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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel. Offerings were the same as yesterday. On the way back to the room I took some photos of the cactus garden at the Green Tree Inn. (I highly recommend this place for a stop in Sedona! It was reasonably priced and the room was clean and very comfortable.)
Traffic was good and we arrived in Scottsdale by 9:00. Plans were to be at Taliesin West, the Frank Lloyd Wright architectural school, for a tour by 10:00 and we weren’t sure if we should stop at the hotel or go right to Taliesin. We decided we had enough time to stop at the hotel. They had a room that was available so we were able to bring our stuff inside and freshen up a bit.
We called Taliesin to see if they had room in the 10:00 tour and then we had to hustle to get there in time. It was about 15 minutes away from our hotel and we made it just in time.
The tour was excellent. We had visited the Darwin Martin House (also designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) in Buffalo several times and were anxious to see Taliesin West. The tour guide was wonderful and the tour was very informative. In addition to being an architectural school, this was FLW’s home for 3 months of the year. He built it when he was in his 70s. We toured his office, the living room, his private suite, Mrs. Wright’s private suite, a conference room, a performing arts center, an underground cabaret, a completely stainless steel bathroom, and the dining hall. It was fascinating hearing the stories of life at Taliesin!
After our tour we went back to the hotel for a short break. Then we headed out to the Musical Instrument Museum. What an awesome place! We paid our admission and each got a set of headphones. So, when you walk around to the various exhibits, as you approach the monitors, you hear what is playing.
We first visited the Artists room.
We ventured into Europe, Asia, and Africa, but unfortunately we weren't able to spend as much time in there. We spent about 2 hours at the museum, but really could have spent 4 as there was so much to see!
Unfortunately we had to leave as we had dinner plans with Jeff’s cousins.
The GPS was most helpful this day! For most of the trip, we had our AAA triptik and that was all we needed, but for our touring plans in Phoenix we really needed the GPS!
We left the museum and headed to Macayo’s Mexican Restaurant to meet Jeff’s cousins Bonnie, Nancy, Robert and Robert’s wife Danielle for an early dinner at 4:30. We had a great meal on the lakeside outdoor patio.
I had chicken fajitas with corn tortillas and Jeff had a fish taco. Both were delicious! It was nice to catch up with everyone as we hadn’t seen them since they were in Buffalo about 15 years ago.
When we got back to the hotel we did some packing and also looked on a map to figure out how to get to the car rental center which is a short distance from the airport. We were a little nervous about Phoenix traffic in the morning as both Kim and Jeff’s cousins had said it can be a parking lot at rush hour. Our flight was at 10:15, but we decided we’d leave super early, like 7:00 and try to avoid the traffic.
We also went to the business center to print out our boarding passes and checked on the street views of the airport/car rental area to get a better idea of what we were looking for.
Then we watched the 2nd half of The Parent Trap which was on TV. We went to sleep by 9:00.
The museum looked very interesting from the various rooms and the musical portions as well! Can't believe you're heading home already!
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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!
Two interesting stops in Scottsdale! My grandparents and aunt/uncle/cousins lived in Scottsdale years ago and we visited them there when I was 6 years old.
The museum looked very interesting from the various rooms and the musical portions as well! Can't believe you're heading home already!
The museum was just wonderful! We really enjoyed our time there!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Boy, what an interesting day! The FLW house is beautiful and the Instrument Museum looks fascinating! Glad you had a great dinner with family!!
Yes! It was a great day! We only had one full day in Phoenix and wanted to make the most of it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Both the Frank Lloyd Wright house and the Musical Instrument Museum look so interesting. What a fun day!
They were both recommendations from a friend who had visited Phoenix last year.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Wow, you visited two fascinating places there - definitely going on my list for a future visit to Phoenix.
Yes, they were both wonderful! We had also heard about the Desert Botanical Garden and would have liked to see that as well, but didn't have the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
Oh my gosh, those places look so cool!!
We really enjoyed them both!
Quote:
Originally Posted by purplegal
Frank Lloyd Wrights place looks very interesting I especially like the moon gate. Nice you could get together with family for dinner.
Taliesin West has several different tours. The one we went on was free because we are members of the Darwin Martin House in Buffalo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Two interesting stops in Scottsdale! My grandparents and aunt/uncle/cousins lived in Scottsdale years ago and we visited them there when I was 6 years old.
We really enjoyed our time in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area!
We were up by 5:00. We tried to take a shower but the shower handle did not work! It turned very hard but no matter how far around we were able to turn it, we didn’t get any water! Remember that we wanted to get an early start so we didn’t have time to waste getting a handyman up there to fix it. So, we did the next best thing and washed up and washed our hair at the sink. Not the best way to do it, but it got the job done.
We finished packing, and went down for breakfast at 6:00. There were lots of great choices…Belgian waffles, hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, potatoes, turkey sausage, oatmeal, fresh fruit, and yogurt. Jeff had some of each! I had oatmeal with brown sugar and almonds.
We stopped at the desk to tell them about the shower and were back in the room by 6:30 and on our way by 6:45. On the way the GPS (which had been so helpful the last two days) decided to quit! It showed a map but did not indicate where we were or give directions. The good thing was that we’d gone over the directions so many times the night before that we had them in our head and were able find our way to the rental car return without any trouble. There was quite a traffic slow up at one point and we were REALLY glad that we’d left when we did!
We found the Alamo car return and the process was pretty efficient. We mentioned to the employee that we’d had some issues with the Hotspot, which worked for the first leg of the trip, but then quit. We were still able to use the GPS, but the wifi signal was not working. Of course we didn’t have any signal when we were in the Grand Canyon areas, and I was expecting that. But in Sedona and Phoenix it should have worked, but didn’t. We ended up using the hotel wifi when we were in the room, but it would have been nice to have the wifi while we were driving as we did on the first leg of the trip. Anyway, he took $50 off the bill which was nice.
On our way to find the airport shuttle we found a baggage check booth so we took advantage of that, and sent our bags off to the airport. Nice that we didn’t have to lug it on the shuttle. A shuttle was along soon and we arrived at the airport by 8:00 then made our way to security. We both had TSA precheck which helped to speed things up. After getting through security we found our gate, which was full with those waiting for the current flight. So we sat in an empty gate area to wait. At one point I used the restroom and in front of me in line was a woman with two girls who all had Magic Bands on their wrists. I asked if they were on their way to Disney World or just coming back. They said they were on their way and were so excited because it was their first time. I told them to have fun! I love Disney connections!
We bought some lunch for the plane and then headed over to our gate. Before long they were lining up the A group. We had paid for early bird because we knew we’d be on the road 24 hours before our flight, so we had A 55 and 56. When we boarded the plane there was a man in row 3, sitting on the aisle with two empty seats next to him so we nabbed those seats.
The flight home was long, but uneventful. We ate our lunch, did some reading, I may have fallen asleep at one point. We arrived in Buffalo around 5:00, Eastern Time. We got our luggage, Tom picked us up a few minutes later and we were home by 5:45.
It was a wonderful trip with so many new experiences! Thanks for allowing me to share the fun!
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It's not somewhere that's been on our radar, but it looks as if there's a lot to see and do there. 
It showed a map but did not indicate where we were or give directions. The good thing was that we’d gone over the directions so many times the night before that we had them in our head and were able find our way to the rental car return without any trouble. There was quite a traffic slow up at one point and we were REALLY glad that we’d left when we did! 
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