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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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On our last trip to Disney my mother in law brought extra small organization containers for her bathroom stuff. I loved her idea because it allowed her to completely unpack her bathroom stuff and it made things seem more like home. I plan to steal this idea for our next trip. We will be there for 2 weeks and I want to feel at home.
My mind has now started thinking of other ways to make our room more comfortable. One idea I had was to ship a cheap comforter from Walmart to have on the trip and to get our own laundry hamper (my in laws use the provided one) The comforter I want because the rooms we stay in only have sheets on the beds. I prefer something a little heavier, because I like sleeping in a cold room. I just remember being cold and uncomfortable on our last trip. (Stayed at OKW) Those are the only things I can think of off the top of my head.
What extras have you added to your resort room to make it more at home or to keep things organized?? I’d love some more ideas!!
We bought a two-shelf corner unit with suction cups for the tub surround in VGF. There was no decent surface to set soap, shampoo, conditioner. Not even room to balance a travel soap holder without it falling into the tub!
That is going with us on our next trip for sure.
__________________
“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
One thing I take or purchase if we are going to be in a hotel for more than 2-3 nights is a bottle of hand soap. I really hate using gummy, tiny little bars of soap to wash my hands and then said tiny little bar of soap gunking up the area around the sink. One of the first times I brought it, DH was like "oh, yes, I like having actual hand soap to wash my hands instead of the hotel bar of soap."
I bring a shoe organizer that we hang over the bathroom door. Awesome way to store everything and be able to find it easily. A small basket to put on the dresser to collect magicbands, wallet, etc. We also bring a small bottle of hand soap.
We bought some after discovering that in our villa was as bad as that in the parks.
Yes! We were completely dismayed when GF had downgraded their toilet tissue a couple of visits ago. Nothing ruins a deluxe experience more than feeling like the bathroom is on par with that of a gas station. Unfortunately, the amount we pay per night at the GF we really should not need to BYOTT, but we will do so as well.
we stay at POFQ and bring a pop-up clothes hamper and a small hanging shoe thing that hooks over the clothes bar by the sink area. each of us have a 'cubby' to organize.
I have a pop up style hamper that stores in my suitcase for all of our trips. It is so nice to be able to pop the dirty things right in there. It has handles so is easy to take to the laundry if you choose to do some while there.
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This is so opposite of us. We basically live out of our suitcases and train case (what we keep our bathroom things in). Quite often we don't even unpack clothes except those we hang.
We drive so we can bring lots of things that are helpful. A clothes hamper or bag, a power strip and some of those big black trash bags always come with us. We also bring a few plastic hangers and clip clothes pins for in-room drying of bathing suits and undies (much better than the little line). The clothespins are also useful for keeping curtains shut all the way, an essential if you are staying on the first floor. I bring a Lysol spray, a room freshener and a Febreze spray, all in travel sizes, along with anti-bacterial wipes for the television control and other surfaces.
I also bring one of those battery operated lights that you tap to turn on and off. Makes an excellent little nightlight on the nightstand that isn't too bright and may be comforting for children (bring extra batteries). A small LED flashlight is useful too, in case of power outages or something rolling under a bed. And I bring a book light as I must read every night!
Although you can ask housekeeping for a blanket, we bring light throws to beef up the bedding if necessary, and since there are never enough pillows to suit us, we bring small pillows for wedging under knees or behind our heads when reading.
I fly so luggage Space is at a premium. I use the laundry bag in the room for laundry.
You can request extra blankets from housekeeping. There is a blanket in between the sheets on the bed, but you can get more. I don’t keep AC cold so have never needed extra. But one stay at POR in Jan the temps dropped and when we returned to our room there were extra blankets folded on each bed.
There would be zero room in my luggage to pack home a comforter, lol.
We do bring a small collapsible organizer for cosmetics. This upcoming trip I get 2 suitcase allocation on flight so I found a small hot pot at Walmart I’m bringing to boil eggs. We prefer to have breakfast in the room, takes less time and we like to make rope drop. Don’t want to have to get up earlier than I have to. It’s hard enough with time change!!
We drive and take a ton of stuff with us, so I don’t know how much of a help I’ll be if you’re flying.
We take either a collapsible hamper or my giant 31 bag for dirty clothes. We take clothes pins, our own hangers bc there are never enough, our own liquid hand soap, laundry det, dryer sheets, etc.
We bring our own pillows and huggies/ stuffies. (Yes, even at 43 I still have to cuddle a stuffed animal to sleep, lol.) We bring the pillows bc I have a lot of shoulder and back pain due to fibro so I have to prop up a lot. Both of my kids bring their own blankets which are large enough to cover the beds, so we use that for the bed blankets. (Dd is very much a germaphobe, plus both kids just like the comfort of it smelling like home. )
We bring a basket to throw change, keys, odds and ends in to. A power strip to charge everything.
I bring a fan for the noise plus for my night sweats. Perimenopause is hitting me hard.
We bring dd’s wheelchair for her extreme foot and leg pain. She doesn’t use the chair anywhere but at Disney, but I don’t imagine she’ll ever be able to not use it there.
I bring every medicine we could possibly need as literally on 50% of our vacations, someone has gotten extremely sick. (Flu and/or stomach bug) . I’m going to start taking lots of sprite, crackers, those cup-a-soup things, gatorades, etc as the last trip it was Dh and Ds who were *violently* sick. I have driving anxiety when I’m not familiar with roads, so I was no help.
Yes, we overpack, and yes dh fusses everytime he sees me rolling out the suitcases, but it’s one of those “I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it” kind of thing. Plus, I’m just downright cheap so if I can throw it into a suitcase that beats paying the higher prices down in the World.
We drive and take a ton of stuff with us, so I don’t know how much of a help I’ll be if you’re flying.
We take either a collapsible hamper or my giant 31 bag for dirty clothes. We take clothes pins, our own hangers bc there are never enough, our own liquid hand soap, laundry det, dryer sheets, etc.
We bring our own pillows and huggies/ stuffies. (Yes, even at 43 I still have to cuddle a stuffed animal to sleep, lol.) We bring the pillows bc I have a lot of shoulder and back pain due to fibro so I have to prop up a lot. Both of my kids bring their own blankets which are large enough to cover the beds, so we use that for the bed blankets. (Dd is very much a germaphobe, plus both kids just like the comfort of it smelling like home. )
We bring a basket to throw change, keys, odds and ends in to. A power strip to charge everything.
I bring a fan for the noise plus for my night sweats. Perimenopause is hitting me hard.
We bring dd’s wheelchair for her extreme foot and leg pain. She doesn’t use the chair anywhere but at Disney, but I don’t imagine she’ll ever be able to not use it there.
I bring every medicine we could possibly need as literally on 50% of our vacations, someone has gotten extremely sick. (Flu and/or stomach bug) . I’m going to start taking lots of sprite, crackers, those cup-a-soup things, gatorades, etc as the last trip it was Dh and Ds who were *violently* sick. I have driving anxiety when I’m not familiar with roads, so I was no help.
Yes, we overpack, and yes dh fusses everytime he sees me rolling out the suitcases, but it’s one of those “I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it” kind of thing. Plus, I’m just downright cheap so if I can throw it into a suitcase that beats paying the higher prices down in the World.
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