From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Monday 27 February – part six: where’s our luggage?
When we were done eating, and it was a long meal, not necessarily of our doing, but more it was a bit slow on the service side (I think we left about 1:15pm, after having been seated at 11:30am), we headed out of the park, and off property to photograph some more hotels.
On the way, we did see some attractions, including the now closed Wet ‘n’ Wild. It’s a bit surreal to see it just sitting there, doing nothing…
We made our way over to the Orlando Premium Outlets to check out the stock in the Disney Character Premiere. I found a handbag – not exactly what I wanted, but it was $30, and I’m not convinced Disney sell what I’m looking for any longer sadly. Mark these words for later in the trip report…
That done, we made our way over to the BoardWalk. We parked up, not impressed with the lack of parking, and how big the valet parking area was. After hiking our way over to the lobby, we swore we’d use valet for much of the rest of our stay – not what we wanted to do, but we felt Disney were forcing us to do that.
Now, we’d been out all day, quite deliberately, to ensure we were arriving at check-in time. We were there at around 3:45pm, and check-in time was 4:00pm, so I was not impressed to be told that the room we were due to get was still being cleaned. I asked if it would be ready at 4:00pm, and got the standard response, which in layman’s language was “possibly not”. This is what annoys me. We get a lecture about check-in time is 4:00pm, you can’t expect a room to be ready before then. Ok, fair enough, but when we ask, you can’t tell us what time it would be ready.
The guy tried to give us literally one of the furthest rooms from the lobby, and we explained that was not going to work with my chronic fatigue. He offered us another room that seemed to be nearer, but honestly when we hiked over there, it was still a fair way away… and this is why we don’t like staying at the likes of the BoardWalk Villas or Wilderness Lodge Villas, as we always find ourselves miles from reception, which really taints the view we have of our stay there.
Even worse was to come. We went to bell to enquire about the luggage, only to be told it wasn’t there yet. Now Old Key West had told us it would be there by 4:00pm at the latest. Not quite the story we got from the BoardWalk… They told us deliveries take place from 1:00pm to 4:00pm, but the luggage can arrive way past that time, and apparently once the guy is out on deliveries, they have no way at all of reaching him to see where he is and how the deliveries are going. We were a bit shocked by that. We asked when the luggage might be arriving, and the guy was really helpful, but essentially couldn’t give us a time, and honestly told us it could be another couple of hours. I explained we were due out for dinner, and needed the change of clothes in our luggage, and he said he would keep an eye out for it and call us as soon as the cases arrived.
Not too impressed with our stay so far at the BoardWalk, we hiked off to find our room…
… which was very nice, and at least also came with a Jacuzzi bath.
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They told us deliveries take place from 1:00pm to 4:00pm, but the luggage can arrive way past that time, and apparently once the guy is out on deliveries, they have no way at all of reaching him to see where he is and how the deliveries are going. 
We were a bit shocked by that. We asked when the luggage might be arriving, and the guy was really helpful, but essentially couldn’t give us a time, and honestly told us it could be another couple of hours. 
I explained we were due out for dinner, and needed the change of clothes in our luggage, and he said he would keep an eye out for it and call us as soon as the cases arrived. 
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