Forums Closed
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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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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05-21-2007, 05:25 PM
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#1
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Community Rank: Traveler 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Los Angeles, California
Concierge Level: 1
Posts: 495
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June 1 – 7, 2008 - Mexican Riviera Cruise Can't Contain the Excitement Pre-trip Report **Updated 6/4**
Introductions:
Me – Sue (36) 
DH – (37)
DD1 – (9 1/2)
DD2 – (7)
DD3 – (7) Yep, they're twins!
DD4 – (4 3/4)
I know its early – a little more than a year away at this point – but I am positively bursting at the seems in anticipation of this cruise.  And having found that devouring this year's DCL Passporter, lurking on the passporter boards, and the near daily checking and rechecking of my reservations online are not enough to relieve the pressure of this kind of intense excitement,  I have decided to channel some of this energy into a pre-trip report for my own memories and those of you out there (like me) who can't think of anything better to do then spend the evening reading trip reports.  If this describes you, I hope you'll like it. 
Rewind: Summer 2002 – Dreaming and Scheming
I invite you to step back in time with me five years to the Summer of 2002. A sweltering hot 100+ degree Southern California day. Picture me:
8 months pregnant,
exhausted,
frazzled,
big as a whale, cooped up in our small condo, collapsed on the couch with very crabby 2-year-old twins taking turns pulling my hair and battering me with toys,  and a 4-year-old alternating between defending herself from the twins and trying to incite them to more mischief. 
 Time to put a movie on! In goes Disney's Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea into the DVD player. After a few movie pre-views a commercial begins for the Disney Cruise Line.
The commercial ended and the kids watched the movie, but my mind was thousands of miles away. I want that! I need that! TODAY!  Then the baby turned several in-utero somersaults and snapped my mind back to reality.
No, definitely not today. The twins are too little to want to ditch us for super fun looking Disney Camp,  and a cruise ship would not be a good place to go into labor.  Well someday I AM GOING TO HAVE THAT!!! And I began to scheme...  
DD4 is now nearly 4 years old. DH is just as gung-ho as I am to begin planning a cruise for the next year.  After a little research I determine that a Disney Cruise is, all things considered, a very good value, the only problems...  , with four kids we'll need two cabins....and, YIKES! Round trip air fare from LA to Orlando is NOT a good value.  The price would be too much for this year's budget. And after a short airplane trip in April '06 to Denver to visit DH's family, I am definitely not relishing the idea of a long flight with four little kids. 
Now this is the part I'm ashamed to write.  Cover your eyes if you're squeamish. I suggested to DH that for less than the price of a four day Disney Cruise and air fare to Florida, we could take a 7-day cruise out of L.A. on another cruise line that would be within our budget. 
This is DH's shining moment: he said,  No way! A Disney Cruise or nothing! So I somewhat begrudgingly agreed to bank this year's vacation budget and wait one more year until we could afford Disney. 
Fast Forward: Christmas '06 - I Am Fully Converted
Several months back I had an inspiration and bought tickets for the whole family to see The Lion King Stage Show for the day after Christmas as the big Christmas present for the year. This was somewhat of a gamble because the girls were still pretty young, the show was late at night, and we were not entirely sure they would love it as much as I hoped they would. Well any of you who have seen the show in person know what happened next – IT WAS AWESOME . Even DH who was unsure whether he would like it was amazed. The girls used some of their Christmas money from their GPs to purchase the original cast recording, memorized all the songs, and for the next month, our house was all Lion King, all the time.
I thought to myself,
You know, Sue, this may be the only cruise our family will be able to afford to take while the girls are young. They will never be at a better age to enjoy a Disney cruise! And this is exactly what you want it to be like – making awesome memories! And no cruise will be able to do that like a DCL Cruise. If the Lion King show was that awesome, imagine what an awesome experience a Disney Cruise would be! Fun Disney activities for the kids during the day while you relax, and then amazing shows to watch together as a family at night...and more! That's worth waiting for! I was 100% on board with DCL or nothing! 
I was casually talking to Terry, one of the other Mom's at DD1's Girl Scout meeting. It turns out that she is a Travel Agent that specializes in cruises. Who knew! I told her about our plans and lamented, “I just wish that the Disney Cruise would come back to L.A.!"  Now this was over four months ago, back when I was really naïve and had not yet heard of passporter. If I had spent my time researching instead of daydreaming, then I would have already known that the Disney Magic was planning to come back to L.A. in May of '08.  But fortunately Terry was there to clue me in. 
Now May of '08 was a little longer than we wanted to wait, but when we considered the pros and cons: ...the decision was a no-brainer. 
We told Terry that we didn't care which of the LA '08 cruises we got; just get us the best bang for our buck. And if we could save a bundle by having the kids skip school for a week  , then, Hallelujah, we'll have them skip school for a week.
Since I have uber motion sickness issues , she suggested we go for two Cat. 10 rooms in the middle of Deck 2 on the June 1-7, 2008 cruise. DH and I discussed the merits of inside room vs. port hole or veranda, and we decided to go for the inside rooms and use the money saved for souvenirs, photos, and port exursions (I have my heart set on a jungle zip line , and DD's want a dolphin encounter if one is offered). $1,500 deposit later, on January 30, 2007, we became the proud owners of a DCL confirmation for room numbers 2107 & 2109, on the DCL Magic for the June 1, 2008, Mexican Riviera Cruise!
Fast Forward: Today
Do you know what? I'm glad the cruise is over a year away! Now we get to plan and dream about it for the next twelve months. And I'm having a blast!
Next up: Getting passports  (I hope it goes smoothly), and One Year To Go Party. I'll keep you posted. 
Last edited by sueh818; 04-04-2008 at 04:22 PM..
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About This Page: 
The cute little girl has voluntarily ditched her parents for a super fun looking Disney Camp, and the parents are lounging about on deck sipping umbrella drinks! 
Could this ever be a reality for me?
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