Me, Muffin and our very first "Welcome Home" trip!! PTR - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Me, Muffin and our very first "Welcome Home" trip!! PTR
Okay so that wasn't that original! Anyway!!
Most of you guys have travelled with me through this incredibly topsy turvy ( more than usual) planning of our upcoming WDW vacation. You guys all know we always wind up there regardless.
This year, we not only changed resorts four times, we wound up buying into DVC!! Along this route, Katie and Andy wound up coming along for part of it, (but not the WDW part) we changed our other vacations around ( but for the better and it will hopefully be totally worth it) and my Dad got really, really sick.
Virtually, the whole trip has been turned on its ear so I thought it would be prudent to start anew! Here goes:
You all know the whos but pretty much everything else has changed.
First off:
When: November 7th-19th.
Where: November 7th-13th. OKW or maybe Copper Creek or the Poly. We will go with OKW for now and we are much more in tune with that after reading many of your thoughts on the matter. We are booked in for 6 nights at 68 points. Let me stress here that if either Copper Creek or the Poly come up, we will surely grab them!! From my understanding, we have to bank our remaining 82 points by July 31st but if one of these guys come up after that, we can borrow from next years points to make up the difference. You guys really need to educate me further if I did not understand this correctly.
November 13th-16th. The Rosen Centre.
November 16th- 19th. Portofino Bay Resort.
Since we bought into DVC past our 180 day dining mark, we had to revamp our ADRs, especially considering that we will most likely not be staying at a MK resort. We also had to switch around our Park days.
We also gave up a lot of other things that we had planned this year to make our DVC purchase. We gave up our trip to Rome. We gave up going to Las Vegas. We gave up going to Canada in the fall. This is not as bad as it sounds as we have actually had the privilege of going to all of these places on previous trips.
In addition, Muffin gave up his subscription to the NYT which he loves and I am trading in my BMW for a much less expensive car. I am not going to lie. The latter hurts.
Still we feel as though we made a good decision. We aren't, by any means, going to stop travelling to other places either. We will just have to figure out another way to see the world.
We were able to pay for our initial purchase of 150 points up front. Even Muffin says he has no doubt we will acquire addonitis. We love the AP discount and we plan on still purchasing TIW as we adore a nice glass of wine with our meals.
Moving on!
Why: We love WDW and are celebrating our 35th Anniversary!! To be fair, this is also the time of year that Muffin has a trade show in Orlando for the foreseeable future.. ( We already have a Halloween trip in mind for next year)
About This Page: 
Anyway!!
Along this route, Katie and Andy wound up coming along for part of it,
(but not the WDW part) we changed our other vacations around ( but for the better and it will hopefully be totally worth it) and my Dad got really, really sick. 
To be fair, this is also the time of year that Muffin has a trade show in Orlando for the foreseeable future.. ( We already have a Halloween trip in mind for next year
)
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Threaded Mode
