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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thank you everyone for the wonderful comments! We got home Saturday night to a snow storm. It took us twice as long to drive home, but we made it safe and sound. Today Lexi and I are off school/work because of below freezing temperatures, Justin is back at work with his route freezing his buns off...poor guy. I am going to work on editing pics today and will get this TR started soon!
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Thank you for the comments! I enjoy reading each one. I am typing up the first update now, the pictures are edited and ready to add...stay tuned for the first update very soon!
For me, our vacation started at 2:45am. In my head when I book an early flight I always think we don't want to waste our first day traveling, but then I am kicking myself when the alarm goes off before the sun is even thinking about coming up. I hopped (or maybe slowly crawled) into the shower and that woke me up a bit. I let Justin and Lexi sleep as late as possible and once they were up and ready I packed our last minute items. The drive to the airport is just under an hour, so I wanted to be on the road by 3:45am. We were out the door just after 3:30 and on our way.
We made it to off site parking by 4:15 and as we were parking the shuttled pulled up. We left our winter coats in the car since we didn't want to lug them around CA, thank goodness the shuttle was heated because it was in the single digits that morning.
We picked up a couple of other families and then we headed to the airport. Southwest was the first stop, Lexi and I ran into the airport while Justin waited for the driver to unload our luggage. The line to check our bags took about 5 minutes and we were off to security, which is rarely busy at our airport. Lexi and I made it through security but Justin was delayed due to another passenger that needed assistance, so we were separated for a bit.
Once we were all back together we took turns using the restroom and I had Justin get Lexi a juice and snack since she had not had breakfast yet. We didn't wait long and they were calling for us to line up in order for boarding. The attendant at the door forgot to call group A 21-30 before she called group 31-60 to board the plane. Oops! We were in the first A boarding group so we rushed up to cut off the line and everyone behind us followed. That made for a bit of a traffic jam, but I was not about to give up my spot in line since we paid for it.
Once on the plane we found seats near the front and settled in for our flight. Lexi started off in between Justin and I and later requested to sit next to the window.
The flight had a stop in Las Vegas, but we didn't have to get off the plane. They announced that our flight had WiFi as well as free TV through Dish Network. I was too tired to watch anything, but I did utilize the flight tracker to watch our progress. Soon all three of us were snoozing and I think we slept most of the flight.
Before I passed out, I checked my iPad and saw we were over Colorado. I looked out the window and got a shot of the mountains.
The mountains on our decent into Las Vegas looked very different from the ones I had seen over CO.
Civilization.
A couple blurry photos of the Las Vegas Strip just after we landed.
The turn around was very fast and we were soon in the air again and the flight to LAX was under an hour. Once we landed and were off the plane at LAX we followed the herd to baggage claim where we spotted Brian and Whitney waiting for us. Lexi and I hung out with Brian and Whitney while Justin waited for our luggage by the carousel. Next, we found the car rental shuttles and had to wait a good 20 minutes for a Budget bus to show up. Brian and Whitney went to retrieve their car and they would meet us at Budget. The ride to the Budget car rental was less than 5 minutes and Justin ran in to check in. When he came out we had a doozy of a time finding our car in the parking lot. The parking lot was split up into sections A – D and then each car was assigned a numbered spot. Our car was in spot D 28. We found the D section easy enough but the numbers stopped at D26. Ummmmm.... I headed back to the check in area to ask where to find D 28, but on my way I spotted D 28 in the C section. I hollered over to Justin and they headed over towards me. We ended up with a Kia Optima. It was very spacious and ended up being a good car, especially the gas mileage.The first thing I do when we rent a car is to take a picture of the license plate number just in case we need it.
Here is a picture of the car I took later in the week.
Brian texted Justin to let us know they were there and we met up with them at a Burger King that was across the street. I gave Brian the address to the Hollywood and Highland Center parking garage just in case we were separated and we set off towards Hollywood. The GPS on Justin's phone said it would take just over 30 minutes to get there from LAX.
Glad your flights went pretty smoothly, but that's a terrible hour to have to wake up! So nice to have family waiting for you. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Hollywood! It's fun for me knowing exactly where the Highland center is!
What an early morning. Glad you were able to get some sleep on the plane and had no problems. its always great to have friends and family meet you at the airport. Can't wait to see your pictures and hear about your trip!
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It took us twice as long to drive home, but we made it safe and sound. Today Lexi and I are off school/work because of below freezing temperatures, Justin is back at work with his route freezing his buns off...poor guy. I am going to work on editing pics today and will get this TR started soon!
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Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Deb
Hi Aimee, I can't believe I missed this one -- glad I found it though -- looking forward to reading about your DL trip 
~ Jenn 
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Liz 
Holly: 
In my head when I book an early flight I always think we don't want to waste our first day traveling, but then I am kicking myself when the alarm goes off before the sun is even thinking about coming up. I hopped (or maybe slowly crawled) into the shower and that woke me up a bit. I let Justin and Lexi sleep as late as possible and once they were up and ready I packed our last minute items. The drive to the airport is just under an hour, so I wanted to be on the road by 3:45am. We were out the door just after 3:30 and on our way. 
Lexi and I hung out with Brian and Whitney while Justin waited for our luggage by the carousel. Next, we found the car rental shuttles and had to wait a good 20 minutes for a Budget bus to show up. Brian and Whitney went to retrieve their car and they would meet us at Budget. The ride to the Budget car rental was less than 5 minutes and Justin ran in to check in. When he came out we had a doozy of a time finding our car in the parking lot. The parking lot was split up into sections A – D and then each car was assigned a numbered spot. Our car was in spot D 28. We found the D section easy enough but the numbers stopped at D26. Ummmmm.... I headed back to the check in area to ask where to find D 28, but on my way I spotted D 28 in the C section. 
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