National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! DISNEYLAND SECTION COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sounds like a relatively uneventful flight, which is always a good thing. I'm so jealous of the food you guys always seem to get on transatlantic flights. I got some peanuts on my last flight . . .
We got that on the flight into Chicago... Southwest by any chance?
Those seat/beds look SO comfy!!! Better even than the wide, reclining business class seats on some planes. And afternoon tea, complete with scones?! How civilized!
Funny thing about that restaurant at LAX - when we lived there, they had an ad for it that featured this woman who must have been about 80 years old, looking half-embalmed already, that was NOT flattering at all. We used to laugh every time we saw it, thinking, THIS is supposed to entice me to eat there?! So, I never have eaten there....
Yes, you certainly did see the urban sprawl in Los Angeles. You were kind to call it "haze" above LA...we all know it really was just pollution! Thankfully it has improved a bit over the last few decades, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way!
I must admit I didn't think it was that bad - and nowhere as bad as I used to hear it was back in the 1980s...
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Friday 26 August – part five: you have got to be joking with that line!
We were soon off the plane and headed down to the customs area and that’s where the wait started. We’re used to Orlando International where it’s usually just one flight and that’s it. If you’re in Upper Class or Premium Economy, you’re one of the first 30 or 40 people through and there’s barely any way. Well, not here. : My heart sank when I saw the line when we arrived. There were about five long rows of lines, all snaking their way round and round, as if you were heading for a Disney attraction.
I just hoped that this would be the longest queue that we would have to wait in this vacation and I have to be honest, this is the sort of thing that doesn’t help the US attract tourists. I have heard some real horror stories about the waits to get into the States and trust me, that doesn’t do you guys any favours with a lot of travellers, who just won’t come here now. The worst thing was that there was also a huge line for US citizens returning, so I don’t think it was much better if you were an American tonight.
We waited about 45 minutes in the end, which is worse than we’ve ever had before. If this is your first trip into the States, you would not be impressed and it may end up being your last, which would be a great shame.
When we were finally seen, we were quickly through, although it took a bit of explaining about why we were only spending two nights this time in the US. Of course, we would have to go through this again twice more this vacation and let’s hope that it will be easier the next two times.
When we finally got through, we easily found out suitcases. They had all been taken off the belt and were piled up next to it, people had been waiting in line that long, that the belt had stopped running. With those in hand, it was through the final checks and then we were out.
Considering that we were at LAX, which is one of the States’ biggest airports, I was staggered to discover that there was an information booth that wasn’t open and no staff around to ask where to go next. It felt like some real back street airport and not what I’d expected.
We headed outside to try and find the Disneyland Resort Express. I found someone to ask and he told me to wait by the red sign, but as the directions I had printed off from the Disneyland website said about a green sign, that didn’t sound right to me. We wandered around, getting more and more annoyed and eventually I found someone and she confirmed that it was indeed a green sign that we were looking for and it was just a bit further down. We kept walking and finally found it, but it wasn’t as obvious as I thought it would be.
In the right place at last, we settled down to wait. After about 10 minutes of waiting, Mark suggested calling them to see when the next one was due, so I did. I was told about 8:30am. By now, it was 8:15am, so we still had quite a wait. I took the opportunity to go and use the restrooms and then we carried on waiting.
I must admit that I was starting to despair that we would ever see it and when Shuttle 2000 came past for the second time, offering the same service, I was momentarily tempted. Thank goodness the Disneyland Resort Express showed up a moment later. You really couldn’t miss it, with Disney characters all over it.
When we boarded, there was no-one else on it, so we grabbed the two front seats each, with the other seat next to it being used for our hand luggage.
We then crawled round all the other terminals of LAX and my goodness, you started to get an idea of how big this place is.
Once we finished up our tour of the terminals, our driver told us that it would be about an hour to get to the Disneyland Resort, which is roughly what I was expecting. We took a very odd route along some back roads around the airport and then suddenly we were on the freeway. Of course, for much of the journey, we were hurtling along in the car pool lane, while the other four or five lanes of traffic seemed to be moving along fine as well. The journey was much better and quicker than I’d expected.
About 40 minutes later, we heard our driver radio through that it would be about another five minutes before he got to the Disneyland Hotel, where the guy was waiting to take our tickets/get us to pay for them. Sure enough, a few seconds later, we were pulling off on to Disneyland Drive. I still find this one of the weirdest things about Disneyland, the lack of build-up as you arrive. You’re off the freeway, then you’re into Disney, but it doesn’t have that magical approach you get at Walt Disney World, with giant parking structures blocking the view.
However, we did have a lovely piece of magic as we arrived, as the fireworks exploded from the Disneyland Park, which was very neat. We’d watched these back in 2006 on our first visit here and hadn’t been overly impressed, compared to Florida, but I guess watching them from a distance, that they’ve seriously upped the ante since then.
We paid for our tickets - $54 with our $5 off voucher, thanks to whoever posted the link to that on the boards. After dropping one person off at the Disneyland Hotel, we were the next stop and there’s something that makes me instantly feel at home here. As we pulled up, I was able to get a quick photo of the gate at the entrance.
We got our cases off and tipped the driver for a job well done and then headed inside to check-in.
What a horrible wait. Not only is it a big turn off for international travels, but also for those of us fromt he US who have never flown into LAX. So neat that Disney greeted you with fireworks!
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Yeah, you're there! We used to be able to see the fireworks from our apartment when I first moved to California. We only stayed in Orange County a few months before moving to LA, though, so it was short-lived.
LAX is not a user-friendly airport for anyone, US citizen or non.
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Sorry you had such a rough start to your vacation. 
: My heart sank when I saw the line when we arrived. There were about five long rows of lines, all snaking their way round and round, as if you were heading for a Disney attraction. 
Of course, we would have to go through this again twice more this vacation and let’s hope that it will be easier the next two times. 
I still find this one of the weirdest things about Disneyland, the lack of build-up as you arrive. You’re off the freeway, then you’re into Disney, but it doesn’t have that magical approach you get at Walt Disney World, with giant parking structures blocking the view. 
We’d watched these back in 2006 on our first visit here and hadn’t been overly impressed, compared to Florida, but I guess watching them from a distance, that they’ve seriously upped the ante since then. 
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