANAL AND 9 DAYS WDW
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