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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So I thought I would give a brief update on some information. We have decided to drive down for this trip. This will be a first for us, so I am very hesitant. We looked into flying, but we don’t want to pay $1600 for us to fly. We also looked into taking the Auto Train, but the trip down was almost as much as flying round trip, so that was out. In the end, to save money for the important things, we have chosen to drive.
Since we are going down after Christmas we can leave for Florida at any time and take a few days going down. We would like to arrive in Orlando around dinner time on the 30th and check into a budget friendly hotel for the night and arrive at Disney bright and early the next morning. This way we will all be well rested and not have any of that first day drag that we experience when flying. So any suggestions on driving 15 hours with a 8, 7 and 1 yr old would be greatly appreciated!
Since we are driving we will have a car with us for the whole time. This may prove invaluable since our youngest will only be 19 months. I am trying to talk DH into one day at WWoHP, but I am not having much luck in that area.
We are getting close to the 180 day mark for dinning reservations. I think I have them narrowed down, but I do not have when yet. It is hard since they have not released park hours as of today. I will leave you with a few more pictures!
They were holding hands in the stroller!
The last four were pictures taken by Disney at GF. We had purchased a photo package for one of our trips.
The last 2 trips of mine, we've driven down to WDW from the Chicagoland area. It's roughly a 20 hour or so trip one way. We stay overnight at a motel on the first day of driving. To keep my daughter entertained, she took along some coloring pencils, coloring books, word find book, her iPod, our portable DVD player and some DVD's, some playing cards and of course CD's including Disney Music to keep all of us entertained. For fun, my daughter and I created a Road Trip Scavenger Hunt game searching for easy various things while traveling along the highway. We had prizes for who could find the most items on the scavenger hunt list. I remember my daughter loved going into the visitor's welcome center to search for some of the items on the list. It was a lot of fun
The last 2 trips of mine, we've driven down to WDW from the Chicagoland area. It's roughly a 20 hour or so trip one way. We stay overnight at a motel on the first day of driving. To keep my daughter entertained, she took along some coloring pencils, coloring books, word find book, her iPod, our portable DVD player and some DVD's, some playing cards and of course CD's including Disney Music to keep all of us entertained. For fun, my daughter and I created a Road Trip Scavenger Hunt game searching for easy various things while traveling along the highway. We had prizes for who could find the most items on the scavenger hunt list. I remember my daughter loved going into the visitor's welcome center to search for some of the items on the list. It was a lot of fun
Thank you for the suggestions. I really like the scavenger hunt idea. We are planning on leaving around 4 am the first day and stopping about half way down. My two oldest will have their ipods and plenty of books. Not sure how to keep an 18 month old occupied though.
Our 180 day mark has gone and we have made our reservations with a few tweaks of the plan. Originally we wanted to stay Club Level at the Polynesian. However, there are no rooms left on CL so we have decided to do the deluxe dinning again instead. I know one of the lessons we learned in the past was that two reservations take a lot of time from the parks, but this time we have several days where we only have one reservations and plan to eat CS if/when hungry. We have also only scheduled pre-park opening breakfasts so they will not take any time from our touring. Plus the added benefit of having early breakfast is that we are in the parks before they open.
Cost wise, the deluxe still makes sense for our family as we still have two that are considered kids. The upgrade was less than what it would have cost to pay OOP for the additional places we wanted to eat when on the regular plan. We went through several scenarios, such as paying OOP, getting a TIW card, or just paying OOP for extras, and we chose the deluxe route.
Another change we made was we are not going to Disney until January 2. We have friends that live in Tampa and we were invited to stay with them for a few days prior to the trip. Since we are driving we decided to take them up on their offer and save some money in the meantime. Now we plan to arrive bright and early on the 2nd and leave after dinner on the 9th. This is another reason why we chose deluxe. We only get 7 days of meals, but we will be there for 9 days, so the deluxe will cover some of the gaps.
So here are our dinning reservations as of now. I am constantly changing things around, so this is subject to change. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!
Weds, Jan 2- Dinner at California Grill
Thurs, Jan 3- Lunch Sci-Fi
Dinner at 50’s Prime Time
Fri, Jan 4- Breakfast at Akershus
Dinner at Teppan Edo
Sat, Jan 5- Dinner at 1900 Park Fare
Sun, Jan 6- Breakfast at Tusker House
Dinner at Ohana
Mon, Jan 7- Dinner at Le Cellier
Tues, Jan 8- Breakfast at Kona
Dinner at Hoop Dee Doo
Wed, Jan 9- Lunch at Crystal Palace
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