Living the dream and remembering the Bagman LIVE UPDATE 10/2 - Page 6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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To my knowledge - Southwest is the only US airline that says if they have an open seat, you can use points to get it (meaning they could hypothetically end up with an entire plane flying on points). All the other airlines limit the number of available seats that can be booked with miles in their programs.
Very interesting to know and Ok, now I feel better that our airlines seem to operate in the same way as yours do. I was beginning to feel a bit discriminated against!
Oh, love this plan for NYC! It certainly does look like it was meant to be with all these things coalescing as they did! Are you talking about Kurios? It's currently here in DC but we have been undecided about attending.
The New York show we'll be going to is the resident one, Paramour. I know Kurious is showing as well, as a touring show, but I couldn't see how to work that into our plans. It's a shame, as it opens in New York on 29 September, so it's like it was meant to be, but without a second night there, which we don't have, it just wasn't going to fit.
Side note: we saw Kurios here in DC (in Virginia, actually) last week and LOVED it!
How fun that you've now got plans for a day or so in NYC! The signs did seem close to just hitting you over the head, didn't they?
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Pre-trip report – part six: changing the route of the road trip
Thursday 28 January
I heard from Barb (GrammyGrumpy) tonight, asking about our dates for September. I so excited and happy that we get to see them again. It’s been far, far too long – by the time we get together, it will have been five long years since our wonderful Alaskan cruise with them.
I must be getting more excited in general about this trip, as today was the first time in quite a few weeks that I read through the All Ears newsletter thoroughly. Don’t get me wrong, I have been looking at it, but really only glancing, I guess thinking this trip was so far away that I didn’t need to read it in depth, but today I did. I couldn’t help but linger on the rehabs and closings section, but the only one that affects our trip is the Flying Fish Café. I knew they were doing the work on Soarin’ and I knew it was closed over the summer, but it was only as I read it, I realised that might even mean we’re some of the first to be able to experience the new movie…. Oh please, that would be so wonderful!
Friday 29 January
I had another look at our plans today for the eastern Canada road trip to see if it still looks workable, and the verdict is I think so… Well, that was unequivocal, wasn’t it? It’s hard to tell for certain when it’s somewhere you’ve never visited before, but I think it will work.
The reason I was looking is that I wanted to ensure that our plans to fly down to Disney on Tuesday 20 September were right, and I was prompted after getting Barb’s message. I had a look at Southwest flights, and although they’re not yet out for September, for early August, there’s one stupidly early in the morning, another stupidly late at night, and one that leaves at 11:20am and gets into Orlando at 2:00pm. Hmmm…. Now which one do you think I’m going to go for?
Ok, so I don’t know for sure whether the times will remain the same, but surely there’s got to be a good chance. It’s not a bad time if it stays the same. We’ll have to leave pretty early, given that it’s a three quarters of an hour drive to Buffalo Airport from Niagara Falls, and we’ll have to leave some additional time to cross the border from Canada into America, but that’s fine. It also gets us in at a reasonable time, and even allowing for delays, we should still be able to plan for dinner in Disney – now that, I like the sound of!
Saturday 30 January
Today I decided to actually work out what I could pay for this month for this trip. I had an amount set aside, but I realised that Southwest flights open on 18 February, and as our credit card month runs from the 20th of each month, that means that would come out of this month. I’ve estimated how much the flights will cost, based on a Tuesday flight in early August, so hopefully that’s about right, and at least I know how much more I’ve got to spend this month. JetBlue flights aren’t likely to open up until after 20 February, and by then, we’ll be away in Iceland, so I think that will have to wait until we get back from that trip.
I always prefer to get flights booked first if I can, as I find you have less choice with those than you do with hotels. If you leave it later to book a hotel, sure the price can go up, and you may not get exactly the one you want, but usually I have a couple of options. It’s not always that way with flights. Think about what I said with the Southwest flights for example. By the looks of it, there’ll probably be only one flight that suits our needs, and Southwest seem to be the only airline which flies direct from Buffalo to Orlando, so I don’t want to mess around and wait to book that flight, I just want to get it all sorted out as soon as they go on sale.
Sunday 31 January
I went to our itinerary tonight to add in some specific addresses, rather than just places, so we know where to direct the GPS on our road trip, and immediately I decided to make some changes. I was going to stop off at Portland, but when I looked into it more using street view on Google Maps, it just didn’t grab me. to anyone from Portland reading this or who likes the place.
However, further up in Maine, the idea of stopping off at Mount Battie in the Camden Hills State Park, just outside Camden did appeal to me. It sounded wonderful from my guidebook, and when I found some photos on TripAdvisor, that just confirmed my original opinion. The views look stunning from there. Sure, it’ll mean a longer drive from the Nubble Lighthouse (which I know was recommended to me by someone on the boards), but it looks like the perfect place to stop off and stretch our legs. I also like the idea that route 1, albeit slower, is a scenic route. At least that gives us something to look at along the way.
I also ended up rethinking where we’ll stay that night. I was going for Bar Harbor, but I couldn’t find anywhere there that I was in love with. All the places I looked at just somehow didn’t do it for me, and the prices weren’t exactly what I wanted to pay. Well, upon doing more research, I discovered a place called Ellsworth that’s about half an hour’s drive from Acadia National Park, which means half an hour’s less driving on our first full day in the States.
I’ve found a Hampton Inn that’s very well rated and is much cheaper than anything I could find in Bar Harbor. I have also found a fantastic place in Ellsworth where I’d like to have dinner, the Union River Lobster Pot. The only downside is that it doesn’t take reservations, but it looks wonderful. Maybe we’ll try it on the way to the Hampton Inn, and see if we can get in there? If not, at least there are other places, albeit not as glamorous… Pizza Hut, Denny’s, McDonald’s, Burger King… you get the idea.
I am still also debating over where to stay in Quebec City. I am still in love with the idea of staying at the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac. It looks amazing, but it is a heck of a lot of money. However, it would be a once in a lifetime thing… but then again, I can’t get over how much it costs. Can you see how I’m constantly yo-yo’ing here, trying to make my mind up? Oh decisions, decisions. Now if only I could snag a good deal, then the decision would be made for me… I so know that’s not going to happen.
Monday 1 February
Well, even though I doubt I’ll get much of a deal, it doesn’t hurt to try, so I’m now a signed up member of the Fairmont President’s Club. We’ll see if I get any emails through in the next couple of months that make the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac more affordable… I think it’s worth doing, as I have my eye on staying at the Fairmont in Ottawa as well, and they do seem to be a good hotel chain.
Tuesday 2 February
I was so excited when I read in my DVC News newsletter that they were doing an afternoon tea at the Beach Club. They said it was for a limited time only, so I figured it probably wouldn’t be on when we’re at Disney in September, but when I read the full article, slightly more frustratingly, they’re doing it on selected dates, and some of those selected dates are in early September. D’oh!
Then on the breakfast news, they were talking about drying out Niagara Falls, which I must admit I thought was a bit of a joke, but they showed footage of the last time they drained it, and it was fascinating. However, a horrible thought hit me… what would happen if it was during our visit? I figured it was highly unlikely, as they don’t want to disappoint people, and they presumably have to give a lot of notice. Well, they certainly do – the article I read said they were looking at no earlier than 2019 and they still have to raise funding for the project, so it may take even longer than that. Phew! Mark said to me later that it would be fascinating to see it drained, and I’m sure it would, but right now, I just want to see it as it usually is.
Wednesday 3 February
I was reading my All Ears newsletter when I noticed that Fulton’s Crab House will be closed from 1 May until the end of 2016. Wow, Disney are certainly going through some extensive changes to their dining offerings given the Flying Fish Café has just closed for its refurb and I don’t think that re-opens until the end of September. Just as well we didn’t plan on eating at either of those restaurants then…
The newsletter also had a link through to the Disney Food Blog all about some of the hidden details in the Skipper Canteen. It made for very interesting reading, and I’m thinking this will be on the final list of places we eat on this trip…
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And heck, I'd never say no to a weekend in NYC. 
Well, that was unequivocal, wasn’t it? 
to anyone from Portland reading this or who likes the place. 
they showed footage of the last time they drained it, and it was fascinating. However, a horrible thought hit me… what would happen if it was during our visit? 
I figured it was highly unlikely, as they don’t want to disappoint people, and they presumably have to give a lot of notice. Well, they certainly do – 
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