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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 know the title isn't original, lol! But hi everyone! Greetings from WDW!!!
We arrived yesterday around 2pm after a super long morning of driving (we left Atlanta at 6am, hit ridiculous rain / fog in Northern Florida and stopped 3 times because we just couldn’t take any more, lol). I’ve got posts in both the resorts forum (all about the CSR) and the food forum (I’m going to attempt to write a food TR every time I eat somewhere). But I figured I’d write about the trip here, to keep it all together.
I’ll review the cast really fast:
Myself
Mom
DD – turning 3 on this trip. Yay!
We checked in and got a great guy named Fred who really took care of us. He gave DD a birthday button, and gave mom and myself two “We’re Celebrating” pins, that he says will get us attention wherever we go, lol). Lovely. I’ll let you know how that works out. Then he asked what DD’s favorite character was, so we told him Mickey. Later when we got into the room, someone dropped off a birthday card from Mickey Mouse, with a photopass card in it. So that was really nice! Oh, I have to remember to write that card number down on my passpocket!
We got into our room at around 3pm (A renovated one!!! It is GORGEOUS!) and unpacked (I’m a nester). Then we just rested, and I got some work done (yuck). The toilet backed up the first time we used it so we had to call maintenance. They came in about 15 minutes and a nice lady (I didn’t catch her name) unclogged it really fast (it’s worked fine ever since) and then came back 2 minutes later with not one but FOUR little rubber Disney figurines (Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Daisy) for DD! I was so touched! It was just such a thoughtful thing for her to do! It’s little magical touches like that that are so appreciated.
At 530 we went out to the bus stop, and grabbed a bus to DTD for our 630pm ADR with friends at T Rex. I can tell you it took 17 minutes from the time the bus doors closed at the final stop at CSR to the time the doors opened at the stop at DTD, in case anyone cares to know that
We wandered through the Marketplace and took some pictures with Pooh and friends, and a curious little sea monster before hitting T Rex. Since I posted a more detailed review in the food forum, I’ll just say that it was a fun experience and I’m really glad we did it, but for us it’s a “once and that’s enough” type of place I think. The meteor shower was really cool though. I enjoyed that a lot. And there’s so much to see and do.
After dinner we came directly back to the room and went to sleep at 930pm. We just couldn’t stay awake any more.
I've been up since 5am, knocking out some work (blech) and in a bit, we’ll be off to MK!
Ok TOTALLY frustrating about people not being able to see the pix. Anyone have any idea as to what could be wrong?
Well, today was our first day at MK... I woke at 5am and knocked out work for 3 hours (unfortunately due to a surprise acquisition at work, I ended up having to do some work on vacation... since I didn't want to have it hanging over my head all day, I decided to knock it out early).
At 845am we headed out the door to meet my CM friend at the MK gates. Once we got through the gates, we headed straight for Fantasyland. We decided to knock out those rides right off the bat.
First we went to Dumbo, which had a 20 minute wait. In actuality we were on line for 15 minutes. DD had a BLAST on this! It was so fun! She was enthusiastic about pushing us up and down. Funny kid.
Then we went on Cindy's Carousel, which again, DD loved. She likes being able to sit by herself without being held, and she gets a kick out of the horses. Standing in line is hard for her but she's getting the hang of it.
Then Peter Pan (10 minute wait), Small World (walk on when we went on, but weirdly enough it ended up with a 30 minute wait later on - something I don't think I've ever seen before) and Pooh's ride.
Then mom decided she wanted to get DD's portrait done by one of the artists in MK, so this is what we ended up with (pretty good, I have to say):
After that, we went to eat at the Plaza (see review in eateries forum). It was really great. Definitely an underrated place.
Then it was off to the Polynesian for DD's nap time (we park ourselves in the lobby and the waterfall sounds put DD to sleep). She slept for 2 hours while I wandered, shopped and sat. Mom sat with a book and kept an eye on her when I wandered.
After that, back to MK, to Tomorrowland. We rode the Carousel of Progress (DD was not a fan), the TTA and then went over to Toontown where we stood in line for 15 minutes to meet Aurora, Cinderella and Belle. DD was really unsure and shy at first, but by the time we got to Belle, she was confident enough that she didn't need me with her, holding her. So that was great! We got some really cute photopass pictures, too, including one of DD hugging Belle. It's absolutely precious. Belle has her eyes closed, and it's just the sweetest photo! Once I get the CD I'll post them all (or at least SOME)!
We were pretty bad about the photopass today. Only took 15 pictures with it. I swear we'll get better at it, lol!
After Toontown, we went to Ohana for dinner. I have to tell you it was SO magical! We had a "fireworks viewing" seat, and it was perfect. We ended up watching Wishes (with the music piped in, which I love) while having coffee and dessert. DD was enthralled - and I was impressed that we could even see Tink fly from there! I didn't expect that. But I think the most magical thing was that mom was so excited. She hasn't seen MK fireworks since I was a kid, so this was really her first experience in ages. She couldn't BELIEVE all of the amazing fireworks. She oohed and aahed more than DD did! She was REALLY impressed.
Then I had this bright idea. I figured that since we were leaving Ohana at 830pm, if we went to MK and grabbed the bus back to CSR, it would be a ZOO. So instead I decided we'd take the monorail to EPCOT and then grab a bus from there, since everyone would be watching IllumiNations for a while...
Well in theory it was an awesome idea. We got to the bus stop at EPCOT and it only had about 8 people there. Well... unfortunately it took 20 minutes for a bus to come! THEN we had to wait another 15 minutes to get 2 scooters situated on there.
But I can tell you the bus ride from CSR to MK is 12 minutes and the bus ride from EPCOT to CSR is 8 minutes. LOL!
Anyway now we're in the room. DD is out cold, which is great. But maintenance is here. Our potty stopped up again, and they had to use the snake. I swear it wasn't us! It was stopped up the first time we used it yesterday.
It's ok though. Maintenance is very responsive here, and so friendly. They're trying to be SO quiet so as not to wake DD, but we've got all the lights on here, and I'm typing away, and the kid is just sawing logs over there. LOL!
Tomorrow is our "off" day. We have a character breakfast at Cape May at 940am. Then we're just vegging out around the resort or something. We have afternoon tea at the GF at 340 or something (I'm too lazy to get up and get tomorrows passpocket to see). So we're going to check out the monorail resorts, to decide where we want to stay next year (we definitely decided it will be a monorail resort).
Yawn. I'm off to bed now. More tomorrow.
If anyone can figure out why only a handful of people can see my photos, please let me know! I'd love to know if I'm doing something wrong or what!
Thanks for reading, all!
Oooh, bad news... just before I hit "post", I found out they're moving us to a new room. Yikes. The previous people in this room (I swear it wasn't us) put a little shampoo bottle in the toilet apparently. Oh MAN! So they're going to have to take the toilet off and replace it! So we have to move rooms tomorrow morning at 8am. Sigh.
Well at least we were in a renovated room for two days, lolllllllllllllll! Now I have to pack tonight. Ew. Not ideal, but what can you do? Things happen. The front desk will call us with the new room assignment in 15 minutes or so.
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. Cant wait to read about your day in MK.
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