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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Two sisters who are like night and day, total opposites. Yep, sounds like my girls! Genetics are funny that way. It's always so much fun to experience a Disney park through the eyes of a first timer. No matter what, this will be a wonderful trip for that aspect alone! I'm curious to see how Tom likes it simply because my husband is not a Disney fan. At all. So I love to see how first timers - who don't care for Disney - enjoy their time spent there.
Frustrating to plan in advance, but maybe we're just spoiled by WDW. Sounds like it all came together fairly well!
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Love meeting your group! I think going with kids, especially their ages, will be so much fun! You'll need several 1st Visit buttons, won't you? (Do they do celebration buttons at DLP?)
Two sisters who are like night and day, total opposites. Yep, sounds like my girls! Genetics are funny that way.
That's really interesting, as being an only child, I have no clue about this sort of thing...
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It's always so much fun to experience a Disney park through the eyes of a first timer.
You are so right. We went with one of Mark's other sisters and their kids to Disney World in 2007, I think it was (gosh, where does the time go? ) and it was the first time the kids had visited Disney and it was wonderful to see their reactions.
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No matter what, this will be a wonderful trip for that aspect alone! I'm curious to see how Tom likes it simply because my husband is not a Disney fan. At all. So I love to see how first timers - who don't care for Disney - enjoy their time spent there.
I'll be curious too, especially as he doesn't seem to have much enthusiasm right now. I'm hoping if he sees his girls having a ball (and hopefully they will!) then so will he...
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Frustrating to plan in advance, but maybe we're just spoiled by WDW. Sounds like it all came together fairly well!
Oh we so are! Can you believe I still doesn't have the details of parades, shows and character meets yet? They release it on a weekly basis....
Love meeting your group! I think going with kids, especially their ages, will be so much fun! You'll need several 1st Visit buttons, won't you? (Do they do celebration buttons at DLP?)
I'm not sure if they do. It's something to ask when we check in... thanks for the reminder!
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Sadly, they don't - we asked for them for our wedding anniversary and they don't do any kind of celebration badges, unfortunately.
I did wonder if that would be the case. It seems like there are so many things that Disneyland Paris ought to do to be in line with the American parks, but it doesn't...
Sorry for the lack of update this morning - the boards were down. Here goes:
Pre-trip report – part five: which restaurants to go for?
We’ve ended up opting to get two-day, two-park tickets for Disneyland Paris, as we’re not planning to go to the parks on the Monday morning. I did some shopping around before purchasing ours, and discovered that Disneyland Paris was perhaps one of the more expensive places to get tickets. That didn’t surprise me, as that’s been my experience with them before. Why Disney does that, I do not know, as I would’ve thought they wanted the business, but maybe not.
I ended up going with Attraction Tickets Direct, who I really like. We’ve booked with them many times before when we’ve needed tickets for other parks in the Orlando area, and what I like about them is they send you actual tickets, rather than vouchers. This is important, as you don’t have to waste valuable time standing in line at the entrance, waiting to trade your voucher in. You may remember I mentioned that when we went back to Disneyland Paris for Halloween the second time around, we had free park tickets from our satellite TV provider? Well, those were vouchers, and we visited on a Saturday. We had to wait in line about 20 minutes to exchange them, and I swore I’d never do that again.
However, it turned out that Sara hadn’t got as far as tickets, so after a meal out with Dave and Barb, we asked if they wanted us to buy the tickets, and they quickly agreed, saying they’d give us the money. That’s fine… except when I went to the Attraction Tickets Direct website, suddenly they were saying we’d get an e-voucher. Ok, that’s not what I expected, and not what we got a couple of weeks earlier.
I ended up phoning up to try and find out what was going on, and apparently, because the exchange rate is all over the place, they’ve moved away from actual tickets at Disneyland Paris, and now they’re doing e-vouchers. The woman explained that Disneyland Paris have installed machines and all you have to do is put your code in, and then the machines will give you your actual tickets. I checked, and we can go and get them, so that might work. Fingers crossed it will be Ok…
When I got the tickets, they had everyone’s names on them, except Barb’s name had been transposed for mine. I did email the company to see if that would be a problem, but I never heard back from them, so I hope that’s a good sign. I doubt they’re going to ask to see photo ID, so I’m sure it will be alright. I had to get Mark to print them at work in the end, as I went to print them on our printer at home, and the darned thing was running low on just about everything, including cyan, which I didn’t have any more supplies of. I ordered some more, but I figured it was just safer to get Mark to print them, especially as they stated it had to be a perfect print, and I knew I wouldn’t get that from our printer.
So how are we getting there? Well, we’re taking the Eurotunnel, which some of you may remember if you’ve read some of our previous Disneyland Paris trip reports, or some of our road trips around Europe, is the train through the Channel Tunnel, but the one that carries cars. It only takes 35 minutes and you drive into the train, and then spend the time in your car for the duration of the journey.
Making those bookings took some considerable coordination, as Sara really wanted us all to out on the same train. There was some discussion about whether we should go earlier in the day, but as Mark technically has no more vacation time left for this year (ooops… I think that might be my fault ) we figured maybe he should only take a half day. Honestly, this isn’t as bad as it sounds, as he’s the one who opens up every day, and works something stupid like 10 plus hours every day, and often works Saturdays and when he’s supposed to be away on vacation, so I really don’t feel bad about it.
In the end, after some debate about the time we’d need to check-in for the train, and the time we’d therefore have to leave home, we settled on the 2:50pm train, which gets us into Calais at 4:25pm, as they’re one hour ahead. I was quite happy with that, as it’s a three hour drive to Disneyland Paris, and given it’s a Friday, that should put us around the Paris ring road, hopefully well after rush hour has finished. Fingers crossed on that front!
We’ll be coming back on the Monday afternoon. We’ve gone for a train that means we’ve got the whole morning at Disneyland Paris, given it’s Daisy’s birthday that day. I don’t believe we’re going into the parks that day, but instead the plan is to go to Café Mickey in Disneyland Paris for a character breakfast, which will be a nice way to celebrate her birthday.
The other thing we needed to sort out was the hotel on the Friday night. There was much debate over this, as Dave is not exactly known for his expensive tastes, shall we say? Just about every hotel I came up with was too expensive, even though I thought they were pretty cheap. In the end, we managed to find a two bedroom apartment at the Hotel Residhome Val d’Europe, which just about fell into Dave’s price range.
As for us, we’re a little further down the road at the Relais Spa Val d’Europe, which has a wonderful spa that’s adult only – magic words to my ears! The restaurant there sounds amazing too, so it ticks all the boxes for me. I did look at the menu, which to me was reasonably priced (certainly nothing worse than Disney ), I couldn’t help but think how Dave would react if he saw the prices…
Now let’s talk about the fun side of things whenever you take a Disney trip – the dining! I feel like a broken record here, as I know I said something similar before our last visit to Disneyland in California, but we have sadly found some of the restaurant offerings at Paris to be lacking in recent years.
If we go back to our 2003 visit, we had some wonderful meals, so we had high expectations on our return visits. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some truly great experiences since, but they have become more few and far between. Now it’s down to the stage where we have two tried and trusted places that we love going back to – Inventions, which is the character buffet at our hotel, the Disneyland Hotel, and Walt’s – An American Restaurant, located along Main Street USA.
We spoke to Sara about whether they wanted to join us for any meals, and the only request that she put in was for a character breakfast at Café Mickey on the final morning we’re there, as that’s Daisy’s actual birthday. However, when I called to book, I was told that restaurant only takes bookings two days beforehand, so I guess we’ll be enquiring about that when we check in at the Disneyland Hotel then… Fingers crossed that we get it!
We debated for some time about what to do for dinner on the Saturday and Sunday nights. We may need something to keep us going on the Saturday, as we won’t have had a big breakfast, but that’s fine – I’m sure we can grab some snacks in the park, and heck, we may even take some snacks with us. We could’ve gone for the easy option, and just picked Walt’s for one night and Inventions for the other, but part of me wanted to be a bit more daring, and try something new, or somewhere we haven’t been for a number of years.
In the end, Mark surprised me by saying “let’s try something new”. I’d mentioned to him that they do the dinner show there, and we’ve never been. I thought it might be fun for the kids, but Sara thought it might be a bit too much for them, which is fair enough. Mark remembered the conversation and suggested going there. I found out that you could buy tickets through the same site that we got our park tickets, but then I found that you could book them directly through the Disneyland Paris website, and it’s the same price, so I went ahead and did that.
Like the Walt Disney World dinner shows, they have different categories of seating, so I went for category 1, the higher priced ones. The show is Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show with Mickey and friends, and apparently it’s the wildest show in the west. Apparently it involves gun-slinging, sensational stunts, oh and some appearances, as the title suggests, from Mickey and his friends. Well, heck it’s got to be worth it for the last bit alone.
When I booked, there wasn’t anywhere that I could note that I don’t eat meat, but I’m assuming if I mention that when we check in, it should be Ok. That’s how it’s worked at Walt Disney World in the past. I’ll also have to tell them to hold the warm apple dessert, but just give me a lot more vanilla ice cream, given I’m allergic to apples.
We were also going to go for the Disneyland Paris of the California Grill, but when I called to book, I was told it was closed, which I thought I’d seen somewhere online, although interestingly not on the Disneyland Paris website. Figures, knowing how good Disney are with their online presence. However, I had a back-up plan, just in case… I reverted back to our old favourite of Inventions, the character buffet meal at the Disneyland Hotel, which may (fingers crossed! ) have my donkey boy, Eeyore (also known as Bourriquet in Disneyland Paris) making a starring appearance. Now that really would top off my evening!
I have to say the Cast Member I spoke to wasn’t exactly magical, and it may well be that English is his second language, so perhaps I’m being unfair, but this is, to me, what just doesn’t work at Disneyland Paris. The magic is missing. I really wish they’d put the call centre for dining reservations in the UK, given that most of the foreign visitors to Disneyland Paris come from the UK. Perhaps then you could get a bit more dialogue going.
As it was, it was very business like, asking what day, what restaurant, what time, and how many people, and then my name. And that was it. That’s the other thing I’m not keen on Disneyland Paris – you don’t get any reservation number. You’re just told “that’s booked”, and then they move on to the next one. I really don’t like that system, as to me, it’s too easy to turn up, and someone’s missed you off the list. At least with a reservation number, you have some proof of your booking.
Will you have time to enjoy the spa at the Friday hotel?
That's the plan, especially given Mark is now regularly swimming with me. I'm thinking maybe go to the local supermarket and grab something to snack on for dinner after perhaps a late lunch at Burger King at the Eurotunnel terminal? We'll see...
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We have booked Cafe Mickey day of before so hopefully you will be fine.
Oh that's really good to know.
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Sadly what you just said about DLP dining is how we are feeling about WDW dining with only a very few exceptions
Wow, that surprises me. We always have problems narrowing it down, plus there are so many new restaurants to try this time - we're hoping to get into the Skipper Canteen and Tiffin's and we already have Morimoto Asia, the Sunday brunch at the California Grill and the Boathouse booked as well. Then of course there are our favourites... Boma, Crystal Palace etc.
I want to finish up by talking a bit about the attractions at the two parks at Disneyland Paris. The Disneyland Park is your traditional “Magic Kingdom”, and as a result, they have a lot of similar attractions, but with some, they are similar, but different, if that makes sense? Others are completely the same, just to confuse things even more… There are also some unique Disneyland Paris attractions, and the list of our must-see places falls into the various different categories:
Similar attractions
Pirates of the Caribbean – a true Disney classic, and every one at Disney parks around the world is different in some way, which is why it’s so much fun to ride them all. I also love the entrance to this attraction in Paris. I think it’s perhaps the best in the world.
Phantom Manor – the French version of the Haunted Mansion, and just like Pirates, it’s very different. Imagine hearing some of the narration in French! I rest my case…
The same attractions
It’s a Small World – heck, this doesn’t change from one park to the next, and of course we have to do it, firstly because Mark’s mum loves it, and secondly because it will wind Mark up a treat!
Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast – this is always fun, so if the lines aren’t too long, we’ll definitely do it!
Dumbo the Flying Elephant – again, if it’s not mobbed, and the kids want to go on it, then heck why not?!
Unique Disneyland Paris attractions
Alice’s Curious Labyrinth – here you get to explore a maze, which isn’t too difficult, packed with touches from Alice in Wonderland
La Taniere du Dragon – this is where the dragon lives underneath the castle, coming to life every so often, and he’s well worth a visit
Les Mysteres du Nautilus – this walk-through of the Nautilus submarine is nothing exciting, but as I’ve always had a soft spot for the Nautilus submarines that are sadly no more at Disney World
A night-time spectacular – Disney Dreams – Ok, this is going to be a tough one, as these are the nightly fireworks that take place when the park closes, but given it closes at 10:00pm, that’s going to be a late night!
The second park, the Walt Disney Studios Park, is still a lot smaller than the Disneyland Park, even though it’s undergone some serious expansions over the past couple of years.
Similar attractions
Stitch Live! – slightly controversially, I’ve put this here, as it is similar to the attraction they have in Hong Kong Disneyland, which is called Stitch Encounter. In fairness, it’s not the same, as obviously they have shows in either English, French and Spanish here, but in Hong Kong, the shows are in either English or Chinese.
The same attractions
The Art of Disney Animation – this is one that, if everyone else is up for doing, I’ll always give it a go, as the opportunity to try your hand at drawing a Disney character is something you don’t get to do every day.
Unique Disneyland Paris attractions
Ratatouille: the Adventure – this really is the latest in technology and is the park’s new big e-ticket ride, so if the waits aren’t too crazy, I’ll be giving this another go.
Animagique – provided it’s open that is, I certainly hope so, as it’s a lot of fun, and I think the kids will love it.
Cinemagique – I love the way this blends together film and live action, and the use of both French and English in it is very well done
Well, that’s it for this pre-trip report. We are all set, although it has been a last minute run around with all sorts of things that needed doing. Our car insurance covered us for three days of driving abroad, but of course we’re away for a total of four days, so I had to call up and pay for the fourth day. It’s a bit of a pain, but there was no way I was going to take the risk, because a certain law says if anything was going to happen, it would happen on the fourth day.
We also had to stock up and make sure that we’d got everything in the car for this trip, as France has different requirements for what you need when you drive. Essentially, over here, you don’t really need anything with you. You can present your documentation, if required, at a police station within seven days, but in France you need them with you, so we’ll be taking a copy with us. You also have to have high-visibility jackets with you in the car itself, so if you break down, you can exit the car wearing it. We always carry those with us now, so that’s no problem.
You’re also required to have alcohol breath testers in your car, and we didn’t realise that these have an expiry date on them. Of course, ours were out of date, so we’ve bought new ones, and at least now we know to check them before we go abroad. You also need a first aid kit, which we have, and a spare set of bulbs for your lights, which worried me, given we’ve got a new car since the last time we went to France. We went to buy a set and were told that there wasn’t a set which worked for our car, but then they said all you need is a spare set, they don’t actually have to fit your car, so we’re making do with the previous set we had.
I also had to check whether my mobile phone would work abroad, as I got a new one a few weeks earlier. I figured if it didn’t, that could be a bit of a disaster, given we’d want to contact the others while we’re away. Fortunately, a quick call to my provider confirmed that I do have European coverage, so fingers crossed it will all work as soon as we get to France…
The major problem we ran into came in the form of a phone call on Sunday morning, when we were informed by our credit card provider that our card had been cloned. We’ve been here and done this before, so we know how it works. They put a stop immediately to the fraudulent transactions, so we had no worries there. Ironically one of them was an attempt to spend money at Saks Off Fifth. Well, I guess the fact someone was trying to do that at the same time I was using the card in the UK would’ve rung a few alarm bells.
Our new cards have been ordered, but as I write this, they haven’t turned up. Whether they arrive today remains to be seen. I’m guessing, given we’re leaving at lunchtime tomorrow, they won’t make it before we go tomorrow, as often our post turns up in the early afternoon. Oh well, what will be will be…
Thankfully, we weren’t planning on using the credit card that much during this trip, as we’ve already got a few Euros in cash and we’ve put a fair chunk of money on to our travel money card. This is a card you can purchase over here and put various currencies on it. We’ve only ever used it for American dollars, but now it has Euros on as well, and we’ll be adding Canadian dollars in due course, ahead of our September trip, which will see us visit some of the main cities in the eastern part of the country. Thank goodness we had that as a back-up! You basically load money on to it, and it’s separate from any bank account or other cards, which means if anything else is compromised, the travel money card isn’t.
So that’s it… we’re ready to go tomorrow… the next update will probably be whatever live updates I can do while we’re gone. Have a good weekend – we certainly hope to!
Good to know your list of differences with the rides. I'm still hoping to get to DLP for that Half marathon - if they have it in 2017. We shall see......
Very interesting about the requirements while driving in France. I've never heard of that before! I wonder - does that apply to rental cars too? Do the rental car companies just have all that stuff inside every car?
Oh those credit cards! That has happened to me twice right before a vacation! I can guarantee you won't get the new cards before you leave the house.
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It's always so much fun to experience a Disney park through the eyes of a first timer. No matter what, this will be a wonderful trip for that aspect alone! I'm curious to see how Tom likes it simply because my husband is not a Disney fan. At all. So I love to see how first timers - who don't care for Disney - enjoy their time spent there.
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Pixie Dust
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We went with one of Mark's other sisters and their kids to Disney World in 2007, I think it was (gosh, where does the time go? 
) and it was the first time the kids had visited Disney and it was wonderful to see their reactions. 
It's something to ask when we check in... thanks for the reminder! 
It seems like there are so many things that Disneyland Paris ought to do to be in line with the American parks, but it doesn't...
) we figured maybe he should only take a half day. Honestly, this isn’t as bad as it sounds, as he’s the one who opens up every day, and works something stupid like 10 plus hours every day, and often works Saturdays and when he’s supposed to be away on vacation, so I really don’t feel bad about it. 
Just about every hotel I came up with was too expensive, even though I thought they were pretty cheap. In the end, we managed to find a two bedroom apartment at 
I feel like a broken record here, as I know I said something similar before our last visit to Disneyland in California, but we have sadly found some of the restaurant offerings at Paris to be lacking in recent years. 
However, when I called to book, I was told that restaurant only takes bookings two days beforehand, so I guess we’ll be enquiring about that when we check in at the Disneyland Hotel then… Fingers crossed that we get it! 
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