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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Magic Kingdom day!! The most magical of them all...
While we’ll have already visited MK on our arrival day, this is the official day we’ll visit, arriving first for breakfast at Crystal Palace! Our ADR is for 8:35, so I’m excited that we’ll get into the park and snap a few photos prior to all the crowds descending, haha. I love me some Pooh’s puffed French toast. What’s not to love about what is practically funnel cake for breakfast??
Our FPs for the day are:
o Meet Mickey @ Town Square Theater (9:20-10:20)
o Meet Cinderella & Rapunzel (10:30-11:30)
o Jungle Cruise (12:35-1:35)
I can’t remember if I mentioned it earlier, but I’m a little apprehensive about meeting characters. Especially the face characters. I’m not great at small talk, haha. But from everything I’ve heard, the characters themselves are very good at driving the conversation. An introvert (such as myself) could never do that job! It would be so exhausting to have the pressure of driving conversations with strangers all day long, ha! So, we’ll see how these go. I really am wanting to do more of the meet & greets though. I want to have photos of my pregnant self with characters to show our child! I think he/she will get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.
I love that there are SO MANY ATTRACTIONS at MK! While I’m certainly bummed I won’t be able to ride BTMRR and SDMT, there’s still plenty to do. I’m sure we’ll be all over the place all day, fitting in all that we want to do. With restful rides on the TTA in between.
As far as lunch is concerned, I’ll have my eye on Casey’s more than likely. But I know we’ll do some serious snacking as well. We’ve discussed the possibility of splitting all of our counter service meals this trip in order to leave more room for all the various snacks to be had. So, that may happen here. We’ll stop by Plaza Ice Cream Parlor, for sure. And Richard really wants to try the pot roast mac and cheese (I’m not as interested in that…). The one thing I really am bummed about is that the spicy chicken waffle sandwich is gone from Sleepy Hollow! I never made it a point to get that on our last trip and now I definitely wish I had. Oh well. OH! And an absolute MUST is a Citrus Swirl (I'm more in this camp than the dole whip)! I've only had this once a few trips ago and I LOVED IT. I did not get one on my last visit for some crazy reason. So, if I haven't' already gotten one on an earlier drop in to this park, I definitely will this day. Plaza Ice Cream and a citrus swirl on the same day, you may say... It's vacation, right?!!
One thing that is kind of up in the air for this day is the possibility of meeting up with some friends of ours. A guy who was in our wedding and his wife moved to the Tampa area a year or so go. And we recently found out she is also pregnant, due about 3 weeks before me. So, we’re really wanting to meet and catch up with them some and this is the day they said they could come to Orlando to meet us. I’ve told her our plan to be in MK during the day and, if they wanted to buy park tickets, they could meet us there. Otherwise, we could meet them for dinner at Disney Springs. They still haven’t told me which they prefer to do yet. Makes this planner a little anxious, but we’ll manage.
If we don’t end up meeting our friends at Disney Springs for dinner, we’ll probably just hop to another park for some evening festivities and grab some dinner at a QS place! Maybe even at a resort hotel we’ve not ever ventured to.
A common theme that I’m picking up on as I write this PTR is the lack of hard-and-fast plans. And I am honestly loving that! Most of my trips in the past have involved more ADRs. And especially more at dinner, which really dictate where we end up for the evening. So, I love the idea of just going wherever we feel like.
Up Next: Our final full day in the World...
__________________
* Wendy *
Felicity Cadence
born 8.31.16
Last edited by Soarin829; 04-20-2016 at 02:00 PM..
Friday, April 29
Our final full day in the parks will begin in Epcot. Well, sort of. One thing we will not have made time for yet this trip is a cinnamon roll from Gaston’s at MK. I know everyone misses the cinnamon rolls from the Main Street Bakery. And I do, too. But these are truly almost as good to me. Richard doesn’t have anything to compare it with, so he thinks they’re awesome. Anyway, we plan to start our day with a pit stop in the MK to eat a cinnamon roll, then we’ll make our way over to Epcot for most of the day. And bonus: MK has morning EMH this day. So, if we happen to be up and at ‘em early, we can get in there for our cinnamon roll without missing too much time at Epcot.
With the Flower & Garden Festival, we figured this would be the park we’d most want to return to. Also, since we’re splitting our first day here with Hollywood Studios, we will need a return trip. There are lots of things we never make time for at Epcot, mostly spending as much time in the World Showcase pavilions as we’d like to. We just don’t make the time usually. But with 2 visits this trip, I feel we will finally give the pavilions more time. One essential for Richard is The American Adventure/Voices of Liberty. I’ve seen this attraction a LOOONG time ago, but he never has and always wants to. So, this time we are MAKING it happen!
Our FPs are…
o Turtle Talk w/Crush (12:35-1:35) *new to us
o Mission:SPACE (1:35-2:35)
o Epcot Character Spot (3:00-4:00)
Obviously, I won’t be taking part in MS, but Richard certainly will. He wants me to do the orange side with him someday. No thanks. He’ll be waiting a long time on that one! I’m excited to do Turtle Talk. I’ve heard it’s so cute and it’s just not something we’ve taken time for ever. It’s fun to still have new things to try at Disney! It’s hard to believe I’ve been so much but still feel like there’s so much I haven’t seen.
For dinner this night, we have a new ADR planned at the Trail’s End buffet at 6:50. I’ve been for the a la carte lunch, but never for the buffet. So, I’m quite excited. And Richard hasn’t been to Fort Wilderness before, so I think he’ll enjoy seeing it.
After dinner, if we still have energy on this final night of our trip, I’d like to finish the trip off with Wishes. It doesn’t start until 10pm this night, so we should have plenty of time to get there for it. I’m sure with my pregnancy hormones, I’ll cry more than usual, haha!
And with that, we’ll head back and hit the sack for some sleep before driving home the next day.
Saturday, April 30th
Nothing exciting planned for our final morning in my favorite place on earth. Just a quick breakfast at Everything Pop and we’ll hit the road! The drive is 8.5 hours with no stops, but we usually budget 10 hours with stops for gas, food, etc. And this trip, there will be plenty of stops. Doctors orders… He said when driving long distances while pregnant, you should stop every 2-3 hours to get the blood flowing in the legs. So, we’ll see how long that ends up taking.
Thanks so much for reading along my PTR! I’m going to do my best to take good notes and post a full, complete trip report this time! It would be first ever to complete. I think I can, I think I can…
I really wanted to comment on your character apprehension & your travel to/from.
1st - the characters deal with this from many people daily so yes - they know how to handle the "fear." That being said I have noticed that especially with adults they feed off of your interaction. If you play it up - they will too. If you hang back they will do the meet & greet and pretty much leave it at that. Try your best to have fun with your character time. It will be great to look back with your child and tell them the fun that you had. If you want you could play up the baby moon trip and introduce the future mouseketeer. That may open up for some fun with your baby belly & some great photo ops.
As for driving - getting out and stressing is key bc you do not want to develop any clots bc of being stationary. I would recommend just rocking back on your heel then to your toe a few times every half hour - hour to keep your blood flowing and your legs from cramping. And by all means I would not be wearing shoes during the car trip - slip on would be best for ease of getting on when you stop for breaks. This way your feet will not swell as much. Good luck on your magical journey.
I really wanted to comment on your character apprehension & your travel to/from.
1st - the characters deal with this from many people daily so yes - they know how to handle the "fear." That being said I have noticed that especially with adults they feed off of your interaction. If you play it up - they will too. If you hang back they will do the meet & greet and pretty much leave it at that. Try your best to have fun with your character time. It will be great to look back with your child and tell them the fun that you had. If you want you could play up the baby moon trip and introduce the future mouseketeer. That may open up for some fun with your baby belly & some great photo ops.
As for driving - getting out and stressing is key bc you do not want to develop any clots bc of being stationary. I would recommend just rocking back on your heel then to your toe a few times every half hour - hour to keep your blood flowing and your legs from cramping. And by all means I would not be wearing shoes during the car trip - slip on would be best for ease of getting on when you stop for breaks. This way your feet will not swell as much. Good luck on your magical journey.
Thanks for your tips! I did manage to see this before we set off, so it was good to have!
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But from everything I’ve heard, the characters themselves are very good at driving the conversation. An introvert (such as myself) could never do that job! It would be so exhausting to have the pressure of driving conversations with strangers all day long, ha! So, we’ll see how these go. I really am wanting to do more of the meet & greets though. I want to have photos of my pregnant self with characters to show our child! I think he/she will get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.
Makes this planner a little anxious, but we’ll manage. 
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