Our trip to Aulani: Has it been 30 years already! - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 just found your report and am so excited to read it! We are headed to Aulani this summer to celebrate our daughter's high school graduation and our 20th wedding anniversary. We are DVC members too and staying on points. Thanks for the tip regarding room view. I know you stayed in a 2 bedroom, so I'm hoping we luck out with this view for our 1 bedroom!
I'm all finished. What a great trip you had! Thanks for the great tips and information. It sounds like you booked your own excursions and tours. Is that correct? I like that idea better than going with a tour group.
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I was hoping you would recommend a good travel book. Yes, we will have a car. We have 2 younger children too (11 & 9), but they are pretty seasoned travelers and I know they would enjoy the 2 excursions you wrote about in your TR.
One other question - we will be flying from the East Coast and arriving pretty late in the day. I'm thinking it might be better to stay at a hotel close to the airport that first night and arrive at Aulani early the next day. Better use of points??
I was hoping you would recommend a good travel book. Yes, we will have a car. We have 2 younger children too (11 & 9), but they are pretty seasoned travelers and I know they would enjoy the 2 excursions you wrote about in your TR.
One other question - we will be flying from the East Coast and arriving pretty late in the day. I'm thinking it might be better to stay at a hotel close to the airport that first night and arrive at Aulani early the next day. Better use of points??
I had a quick look for hotels near the airport as part of the advance planning I'm doing for our (hoped for) December 2017 return to Aulani. I only found a couple and none were very well rated on TripAdvisor, which really surprised me. While it is a drive, if you're late, you'll miss rush hour, which is something worth keeping in mind. I honestly can't remember if rush hour in the morning was both ways or just one way... I have a horrible feeling it was both ways....
Sorry I can't help on the hotel. We arrived at 9:30 so we missed morning traffic. If you stay near the airport I would leave after 9 am. We hit almost no traffic. It sounds like Cheryl has done some research and found that there is not a very good selection of decent rooms. It would be nice though to be able to save the extra points.
I have to give a shout out to Cheryl as I got most of my info from her TR. Thanks again Cheryl.
No worries - happy to help out. I remember planning our trip and gratefully taking any advice I could from others who'd been to Aulani and I just wanted to re-pay the favour.
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Yes, we will have a car. We have 2 younger children too (11 & 9), but they are pretty seasoned travelers and I know they would enjoy the 2 excursions you wrote about in your TR. 
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