Beware Disneyland: PassPorters Are on the Loose - *Updated 6/8/07* - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We finished our time at the Snow White waterfall and headed into Fantasyland at the back of the Castle. Andrea showed us the Golden stake at since Miss Eileen asked about it.
One Those “Let’s see if I can be a photographer shots.”
We headed back through the Castle and down to the entrance to Frontierland. Andrea informed us we were going to see something only cast members see…”The Running of the Guests”. We all stood by and watched the phenomenon and rolled in laughter. Eileen’s video does so much more justice to this event. I was able to get one shot with people running towards Adventureland.
After the release of the guests, we headed into Frontierland, and she informed us all about the homeage to Davy Crocket and Mr. and Mrs. Disney’s love of the Diamond Horseshoe Saloon. She then told a wonderful story of Mrs. Disney’s donation of the Petrified Rock to Disneyland. Apparently, Walt told her he got her a big rock not thinking it was actually a rock not of the diamond kind.
We then headed over to New Orleans Square to get a peak at Club 33. I was really excited about this portion of the tour even though I knew we were only going to see the lobby. Milssa took over and told us the history of Club 33 and the special attributes of the lobby like the elevator, the stain glass window above the door, and the bust in the corner of the lobby who I cannot remember for the life of me who it is (Marie Antoinette???). She also told us about a picture of three musicians that were from the New Orleans area that performed at Disneyland back in the day. One man named Ernie still performed in New Orleans Square. (Remember this!)
A quiet New Orleans Square
After leaving the luxurious Club 33, we headed over to Tomorrowland and we heard all about the new ride Nemo’s Submarine Voyage. I don’t remember much about this portion of the tour. Must have been in la-la land because I took no pictures. Oh well! We crossed back across the hub and into Adventureland. It was time for Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room. We arrived just as they had started a showing. We all took this time for restroom breaks and refreshments. I decided to try my first Dole Whip Float. Verdict: It was good but I think I prefer just the Dole Whip. But don’t get me wrong…I finished every stinkin’ drop.
I missed the whole crabby woman episode. Must have been another one of those la-la moments. We made it into the show and sat along the L-shaped wall. This was another first for me. I have only seen the WDW version since the in-laws did not want to see it on my previous trip. We settled in and enjoyed the show. Doug took this opportunity to take a nap in the nice dark cool room. After the show we were told to wait until the theater emptied and we would be introduced to a special guest.
Andrea came out with one the original orchids named Ophelia. She showed us how it worked and then she opened up the floor to get pictures with her. We also met Jeff who gave us some more tidbits of the history of the show. Here are some pics from this portion of the tour.
After leaving the Tiki Room, we headed back over to New Orleans Square. We were led back to a quiet corner of the area and told an absolute lovely story of how Walt always had fresh flowers blooming in this area for his wife to give her a little sanctuary in the park.
We were than taken to a little area where our meals awaited us. I was not as successful as Eileen and tore my name tag that was on my lunch. I chose the turkey and cheese croissant, and it was very good and filling. By the time I finished my sandwich, I could only take 3 bites of that huge delicious cheesecake. After we all finished with our meals, it was picture taking time. The poor CM that took charge of the plethora of cameras definitely had her work cut out. We got a great group shot, and the Japanese man that took our picture because we HAD to be famous was hilarious. I know that man pulls up that picture and keeps looking for us on the Internet. Milssa asked if she could get a picture of the t-shirt design and I said sure. Well, well, well. I didn’t think it was going to be that up close and personal. I'm not sure if anyone got a picture of my expression but I know it had be interesting.
Coming Up: The rest of the afternoon in New Orleans Square & Fantasyland
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Hey Dawn - love that bag you have in your sig line....wonder where I saw that before! LOL Sam took over Kassie's blue bag on our trip a few weeks back. He wanted something bigger than the small fanny pack he was carrying and she bought herself a Nightmare Before Christmas Purse thingy. It's sort of diagonal with a special pocket on the strap itself for her phone. It's really cute and she was so proud to have her 1st REAL PURSE be a NBC purse! LOL She so scary and dark! LOL Chip was afraid of her in one picture, because of all of her skeleton and NBC stuff! (that will be upcoming in my brief but lively trip report). Enjoying your trip report. Taking mental notes as we're considering a California trip next spring break.
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Yvonne:
My Gorgeous Daughter the Graduate----------------->
It's definitely a Marie Antoinette bust in the lobby of Club 33 -- but (if I'm remembering correctly) it was also a prop in Mary Poppins and was part of the living room decorations at the Banks house.
Great pics -- and I'm dying with laughter over your sig pic and it's caption
Eileen
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Day 2, Part 3: An Afternoon in New Orleans Square and Fantasyland
After the tour was over, people began to disperse and go in different directions. Eileen, Liz, Robin, and Cindy decided to head to Pirates. I was looking forward to seeing the differences with the updates. I rode this pre-upgrade so I was excited. Heck…I this ride so I will ride it over and over. The additions of Capt. Jack just makes it all the better. We walked right onto a boat and started our adventure. I think we were a little more excited on the drops than most people but hey, that’s just us. Eileen was catching a lot of unseen things like the shadow fight in the Barbosa scene. I truly enjoy the DL version!!
After we disembarked from our boat, Robin and Cindy were headed another direction, so Eileen, Liz, and myself went to the HauntedMansion. HM was closed last year to take down the Holiday version so I missed the uniqueness of this ride. We walked right on again. As Eileen stated, we recited the words to the pre-show word for word and had huge grins on our face as the room began “stretching”. Eileen and Liz grabbed a doom buggy and I went on my own. I concur with Eileen’s thoughts on Bride 2.0. Loved it! I hope the WDW version gets upgraded during its rehab.
After picking up our hitchhiking ghosts, we decided to head over to Critter Country in hopes see my gloomy pal. Pooh was out and about so we stood in line for him and grabbed a picture or two, including the ones from the Photopass CMs. We asked if Eeyore was scheduled to come out anytime soon and they said Pooh’s friend would be out in 30 minutes.
So what do you do when you have to waste 30 minutes? Well, first, we took a spin on the Winnie-the-Pooh ride. I can’t help but smile as soon as I see Eeyore in this ride. I was good girl and took no pictures but made sure to point out the Country Bears tribute in the honey room to Liz. After our trip through the 100 Acre Woods, we head into the shop devoted to the Pooh gang. I know I picked up two or three things that I thought I could not live without, but ended up putting them back thinking I would find them at WoD. We stepped out of the store and saw that Tigger was Pooh’s friend. I went ahead and got a picture with the bouncy fellow, but sadly disappointed that Eeyore was no where to be seen.
We decided to head over to Fantasyland to see what we could ride over there. We took the “short” route through Frontierland. We entered Fantasyland right by Snow White’s Scary Adventures, and we showed Liz the Evil Queen that appears in the window. We also took the opportunity to walk right on the ride and venture through the land of dwarves. I did get one picture and accidentally used the flash. Bad Dawn!
We next headed to the carousel to see if we could find the horse that was marked with a golden tooth to signify the horse for Walt’s daughter. Now I do not get motion sickness but wowsers! Trying to pay attention to the horses looking for a particular item going round and round and round made me a little nauseous. Luckily, it stopped and we were able to make a walk around to see if we could find the special horse. Unfortunately, we came up empty.
Now the next stop on our adventure was the StorybookCanal ride. I missed this on my last trip due to extremely long lines. The line was still long but I am really glad we took the time to ride it. It was absolutely adorable. While we were in line, I felt my bag vibrate indicating that I missed yet another call. I figured out it was Tina so I called her back. She was wondering where we were and I told her we had about another 15 minutes or so on waiting and I’d call here once we were finished.
We finally made it through the line and boarded our boat. I have to say it was a funny sight seeing us pile into our boat and trying to even out the weight. It wasn’t the best of situations, but we motored along a little heavy on the right side. Here are some of my pictures from the canal ride.
Monstro’s mouth!!!
Agrabah
Cinderella’s Castle
I have no idea!!
Geppetto’s Shop
Prince Eric’s Castle and Ship
After our charming little adventure through the stories, we headed toward “iasw” and ran across Sharon, Tina, Janine, Terri, Sarah, and Emilie. They were all enjoying some kind of refreshing treat. I ran and got a Coke as I was little parched. Once everyone was finished, we headed over to “iasw”. I the DL version a lot because of how the different themed rooms move along and how it starts on the outside.
I love these guys for some insane reason.
Now that the song was implanted in our head for the rest of the day, we headed over to the Matterhorn. We had maybe a 10 minute wait and climbed aboard our bobsleds. I love this ride. It’s definitely an original that makes DL so special!! Eileen and Sharon decided to head back to the hotel room and Tina, Janine and I went over to the Teacups. It was practically a walk on so Tina and Janine went to ride and I positioned myself for a prime spot for picture taking.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
After the Teacups, we headed back to the hotel ourselves to relax a bit before heading back out to the parks.
It was so much fun riding the Tea cups again It has been years since I have ridden them. Another great update Dawn, can't wait to read more about our trip