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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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If you have already read that, well, then read on. Let the adventure begin.
Tuesday morning finally came and our routine was pretty much normal. Grumpy got Kiara ready for school while I got ready for work, and when the time came make our morning drive, Grumpy got behind the wheel to drop us both off. From there, he headed home and loaded the Toaster and waited for the time to pass. I, in the meantime, was busting my hump to clear my desk. It was an ugly day at work, but after 8-½ hours, I finally threw in the towel, told my co-workers I was done, and made my way out the door to join the pride, who were waiting for me in the parking lot.
And while I didn’t scream on the way out, I did pass a co-worker, that I have a good relationship with, and as I walked out the door, I turned to her and in a very loud voice said “I’m going to Disney World!” and out the door I ran. I hopped in the passenger side, looked at Grumpy and said “DRIVE!” I wanted to get as far away from that place as I possibly could. I was extremely stressed out but after we got a few miles down the road, I felt my frustrations leaving me, and a smile began to break out on my face. We were on our way.
We had traveled about ten miles when from the back seat we heard Kiara say “Is that Florida up there?” It was going to be a long drive.
The drive that evening was pretty much uneventful, but Kiara did say something from the backseat that puzzled us. Out of the blue she said “I don’t like Ak and Eddie. Eddie scares me” Grumpy and I couldn’t figure out what in the world she was talking about, or who Eddie was, but it finally dawned on Grumpy what she was saying. Yak and Yeti! We got a good laugh out of it, and then explained to Kiara that Yak and Yeti was a restaurant, and there was no scary Eddie in it.
We had traveled a few hundred miles and decided to look for a place to spend the night. We had no intention of pushing too far that evening, so we started looking for a hotel. In previous trip reports, I have talked about this strange thing that happens to my brain when on a Disney trip. It is what I affectionately refer to as my “Disney dumbness”. It is almost as if the logical side of my brain pulls down the shade and closes for business, and it became clear that it was setting in rather quickly on this trip.
Grumpy and I started watching the road signs for a hotel and when we passed one I said “Wow, that's cool”. Grumpy asked what I was talking about and I said “They had the room rates above each of the hotels listed on that sign”. Grumpy reached over, patted me on the leg and said “Ahhh, honey, that would be the EXIT numbers, not the room rates.” We both got a good laugh out of that one and we were still laughing when we pulled into a Comfort Suites. Grumpy checked us in and we headed to our room.
With an indoor pool on the premises , Kiara, of course, wanted to go for a swim. Grumpy took her to the pool and Sarafina and I watched the finale of Dancing with the Stars. Shortly after ten, we all turned in for a good night's rest to ready ourselves for the drive in the morning.
We awoke without the alarm, cleaned up and packed up and were on the road shortly after 7 AM. The drive to Chattanooga was mostly uneventful, with the exception of some heavy rain for the first few hours. Once we passed Nashville, the skies cleared and we noticed it was very warm outside. After about five hours on the road, we found our little cabin on the lake at Hales Bar Marina.
Grumpy headed into the office to check us in and came back out a few minutes later. He told me there had been a mix up in our reservation and instead of a land cabin, they had us booked in a water cabin. This freaked me out a bit, as the water cabins were literally little cabins floating on the lake, with a front and a back door that opened to a little balcony over the water. I knew I would never be able to sleep in one for fear that Kiara, the water obsessed child, would get up in the middle of the night and want to go for a dip! Grumpy said he considered taking the cabin, but the same fear hit him as well. The woman checking him in then realized her error in our reservation and since there was not a one bedroom land cabin available, she did the only thing she could. Upgrade us!
We took a little winding road up a steep hill and found our THREE bedroom, TWO bath cabin! Grumpy had really scored well on this one. We stepped inside and began exploring our home for the evening and found a nice living room with a fireplace.
OK, so the fireplace was an electric one with the fake logs, but it still was a nice touch and added to the ambiance of the place. We explored some more and found a master bedroom with a full bath attached and Grumpy immediately claimed it for us.
We found two more bedrooms and the other full bath, as well as a large eat in kitchen.
And of course, there was the deck with a large grill and a view of the marina and the old power station. Hales Bar Marina was quite the interesting place with a lot of history around it. The power station is reported to be one of the most haunted areas in the state of Tennessee and they offer ghost tours of it. I wish I would have been able to do a tour but there was not one scheduled for the one evening we were there.
We were yet to have lunch, and rather than go on a quest for a restaurant, we decided to make good use of the facilities in the cabin. While I am not one to want to cook while on vacation, or clean up the mess, it seemed only fitting that we should grill some steaks and just spend the evening relaxing and enjoying our surroundings. We found a grocery store, picked up what we needed and headed back to the cabin. Sarafina and I set to work getting everything ready for dinner while Grumpy did what he does best:
Grillin’ and chillin’
The meal was wonderful, even if we cooked way too much food, and we spent the rest of the evening sitting on the deck and enjoying the warm night air. The pride was full and tired and one by one they each turned in and I was the last one standing. By 7:30, I found myself alone, but I didn’t mind as I enjoyed the quiet of the surrounding woods and water around me. It really was a peaceful place to be and I wished we were able to spend a bit more time there.
After a few hours, I decided to turn in as well and sleep quickly found me.
Wow! What a nice upgrade! It sounds like your trip got off to a great start. Hopefully by the time you were enjoying the grill all the stresses of work were well and truly behind you.
Awesome upgrade and a great way to kick off the Magic! Glad you could unwind from the work craziness by munching on a steak and enjoying the great outdoors.
Looking forward to Kiara's first reaction of the ocean!
danielle
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Nice dig's! The cabin on the water sounds interesting to see but not someplace I'd feel comfortable staying. Love Ak and Eddie.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
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The cabin on the water sounds interesting to see but not someplace I'd feel comfortable staying.
I totally agree!!!! I like to think I don't have a fear of water, but rather great respect for it. I forgot to include a picture of the floating cabins.
As cool as they look, there is no way I could have slept in one of these, even if Kiara was not along for the ride. I think if we had spent the night in one of these, the song "My Heart Will Go On" would have been running through my head.
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We got a good laugh out of it, and then explained to Kiara that Yak and Yeti was a restaurant, and there was no scary Eddie in it. 
We both got a good laugh out of that one and we were still laughing when we pulled into a Comfort Suites. Grumpy checked us in and we headed to our room. 
Grumpy said he considered taking the cabin, but the same fear hit him as well. The woman checking him in then realized her error in our reservation and since there was not a one bedroom land cabin available, she did the only thing she could. Upgrade us! 
We stepped inside and began exploring our home for the evening and found a nice living room with a fireplace. 
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Pixie Dust
Previous trips: POFQ 2005 & 2007, Boardwalk 2008, BCV & AKLV 2009 (our honeymoon) & 2012, BCV & BLT 2011, BCV 2013, AKLV 2014
Susan
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