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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
We got the photopass pictures we ordered pretty quickly, so here’s a quick one from our first day at my Fave view of the castle.
Now…on to the update.
We waited for a little bit for a bus back to AK (this is where I really missed being on the monorail last trip…spoiled, I know ) And while we were sitting, minding our own business…okay, okay, we were eavesdropping on the conversations around us…we overheard the woman in front of us telling the woman across from her that Space Mountain was closed and how “they don’t even tell you until you are down here”. Okay, maybe you don’t haunt the boards like I do, but seriously?? You can find that information in sooo many places. I wanted to be like “yeah, it’s been down for months now and will be up in November and we’ve all known about it”. But I kept my holier-than-thou Disney attitude to myself.
We got back to our room with just a little time to change and freshen up and then walked down to Jiko. We only had a little bit of a wait and then we were seated. This restaurant is beautiful. Our server came right over and with her the chef. He had that we had allergies to deal with. Must have had us in the system from our last trip. We assured him we were fine and left said allergy laden children home and that I was going to have shellfish, wrapped in bacon, rolled in peanuts and smothered in egg batter. (only hitting a few of the things our youngest is allergic to). Sadly, I did not take pictures of our food. (Actually, Craig wouldn’t let me. He didn’t want me taking pictures at such a nice restaurant. But, be assured I’ll be photographing the food on our upcoming trip) For appetizers Craig had seared ostrich with spicy chick peas and I had the kalamata olive flat bread. I could have made a meal out of that. It was fabulous!! Then for our dinners Craig had beef short ribs, with Yukon gold potatoes. Delish!! (of course I tried some) and I had the Halibut with the veggies “of the moment”…no, not “of the day”…”of the moment”. Now, that’s gotta be some fresh veggies. Also, delish!!
After our dinner we wanted to walk a bit and see the savannah. First we checked out the gym. No one there, but it was so Disney. Everything neat, and clean and in its place. Even, each bike, stairmaster and elliptical had its very own rolled up towel.
Then we asked the front desk where to see some animals. We thought we’d just take a walk and see who might be out and about. Sure enough, the first lookout we got to, there was a giraffe walking soooo close to the hotel. I LOVE giraffes and was sooo excited to see one up close and just walking around. Then he (or she) laid down and rested. Okay, so maybe not a “sleeping” giant, but “resting” giant just didn’t sound as good. It was pretty cool to watch him (or her) fold all those long legs to get down on the ground. Then we just sat and watched and relaxed in the rocking chairs. Until a passle of people noticed him too and joined us. The spell was broken and we decided to head back to the room. We had an early day on Friday with our KTTK tour. But, on our way we stopped in the gift shop and I saw these adorable charm bracelets and a ton of little Disney charms to choose from. I decided I was going to treat myself and get a bracelet. Then I picked the first charms, Mickey (of course) and Ariel as she is Jason’s favorite princess. I figured I would bring it on the next trip and add to it while the boys were with us. (Very inexpensive and cute. About $6 or $7 for the bracelet and the charms were around $3) Then it was off to bed.
(Sorry I don’t have a good picture of the giraffe, they all came out so dark. Actually, this whole TR is a little light on the pictures. It’s just much easier to take lots of pics when you’ve got two cute little boys to focus on)
PassPorter Guide Community Rank: Legend Extraordinaire
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Ballston Lake, NY
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 46,162
Post Thanks / Like
Likes (Given): 94
Likes (Received): 241
Thanks (Given): 0
Thanks (Received): 139
Pixie Dust (Given): 3
Pixie Dust (Received): 4
All caught up! I can't believe the police had the nerve to pull over a bus of people on their way to Disney!! I have 2 of the charm bracelets with loads of charms from the last couple of trips. I love to wear them and look at the charms to remind me of past trips. More please
Love the little Disney touches with the rolled up towels!
I loved how neat and clean it was and how each station was waiting with a towel for the next gym rat. (Not us. We had the big race coming up and that was going to be the extent of our exercising on this trip. )
Quote:
Originally Posted by mojjo
I love the charm bracelet idea. I'll have to drop hints to DH.
The bracelet is so reasonable and sooo cute!
Quote:
Originally Posted by MGW
I thought I'd missed this TR! So glad to find it. I guess you will have 2 going now?
Yeah, pretty ambitious I must say with the getting ready and the costumes and stuff. But I will do my best. Worst thing that happens is I at least have 1 trip to finish up when I get back and another to start.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CollinsFamily
This is sounding great! I'm signing in so I can read the rest when I get back to the computer this afternoon. Keep it coming!
Welcome abaord! And it looks like we will be there the same time. If you see us walking around...please say hi!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
All caught up! I can't believe the police had the nerve to pull over a bus of people on their way to Disney!! I have 2 of the charm bracelets with loads of charms from the last couple of trips. I love to wear them and look at the charms to remind me of past trips. More please
I love the bracelet and I'm sure I'll load up on it this trip. I'm figuring I'll let the boys each pick one for me each day.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Principessa_di_Fata
Yay I love reading this! Love the pics and descriptions! Can't wait for more!
I'm gonna try to get at least one maybe two more before we leave. And see you there!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazanya
Glad you had a great dinner at Jiko! more please
We really liked Jiko and would definitely recommend it1
What a romantic evening for the two of you.
I saw those charm bracelets to and kept saying I was going to get one and next thing I knew we were home.
Dinner sounded great. Ostrich is so delish. My in laws raised them and sold meat for a little while. It is so good and healthy. I wish it had caught on for them, but people don't like new things.
Can't wait for more.
OMG....so glad that you started this! Its so weird reading about it and having heard some of this already... I still love hearing about the cop pulling the bus over...man that story will never get old!
Eric and I checked out the AKL the day of your race and it was so funny we actually went outside to see your "POOL view" and we were laughing at Craig's description of the "pool view" . You guys had us cracking up!
YOU WONT believe this....after I showed eric Jiko and the menu he immediately added it to the must do list for next time...can you believe that???
I'm so glad you guys had a great meal there and I cant wait until we get the chance to try it out.
Eric and I the giraffes too! I took him out to watch them that day we were looking around and they are so graceful and peaceful and we just love looking at them as well.
your photopass pics turned out great too!
I cannot wait to hear more about this trip! yay!
About This Page: 
) And while we were sitting, minding our own business…okay, okay, we were eavesdropping on the conversations around us…we overheard the woman in front of us telling the woman across from her that Space Mountain was closed and how “they don’t even tell you until you are down here”. Okay, maybe you don’t haunt the boards like I do, but seriously?? You can find that information in sooo many places. I wanted to be like “yeah, it’s been down for months now and will be up in November and we’ve all known about it”. But I kept my holier-than-thou Disney attitude to myself. 
But, be assured I’ll be photographing the food on our upcoming trip) For appetizers Craig had seared ostrich with spicy chick peas and I had the kalamata olive flat bread. I could have made a meal out of that. It was fabulous!! 
Then for our dinners Craig had beef short ribs, with Yukon gold potatoes. Delish!! (of course I tried some) and I had the Halibut with the veggies “of the moment”…no, not “of the day”…”of the moment”. Now, that’s gotta be some fresh veggies. Also, delish!!
giraffes and was sooo excited to see one up close and just walking around. Then he (or she) laid down and rested. Okay, so maybe not a “sleeping” giant, but “resting” giant just didn’t sound as good. 
It’s just much easier to take lots of pics when you’ve got two cute little boys to focus on) 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Love the pics and descriptions! Can't wait for more!
Liz 
Linear Mode
