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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
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- Our Party: DH 36, Me 39, DD 16, DS 9, DD 3. We were also joined by my Mom 61, BIL 37, DNephew 14, DNeice 9. - Our Journey: Dec 30, 2007-Jan 1, 2008 Traveled to and from Disneyland from San Diego by family vehicle - Our Lodging: Anaheim Hilton via Priceline for the five of us. BIL, Mom, Niece and Nephew stayed at Best Western Stovall's Inn. - Our Special Plans: Have fun and ring in the new year!
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Woke up this morning, anxious to leave, but check in wasn't until much later, so we finished last minute packing, going over checklists once and again. DH makes fun of my checklists, but he also figures whatever we forget, we can pick up when we get there. But that's not nearly so obsessive-compulsive or fun! Besides, I like marking off the little checkboxes in my Passporter! And highlighting them, color coded, of course!
Everything feels like slow motion, but we FINALLY get everyone ready, packed into the truck and on the road! A never-ending stop for gas, another stop for lunch….okay, just be patient, we’ll get there…I had to keep telling myself to be patient!
The room for BIL is in our name, so the plan is to check into his hotel and get his keys, check into our hotel and drop off our stuff, then meet up at Rainforest Cafe for an early dinner, give him his room keys and spend the evening shopping, then get back to the room for showers and an early bedtime. Tomorrow is going to be fun, but brutal. All day without a nap, we haven’t done it since the last time we were there for New Year’s, back in 2006.
When we check into BIL’s hotel, Stovall’s Best Western, I’m surprised that it’s actually not bad for a Best Western! We would definitely consider this place in the future if we couldn’t find a hotel. Plus the fact there is a military discount, made it even better. The rooms were average sized, clean, with microwave and fridge, coffee maker. There was a free continental breakfast, which was okay, filling up the 14-year-old, according to mom and BIL. Standard stuff, hard boiled eggs, cereals, fruit, coffee juice, etc. They walked to DtD from the motel, it is just down Disney Way.
Checking into the Anaheim Hilton is starting to feel like visiting an old friend’s house. Ahhhh. The rooms are large and clean, although the parking garage is a little weird, and you have to change elevators to get to it. We had a bit of a walk to our room, but were compensated by the view of DCA to the right, and the pool area down below. We are thinking the pool was heated, as there were always people in the pool, as well as the spas. We didn’t make it to the pool or spas this trip, as everyone was just over a cold. We had brought along cereal and milk in a small cooler, along with paper bowls and plastic spoons, so that we could do breakfast very, very quickly and get to DL before general opening. Starbucks in the lobby rounded out breakfast. Thank goodness DH gets up and gets ready faster than any of us, which makes him the designated Starbucks runner.
Once we were unpacked, off to DtD! DH decided to valet park, the parking lot was awfully full! It is almost 4pm, our designated meeting time for dinner. We put our name at RFC, and begin to wait…and wait….and wait. The kids and I shop around. DH forgot the baby’s jacket, somehow, after all my checklists, so we looked around for a jacket for her, the kids were weighing souvenir options, their pockets heavy with Christmas Disney Dollars.
So we get called for our table…and still no BIL. We are starting to get worried, and can’t get in touch with him. We started off with the Awesome Appetizer Adventure…YUM! Then mom and I split the BBQ beef wrap, but pooped out before we could even think of a Volcano! Add it to the list for the next trip! We LOVE the Volcano! I had a delicious blended adult beverage, which I noted had bananas in it after I had ordered it. Don’t know why, but bananas make me ill. I was worried after I had taken a sip and tasted banana that our trip would be ruined by me doubled over in abdominal pain. Luckily, it takes more than a sip, or maybe the alcohol saved me, either way, when I went to order a new drink without banana, our waitress graciously offered to have my drink remade, without banana! Two ears up for her and the barkeep! It was still delicious sans the banana, but it was better with it!
We leave RFC stuffed, and waddle out into DtD, when mom gets a call from BIL, FINALLY! My niece and nephew do not know they are going to Disneyland, yet. They think we are going to grandma’s house for New Year’s, to spend it with aunts, uncles and cousins. Well, they were going to spend it with an aunt, and uncle and cousins, so I guess technically BIL wasn’t fibbing…ahem.
We finally meet up with BIL and my niece and nephew and promptly start to spoil them rotten! We head to Lego store, then off to Build A Bear where we made some new friends, Anthony, Princess Kitty and Princess Cheetah. Welcome to the family!
Since BIL and his kids missed dinner, they were on the lookout for somewhere to eat without a huge wait. Of all the places, the kids wanted pretzel dogs from Wetzel’s Pretzels. At least my BIL got off cheaper than we did with dinner.
Seven-thirty, and it was time to head back to the hotel, shopping bags in hand, and get ready for our day in Disneyland. It took very little cajoling to get the kids back to the hotel and march them through their baths and showers and into bed. We snuggled down into our comfy beds and fell asleep despite the excitement and anticipation.
Only to be woken up about 9:30-ish to the loud booms from the fireworks echoing from Disneyland! After we realized what it was, we went back to sleep when it was done. In retrospect, we should have gotten up to look at them, since it was the only fireworks during our visit, but the beds and the blankets wouldn’t let us up!
(I apologize for no pictures for this day, my camera was acting up and all the pictures from DtD were corrupted. New batteries fixed that, so there are pictures yet to come!)
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They walked to DtD from the motel, it is just down Disney Way.
New batteries fixed that, so there are pictures yet to come!)
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