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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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As previously stated DBF was not a huge fan of Disneyland, prior to his mom passing away she had sent him some family passes (she continued to receive these after she retired) and we went for one day to visit the parks. DBF had never been to California Adventure and in fact it had been many years since going to Disneyland. One of the first rides we went on was Grizzly River Run (similar to Kali Rapid) and we had so much fun laughing with the other family in our raft. There was no turning back, slowly another Disney fan was being born.
We returned to Disneyland for my birthday the following year the week of Thanksgiving and stayed offsite. We walked to the parks each day and had a great time and enjoyed all the holiday decorations.
We decided on this trip to return the following May for the Food and Wine festival. When I started to price hotels offsite I went ahead and check rates for Grand Californian as that was one of my dreams to be able to stay there and walk into the park from the hotel. The rates were not that much more that staying offsite for the nights we wanted to stay. We had a great time, the weather was good, and crowds were low as we were there during the week.
We had one day left on our park hoppers that we weren’t going to use on this trip and had decided that we would come back and bring our grandson Joey. Now Joey at this time was 2 and had already visited Disneyland many times as one other set of his grandparents are annual passholders and have taken him many times for the day. We knew though that Joey had not gone to the Redwood Creek Challenge at California Adventure. It was DBF idea that we would bring him back, not bring or rent a stroller we would just go at his pace.
As we were walking back to our room we had passed the DVC booth. I had heard that if you went to a presentation you could get a $50.00 gift card. I had thought that would give us some spending money when we come back with Joey.
We stopped at the booth and spoke with the CM for some time and made an appointment the next morning to see the presentation and view the room models. Of course we knew we were just going for the gift card. At this point we have just spent three nights at the Grand Californian, had a great view of California Adventure and just loved the hotel atmosphere. So what ends up happening, before I know it DBF is seriously discussing the pros and cons and makes the decision to buy 200 points. WOW – I’m shocked, this man who had not been to Disneyland in many years decides this will be good for us to have and for the grandsons. We can at a minimum go to Disney World every other year and spend time during each year at Disneyland.
Now that we have this 200 points plus an additional 200 points thoughts start to form. What will we do with these points?
Thanks everyone for following along and for the wonderful comments.
Points, what shall we do with our points….
Our first trip was easy to figure out as we basically had started a tradition of going around my birthday, two reasons, it’s my birthday celebration & the parks are decorated for the holidays. We also had decided that we would go May 2011 for the Food & Wine festival at California Adventure. We had made the decision to get a 1 bedroom and split the week. Part of the week would just be us enjoying the festival and then we would leave and go pick up the grandsons for the rest of the week. We would just relax hitting the parks and spending lots of time at the pools, as the boys will be ages 3 & 1 when we go. So our plans were made for November 2010 & May 2011.
The hard part was figuring one more trip. DBF knew I wanted to go to Disney World, so when would be a good time to go for this trip. At first we talked about going to Food & Wine festival at Epcot and then we received word that DBF employer’s was not going to allow vacations during October or September due to a systems upgrade. We then thought about going for my birthday, we would celebrate my 50th and see WDW holiday decorations. We were concerned that if we booked this trip, his work schedule would slip and we would have to cancel.
So we needed to make the decision if we were going to go in 2011 when do we go – at this point we know we cannot go in September, October or November. December is not good for me. We knew we didn’t want to go in the summer with the heat, humidity and crowds. We know we will have future trips in the summer as the boys get older and are enrolled in school. Then there were work conflicts in February, DBF birthday in March and it’s tradition for us to go to Las Vegas. Didn’t want to be there around spring break. I finally brought up January figuring it would be shot down as we are both off work the week between Christmas and New Years. We actually agreed it would work and there we are we are leaving on January 28th to celebrate my big birthday a wee bit early, we won’t actually let it be known we are there for my birthday because it is 10 months away.
As a side note: Since we booked our May trip in Disneyland, they have decided to cancel the Food & Wine festival due to construction. We will still go and take our grandsons, as it’s already booked.
So what are our plans – how does anyone figure out where to eat so far in advance???
Where to eat, wow so many choices and with each trip report I read there seemed to be even more options. So here is our current itinerary and final list of our ADR’s.
Arrive: Friday 1/28, plane scheduled to land at 4:45 PM DME to AKV – Kidani Boma reservation 8:10 PM, we booked a later time allowing for some delays for arrival. Before & after dinner most likely explore resort. Depending on late we finish dinner and how tired we are maybe catch a bus to Epcot as they have EMH this evening.
Saturday 1/29 Epcot LeCellier ADR at 2:45 PM, just booked this one a couple weeks ago. This was only time I could find that worked with our schedule.
Sunday 1/30 DHS/MK Sci-Fi ADR at 11:45 AM, after seeing different reviews decided lunch might be best for this one. I did eat here 6 years ago. I thought DBF might find the atmosphere interesting. Fantasmic – will attempt depending on crowds, also may try to head over to MK as they have EMH this evening.
Monday 1/31 AK/DTD Wild Africa Trek, we are very excited about this new tour, we were able to get the introductory pricing otherwise most likely would have been too much.
Ohana ADR at 7:10 PM, another late reservation I was able to get, I think I may have lucked into someone’s cancellation as it took a few days to get this one. I honestly thought I had waited too long to decide to be able to get an ADR.
Maybe head to DTD after dinner.
Tuesday 2/01 EPCOT We will be checking out of AKV and checking into BCV on this day. Boma – ADR at 9:00 AM
Wednesday 2/02 This will be a roaming day, checking out as many DVC resorts as possible for future stays. Also will look into attending Welcome Home Wednesday. WCC – ADR at 1:15 PM
Thursday 2/03 Kona Café ADR at 10:00 AM, we have been to Maui a few times and I’m looking forward to some Macadamia pancakes. Park undecided
Friday 2/04 Last full day – park undecided Kouzzina ADR at 5:00 PM
Saturday 2/05 Pack up & get ready to head home. We will most likely head to DTD for last minute shopping or maybe head back to anything we may have missed.
Of course, we will not be diligent about hitting the parks in this order. We will adjust as needed based on how we are feeling each morning when we get up.
Regarding our decision on dining plan. We went back and forth on the dining plan, we looked at different scenarios, and we looked at menus. We thought we had finally made the decision; we would do both, as we will be there on a split stay. We would do the DDP for the first half of our trip then OOP for the remainder of the trip. We would then have some type of comparison for ourselves. After one final look, we changed our minds and decided to go completely OOP, the final decision had to do with desserts and appetizers. We rarely order dessert, but once in a while will order an appetizer to share. We will keep all our receipts and look again when we return home to see which would have cost us less for our situation.
Guess, I better get moving on the packing. I’m just so unsure of what to pack.
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