Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue **Updated 12/23~~2 Times** - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This is where the actual TR begins... if you need to catch up on the backstory you can find the PTR here.
I will continue to write in red and we'll let Andy blab on in green
So we start with our travel day, Thursday, Nov. 20th. I had a lot to get ready at work before I could leave, including a final project for one of my grad classes. That ended up taking way longer than I had wanted so I had to run around like crazy after work to pick up last minute things and then run home to straighten up the house and pack all the last bits of stuff we needed. Andy was home by about 5 and pretty soon we were finally on the road. As we were driving we soon realized that we were making a list of all the things we forgot One thing was the cable to upload my photos to the computer. Oh well. I knew we'd just buy another memory card if need be. So that problem was solved. And all the ladies out there will understand my panic when I realized I had forgotten to pack my strapless bra for my dress that I was going to wear to Palo But I figured, I could safety pin the one I had to the straps of the dress and it would be okay (which it was by the way )
We stopped and had some McD's on the road. The girl at the window handed my bag of apple dippers to Andy and said "Here go your apple dippers". Which made me laugh b/c all the kids at school talk like that.
And I just went "uuuuuuh, pardon?" Cause I really couldn't understand her. Melissa had to translate for me.
Andy doesn't speak little kid like I do My kids drive me nuts with that. "Mrs. Loflin, here go your pencil". Really?? Where's it going?????? Anyway, we joked about "here go your" the rest of the trip.
About 9pm or so, Pom called. I remember that it had to be around 9 b/c Pom has free nights on his cellphone and he's very particular about using up his cellphone minutes... so I usually get calls from him after 9pm. We talked for a minute and then he put Brandi on. She and I talked till 10 which was nice b/c it distracted from the drive Good job Brandi!
We finally made it to the Microtel in Brunswick around 10:30 and checked in. This poor old lady was working the check in desk and she couldn't figure out how to make the stupid phone system work. It kept ringing, she kept answering, and nobody was there. This went on at least 5 times. Then she tells us we were supposed to be there by 6pm! What??? That wasn't in my confirmation. Which of course I had out in the car, so I sent Andy out to get it. Apparently they'd given our room away and we ended up getting a Microtel upgrade. Who knew?? We got a Microtel Suite. Which translates to = regular size hotel room
We crashed, watched Jay Leno (because the sexiest man alive was on there I had already tortured Andy by reading that issue of People in the car and making him look at all the fabulous pictures of ole Hugh Jackman )
The next morning we were up and ready to hit the road by about 8am. We made a pit stop at the Goasis since Andy gets all excited about stopping there. On the way we got a text from Angie asking us if we were making good time. I told her we were and that we figured we'd be making it on property by about 11am.
Pretty soon we were driving through those fabulous gates...
And then another magical set...
And then we pulled up to our home for the next few days...
We checked in and found out our room was ready Andy of course was in his usual pose..
We headed up to our room and walked in to find the magical music playing for you as you walk in. We were on the 8th floor (Andy argues and says it was the 4th because we had a 4 in front of our room number, but we pressed 8 in the elevator....)
Pics of our room..
Our view from our balcony..
And we both LOVED the bathroom...
We took a self shot of course
And then Andy had a Christmas Party Present that he just had to give me early. We're horrible about that. We can't wait to give presents...
It was a Stitch Christmas pin from Disney Shopping. Stitch is dressed like Santa and his picture is on a stamp. Andy felt it was fitting since he works with mail.
I had to play with the in room computer of course! I thought this was just too cool!
It was personalized for us. And I was able to add my one day park hopper to my key to the world card right there on the computer
I've read of people complaining that the computer woke them up b/c it would beep with messages at like 5:30 in the morning. We just turned it off when we left the room and at night and never had that problem. I did see that all the messages that came to our inbox came at like 5:37am though.
This was the view from outside our door...
The whole time we were in our room, we kept getting knocks on our door. First some guy wanted to inspect it for some reason but said he'd come back later. Then a maintenance guy wanted to do something but said he'd come back later.
And then there was another knock at the door......Andy answered and.....
you'll have to wait till we come back to find out
edited to add that I just realized Andy only said one flippin' thing there.... hopefully he'll have more to add in the next installment. I guess I had to get us rolling first...
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Great start...glad that you were able to get an "upgrade" at the Microtel, I am sure the extra room was grand . Your room at the CR is just beautiful, what a great view and I love the computer...that is just so cool.
Looking forward to hearing more...and to find out who was at the door????
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One thing was the cable to upload my photos to the computer. Oh well. I knew we'd just buy another memory card if need be. So that problem was solved. And all the ladies out there will understand my panic when I realized I had forgotten to pack my strapless bra for my dress that I was going to wear to Palo 
)
Andy of course was in his usual pose..
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Pixie Dust
Danny and I at Epcot 8/14/08
the view!
I've been home for 3 weeks and can't get it together and you've already started and it's got SUSPENSE!! 
ANGIE
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