Rides, Rainclouds and mishaps....Disney Style - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I have a link to my PTR, so I won't reiterate what I've already put there. This is the start of my actual Trip Report and even though I have pretty much all of it written, I don't have all my pictures linked yet. It will probably be a little while before I have the whole report posted though. But I do promise to finish it this time.
Travelling: from home to Chambersburg Pennsylvania
By way of: MA Pike (I-90) to I-84 to I-81
Off we go:
Being the OCD person my husband said I am, the van was packed with our stuff on Thursday night and Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, only last minute things had to be packed. I was up at 5:30. Lenny and Abby, shortly thereafter at 6. We got ready, put the stuff in the van and said goodbye to mom, the dogs and Gertie, our bunny. I wanted to be on the road no later than 8 AM. We succeeded - with 20 minutes to spare. We made a couple of pit stops that morning and about 11 we stopped for lunch at McDonalds in Poughkeepsie New York. After lunch, we continued to the hotel making only a couple more pit stops. Lenny laughed at me though at one. Outside the building, there was one of those newspaper dispensers filled with coupon books for the state of Pennsylvania so I grabbed one. As Lenny drove, I thumbed through the coupons and found one for the hotel we were going to stay at. And for a rate of $58.99 - forty dollars cheaper than the AAA rate I had booked at. Who’s laughing now Lenny? I ripped out the coupon with the hope I would be able to use it once we arrived.
By the time exit 56 rolled around, my eyes kept wandering back to the gas gauge. It was getting really low and I was getting concerned. In PA, I know sometimes you can go twenty plus miles between exits and I didn’t want to run out of gas (not that I wanted to run out even with shorter distances between exits). So Lenny got off the exit and put in 20 bucks worth of gas to get us to our destination: Comfort Inn Chambersburg at exit 20. We finally got to the hotel a little after 4 PM. I checked us in and was able to use the coupon I found. Great, I was happy. We grabbed the few things we needed from the van and headed inside. We weren’t even to the room when Abby said she wanted to go swimming. Since it was too early for dinner, we changed and headed to the pool. The pool was indoors and suppose to be heated. It was colder than our outdoor Easy Set pool so I didn’t go in. I went back to the room to change and grab the camera. These would be the first of many pictures taken this trip.
By 5:30, we were all getting hungry so Lenny and Abby got out of the pool and changed. Then we headed next door to the Chambersburg Mall for the Bonanza Steakhouse.
If you’ve never eaten at a Bonanza or Ponderosa, here you can eat a meal off the menu, eat from the buffet, or eat both. We chose both. The buffet was typical - salad stuff, veggies, mac and cheese, potatoes, chicken, desserts. Lenny ate various buffet items plus the 10 oz top sirloin steak with a baked potato. He said everything was excellent. I had buffet stuff with a cheeseburger and fries. They were good, but by the time I got them, I was getting full so I only had a few bites then called it quits. Abby had her typical buffet stuff - eggs, cheese and peas - with chicken tenders. She ate everything well except the fries. Done with dinner, we left a nice tip for our waitress and headed to the gas station. A little over $100 later, the gas tank was full, just like our bellies so we went back to the hotel.
The Comfort Inn itself was a typical hotel and there was nothing exceptional about it. Unfortunately, they’d had some leaking problems somewhere along the line. Some of the paneling in the pool area was gone so you could see the interior of the wall and the mold that was there (it wasn’t too bad) and our room smelled a little musty (it reminded me slightly of our basement). I got used to it so I didn’t make an issue out of it. Besides, it was only for one night and the hotel had what we needed - comfy beds and a bathroom. Abby watched a little tv before bed and then it was lights out for everyone. This was at 8:30 PM.
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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
When we used to stop on our way to FL, I insisted on pool. swimming! And I can just feel the goosebumps from those "heated" indoor pools! Thanks for that memory!
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What a great coupon catch! $40 is $40!!!
swimming! And I can just feel the goosebumps from those "heated" indoor pools! Thanks for that memory! 
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