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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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It's finally time for me to start my TR. I'm not going to reiterate anything from my PTR - I have a link up above if anyone is just tuning in or needs to go back and re-read anything Here we go.
Mom's buying so we're flying - July 20 to July 27 2011
I’d like to say our vacation started on Tuesday the 19th but it didn’t . We had a bunch of pre-vacation things to do and none of it was fun. We didn’t even order out for dinner like we have in the past. I don’t even know if I can say our vacation actually started when we woke up on Wednesday morning.
Tuesday night we all managed to be in bed - and asleep - early. Lenny and Abby were both asleep by 8 and I was asleep somewhere between 8 and 9. Unfortunately, I woke up about 1:15 to use the bathroom and I just couldn’t get back to sleep . By 2:15, I’d had enough of tossing and turning so I just got out of bed for the day. Other than getting ready and waking everyone else up, I had nothing to do. Since mom was going to drive us to the airport, she had insisted that her car be completely packed up Tuesday night. It was - with the exception of Abby’s friends. I couldn’t make her shove them in a bag to be left in the car overnight but that was the only thing not put in the car.
So there I was - the only one awake with nothing to do at 2:30 in the morning, so I did what any other going to Disney in a few hours Disney fanatic would do. I came here to the boards . I didn’t spend a lot of time here as we did have to be out of the house early. I was off the computer by 3:15ish and I spent the next hour making sure everyone else was getting up and ready, unloading the dishwasher and giving lots of attention to my 3 dogs and my bunny . Our "goal" was to be out of the house and on our way to the airport by 4:30 am. And we made it with minutes to spare - which mom liked. She hates leaving late for anything (but I can’t blame her, she still had to come home and get ready for work). The drive was uneventful and we made it to the airport at 5:10. Part of me wasn’t overly happy as that meant we now had a 3 hour wait before our scheduled flight . In the long run, it was still good though because with Lenny having metal hips, I didn’t know how long we’d be at security for.
Mom pulled up to curbside check in and instead of the long wait I expected, there was next to no wait at all. I think there was only one family in front of us. And truthfully, the next few events happened so fast that a lot of it is a blur to me. I know the skycap who took our luggage also got me a wheelchair for Lenny. He asked if I needed someone to push Lenny and I said no, with all our checked luggage gone I could manage him. The skycap also told me to take Lenny over to the right of the security queue to the employee queue (which I learned is also the wheelchair line). As soon as we got there, I started getting out our boarding passes and ID’s then mom was there to say goodbye again (we had given hugs and said goodbye at curbside) while the TSO was asking for everything from me. So that was all kind of confusing trying to say goodbye and hand over all the paperwork all at the same time. The TSO handed me back our stuff and told me which line to get in and while I was trying to figure out what carry ons I needed to open, mom was peeking through all the cracks in the partitions between the public area and the security area to try to talk to us some more so our turn came sooner than I expected. I kind of started throwing things in bins because I didn’t want to hold up the line behind us. I do know the TSO here took some of the bags out of the bins and I’m not sure where Lenny went to but he was gone and off somewhere else so he wasn’t there to help. Abby was still with me trying to help but she forgot to take her backpack off and someone told me that she still had it on because I hadn’t even noticed.
I have to say despite all the confusion for me, security really was a breeze . The only thing that was flagged for being double checked was Lenny’s 8 ounce bottle of Pepto Bismol that he wanted to keep with him. I have to laugh about that though for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the bottle was completely safety sealed - plastic wrap and foil seal - but it still needed to be checked. The other reason why I have to laugh is after all our stuff went through the scanner I picked it all up, kind of threw it to the side at a bench where Abby was sitting and then started taking my time putting things to rights - including putting on my shoes. The whole time I was doing this (somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes I would say), the TSO was standing there at a table with the bottle in front of him. I thought he was standing there waiting for someone to come and test it but that wasn’t the case. After I was all set, he had Lenny open the bottle to test it. I’m not sure why he didn’t have Lenny open it while I was getting all set but hey, maybe he enjoyed watching confusion at work . And in all that confusion, Abby put our bag of breakfast items on the floor instead of the bench and ended up stepping on it . That’s okay though - Lenny and Abby still ate the stuff .
We finally walked away from security and headed to our gate. Luckily TF Green Airport is small and once past security my only choices were to turn left or right - and our gate was off to the left. We made it there at about 5:50 and once Lenny and Abby were seated, they started to eat. I couldn’t relax and really didn’t want any food and after a little bit I needed a break from both Lenny and Abby. While they didn’t really do anything in particular, I just felt really stressed so I headed off to Dunkin’ Donuts for some drinks. The line was pretty long but we had plenty of time to wait so it didn’t bother me. I got some coffee for Lenny, a milk for Abby, a soda for myself and a water for all of us to share plus 3 english muffin sandwiches. Abby didn’t like hers so I told her she could go watch the planes taking off and landing at the gate next to ours. I could see her the whole time so I was fine with her being as far away as she was. Lenny wolfed down his sandwich plus Abby’s after she said he could have it and I managed to eat one and have something to drink with it. After that I was a little less stressed and joined Abby in her plane watching.
About This Page: 
. We had a bunch of pre-vacation things to do and none of it was fun. We didn’t even order out 
for dinner like we have in the past. I don’t even know if I can say our vacation actually started when we woke up on Wednesday morning.
- early. Lenny and Abby were both asleep by 8 and I was asleep somewhere between 8 and 9. Unfortunately, I woke up about 1:15 to use the bathroom and I just couldn’t get back to sleep . By 2:15, I’d had enough of tossing and turning so I just got out of bed for the day. Other than getting ready and waking everyone else up, I had nothing to do. Since mom was going to drive us to the airport, she had insisted that her car be completely packed up Tuesday night. It was - with the exception of Abby’s friends. I couldn’t make her shove them in a bag to be left in the car overnight but that was the only thing not put in the car.
. I didn’t spend a lot of time here as we did have to be out of the house early. I was off the computer by 3:15ish and I spent the next hour making sure everyone else was getting up and ready, unloading the dishwasher and giving lots of attention to my 3 dogs 
and my bunny 
. Our "goal" was to be out of the house and on our way to the airport by 4:30 am. And we made it with minutes to spare - which mom liked. She hates leaving late for anything (but I can’t blame her, she still had to come home and get ready for work). The drive was uneventful and we made it to the airport at 5:10. Part of me wasn’t overly happy as that meant we now had a 3 hour wait before our scheduled flight 
. In the long run, it was still good though because with Lenny having metal hips, I didn’t know how long we’d be at security for.
for Lenny. He asked if I needed someone to push Lenny and I said no, with all our checked luggage gone I could manage him. The skycap also told me to take Lenny over to the right of the security queue to the employee queue (which I learned is also the wheelchair line). As soon as we got there, I started getting out our boarding passes and ID’s then mom was there to say goodbye again 
(we had given hugs and said goodbye at curbside) while the TSO was asking for everything from me. So that was all kind of confusing trying to say goodbye and hand over all the paperwork all at the same time. The TSO handed me back our stuff and told me which line to get in and while I was trying to figure out what carry ons I needed to open, mom was peeking 
through all the cracks in the partitions between the public area and the security area to try to talk to us some more so our turn came sooner than I expected. I kind of started throwing things in bins because I didn’t want to hold up the line behind us. I do know the TSO here took some of the bags out of the bins and I’m not sure where Lenny went to but he was gone and off somewhere else so he wasn’t there to help. Abby was still with me trying to help but she forgot to take her backpack off and someone told me that she still had it on because I hadn’t even noticed. 
. The only thing that was flagged for being double checked was Lenny’s 8 ounce bottle of Pepto Bismol that he wanted to keep with him. I have to laugh about that though for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that the bottle was completely safety sealed - plastic wrap and foil seal - but it still needed to be checked. The other reason why I have to laugh is after all our stuff went through the scanner I picked it all up, kind of threw it to the side at a bench where Abby was sitting and then started taking my time putting things to rights - including putting on my shoes. The whole time I was doing this (somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes I would say), the TSO was standing there at a table with the bottle in front of him. I thought he was standing there waiting for someone to come and test it but that wasn’t the case. After I was all set, he had Lenny open the bottle to test it. I’m not sure why he didn’t have Lenny open it while I was getting all set but hey, maybe he enjoyed watching confusion at work . And in all that confusion, Abby put our bag of breakfast items on the floor instead of the bench and ended up stepping on it . That’s okay though - Lenny and Abby still ate the stuff 
.
so I headed off to Dunkin’ Donuts for some drinks. The line was pretty long but we had plenty of time to wait so it didn’t bother me. I got some coffee for Lenny, a milk for Abby, a soda for myself and a water for all of us to share plus 3 english muffin sandwiches. Abby didn’t like hers so I told her she could go watch the planes taking off and landing at the gate next to ours. I could see her the whole time so I was fine with her being as far away as she was. Lenny wolfed down his sandwich plus Abby’s after she said he could have it and I managed to eat one and have something to drink with it. After that I was a little less stressed and joined Abby in her plane watching.
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