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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This was a holding room and one of the Goblins talked to us and Bill Weasley also made an appearance.
More blurry pictures.
We then enter into a big elevator. I am not sure if we actually go down, but they make it feel like you do and it is kind of bumpy at times. It really was neat. Supposedly you are going miles down to the vaults.
Then we exit the elevator and move on.
There are then 2 sets of stairs that wind up. It was really neat. I think one set was for another elevator and then one set for ours if I remember right.
I thought it was kind of funny that we just traveled “miles” down into the earth only to get out and have to go up some stairs.
About halfway up the stairs there was an announcement that the ride was broke down. UGH! Everyone moaned. We were so close! But within 2 minutes it was running again. This ride is still new and breaks down ALL the time from what I have heard. For all I know, the ride might have broken down several times while I was in line and maybe the announcement is just made in that general loading area.
It wasn’t long and I finally reached the top of the stairs.
And our car came.
As you can see, it’s really dark in there and nearly impossible to get a picture. Once again I will share one of Universals Press Release photos as it shows the area much better.
And then we were off. I don’t have any pictures from the actual ride, but I do have 2 more I can post from the press release for Universal.
This one is from the first area you go into I believe and it was really neat as you are sitting there the back of the cart is tilting up and then a gate opens and down you go…not too far like a big rollercoaster, but it was a lot of fun.
And this one is later in the ride.
This ride was so great. I think it’s about a 5 minute ride or so and so much theming and you move all around…the cart technology is just amazing. I think I like this ride better than the Forbidden Journey over at Islands of Adventure. I can’t wait to come back and ride it again so I can take in more of the details. The ride was totally worth the wait.
Oh, and you are probably wondering how long I did end up waiting. Well like I said, I got in the line at 1:50. I was back at my locker to get my bag at 3:05. So I would say my wait time was probably just over an hour give or take. Not bad at all!
I exited to the ride and went to the locker and retrieved my bag.
I then went and took a look around Diagon Alley.
There are so many neat window displays here.
Sirius Black’s motorcycle.
There are so many great details here.
This is the bathroom…and not quite as cool as the one at IoA with moaning Myrtle.
I believe I next went down the Knockturn alley, which is where the dark magic stores are in the book series.
It was very dark in that alley.
Back out in Diagon Alley I took a picture of the entrance….see how it looks like the bricks separated and moved to let you enter.
I decided I needed a drink and when in a Wizarding World you should have a Wizarding drink…and for me that is Butterbeer. I went into the Leaky Cauldron to see if they had some. There was no line what so ever, but when I had arrived earlier the line was in a winding queue out the door. I am guessing that was the late lunch crowd then.
They will direct you to which register to go to.
Once again I forgot about using the AAA card. UGH! I chose the regular Butterbeer as I like it better than the frozen, though most people like the frozen version better. I also noticed the frozen version is about $1 more. I don’t think it was like that when we were here in 2012, but I just might not have paid attention then either.
I found a spot to sit and sip my butter beer.
After that I headed out…I wanted to do a few things in the Studios before I caught a train to Hogsmeade.
I found my phone was dying again so I tried to charge it with both of my mobile charges and neither would work. I came to the conclusion that my cord was going bad. It would work every so often and then stop. Usually if I was moving the phone around. My next stop was the Mummy, so I put the phone on the charger and in my bag which went in a locker and then headed to the ride. I had the express pass since I was staying on property. I LOVE express pass. The lines are pretty much nonexistent!
It was a fun ride. It’s a little wild, so if you aren’t a coaster fan at all this one might get to you. My parents went on it a few years back not know what it was and they about had a heart attack…especially my Dad who rides NOTHING that makes his tummy tickle. I laughed so hard when they explained it.
I was hoping to get this report done by today, but as you can see I still have quite a bit of this day to report. My pictures are all edited, but I still have to write the rest up.
I will be heading out of town tomorrow early AM for a week, so this will come to a hault for now and I will continue on when I get back. If I have time in the morning I will post 1 more update.
If you are friends with me on facebook keep watch and see if you can guess where I am and what I am doing.
Those who already know are not allowed to say anything.
The whole area looks so amazing! I can't wait to see it in person. I have already been pricing a few days stay for next summer, you got me so excited!!!
Oh, you have me intrigued on where you might be going. I will have to find you on FB!!!
The whole area looks so amazing! I can't wait to see it in person. I have already been pricing a few days stay for next summer, you got me so excited!!!
Oh, you have me intrigued on where you might be going. I will have to find you on FB!!!
It really is a lot of fun at Universal. My husband is a big fan of it now that he has been there. Next time we go I am making him stay onsite as the express pass was so worth it!
You can search jenseib and I believe I should come up. I have 3 last names on facebook and the second last name starts with seib.... (first marriage)
I'll give you a hint..It's not Orlando or anything to do with Disney....but I still may see a Princess.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SharonK0527
Looks awesome! Enjoy your week out of town - we'll be here when you get back!
Glad you enjoyed the ride - so what is it, if it's not a daft question? Is it a coaster? What's it similar to? I'm trying to work out if we could do it. I can do Big Thunder, but Expedition Everest is now a bit much for me, if that helps at all?
Have a great time whatever you're doing! I had a quick look on Facebook and I'm still mystified... I obviously missed something...
Wow! It took me a while, but I finally caught up from your first road trip at home! I love all of your pictures, don't worry if some are blurry - we get it
I heard about the hot mess of the Villains party - I'm glad you got to see some of the characters while inside and enjoying a meal. I love the Brown Derby!
Your pictures of CBR are nice - I didn't know the resort was so pretty...
I don't know a thing about Harry Potter, but thanks for all the great photos - it sounds like you had a blast!
After that ride I grabbed my bag and left my phone inside to keep charging. I made my way towards Transformers. This is fairly new. When we were here in the spring the ride was down when we checked on it and we had to leave when it finally was up and running, so this was going to be my first time on it.
This was another great ride! It is very similar to the Spiderman ride over at IoA. It uses a lot of simulator type stuff with screens, but you are also moving. Honestly I have no clue how they do these as the movement of the car, which is on a track I believe, and the screens playing out in front of you are just perfectly in sync. It’s really amazing. Now if you are prone to motion sickness, this can get to you too. I could feel it and was so happy I had taken bonine in the morning before I left the hotel.
I came out to find a different street party going on. I just took a couple of pictures from a far and most didn’t come out too well.
And my car on display for all to see!
I worked my way towards Men in Black and I saw this sign which cracked me up. Potty area for dogs!
I rode Men in Black and it was fun like always. But when it came time to push the red button, me and the other 2 in the car all pushed it and none of us got the credit. Bummer. We all wondered what happened…and I think I pretty much lost anyways. Oh and I used the Express pass again for both Transformers and MIB and I just can’t say enough good things about it. It really makes me realize how much better it is to stay onsite.
After I retrieved my bag from the locker here I headed back to London….time to catch a train!
I had heard the weekend before that the wait for the train was 90 minutes to 2 hours. Today seemed to be a less busy day so I was hoping it wasn’t nearly that long.
I just kept walking through all the queues but I can imagine this would be a long line if all of them were filled.
Evidently people in London haven’t heard about rolling suitcases. LOL!
And now we need to find Platform 9 & 3 Quarters. There’s 9 and 10!
And a picture is just so hard to describe and show how cool this, so I suggest you look it up on youtube…but here we can see people disappearing into the wall to reach the Platform.
Once I rounded the corner this is what I see looking back.
And this is actually what we go through to get to the platform.
A train pulled in….backing in.
I didn’t make it on the train though I was close. The train pulled out and they started to fill up the queues again. I wondered how long it would take for the next train and if they had 2 running or not. I did find out from my friend later that they do have 2 and somewhere along the track they have a loop to bypass each other. They always go forward to Hogsmeade and backwards to Kings Cross.
It was only around 5 minutes I believe and the next train came backing in.
I love the attention to detail with this, as East Coast and First Capital Connect are actual train companies over here who currently run the franchises, so that's a very nice touch.
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Liz 
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I had a quick look on Facebook and I'm still mystified... I obviously missed something... 
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