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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Yes, I'm really back again posting a trip report. Sorry it's been so long. And it's not because we haven't visited the parks. I've just not gotten around to posting reports. But this time I told myself I was going to do it!
Since I'm not posting pre-trip reports due to the situation with my ex-husband, I'll provide all the planning info in this first post, plus a teaser of what's to come.
When: 17-22 August
Where: Wilderness Lodge
Who: Me - 44 year old single mom, lots of trips to Disney
DM - 71 year old who ventured out on her own this time
DD - 17 yeqrs old, thrill rider, artiste
DS - turns 16 years old tomorrow, does his own thing
Why: DS's birthday trip, last fling before school starts, end of a very hectic work summer, and FREE DINING!
Background: I own DVC, and since we've had that most of our trips have been at DVC resorts. I've made a lot of short trips. I think the only time we stayed 5 nights was our first spring break trip after moving to Florida back in 2006, and that was at All Star Sports. But free dining required 5 nights, so 5 nights it would be.
We typically get Florida resident seasonal passes, and the black out dates ended the weekend that free dining started. I called on my way to work about 2 months ago, and the CM got me a pretty good deal for Wilderness Lodge. Our last free dining had been POR, and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with those buses again, so WL sounded good to me.
Once I had the trip booked, I called dining to make our ADRs. Since I was about 4 months behind everyone else, I had a bit of trouble, but we managed to get everyplace we wanted to eat. The times were much later than our typical meals, but I figured it was better than not eating.
About a month before the trip, I went to the mailbox to find our package information. In the same mail delivery was a ..... summons for jury duty .... for that week :P I checked to see how to get excused, and turned in the request stating "I have non-refundable vacation plans for that week." The paperwork said if I heard nothing back I was excused, so thankfully the phone didn't ring.
As the summer went on, I ended up on business travel literally every week but one. And that was the week we went to Vero Beach. I was working 10-12 hour days every single day, and taking masters classes every Saturday. By the first of August, I was REALLLLLY looking forward to this vacation! That was about the time I started popping back on the board because even though I was busy, I had the Disney itch.
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First, the dining plans. You may remember that my family consists of very light eaters. We often split meals, so the dining plan gives us more than 20 table service meals to arrange. When I asked for requests I got (in order): O'Hana, Sci-Fi, Cape May, Teppan Edo, and my son's birthday request of 9 Dragons (even though it was last, it was his birthday dinner so it was a must do).
As I mentioned before Disney dining was pretty full by the time I called. I started with the hardest one first, and got the last remaining O'Hana evening reservation for our trip on our arrival night at 9:45. The next tough one was Sci-Fi which they made for Tuesday at 9:25. Cape May was fit in Wednesday at 8:45 with Teppan Edo Thursday at 9:45 (late EMH at EPCOT). I originally had something booked for Friday evening which I eventually changed to Raglan Road at 2:00 for a late lunch for the ladies. I expect DS to use our Planet Hollywood meal voucher that day. And the birthday dinner was 5:45 on Saturday (after I returned from my Master's class).
Once I started looking at all those late meals, I was worried that DD would end up skipping out on at least some of them, plus I couldn't see us using up all our TS credits on those meals, even with two of them being buffets. So I added an O'Hana breakfast (with DD's buddy Stitch) on Thursday morning at 8:45. I knew DS wouldn't join us for that since he's allergic to characters.
Next I tried to lay out loose touring plans. Our package included the meal plan, the Planet Hollywood $15 meal voucher I mentioned above, 30 minutes of arcade time, a coupon for 30 minutes free on the water mice if you buy 60 minutes, plus a free round of miniature golf. That was a lot of non-park stuff to fit in. DS and I had used the water mice last summer on a non-park trip and he really enjoyed it, so I knew that was a must do.
As I mentioned above, we took a trip over to Vero Beach this summer, and while we were there DS fell in love with the concept of surfing. I'm not quite sure why, since while we were there the ocean was flat as a pancake with no waves around. He did do some skim boarding. That's the thin wooden boards that you skim right at the waters' edge with. He could talk of nothing but surfing. In fact he even had me buy him a big piece of wood which he worked into a rough surfboard with a saw and a planer over the two weeks he spent at my moms. I started thinking about the surf lessons at Typhoon Lagoon and eventually decided to splurge on that for his birthday gift. Before I booked it, I asked him if he wanted it. I told him that I wasn't going to spend that much money if he didn't REALLY want to do it. Of course he said yes, so that was booked for Friday morning.
Our loose plans ended up looking like this:
Monday: Leave home about 7:15 and check in to get our dining cards and one day passes. Visit MK and renew our APs, with an upgrade from our one day passes to Seasonal APs. Lunch at either MK or Poly, then back to the resort for a swim (hoping our room was ready). Evening was to be AK for late EMH, followed by dinner at O'Hana watching Wishes from the restaurant.
Tuesday: Start the morning at EPCOT, with lunch at the Land foodcourt or in World Showcase. A mid-day break where DS and I would use the Water Mice. I planned to do this at Grand Floridian, and Mom and I would pool hop (DVC privilege). After our break we'd head over to Hollywood Studios where I hoped to see if we could get a walk up seat at Sci-Fi when they opened for dinner (we were willing to move to a table and give up our car). If that worked out, we'd catch Fantasmic that night. If not, we'd have a late night at the Studios (and I expected DD to wimp out and go back to the room early) then home to bed.
Wed: AK for morning EMH, followed by a pool hop trip to the Poly. Plan was to grab a CS meal at the Poly (I LOVE that resort) followed by EPCOT in the early evening finishing up with our Cape May dinner reservation.
Thurs: Breakfast at O'Hana followed by mini-golf, and a trip to Downtown Disney where we'd pick up a CS lunch (probably Wolfgang Pucks). If we hadn't seen Fantasmic on Tuesday, we would head to the Studios to catch the earlier showing. If not we'd go over to EPCOT. Dinner was Teppan Edo at 9:45 (after Illuminations).
Friday: DS's surfing school (we had to be there at 5:45 am, which meant waking up at 5). I expect to head to the Studios after that, then meet the ladies downtown for our Raglan Road reservation (while DS ate at Planet Hollywood). Evening would be at MK where we'd catch Spectromagic and Wishes.
Saturday: I'd head over to my morning class (loading up the car the evening before), then meet everyone for a late CS lunch in World Showcase. After wandering the countries, we'd have dinner at 9 Dragons then head for home.
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I thought I'd just list some of the highlights, with a few pictures to set up your interest.
1) Was that David Cook?
2) How wet can one teen aged boy get? And how many times?
3) How to get 30 minutes free on a water mouse?
4) Did I really use up 2 MBytes of memory?
5) Is it possible for your face to crack open if you smile big enough?
6) Do desserts left in the refrigerator multiply?
7) What's the best value for a CS credit? (And the scenery isn't bad either)!
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Great pics. Good to know the lady at DHS is still there. I have run into her on our past two trips. She is hilarious.
Can't wait to see how it all turned out.
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
We went back over to the parks yesterday because it was actually my DS's birthday and he had to get his $79 gift card. Since that's an easy installment to write up, I'm going to start up with it, then I'll come back and do the big trip report. I'm swamped until after Saturday so I won't get anything done until next week though.
I picked the kids up as the first day of school finished up (3:00) with half priced Sonic drinks in hand for everyone. DD in particular was full of life talking about what she was taking this year, and how her series of communications technology classes are going to be great! "They're finally going to teach me how to use Adobe Photoshop Mom!" DS is excited about his chemistry class because this teacher is famous for making stink bombs in class.
We pulled into the Boardwalk about 4:30 (after stopping for food at McDonalds) and used my DVC valet parking privilege. In addition to DS's gift card, our other main goal was to get some good photopass shots. I'm finally buying the CD because they got great shots of DS's surfing lessons. So I wanted to get a few shots we could use for Christmas cards. Also, DD is a senior, and senior pictures are ridiculously expensive. I was hoping for something that we can use for that as well. So given that, she and I stopped in the BW bathroom for DD to put on her makeup (she doesn't usually wear it). Unfortunately when she went to the dentist Monday they got a little close with the cleaning tool and she has a lesion on her lower lip. Since it's right where it always stays wet, it has a little white circle that makeup can't cover up. DD was super self-consious about it as we were taking pictures, so they didn't end up the best, but oh well.
Once she was all prettified, we picked up DS who had been browsing with his buddies in the art gallery and walked to the IG. Of course, DS decided on the fun card option, and turned down their offer for a birthday button. Our first stop was in France, which ended up being our only family shots. Those are on the CD, so I'll post it later.
The skies were looking very dark by this time, so we pushed through WS. I planned on another family shot at Morrocco, but there were no photopass people around. We ended up leaving DS in Japan where he planned to spend his money from his Dad. DD and I caught the last show of Voices of Liberty in America.
They were awesome as always. The young bass just amazes me because he is way too little for that big voice. The black lady in the photo had a solo of America the beautiful which was just breathtaking!
Once done, we met back up with DS who had gotten a kimono that he had set aside during our trip. We moved on but still didn't see any photographers except with characters. DS wanted to shop in China as well and he still had some cash left (they don't take the gift card there or in Japan), so DD and I kept moving around looking for photographers. Since I didn't see any, I decided to take some myself. She was very self consious about the lip, so that's why she's not really smiling, but I still think this one in Norway was pretty good.
We took a few inside Mexico but it's really too dark to get anything without a tripod, and the flash washes everything out. Once we finished there, DS was still shopping and we were sure the sky was going to dump any minute. She and I headed to test track because DD wanted to do a "photo shoot" of the cars. I handed over the camera and waited on a bench. She ended up taking about 40 pictures, but I'll just share the one.
It still hadn't started raining yet, so we headed over by the fountain in search of a photographer. By this time, DD was really being stubborn. She had a hoodie on which she had taken of for the other photos, but this time she wasn't willing to do it. The photographer ended up teasing her out of her mood, and got some cute pictures. They aren't the kind to use for wallets, but they are fun. I'll post them after the CD comes in.
By this time, DS was done with shopping, so we agreed to meet in Japan for dinner at Yakitori House. Miyuki was out front, so we stopped and watched. In addition to another outfit and two fans in China, DS had used his gift card to buy a carved staff from the outpost in Africa. He spends a lot of time chatting with the carvers, and he had told them he might be back yesterday to buy something. Andrew knocked $10 off the price of the staff which was really nice.
We got a noodle bowl and serving of Teriyaki Chicken for dinner, and the kids each picked out a candy snack in the store. It still hadn't started raining yet, but we were done. DD has a bad cough and she was feeling pretty bad by this time. She took her time walking back to the BW, while DS and I made another stop in the gallery so he could show me another painting that he liked. Raindrops were falling as we were walking back, but it was just a sprinkling.
As we waited for our car to be brought up, this entertainer came out to the entry area. I've never seen him before, but he was pretty good.
You can't tell in the picture, but his hat and his juggling balls were glow in the dark. It made the waiting go easier. Once we were on the road, the skies opened up, and it took us about 90 minutes to get home. But our missions were primarily accomplished!
I'll post the big trip next week, but hope you enjoy this for now.
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