Going north, south, east and west! **Updated 1/25** - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Me, too. I've been trying to figure out where the DL and Vegas parts are - sorry we missed you in Vegas - but can't wait to read all about it to see how it turned out for you.
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Dyan's got the plan straight. At the moment, the New York part is done, which is the link she posted above. The latter posts then have a link in to the WDW section, which is currently underway in the WDW trip report forum. Next will be the Chicago section, back in the Globetrotting trip report forum and, once that's done, that will be followed by the Disneyland section in here. Finally, the Vegas section will be in the Globetrotting trip report forum.
I hope that's now clear - it's probably as clear as mud!
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Now it's time for the Disneyland portion of this trip. This is the fourth thread of the actual trip report. The New York segment can be found here in the Globetrotting forum, then the WDW section is here, while the most recent section about Chicago can be found here in the Globetrotting forum. This picks up with us heading to the airport in Chicago...
Then we headed for O’Hare, although the traffic was pretty slow on the way there. We got there almost dot on 3.30, which was when we wanted to arrive. There, we had to say a sad goodbye to Lesley. We had enjoyed a couple of wonderful days with her and she had been great, picking us up from the airport and taking us back again. Many thanks for all your help and for helping us to enjoy a wonderful stay in Chicago.
We quickly checked in ourselves and our luggage and again, we were done with that in just a few minutes and then it was through security. This wasn’t nearly as straightforward. I got through fine, when I realised that Mark was nowhere to be seen. He had gone through still wearing his belt and had some change in his jeans and had been stopped. Worse than that, he had been put into what I can only describe as a glass cage. He later checked and it was bullet proof. He was in there for what seemed like forever, while I stood there with a mountain of coats and hand luggage. Eventually, he was released and was cleared to carry on. That was a close call and I think left him with a beating heart. I suspect he will be checking his pockets very thoroughly in the future to ensure that doesn’t happen again.
Almost as soon as we got through, my parents called as we walked down to the gate. When we got there, it was mad. One guy opposite us referred to it as being in a hen house, people were packed together so tightly and I don’t think he was wrong. We were able to find two seats together, which was no mean feat. Nearly all the seats were gone and people were sitting on the floor. It wasn’t pretty. Not only was their not nearly enough seating, but it all way too close together as well, with almost no room to stand up and move between rows of seats.
Even worse, we already knew that our plane was delayed, but fortunately between us, we managed to start talking to the four or five people around us, which helped to pass the time. One guy was absolutely classic – he came from California and I heard him on the phone, telling someone how cold it was here – that everything had frozen on him and it was below freezing. I couldn’t help but laugh and he did later admit that he knew he was pathetic when it came to cold weather, as all he’s used to now is heat. As we all chatted away, the rain that had been threatening with dark clouds heading our way finally led rip and appeared as hail. That didn’t bode well.
Not long after our plane finally got in, we were boarding and we didn’t do too badly. We were quickly the runway (why can’t we be as quick when we fly out of the UK? ) and we only left about 30 minutes later than they had originally anticipated when we first got to the airport. Not bad. Despite the awful weather, the flight was fine and certainly less bumpy than when we landed in Chicago.
I was very sad to bid farewell to Chicago and I know we will be back, although I don’t know when. I’m very glad that we made our first trip to this lovely city. It didn’t disappoint. :
The flight down to Long Beach wasn’t bad, although it didn’t help that my TV screen didn’t work. They told me that I could move to another seat, but as we’d paid for the extra legroom and were at the front of the plane, I didn’t want to. It was a shame, as I fancied trying out their Direct TV system with 36 channels, but it was not to be. Instead, I tried to sleep for much of the flight with my iPod on to drown out the screaming of the baby opposite. It reminded me of our awful flight back from Barcelona a couple of months ago, in that respect.
We got some snacks on the way and the True Blue potato chips weren’t bad, although I preferred the Doritos cheese mix. At least they give you a selection of free snacks, while you’re on board, which is good.
And really, apart from the TV screen that didn’t work, I couldn’t fault JetBlue. They do seem to have a very good airline and I can see why everyone is so enthusiastic about them. I would certainly fly with them again and would recommend them to others.
We weren’t that late into Long Beach, considering how late we left, but oh my goodness, this is one tiny airport. We literally got off the plane while it was on the tarmac and walked over to the building. There was a small waiting area and then it was through some double doors and we were out at the front of the airport, which is where baggage claim is. I have never seen anything like this and we’ve seen some pretty small airports in mainland Europe.
Bearing in mind how tiny the airport was, it took some time and way longer than I expected for the luggage to start appearing, but fortunately, when it did, we got all four cases in a fairly short space and then it was off to get a taxi over to Disneyland. It’s a flat fare of $40, which isn’t a bad deal. About half an hour later, we were pulling up at the Grand Californian Hotel. The second we arrived, the place felt very special. They really do treat you like royalty in a way that somehow didn’t quite happen at the Disneyland Hotel.
The lobby is stunning and very reminiscent of the Wilderness Lodge and immediately we were seen by Jodi, who checked us in and chatted away to us. She couldn’t have been more pleasant and, during the conversation, I mentioned that it would be our anniversary in just over a week’s time and, when she finished checking us in, she asked if we could wait for a couple of minutes and off she went. When she came back, she had three balloons with her with two anniversary buttons for us. What a great start to our vacation here.
We got some help from bell services with the luggage and I’m glad we did, as it was quite a hike to our room. When we got there, I was really impressed with the size of the room and what I could see of the view over Disney’s California Adventure. Even better, I remembered that you get dressing gowns here and I quickly found those in the closet.
The view from our room at night
We decided to order room service, as it was so late by now and there were no other real options. Mark got a burger and extra side of fries for me and a small chocolate brownie for me – well, that was what the guy called it who brought it up to us, but that description couldn’t have been further from the truth. The thing was huge and I barely made a dent in it. It wasn’t bad and did the job of filling us up, but it wasn’t exactly gourmet food either. We were obviously tired, as I didn’t managed to get photos of any of it.
We sat there for a while, letting our dinner go down and, as we did, we kept hearing a noise. At first, I couldn’t work out what it was, but then I fathomed out that it had to be monorail passing underneath us. How neat.
Eventually our food had gone down enough that we could go to bed. At least we didn’t have an early start tomorrow with neither park opening until 10.00.
Today we walked 5.39 miles The weather today was bright and sunny, but increasingly windy in Chicago, with temperatures in the 40’s and in the high 60’s in Los Angeles, when we landed. The best thing today was going back to the Field Museum. The worst thing today was saying goodbye to Lesley and the problems with security. The funniest thing today was chatting away to everyone at the airport, as we had a really good laugh with them all. Today we tried visiting the Shedd Aquarium And the result was it was really good, despite the fact that it’s main attraction is closed right now. The most magical moment today was getting my Chicago Christmas tree ornament from Lesley.
Well, I'm glad you made it to California!! Your room looks so much, uh, roomier than the one before! Glad the flight was pretty good, even if you did leave late and no working TV screen!!!
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At the moment, the New York part is done, which is the link she posted above. The latter posts then have a link in to the WDW section, which is currently underway in the WDW trip report forum. Next will be the Chicago section, back in the Globetrotting trip report forum and, once that's done, that will be followed by the Disneyland section in here. Finally, the Vegas section will be in the Globetrotting trip report forum. 
He had gone through still wearing his belt and had some change in his jeans and had been stopped. Worse than that, he had been put into what I can only describe as a glass cage. He later checked and it was bullet proof. 
He was in there for what seemed like forever, while I stood there with a mountain of coats and hand luggage. Eventually, he was released and was cleared to carry on. That was a close call and I think left him with a beating heart. I suspect he will be checking his pockets very thoroughly in the future to ensure that doesn’t happen again. 
) and we only left about 30 minutes later than they had originally anticipated when we first got to the airport. Not bad. Despite the awful weather, the flight was fine and certainly less bumpy than when we landed in Chicago. 
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