PTR: Holiday trip for 3? Err, 5? Wait… 9?? Oh, 7..ish? - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I tried to do a trip report after our second most recent trip (April ’10), but I failed miserably. I’m like a kitten, I get distracted too easily by shiny objects. My apologies to anyone that might have been reading it, but I’m going to try again. This time, I’ll start with a PTR and see if I can manage to keep up with it until we go. If so, maybe I’ll have a better chance of actually doing an entire trip report this time! Anyway… where to start? Oh, right, cast of characters. (Characters, yes indeedy!)
Me: I’m Jaime. (Hi again!) 35 year old stay at home mom that works as an ASL interpreter when I’m not being a Stay at Home Mom. I’m a South Mississippi girl, and I visited Disney for the first time in ’81, when I was 5. My family visited every 4 years or so growing up (had to save those pennies up!), but once I introduced my husband (then fiancé) in ’00, we’ve been going much more often!
DH: Kenneth, he’s 36. He grew up in a military family, but they were mostly in the northern part of the U.S. They settled down in WV when his father retired, and the poor thing had never been to Disney until I drug him there in 2000. He’s just as addicted as I am now.
DD: Jocelyn (or Joc), she’s 4 ½. Her first trip to Disney was when she was 18 months, and she has been three other times since then. She’s a born and bred Disney addict, from her very first bedroom being covered with Mickey and having a Mickey mobile over her head. She’s a thrill ride fan already, too. Sure, she loves the ‘kid rides’, but she was just at 40” last trip and was able to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (10 times!) and Tower of Terror (3 times!). She can’t wait to get back to ride them again.
MIL: Susie. She’s been to Disney World twice so far, both times with us. The first time was in 2002 (when I had no idea how to plan for it) and then again in 2009. She’s pretty laid back and easy going. Mostly, when she’s with us, she just wants to be with us, and mostly with Joc.
FIL: Chuck. Ah Chuck… He’s a Retired Marine and he and I are like oil and water. He’s hard to please a lot of the time, and has a tendency to become fixated on one thing that he finds he really enjoys (say one park, one ride, or one restaurant). He usually does decently when things are scheduled though, as long as I make sure there are good things to eat along the way.
Nieces: Elizabeth (15) and Lia (13 ½). They’ve only been to Disney once, when they were 6 and 4, so I have no idea what rides they’ll prefer. Elizabeth is pretty laid back, as long as her cellphone is nearby. Lia is a picky eater, but I’m sure she can at least find something to eat at most of the Disney eateries. I know they both love rides, and one is secretly in love with Cinderella, while the other is not so secretly in love with Tink.
Now, how about an explanation about the title. Originally, this trip was going to be the standard 3 person trip of my husband (Kenneth), daughter (Jocelyn) and myself (Jaime). However, since we are going the week after Thanksgiving and my mother-in-law was guilting my husband about us not going up to visit for Thanksgiving, we wound up inviting them. That was 3 +2, giving us 5. Since my parents joined us last year and they brought my niece and nephew, my husband thought it would only be fair if Ken’s parents brought his nieces along. (Note: My parents paid for my niece and nephew’s tickets and then insisted on paying for our daughter’s as well. However, since we suggested they could come, we will now be splitting the cost of tickets for his nieces wherever we happen to go.) So… my husband’s mom tries to ask their mom if they can come, and the next thing we know we’re being informed that they’re trying to make it as well. Wait… what? 5 + 4 = 9?? Our condo says it comfortably sleeps 8, but I felt it was at capacity with 4 adults, 1 teen, 1 tween, and 1 preschooler last year. I couldn’t even begin to imagine adding another pair of adults in there! Thankfully, after two weeks of trying to figure out how to manage that many people (and trying to not kill my husband for not dealing with his family so I wouldn’t have to be the evil daughter-in-law, I finally was informed that my brother-in-law and his wife will not be joining us. The nieces? I’m not sure yet (mom doesn’t want them to go without her), but MIL is working on it. Anyway, that’s what the title is all about.
Coming up: How I make plans, unmake them, remake them, and rearrange them!
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Disney World Trips So Far: 1982, 1986, 1990, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016a (2016b in planning)
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