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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day One
Well, the laundry’s done (finally!) and the unpacking complete, so I guess it’s time for my TR! For those who might be following who didn’t read my very short PTR, here is a brief introduction of us:
Our trip was October 15-23, and we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge on the Premium Dining Plan.
For us, October started crazy and never let up. October 1 was Elizabeth Frances’ first birthday, and then Phillip’s 12th birthday was just a few days later. The weekend after Phillip’s birthday, Phil’s youngest sister got married, so our Friday, Saturday and Sunday prior to our leaving for Disney were insane and packed with family events. I thought I had the Monday-Friday before our trip pretty empty so I could get laundry done, shopping done, and the house in order. Not so. That week became insane as well. We had snow the week before, so William and Phillip’s soccer games were cancelled that week, meaning they were rescheduled for the week of the 10-14. So add two soccer games. Patrick competes in gymnastics, and their big team meeting was scheduled for another night. Phillip had a major book report due before we left, so we had to work on that. Elizabeth Frances had a check up. A friend who had just returned from a very disappointing trip to WDW for the 40th anniversary wanted us to come by for dinner. I had planned to run errands on Thursday, which is the day I have a sitter for Elizabeth Frances, and then come home and clean the house. But all the stress caught up with me and I had a terrible migraine and ended up going to bed very early that night. Friday was incredibly stressful, with finishing the cleaning, packing and getting ready. But I knew it would get done (it had to, really), and it did.
I went to bed about midnight on Friday night, and got up about 6:00 am on Saturday morning. I showered and finished the last of the packing, while Phil packed the car. We got the boys and Elizabeth Frances up at about 6:30, and we were on our way by 7:15 am for our 9:45 flight. Sometimes it really pays to have boys as they get ready so quickly. Phil dropped us off so he could go park at the Park-n-Jet lot. The five of us waited in a very long security line for about 15 minutes, and then a TSA employee saw us and directed us to the “Special Needs” line because we had a stroller. There was no wait in this line and we were immediately at the front. It was chaotic for us to get through security, but we did it and then decided to get some breakfast. I called Phil to let him know that security was crazy, and he actually went through at a different terminal where the line was much smaller. I took the boys to get Krispy Kreme doughnuts and juice. Then we went to our gate and waited. The waiting area was full of families, because Utah’s fall break was the 19-21, so many families were going to Orlando.
Our flight was overbooked, so Delta was offering a $400 voucher plus first class seating on the next flight if you gave up your seat. It was VERY tempting, and if it had been Phil & I traveling alone we totally would have done it, but since we had the kids we didn’t take advantage. Our flight left right on time. Many of the kids I don’t think had ever flown before because a lot of them screamed like they were on a roller coaster when we took off. It was annoying, though, because I was trying to get Elizabeth Frances to fall asleep, so when the kids screamed, she woke right up. It was a very uneventful flight; we had individual TV screens on our seats so we were able to watch TV. Kids watched movies or played their DS; I played Monopoly on my iPad and rewatched Flight of the Conchords. Elizabeth Frances slept for maybe an hour of our 4 hour flight; when she woke up she watched Spongebob Squarepants which really surprised me since she doesn’t watch TV normally.
We arrived almost half an hour early, which was a huge relief. We left the plane and met Magical Express. We had a little wait, and Phil decided he had to go to the bathroom. I told him if he did, the bus would board. He left anyway, and sure enough, as soon as he got to the bathroom the cast member told us it was time to board. Our bus was only about half full, but we had to wait a while because a woman on the bus forgot to put the yellow tags on her luggage. Instead of disembarking the bus with her family to take care of the problem and then take a later bus, she held up our bus for about 15 minutes while she took care of getting her luggage delivered. And then she acted like it was ME’s fault!
A funny story: On our ME bus was a British family. We overheard the little girl say to her father, “But Daddy, I TOLD you alligators don’t exist!”
Wilderness Lodge was the third stop after Poly and GF. I had done the online check-in, so I was escorted to that desk. My parents had arrived at about 1:15, and they came down to the lobby to see us. Check-in took a lot longer than I had expected. Our rooms were ready and exactly what we requested: two connecting rooms, one with bunk beds and the other with 2 queen beds. Our rooms overlooked the lake and we could see the fireworks from Magic Kingdom at night. If our rooms had been up higher, I think we would have seen Cinderella castle. We also had a great view of the Electric Water Pageant. We headed up to our room to finish watching the LSU/Tennessee game (Geaux Tigers!), and then my mom & I went back to the concierge desk to pick up my package from babiestravellite.com. I highly recommend this service even though it is a bit pricey; I got everything I ordered and it all came exactly as I had ordered it. It saved a lot of room in our luggage, and we were able to mail everything we hadn’t used back to us.
Even though it was early, we decided to leave at 6:40 to catch the ferry to the Contemporary for our 7:30 dinner reservations at California Grill. I’m glad we did, because we had to wait for three ferries because the other two were completely packed. We made it just in time for our reservation, but waited to be seated until 8:15. By this time, the kids were exhausted and very hungry. They weren’t necessarily misbehaving, but doing things like laying on the floor which isn’t exactly appropriate.
I ordered the Rotisserie BBQ Chicken flatbread as my first course, with the beef filet as my main course. I think all the adults ordered the filet as their main course. My meal was delicious and probably the best meal we had our whole trip. For dessert I had the Valrhona Chocolate Cake, which, to be honest, wasn’t as good as I remember. I remember the cake being served warm, and this one wasn’t. We were able to watch Wishes from our window, which was beautiful. The boys loved it. We tried to catch the ferry back to the WL at 9:45, but again the one going to the WL was completely packed and was a minimum 30 minute wait for the next one , so we caught the ferry going to FW then to WL. The captain of this ferry tried to get everyone on. It was very cramped but so worth it! We got back to the room at about 10:20, which is when the WL ferry would have been coming back. Phil took the boys to go swim, and I took Elizabeth Frances with my parents to go get our mugs. Elizabeth Frances did NOT want to go to sleep and kept waking up every time I tried to put her down in the Port-A-Crib. She finally fell asleep for good at about 11. Phil returned with the boys shortly after. I got Will in bed, then left to get some bottled water. I ordered our room service for the next morning, and we were all in bed by 11:30.
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About This Page: 
October 1 was Elizabeth Frances’ first birthday, and then Phillip’s 12th birthday was just a few days later. The weekend after Phillip’s birthday, Phil’s youngest sister got married, so our Friday, Saturday and Sunday prior to our leaving for Disney were insane and packed with family events. I thought I had the Monday-Friday before our trip pretty empty so I could get laundry done, shopping done, and the house in order. Not so. That week became insane as well. 
We had snow the week before, so William and Phillip’s soccer games were cancelled that week, meaning they were rescheduled for the week of the 10-14. So add two soccer games. Patrick competes in gymnastics, and their big team meeting was scheduled for another night. Phillip had a major book report due before we left, so we had to work on that. Elizabeth Frances had a check up. A friend who had just returned from a very disappointing trip to WDW for the 40th anniversary wanted us to come by for dinner. I had planned to run errands on Thursday, which is the day I have a sitter for Elizabeth Frances, and then come home and clean the house. But all the stress caught up with me and I had a terrible migraine and ended up going to bed very early that night. 
Friday was incredibly stressful, with finishing the cleaning, packing and getting ready. But I knew it would get done (it had to, really), and it did. 
Phil dropped us off so he could go park at the Park-n-Jet lot. The five of us waited in a very long security line for about 15 minutes, and then a TSA employee saw us and directed us to the “Special Needs” line because we had a stroller. There was no wait in this line and we were immediately at the front. 
It was VERY tempting, and if it had been Phil & I traveling alone we totally would have done it, but since we had the kids we didn’t take advantage. Our flight left right on time. Many of the kids I don’t think had ever flown before because a lot of them screamed like they were on a roller coaster when we took off. 
It was annoying, though, because I was trying to get Elizabeth Frances to fall asleep, so when the kids screamed, she woke right up. It was a very uneventful flight; we had individual TV screens on our seats so we were able to watch TV. Kids watched movies or played their DS; I played Monopoly on my iPad and rewatched Flight of the Conchords. Elizabeth Frances slept for maybe an hour of our 4 hour flight; when she woke up she watched Spongebob Squarepants which really surprised me since she doesn’t watch TV normally.
We made it just in time for our reservation, but waited to be seated until 8:15. By this time, the kids were exhausted and very hungry. They weren’t necessarily misbehaving, but doing things like laying on the floor which isn’t exactly appropriate. 
For dessert I had the Valrhona Chocolate Cake, which, to be honest, wasn’t as good as I remember. I remember the cake being served warm, and this one wasn’t. We were able to watch Wishes from our window, which was beautiful. The boys loved it. We tried to catch the ferry back to the WL at 9:45, but again the one going to the WL was completely packed and was a minimum 30 minute wait for the next one 
, so we caught the ferry going to FW then to WL. The captain of this ferry tried to get everyone on. It was very cramped but so worth it! We got back to the room at about 10:20, which is when the WL ferry would have been coming back. Phil took the boys to go swim, and I took Elizabeth Frances with my parents to go get our mugs. Elizabeth Frances did NOT want to go to sleep and kept waking up every time I tried to put her down in the Port-A-Crib. She finally fell asleep for good at about 11. Phil returned with the boys shortly after. I got Will in bed, then left to get some bottled water. I ordered our room service for the next morning, and we were all in bed by 11:30. 
Tricia
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