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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We arrived at the park for opening and walked with the massive crowds to Toy Story Mania. It was very crowded, but moved steadily and the wait was short.
We now headed for the 9:30am of the Frozen Sing Along. We just made it.
We had a 9:45am TSM FP, so we headed back for our second ride of the day. We all love this ride!
We now rode Rock N Roller Coaster which surprisingly the wait wasn’t too bad.
We now had an 11:30am lunch reservation at Sci Fi Diner. We had not eaten here in a long time. We all really enjoyed it. I ordered two appetizers instead of an entrée- onion rings and spinach dip with cheese. I just really wasn’t in the mood for a burger and nothing else sounded appealing. But I truly enjoyed my food.
We headed for Indiana Jones and barely made it into the show. Thankfully we were able to get seats.
We headed for Star Tours next where we had a fast pass. And then off to Muppets where we had perfect timing to walk up right as the next show was about to start.
We walked through One Man’s Dream and watched the Coco movie sneak peak. I enjoyed the film about Walt.
We watched the Little Mermaid show.
We had a fast pass for Tower of Terror and I just love this ride!
We watched Beauty and the Beast. We had missed this show the last few trips and really enjoyed it. It was going on 6pm when we left the park. This park required a lot of zig zagging due to the shows and the layout. Dillon, Winston, and Austin wanted CiCi’s pizza again for dinner. They went to Cici’s and picked up Wendy’s for me and Madilyn on the way back to the resort. Wesley ate at the food court. We were all set to head back home the next morning.
Mercy, what were they thinking cramming you all in the rockets of Astro Orbiter! But it sounded like a fun day at MK, especially with your extra FPs. You all managed to get quite a bit of ground covered at Studios, too. Can't believe you all are ready to head back home.
Too funny with Astro Orbiter with all of you crammed in there! You certainly have some big and tall kids and obviously fed them well! I'd hate to see your food bills! Good time at Studios with a good lunch at Sci-Fi. Glad you were able to make it at the wire to Indiana Jones. I saw this show for the first time in about ten years last year and enjoyed it as much as the first time I saw it.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
I wanted to get up and going early. Austin elected to ride with me. The others wanted to sleep in, maybe swim in the pool, and leave later. Austin and I were on the road shortly after 6am with an estimated 2pm arrival home.
Unfortunately about 11am, we had a blowout. At first it was no worries, as we carry a full size spare and everything needed to change the tire. Austin was working on it and a few people offered to help as well. Two lug nuts broke off as apparently when we got our new tires, they cross threaded the lug nuts. Thankfully we have AAA. Long story short- they towed the car to a local dealer who had to break off all the lug nuts (they would not come off regularly), shake out the broken pieces, and put on a new tire with new lug nuts. I felt blessed to have AAA and to have the money to take care of this. However, this ended up being about a 5 hour delay and we were starving. We had not stopped for any food yet. The other kids ended up getting about an hour ahead of us despite having left nearly 5 hours after us. They were going to stop and bring us some food, but by the time they got near us- the car was almost done, so I told them to just keep going. Once back on the road, we had an uneventful remainder of the drive.
This was the shortest trip we have ever taken as a family. We have had some mini trips when just a few of us went, but never any short family trips. The only reason we did this was because we couldn’t go over Christmas due to Dillon’s football schedule. It ended up being a great trip. Despite the short trip, we accomplished everything we wanted. Going forward, I will be more willing to do shorter trips. We normally have 3 Epcot, 3 MK, 2 DHS, 2 AK, and 2-3 resort days. I was fine doing MK in 2 days. And I was fine doing DHS and AK in 1 day. I was surprisingly okay forgoing our resort days also. I would have really liked to have had a second day at EP. Even though we did enjoy all of the countries, I would have preferred to have had more time in them and spread it out over multiple days. Thanksgiving crowds are noticeably smaller than Christmas crowds. So, I’m not certain- but we may do Thanksgiving over Christmas again…..
As the kids have gotten older, our touring has changed and I don’t think we really need the resort days as much anymore. Overall we had a wonderful trip.
Nice slide show! I love the tee shirts!
Sorry the trip home was delayed by the blow out, but it's good that you have AAA and they were able to get you to a repair shop.
Love the photos montage on YT and so well done with the music even though repeated! The intro to the song is like something from the MK before it kicks in to the Xmas part. Great coverage from the trip from attractions, meals and just having a great time. Most of your kids look very different from the last time you shared a video, which was perhaps, two years ago? Austin especially looks far older and much more grown up. Even your oldest Wesley has changed but Dillon looks pretty much the same!
Thanks for sharing the video and especially the TR as I enjoyed it so much! The shorter trips may be better as long as they are better planned as there will be less free time on a shorter venture! You always seem to know how to pack things in and especially on those USA multi-state extravaganzas!
Soory to hear about the tire blowout on the return, which is not the way for your trip to end and beyond your control with a five hour delay! I'm sure you couldn't wait to get home at that point and before with a long drive and this just added to it!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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But it sounded like a fun day at MK, especially with your extra FPs. You all managed to get quite a bit of ground covered at Studios, too. Can't believe you all are ready to head back home. 
You certainly have some big and tall kids and obviously fed them well! 
Austin especially looks far older and much more grown up. Even your oldest Wesley has changed but Dillon looks pretty much the same! 
I'm sure you couldn't wait to get home at that point and before with a long drive and this just added to it! 
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