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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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04-09-2010, 12:30 AM
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#1
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Community Rank: Day-Tripper
Join Date: Mar 2010
Posts: 9
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The Recapturing Our Chidhoods/23rd Birthday Pre-Trip Report
OK, yeah, I just can’t help myself…my vacation is in 22 days, and I am BEYOND excited, so I’ve decided to write up a pre-trip report to both let people know what we’re doing, and also get some suggestions if there’s anything I don’t have planned! So here it goes, bear with me if this isn’t a great report, it’s my first  .
My best way to explain what led to this trip is that I always have horrible birthdays, and I wanted this year to be different. I scheduled a vacation week for the last week of April (my birthday), but that still wasn’t enough. So I talked to my best friend, and we decided on Disney World!
I have to come clean and admit that I’m a “cast member”. I don’t actually work at Disney World, but my company is owned by Disney, so we get a lot of the same benefits. I have free admission for me and 3 guests to the parks and we get great discounts on both resorts and dining, so Disney seemed like a great choice for us. We could have a blast, and not spend TOO much (though I’m sure that’ll just lead to us buying more things when we’re there!). Because of money and time (we all have full time jobs, a miracle in this economy, and we had to get time off), we decided to go for three nights over a weekend (April 30th-May 3rd). We all would have loved to go longer, but that just wasn’t gonna work for us, so three days it is!
The first thing to do was choose where to stay. I knew there were likely to be three of us (other people said they wanted to come, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t pan out – I was right, it’s funny how you can always tell these things). We wanted to stay somewhere nice, but still watch our pockets, so we chose Port Orleans – Riverside (I have to admit, we would have done French Quarter, but I fell in love with the ambience at POR, and just couldn’t help myself). My friends were all for it, so the plans were made!
The cast of characters is as follows:
Me, Lana, 22 going on 23, the birthday girl
Laura, 23, my best friend and partner in crime
John, 22, my other P.I.C. and a fellow “cast member”
The next step was to figure out what we’re going to do when! I’m a planner, and our 180 day was far behind us, so I set to work making ADRs. I wish I could account for every one I made, but I went back and forth so many times I completely lost track! A big thing for us was finding places that gave us a cast discount (we’re cheap  ), and that had good options for a vegetarian (Laura’s the vegetarian, but she loves sides and doesn’t eat TOO much). Buffets were great for us and me, being the planner that I am, went off! We LOVE eating breakfast out (probably because we’re typical 20 somethings who are never out of bed early), and characters are a big plus for us too  .
These were the ADRs I came up with:
Friday, April 30th – 50s Prime Time Café at 8:00pm (we eat late)
Saturday, May 1st – 1900s Park Fare Breakfast at 8:20am
Saturday, May 1st – Biergarten at 1:00pm
Sunday, May 2nd – Tusker House Breakfast at 9:20am
Sunday, May 2nd – Liberty Tree Tavern at 7:30pm
The next step was to try to make some plan for what we were doing on what day. Since we only have three days, I want to maximize our time, haha. We guided ourselves by the ADRs and decided as follows:
Friday, April 30th: We arrive around 11am, and will take the Magical Express to our hotel! Assuming everything is on time (*fingers crossed*), we’re planning on leaving our things at the hotel and going over to Hollywood Studios. The plan is to leave for Hollywood Studios as soon as possible, but we’re going back and forth about whether to wait for our room to get ready or, if it’s going to take a while, to just take off and come back that night to check everything out (opinions are welcome as far as this goes  ).
Saturday, May 1st: The plan for this day is to do Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon/evening. We have the Biergarten ADR at 1, so we figure that will guide our exploring a little bit. There aren’t a TON of things we want to do at Animal Kingdom other than the safari (though I really want to see Finding Nemo if we can manage to drag John), so I’m sure we’ll work it out. At Epcot, well, I’m celebrating my 23rd birthday and we’re all of age, so I’m sure there will be a little bit of drinking (nothing too extreme, don’t hide your children  ). By the end of this day, I’m sure we’ll be exhausted.
Sunday, May 2nd: MAGIC KINGDOM!!!!! We do start the day out at Tusker House, however, and I really want to see the opening of the park at Animal Kingdom, so hopefully I can get those lazy friends out of bed early enough to do that :P. After breakfast, we’ll do any of the things at Animal Kingdom that we didn’t get to do Saturday. There are extra magic hours at MK until 1am, so I’m sure we’ll be able to get everything done there!
And then back home! As you MAY be able to tell, I’m a bit of a planner  . Though I’m sure everything will go out the window as soon as we get there, but that’s part of the fun of it! I COULDN’T be more excited.
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