THE BEST WEEK LONG BIRTHDAY PARTY EVER!!! The best part was we were all together! Trip Report: Sept 7th - 17th, 2008 **Updated 10/3** - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sunday Sept 7th First leg of trip to Harrisburg / Hershey PA.
We were slated to leave at 6am. So, I think (being that we were up till 2am the night before) we did pretty well to be out and on the road for 6:40am.
We stopped in Brockville ON at the McDonalds for breakfast and the service was SOOOOOO slow that it took me over a half hour to get back to the car with breakfast.
A few rest stops later and we found ourselves in Chocolate heaven... Hershey PA. I highly recommend a trip on the Great American Chocolate Factory tour if you’re in the area. Its a little cheesy. But really entertaining at the same time. (Kind of in the same way “It’s a small world” is.) Aaron LOVED the singing cows. So, after a quick tour around the attached outlet, a few pics of Aaron with the worlds largest chocolate bar, and a stuffed cow, we were on our way to the Disney Outlet, Cheeburger Cheeburger and the hotel.
When Marc and I go on a road trip, we have always enjoyed finding food we can’t get where we live. And thus, when we saw online that there was a Cheeburger Cheeburger 15 minutes from the hotel, on our itinerary it went! ... Not so impressed really. We pulled up to the manager using the MOST profane language while berating one of his employees at the front door. The food was really greasy, and the server was confused. Both Marc and I left feeling a little disappointed that we hadn’t just ate at the Chik-Fil-A in the same parking lot.
After a night in the Wingate by Wyndam in Harrisburg, we were off to our next destination of Charlotte NC.
Monday Sept 8th Second Leg of the trip to Charlotte, NC
We were over an hour late leaving for Charlotte Monday morning. But, we were tired from the day before and I let both the little man and the big man sleep in an effort to ensure a happy day of driving.
Sadly, this cost us our visit to Discovery Place in Charlotte. As well as a good look at the city which from what I saw, is gorgeous. It did however, not cost us an ounce of the culinary exploration that we had had planned... We are big fans of the show “Diners, Drive-ins & Dives” on the Food Network. And whilst planning we saw a couple episodes that convinced us that Charlotte was a place we HAD to stop on our journey. We decided when we stopped somewhere in West Virginia (just for gas and snacks) and Marc overheard a restaurant patron ask for a fat old opossum for lunch that we’d better just stick with the plan and we drove straight to The Penguin Drive in (in Charlotte) and had a late lunch in their fried pickles (AWESOME!), road runner hotdog and a corn dog.
Then we headed over to the hotel for a swim and a nap before meeting friends at Mert’s Heart & Soul for dinner.
Let me just say that up until this vacation, I would have sworn up and down that the friendliest people on earth were living on Canada’s east coast. But, I stood corrected for the majority of the time I was in Charlotte. Mert’s Heart & Soul is just that. I didn’t meet Mert. But, the heart & soul of his employees is put into every ounce of his business. The food is amazing. And the hospitality somehow manages to out weigh it. Aaron fell asleep on the table in the restaurant before his meal (what had to be the yummiest grilled cheese ever. Even cold) and the staff took a bunch of pictures. I think one of them is going on the wall at their front door.
Tues Sept 9
Still in Charlotte
Then, because we had such an awesome experience at Mert’s, we decided to wait around the next day until Bill Spoon’s BBQ opened. This meant that we would not be leaving Charlotte until 11:30am and not arriving in Daytona until around 8pm. But, with Ike causing some rain in the area anyway, we figured our beach plans were tanked to begin with.
BILL SPOONS IS FABULOUS!!! It is a must stop for us anytime we’re within an hour or two of our route on any of our future road trips. First of all, we were outside waiting for it open 20 minutes early. Out came Mrs. Spoon (Mr. Spoon passed away last year) and said “Are you waitin’ to get in here Honey? Let me just get ‘em going for you.” And not 2 minutes later she was opening the doors for us. I think everyone in the restaurant said hello and welcomed us in. Our food was up in minutes and our glasses of sweet tea never got to be less than half full. There was conversation and free hushpuppies and cookies for Aaron. And it broke our hearts to leave. But, we did. And on our way out of the parking lot, Mrs. Spoon reappeared to ensure that we had enjoyed our meal and tell us a little about what it had been like when she and her husband had run it years ago. We chatted about where we were from and where we were going. And it was almost as though we were talking to family. I would make the trip to Charlotte again and again just to eat there.
(Sorry I ate some of my BBQ first.)
Third leg of the trip – Daytona Beach FL.
We rolled into Daytona about 8pm and fell in love with our hotel room in the Hilton. It was spacious and fresh. We toyed with the idea of getting more BBQ. But decided on a cruise down the strip (atlantic avenue) and picking up Papa John’s pizza and calling it a night. After all, we had to be up early the next morning to start our REAL adventure in the Magic Kingdom.
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WOW! After a total 180 degree turn in life, I'm going back to Disney! SSR THV Jan. 8th, 2012 DB37, DS5, DSD7, DMom62 & DDad63, DFIL72. SOOOOOOO excited!!! PTR HERE
Read my COMPLETED Sept. 2008 pre-trip report HERE
Read my not finished Trip report from Sept. 2008 HERE
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WOW! After a total 180 degree turn in life, I'm going back to Disney! SSR THV Jan. 8th, 2012 
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