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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Well my house has been plagued with strep throat. DS got it first. He's learning to share right now, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, he doesn't understand that we would prefer that he doesn't share things like strep. We're on the road to recovery, but still slightly under the weather. While sick I had quite a bit of time sitting on the couch with nothing to do but think about our trip. So here's my first real draft at our day to day plans:
January 28th, 2012
Arrival day. We have an afternoon flight so it shouldn't be too hard to get someone to drive us to the airport as they won't have to get up super early. And we leave on a Saturday so most of our family isn't working. I haven't asked yet, but I'm sure my mom and dad will be willing to drive us to the airport. Hopefully I'll have most of our packing done the night before we leave so that we can just have a relaxing morning before heading to the airport. The reality of it will probably be me running around like a mad woman trying to finish up packing, but a girl can dream right? I'm not sure how early to arrive at the airport. I'm thinking of leaving our house around 2.5-3 hours before the flight (we're about 30-40 minutes from the airport). Will that be early enough with a baby/all the extra baby crap?
My in-laws live in the city and are only about 15-20 min from the airport. I've considered making a stop to pick them up on the way to the airport. My parents have a mini-van that could fit all of us and then we would all arrive at the airport together. I'm leery of doing this though as my MIL is consistently late for EVERYTHING. It really drives me batty and I'm not sure I want to start off my vacation in a bad mood so I might just let them work out their own airport transportation and meet them at the airport. I haven't decided, but I also haven't suggested car pooling to them either.
Once at the airport we'll try to grab a quick lunch somewhere. And then watch the planes while waiting to board. DS is obsessed with planes when they fly by, but I'm not sure if he really gets that the things up in the sky are airplanes. Maybe he will by our trip and he'll be content just watching the planes. We'll see. Or maybe we should encourage DS to run laps so he's exhausted by the time we board.
I'm hoping for an uneventful flight and an arrival at MCO around dinner time. We're going to be using DME so we'll head there and be on our way to POP. I've been trying to figure out what to do with our evening once we're there. I'm sure after checking in we'll need to get some kind of dinner as DS thinks we are going to starve him if we don't have dinner by a certain time. Must be a boy thing. Initially I thought we'd try DTD for dinner, but I'm thinking that because it is a Sat. night it will be too crowded. So we might just eat at the POP food court. Or maybe venture to another resort for their QS options. I'm not sure yet. After dinner we might just explore our resort or whatever resort we eat dinner at. DS has a fairly early bedtime and I want him to be well rested for our first park day so we'll probably call it an early night and just relax in the room while DS gets his much needed shut eye.
January 29th, 2012
Now I usually like to start and end my trip with a day at the MK, but we also really like the nighttime parade (we've only seen Spectro, but want to check out MSEP). We have a parade here in Minnesota called the Hollidazzle that is basically an evening parade with lights and I love it. However, it is a holiday parade and usually freezing in MN so being able to have a similar parade down in FL where it isn't 20 below zero is quite refreshing. The only problem is that during our trip they only have the parade on Monday and Thursday. So that means if we want to see the parade we can't start and end our trip with a day at the MK. So I've made the decision that I want to end the trip with MK so today will be an Epcot day! We Epcot so I'm sure we'll have fun. We're going to go with the flow on this one. If DS wakes up early we'll head out for rope drop. If not, we'll get there when we get there. We're also going to play mid-day breaks by ear. I'm thinking DS will nap in the stroller and we'll just stay in the park, but we'll see how that one goes. We'll either catch Illuminations this night (if DS cooperates) or the next day we are in Epcot.
January 30th, 2012
Today is going to be our MK day. I can't wait to take DS here! Although Dumbo is going to be closed. I really wanted to take him on this ride as there is a picture of me on that ride on my first trip when I was three. Oh well we'll have to ride it next time. I'd also really like to make it to rope drop. I think DS would really enjoy seeing the characters open the park. We'll see if we make it though. I'm not convinced my MIL would be ready in time to make it to rope drop, but if she's not they can always make it to the park later. We plan on staying for MSEP and Wishes so maybe we should wait for our next MK day to tackle rope drop. We'll see how DS does the day before. Or maybe we'll head back to the resort for naps on this day. I'm trying to stay as flexible as possible. Initially this was going to be our Epcot day and I had plans for a birthday celebration for my MIL and FILs b-days at Le Cellier, but the celebration has moved to later in our trip as I couldn't get a Le Cellier ressie for our first Epcot day.
January 31st, 2012
We're heading to AK today. I think DS will really like the animals. He's learning to identify the different animals and can even make some animal noises. Since AK has the shortest park hours I think it will be nice to have a day with our evening free to rest. I'm not sure what we'll do after the park closes. Maybe my in-laws will watch DS so that DH and I can go do something fun. I'm not sure what we'd do, but we can plan that later.
February 1st, 2012
This is our rest day. We have breakfast reservations at Chef Mickey's. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is DS's favorite so I thought this character meal would be the best for him. We're planning on heading to DTD at some point. Depending on the weather we might try to go swimming at the resort. Very low key day. I don't want to completely wear DS out on this trip.
February 2nd, 2012
This will be our second Epcot day and the birthday celebration for FIL and MIL. We're going to focus a little more on MIL as she is the one with the milestone birthday. I've got early lunch reservations at Le Cellier. We'll spend our day finishing up our Epcot TODO list and re-visit some of our favorites. I'm sure Nemo is going to be a repeat attraction for DS. He really likes the movie and his entire room is decorated in an under the sea theme so he loves fish. Of course DS calls Nemo "Mamo", Squirt is "Kurt" and Dori is just "Door". He's trying. If we didn't catch Illuminations we'll stay for that. If we already saw Illuminations we'll either leave early or enjoy other parts of the park.
February 3rd, 2012
Our last park day We're going to be in the MK. We'll just revisit favorites and catch the stuff we missed. I'm not sure if my in-laws will be with us this day or not. They keep saying that they were bored at MK the last time they were there and don't think it's worthy of 2 days. So they might try and check out another park. I'm not sure. Of course I'm not sure if my MIL will be willing to give up extra grandson time so I'm thinking they'll probably just follow us around. We'll stay here as long as we want and then head back to the resort to pack and rest for our trip home.
February 4th, 2012
We have a mid-morning flight which means DME will pick us up way too early for my liking. We'll check out and grab a quick bite to eat at the POP food court if we have extra QS credits. Otherwise we might grab something at the airport. This is always the saddest part of the trip. We will arrive back home around lunch time. Likely grab something to eat at the airport and hopefully my parents will be kind enough to pick us up. We'll have the afternoon/evening to unpack and likely do laundry. And Sunday to get over some of our Disney withdrawal related depression before returning to work on Monday.
Well I hate to end things on the sad note of the Disney trip ending so I'll add some Halloween pictures to brighten up the end of this post. Who doesn't love tiny people dressed up in costumes?
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trying to finish up packing, but a girl can dream right? I'm not sure how early to arrive at the airport. I'm thinking of leaving our house around 2.5-3 hours before the flight (we're about 30-40 minutes from the airport). Will that be early enough with a baby/all the extra baby crap? 
Epcot so I'm sure we'll have fun. We're going to go with the flow on this one. If DS wakes up early we'll head out for rope drop. If not, we'll get there when we get there. We're also going to play mid-day breaks by ear. I'm thinking DS will nap in the stroller and we'll just stay in the park, but we'll see how that one goes. We'll either catch Illuminations this night (if DS cooperates) or the next day we are in Epcot.
I really wanted to take him on this ride as there is a picture of me on that ride on my first trip when I was three. Oh well we'll have to ride it next time. I'd also really like to make it to rope drop. I think DS would really enjoy seeing the characters open the park. We'll see if we make it though. I'm not convinced my MIL would be ready in time to make it to rope drop, but if she's not they can always make it to the park later. We plan on staying for MSEP and Wishes so maybe we should wait for our next MK day to tackle rope drop. We'll see how DS does the day before. Or maybe we'll head back to the resort for naps on this day. I'm trying to stay as flexible as possible. Initially this was going to be our Epcot day and I had plans for a birthday celebration for my MIL and FILs b-days at Le Cellier, but the celebration has moved to later in our trip as I couldn't get a Le Cellier ressie for our first Epcot day. 
We're going to be in the MK. We'll just revisit favorites and catch the stuff we missed. I'm not sure if my in-laws will be with us this day or not. They keep saying that they were bored at MK the last time they were there and don't think it's worthy of 2 days. So they might try and check out another park. I'm not sure. Of course I'm not sure if my MIL will be willing to give up extra grandson time so I'm thinking they'll probably just follow us around. We'll stay here as long as we want and then head back to the resort to pack and rest for our trip home.
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