National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! DISNEYLAND SECTION COMPLETED - Page 13 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 love the backsplash in the kitchen! A pull out sofa bed and a bed under the tv? Very cool! If they can do that, then they could do the same type of things in the one bedrooms of all the DVC resorts to make them sleep 5.
It's a good idea, but sadly I think some of the resorts will just be too small - that's what I couldn't get over, how big the one bedroom villa was at the Grand Californian. I've just checked and, at WDW, only Old Key West is bigger...
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Wow is right! The room is beautiful! We own points at GCV, so will certainly need to get there one of these days! I do love the bed under the TV (as well as the chairs that turn into an extra bed at AKV). We only have four in our family but our kids are too old to share a bed (1 boy, 1 girl). So that's a nice option when we can still do a one-bedroom.
You must make use of your points there - can I say jealous that you've got points there? If I had the money, I'd probably buy 50 points there for occasional visits to Disneyland, I loved my stay there so much.
The 1 bedroom villa is gorgeous! I hope the studios are as nice (I'll let you know when I get back in December.) Sorry that you had such a rough time through LAX. I'm flying out of there in December--I'm going to try to fly into John Wayne, but I'm not sure if my finances will cooperate yet--it's much cheaper to fly into LAX.
John Wayne is a much nicer airport - I'd much prefer that anytime. I hope you're able to fly into there.
Just a note before I start the next installment.... here you'll start to see references to Photopass pictures. I don't have the CD, although I believe it was dispatched a couple of days ago, so hopefully it should show up sometime this week. I was hoping to get it ordered as soon as I got home, but it kept coming up as the WDW price of $149.95 and the Disneyland price is $59.95, so I had to send Disney an e-mail and they sorted that, but obviously that took a while...
Once I have the CD, I'll add in all the photos to date wherever I am with the trip report.
Saturday 27 August – part one: not the greatest start to the day...
I think it’s fair to say that we both had an awful night’s sleep. I really struggled to get to sleep, although finally I got off about midnight, only to wake up an hour later. Part of it was that it was noisy and someone was snoring, but also I was a bit cold, then hot later and my sinuses were giving me merry hell. Eventually, after waking up about 1:00am, I did go back to sleep, only to wake up again at 3:15am. Then I fell back to sleep until 5:00am, when we both woke up.
There wasn’t much to watch on TV. As Mark said, “I’d forgotten how poor the selection was”. It was interesting to see how many adverts had British voiceovers on. I guess you guys like us right now then?
We got ready slowly, partially because my sinuses were suffering and I needed to steam myself to try and get them cleaned, as they were causing me a lot of pain. It was also photo time, now it was daylight...
Even with our slow start, we were ready to go before 7:00am, which is when the Disneyland Park opened to resort guests, so we set off and wandered through the Grand Californian, getting lots of photos of the resort. This really is a beautifully themed place and definitely my favourite here. It certainly says “home” to me.
We walked through Downtown Disney and already, even though it was about 7:20am by now, you could feel the heat, which wasn’t a good sign. : I got lots more photos on the way, as so much has changed since we were last here in October 2008.
There’s no bigger change than the entrance to the California Adventure and sadly I have to say that I don’t think I like it. I liked the big letters, I thought they were fun, but now it just looks like the entrance to the Studios in Florida. I like to go to different Disney parks around the world to see different things, not for them to become clones of each other.
We went to the ticket booth to see if we needed to change up our one-day park hopper passes, but we didn’t, so it was straight over to the turnstiles. Already, there were a few non-resort guests waiting to get in, but not many resort guests heading in. It was deserted inside and the perfect time to get a Photopass picture done at the entrance.
Our next stop was Guest Relations in City Hall to get a Guest Assistance Card and, although I had a note from my doctor, they weren’t interested in that at all, just what my condition was and she quickly wrote one up for me.
I can’t remember how we got on to it, but we explained that it was Mark’s birthday next weekend, so he got a birthday button (and we lost count of how many people wished him a for the rest of the day ) and then he was told to listen to Goofy’s special birthday message, which he enjoyed. It’s the first time he’s even been to Disney near his birthday, as usually we go around mine.
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Oh dear, I am so sorry to hear you didn't sleep well, I know that jet lag is a real nightmare.
I just love those early morning photos, shaving never been to Disneyland it is all new to me
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Great update and photos. Sorry you had such a rough night's sleep. Do you take sudafed for your sinuses? I don't travel without it - since it seems that the only think that seems to open mine up.
Sorry about all the difficulties sleeping and sinus problems-- no fun at all! I can't wait to see that hotel! I've got to study some maps to get a better idea of how it fits into the resort. My last visit was before California Adventure and before Downtown Disney, so I never got to see the old entrance, but the general consensus seems to be that they should have left it alone!
Beautiful pictures!! I have got to stay at that hotel, it's gorgeous! And I can't believe the lack of people. You weren't kidding - it's completely deserted. Wow! I hope your sinuses didn't bother you much more that day.... I've had quite a morning of that today. Yuck.
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Now I REALLY want to go - the pictures are great, and how cool that it opens up to so much, the least not being the park!
We actually have more points there (250) than either of our other two properties, thanks to great onboard incentives when we were in the Baltic last summer.
Have you tried a neti pot for your sinuses? I find it helps tremendously with the pressure.
Fun that Mark gets some birthday attention this trip.
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If I had the money, I'd probably buy 50 points there for occasional visits to Disneyland, I loved my stay there so much. 
I really struggled to get to sleep, although finally I got off about midnight, only to wake up an hour later. Part of it was that it was noisy and someone was snoring, but also I was a bit cold, then hot later and my sinuses were giving me merry hell. Eventually, after waking up about 1:00am, I did go back to sleep, only to wake up again at 3:15am. Then I fell back to sleep until 5:00am, when we both woke up. 
: I got lots more photos on the way, as so much has changed since we were last here in October 2008. 
for the rest of the day 
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