A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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There's never been much green in the greater LA area (at least not in the last 30 years or so), as the sprawl is so great. Cement EVERYWHERE! I was pretty shocked when I first moved out there, as it wasn't the image I had of SoCal!
How is that, that you were able to spot DL from the air?!!
I had forgotten you were landing at John Wayne, so was trying to figure out how LAX could've been described as a small airport!
Made a lot more sense when I realized you were NOT flying to LAX!
There's never been much green in the greater LA area (at least not in the last 30 years or so), as the sprawl is so great. Cement EVERYWHERE! I was pretty shocked when I first moved out there, as it wasn't the image I had of SoCal!
I didn't realise you'd lived in LA!
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How is that, that you were able to spot DL from the air?!!
It's very neat!
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I had forgotten you were landing at John Wayne, so was trying to figure out how LAX could've been described as a small airport!
Made a lot more sense when I realized you were NOT flying to LAX!
Oh trust me, I will do everything I can to avoid LAX - we absolutely hate that airport with a passion.
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Tuesday 8 September – part five: I swear LA gets worse!
We headed off to get our rental car, and were told to wait by this…
We got a nice full size car with a decent trunk, so all four cases could go in it, with the hand luggage on the back seat.
We headed out, with the GPS taking forever to find us, although thankfully we found some signs for Anaheim, so could at least work out which direction we needed to go to get off airport property.
We joined the freeway, and not long afterwards, ran into this…
It was only about 2:30pm by this point, so not even peak rush hour. I swear LA gets worse…
Seeing the planes coming into land overhead was a bit unnerving…
We managed to manoeuvre ourselves into the car pool lane, although sadly a mile or so later we had to come off anyway.
Once we got off that first freeway, the roads weren’t too bad, and we were on our way…
About 10 minutes later, we were heading into Anaheim and knew we were arriving at Disneyland!
Look how hot it was outside though!
One thing we did notice that we haven’t seen on our previous visits before was how much construction there appeared to be everywhere around here. It reminded me a bit of Orlando in that respect.
When we saw the Paradise Pier hotel, we knew we were very close….
… and my camera battery took that moment to die, but thankfully I was able to ram another one in in time to capture our arrival at the Grand Californian.
I managed to snag a bad photo of this sign, as we were so surprised to see it…
We did wonder if it was connected to the work they were doing here on the front of the Grand Californian.
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That palm tree lined street is my favorite!
And I just noticed that even the bike racks are hidden mickeys!!
That sign is a little scary.
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The warning on that sign is now appearing on a multitude of products, including a roomba vacuum cleaner I was recently given. California's proposition 65 law requires the posting of this warning on any products containing many chemicals known to cause cancer if found in drinking water (usually in MUCH larger quantities than found in any of the products sold). Many products on Amazon.com now have this warning. It can be required for a minute amount of certain chemicals in circuit boards that are encased in a product. The law is so strict and the penalties for non-compliance are so strong that I'm sure we'll all get used to seeing this warning on any product that could be sold or used in California.
I really cannot wait to stay sometime at GC (most likely Spring of 2018, either on the way to, or back from, Aulani).
We did go to DL pretty often when we lived there (all prior to CA opening). Now I wonder why we never had season passes. Only explanation is we were newly married and didn't have much in the way of disposable income.
We actually lived about 5 miles away from DL when I first got out there, and could see the fireworks from our balcony! We moved closer to LA, where I worked, about 3 months later, though.
The warning on that sign is now appearing on a multitude of products, including a roomba vacuum cleaner I was recently given.
No way!
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California's proposition 65 law requires the posting of this warning on any products containing many chemicals known to cause cancer if found in drinking water (usually in MUCH larger quantities than found in any of the products sold). Many products on Amazon.com now have this warning. It can be required for a minute amount of certain chemicals in circuit boards that are encased in a product. The law is so strict and the penalties for non-compliance are so strong that I'm sure we'll all get used to seeing this warning on any product that could be sold or used in California.
Wow - my goodness, you really do learn something every day.
I really cannot wait to stay sometime at GC (most likely Spring of 2018, either on the way to, or back from, Aulani).
Oh darn it, that's not fair, as it looks like we'll be at Disneyland/Aulani for Christmas 2017 and maybe back at Aulani for spring 2019. We're not doing very well on coordinating dates here...
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We did go to DL pretty often when we lived there (all prior to CA opening). Now I wonder why we never had season passes. Only explanation is we were newly married and didn't have much in the way of disposable income.
We actually lived about 5 miles away from DL when I first got out there, and could see the fireworks from our balcony! We moved closer to LA, where I worked, about 3 months later, though.
Oh wow - being able to see the fireworks from your balcony, how cool is that?
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is that, that you were able to spot DL from the air?!! 
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