Going north, south, east and west! BACK HOME 11/2 - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great start Cheryl. 2006 has fond memories for DH and I at WDW with you guys. Celebrating your anniversary and my birthday at LTT the night of MNSSHP was the greates. I am so bummed we can't get to Chicago when you are there. Have safe travels and we'll keep up with you through your TR.
Pre-trip report, part two: what do you mean, we’re not booked there?
Fast forward to March. It’s Easter Monday and we’ve just returned from a lovely weekend away in Berlin, the capital city of Germany. Having called DVC Member Services just before we went to Germany and switched over the first night of our stay to the Beach Club Villas in a one bedroom villa and checked availability there (I was told it was fine and I shouldn’t have a problem getting in there for the other nights of my stay), I then went on to have what must rank as one of the worst phone calls ever with Member Services.
It’s hard now to recall all the details of it, but basically I asked for a one bedroom villa for the duration of our stay at the Beach Club Villas and everything seemed to be going fine until the woman I was speaking to informed me that there were none left. Unfortunately, she told me that after she had cancelled my original reservation for a studio at the Beach Club Villas, leaving me with nothing there. I asked her to rescue that original reservation, but no go, so I was left with booking at the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge and no time at our beloved home resort.
It’s fair to say that when I got off the phone to her, I was practically in tears and was screaming at Mark about how this woman had ruined our vacation. OK, maybe a little over the top, but you get the idea. Mark very sensibly and calmly told me to call straight back and explain the situation and to speak to a supervisor and see what they could do. I did just that and fortunately they were able to rescue my original reservation, so we were back to four nights in a studio at the Beach Club Villas, plus the first thing I’d already snagged there in a one-bedroom villa. There was nothing whatsoever for our second night, a Sunday, at the Beach Club Villas, so I booked a one bedroom villa at the BoardWalk Villas and got waitlisted for the Beach Club Villas, in the hope those would eventually come through for us. Disaster averted, although it was a close call and not something I ever want to go through again.
At the end of March, JetBlue opened up dates through to the end of October, so I booked our one way trips between New York and Orlando and then Chicago to Long Beach. I’ve heard nothing but good things about them and I can’t wait to try them out for myself.
A few weeks later, Southwest opened their airfares and between Orlando and Chicago, the fares were initially $129, a bit more than I’d hoped – I was secretly looking for a $99 fare. I kept an eye on them and they went up to $135 and I did start to panic. Maybe I should’ve bought when they first came out and maybe they’d only keep going up? Too late now. Sue and Steve came over to visit and, after they headed back, I took another look at prices and found that the fare was down to exactly what I wanted - $99, so I went for it. I guess sometimes it does pay to wait!
That was it for a little while, then things went full steam ahead in June, with the airport hotel purchased for Orlando, as we’d be getting in late – try just before midnight - from New York and the Halloween Party tickets for 21 October for a PassPorter meet. This was quickly followed by our tickets to see “O” in Vegas – we managed to snag the front row of the balcony seats, which is where we’d sat last time and we’d agreed we were happy with those seats and weren’t going to pay any more when we went back this time.
Now, it sounds like it was all going well – and probably up until that point, it was. I guess the problem with planning a journey with five different legs is that sometimes you take your eye off the ball – and that’s definitely what happened here. I ploughed ahead with most of our plans, getting tickets to see Cirque du Soleil’s “Love” – their Beatles tribute and then “Mystere”, so we’d be seeing a different Cirque show every night we were in Vegas. I bet you can’t tell that we’re big Cirque fans, can you?
Then one day in August, I was talking to a friend at work, who was off to America a couple of weeks later and was visiting Vegas. I asked her if she’d made any plans to see any of the shows there and she said she hadn’t, as she couldn’t make her mind up. I raved about “O” enough for her to purchase tickets, but she didn’t just get tickets, she got a package with dinner beforehand. Ah yes, dinner – they should have opened up reservations by now for October. I’d better go online and snag some. No problem... except there was. Why did none of the guidebooks tell me that
a) Olives at the Bellagio, where I wanted to have dinner one night only took seatings twice a night. The early seating was too early, as we’d still be coming back from our day out and the late one would clash with our Cirque tickets.
b) why didn’t they tell me that one of the other Bellagio restaurants by the hotel’s lake didn’t take Internet bookings?
A bit of grumbling to Mark and a bit of quick thinking and I was able to work it out, snagging lunch at Olives on our final day in Vegas instead and a dinner reservation at Le Cirque for the night before. The reservation went in, complete with a grovelling message that it was our wedding anniversary (not entirely untrue – it’s just a week afterwards) and we’re staying at the Bellagio and that it would complete a perfect night if we could get a view of the fountains. We’ll see if that works, but it has to be worth a try...
Problem solved. Now on to the next problem...
Next: wouldn’t looking at the park hours be a good idea?
Whew! Close call w/ the DVC Member Services. How frustrating! I'm so glad it all worked out on the 2nd go. Keeping my fingers crossed that you get fountain view for your "Earlyversary"
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Don't let your heart be filled with sorrow, for all you know, tomorrow, the dream that you wish will come true.
I'm looking forward to "traveling" with you once again. I love your trip reports.
As a long time Southwest fan. the best advice I give people is to keep checking on flight prices. I sometimes do it on a daily basis and if you get a good fare early in the morning it will sometimes change by 8:00 AM. Southwest frequently changes fares and will let you rebook at no cost if you get a cheaper fare. I have actually rebooked fairly close to my departure time.
Sounds like a chock full itinerary Cheryl!!! I do love the planning part of a trip also and you've certainly got a lot of plans to make for this trip I've always wanted to stay at the Grand Californian also. Your view should be beautiful there! Sorry you had such a bad experience while making your BC Villa reservation. I can imagine how upset you must have been when you got off the phone. Hopefully you'll be able to get the one night added to your BC Villa ressie and not have to switch over to the Boardwalk. Can't wait to hear more of your plans.
That was a crazy and frustrating phone call. I'm glad that it worked out. I'm very envious that you get to see "O" again and "Love". Those are the two that I really want to see. I really like Mystere' too. Frankly, I like it better than LaNouba. I love the fountains at the Bellagio. I could stand there all night watching the show. We didn't stay at the Bellagio but at the Aladdin now the called Planet Hollywood and we had fountain view room. Breathtaking from the room but even better standing right in front of it. I can't wait to see all your pictures from LV.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
Glad they were able to work everything out at the DVC...still cannot understand how she would cancel before making sure that there was something to change too
You plans sound great....glad you were able to get such good rates on all your flights...
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Great start, Chez! And I'm looking forward to seeing you on two stops of your Tour of the States (sounds like a band - does that make me a member of the fan club? ) Can't wait for more!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
It sounds like this is going to be a fantastic trip!! I'm interested to hear about Chicago, as that's one US city that's never really had any big appeal to me. But I bet after I see your pictures and read your TR, I'll want to see Chicago!
Now Cheryl thats what I call an action packed holiday
We were the same waiting for Globespan to open up their winter flights and getting the early bird prices.
Looking forward to read your trip report.
Can't wait to read some more
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This was quickly followed by our tickets to see “O” in Vegas – we managed to snag the front row of the balcony seats, which is where we’d sat last time and we’d agreed we were happy with those seats and weren’t going to pay any more when we went back this time. 
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) Can't wait for more!
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