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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Hello everyone and welcome to my very first trip report :thew ave:…. I have gone to see the Mouse many, many times – but I had never stayed in a Disney resort – just on property – at SoG and I have never planned beyond just picking the dates, getting the tickets, deciding who would drive the first leg from DE, and trying to get on as many rides as possible until either 1. – kids had to be dragged through the parks, or 2. – the parks closed. Then I found this site and I realized that I had to regroup as I was determined to “savor” this trip and really plan – (not as easy as I thought it would be). I was so nervous about writing this as I wasn’t sure what to write – how much to write – or when to write. But I got a big boost of confidence after talking to Cam22 (thanks Cam), goofyboysmama (thanks) and others…(thanks everyone)…. Then I was getting nervous about when to start as I had already washed, ironed, folded & packed, had the tickets and everything all ready to go and was trying to find things to do since April….. Then I just decided – just do it when I hit the 30 day mark…. So here I am.
My trip this summer will go a little something like this:
Those coming along for the ride: Me – Theresa, 42 - ex- US Army, ICU RN, Chef, well-travelled- loves food, jazz & the mouse!!! DH – Mark, 39 (will be 40)... ex - USANG, Senior BMET, loves the wife, so will do what wife wants -most of the time DS – Donovan, 10 - great student- loves having fun and travelling & amusement parks DS - Gabriel, 4 (will turn 5 on this trip)... loves playing and rides DFil – Franz, (Opa) retired; From Germany, lives in USA DMil – Erika, (Oma), retired; From Germany, lives in USA
*Wednesday, September 2nd - leave home and fly out of PHL to MCO
Arrive MCO 18:30 - take DME to AKL, club level
ADR at 20:15 @ Jiko – Celebrate Gabriel’s birthday
* Thursday – Sunrise Safari, AK, rest of day at Epcot
ADR at 16:15 @ Garden Grill
* Friday – P/U rental vehicle (surprising DH with a Hummer) – spend the day at Aquatica; 18:00 - Cirque du Soleil – La Nouba
Dinner reservations at Morton’s Steakhouse – 20:30 – Return rental
* Saturday – ADR @ Boma at 08:40 - DME to Port Canaveral - board Disney Magic -Stateroom #8034
Sunday – Key West – renting an electric car for DMil – celebrate Oma’s bday
Monday – At Sea – Me: Alone time; Adults: Palo High Tea & Palo Dinner – celebrate Gabriel’s bday
Tuesday – Grand Cayman – Island tour and Butterfly Farm w/ in-laws – celebrate Opa’s bday
Wednesday – Cozumel- Me: Mexican Cuisine Workshop and Tasting; DH and both DS – Dolphin swim @ Dolphinaris
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Nice Plan's!! Can't wait to see all the picture's too!! Try to ride the Conch Train in Key West, they drive you around to see all the good stuff like Sloppy Joe's. And ya never know Jimmy Buffet is sometimes there too. Hav A Great Time LouigiAnne
Every year we try to go to at least 3 different places, but Disney is always on the list – so really only 2 different places….So last August, since work and finances were starting to get funny; we decided to go on just one “nice” Disney trip next summer. We waited for the DCL rates and went to AAA to put down a deposit on a Cat. 3- since we had already tried a cat.6 and a cat.4. Then in late August/early September, my work injury got extremely bad and I went to see a few more specialists and a pain doc. Well, of course no one knew what exactly what was going on, but they sent me for a battery of tests and MRIs. The pain doc’s secretary called my home and left a message on the phone saying that they were cancelling my appt that week because I had to get my “cancer” diagnosis cleared first. But I didn’t know that she had called and had gone by the office for some paperwork and she told me that she had not too long ago left me a message on my home phone – OK, what was it?… then she told me that my MRI had showed CANCER…. WHAT!!!! Who in the HECK said that I had cancer????? I can’t even begin to tell you or describe what I was thinking or going through at that moment…(I wasn’t a nurse at that moment) I’m thinking at the worst- that I had a badly sprained ligament that just wasn’t healing or a tear in my shoulder – since the earlier docs missed the tear (I sustained with this injury) in my elbow, I figured they had just missed something else…. I walked out stunned and my DH – who was waiting for me in the car, asked me what was wrong -so I told him… He sort of laughed it off and said –“you got to be kidding”. I sort of freaked out at about then, and we then drove across the street - to the cancer center to get the ball rolling and to get to the bottom of this!! I made all of the necessary appts and I STILL had to wait about 4 weeks to even get seen by an oncologist. I never cried so much in such a short period of time … I was literally walking on eggshells – in a trance. So - I finally get in to see this doc and she was just as upset as I was and stated that she wished that she could get her hands on the idiot who wrote “cancer” in big letters on the referral sheet on my chart – (I’d like to know too). She immediately tried to be reassuring and comforting. She said for the types of cancer that this could be – she couldn’t see it being likely as I was pretty healthy and if I were to have this type of cancer (bone) I would “look” sickly and my previous labs would look entirely different, which I agreed (being a nurse). So she ordered more labs, x-rays, etc and scheduled a follow-up. There we found out that I had NO type of cancer whatsoever!!! THANK YOU JESUS!!! But the MRI was showing swelling in the shoulder and bicep, Duh…. I had been complaining of pain for almost 4 years!! Next, we went back to the pain doc, gave the secretary a little piece of my mind (more like a scolding ) as I told her that it was not her place in the first place to tell me that type of news, it was the docs responsibility!!! I then went to a different ortho doc - and lo and behold I did have a really bad (labral) shoulder (around the socket) tear & scar tissue– which was just repaired this past January and RSD!!! Just what I said before the cancer scare!! So with all of this behind us – we then decided from here on out to make all of our family time and vacations even more special and memorable, so we will splurge a bit more on this vacation; we added a week at the parks, tours and upgraded lodging, etc. And since I get emotional at times – (I cry at some commercials, good hallmark cards, or these shows where lost family members are found, when someone average gets recognize for their sacrifice and gets an award, or when someone pulls themselves by their bootstraps and becomes successful, etc.), I’ve invited my in-laws to come along – since they have never done any trips with us and I have been with their son for about 16 years and married to him for 9 years, it was beyond time!!! I want my boys to have some memories with them as my in-laws are in their late 70’s –early 80’s; and they have loads of memories/vacations with my parents... So this year Oma & Opa are foregoing their yearly trek to the their motherland (Germany) to be with us....and to see the Mouse for the first itme in about 40+ years!!!
I hope that you and your family have a magical time at the world
__________________
Heather - "I'm Tinkerbell's biggest fan!"
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
About This Page: 
Surf and Turf UPDATED: 10/14
to my very first trip report 
Enjoy a Disney Lifestyle......Everyday!
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
LouigiAnne
Who in the HECK said that I had cancer????? 
I can’t even begin to tell you or describe what I was thinking or going through at that moment…(I wasn’t a nurse at that moment) I’m thinking at the worst- that I had a badly sprained ligament that just wasn’t healing or a tear in my shoulder – since the earlier docs missed the tear (I sustained with this injury) in my elbow, I figured they had just missed something else…. I walked out stunned and my DH – who was waiting for me in the car, asked me what was wrong -so I told him… He sort of laughed it off and said –“you got to be kidding”
and we then drove across the street - to the cancer center to get the ball rolling and to get to the bottom of this!! I made all of the necessary appts and I STILL had to wait about 4 weeks to even get seen by an oncologist. I never cried so much in such a short period of time 
type of cancer whatsoever!!! THANK YOU JESUS!!! 
But the MRI was showing swelling in the shoulder and bicep, Duh…. I had been complaining of pain for almost 4 years!! Next, we went back to the pain doc, gave the secretary a little piece of my mind (more like a scolding 
) as I told her that it was not her place in the first place to tell me that type of news, it was the docs responsibility!!! I then went to a different ortho doc - and lo and behold I did have a really bad (labral) shoulder (around the socket) tear & scar tissue– which was just repaired this past January and RSD!!!
goodness the cancer was only a scare and not the really thing. Can't wait for more!
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