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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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That's the right attitude! Disney races are definitely for the fun of it. Oh, and that dang medal too! Run/walking is the way to go. I've discovered this as well, particularly after my knee surgery. Whatever it takes to finish, and you will finish!
I was hoping to get to the inagural TOT but the airfare didn't go down before the race filled up. My BFF and family will be there for their first Disney trip so it would have been awesome. At least her DH is running the race though!
What's hilarious is that David is the one who is all about the Disney bling! As soon as he hears about a new race or new medal opportunity (like the Coast-to-Coast), he's ready to sign up so he can get the hardware!!
Sorry you're missing the ToT race!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great goal! Have fun running!
Thanks! When people tell me running long distances can't possibly be fun, I always say, "Well, you haven't run a race at Disney!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dlandmom2
Wow, good for you and your attitude! I applaud you and DH for doing this because I am NOT a runner! It just has never interested me in any way, and all that I remember about running while growing up is not being able to make it once around the track (1/4 mile). I'm so glad you were able to "fix" your foot problems! I need to go see your friend...maybe I can get all my sore muscle problems "fixed" too!
Too bad you're not closer. Now that this guy has fixed my foot, I'll recommend him to anyone who has any kind of muscle pain whatsoever!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazanya
Sorry about your injury! But good for you to set your goal!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Good for you coming back after that injury! with the rest of your training!
So after we start our vacation with a 10-mile race, I will be entitled to eat whatever I want for the next week. That’s right, isn’t it??
Well, I completely forgot that April 1 was my ADR day. It was like an April Fool’s joke that I inadvertently played on myself! When I finally did remember mid-morning that I was supposed to have gotten up early to make our ADRs, I sprang into action.
While David and I had talked about where we wanted to eat, we hadn’t firmed up what days we wanted to go to which restaurants. We sat down and quickly made some decisions, then I got on the phone. Of course, I was only able to make ADRs for the first portion of our split stay at this point.
We had wanted Tutto Italia for dinner on our first night, as that is where we always eat on the first night when we are there for a race. But the only opening was at 4:20, so I looked at Via Napoli instead and was able to get a better time. Other than that, we pretty much got everything we wanted.
We contacted the AKL concierge staff to reserve the Wanyama Sunset Safari experience. David happened to mention to them that we were waiting on a return call from V&A about the Queen Victoria room. The concierge said not to worry about it – he would call and make our reservation for us. We also decided at the last minute to try for a lunch ADR at Yak & Yeti on our AK day, and he was able to get that for us as well.
We have stayed concierge level before at a couple of other Disney resorts, and I’m always so impressed with the responsiveness and helpfulness of the staff. They really do make everything such a breeze!
Of course, as we firmed up our schedule a bit more -- and once the MNSSHP schedule was released -- we had to make some tweaks. Here is the current plan, still subject to change, of course! We'll plan to eat breakfast in our villa/room and grab CS for lunch most days. Bolded items are new for us:
Friday 9/28 (arrival day): Via Napoli for dinner (we will probably grab lunch at Beaches & Cream)
Saturday 9/29 (race day): Restaurant Marrakesh for an early dinner (race is at 10 p.m.)
Sunday 9/30: Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater for lunch; Coral Reef for dinner
Monday 10/1: Queen Victoria Room at Victoria & Albert’s
Tuesday 10/2: Narcoossee’s
Wednesday 10/3: Flying Fish;Disney Food Blog IllumiNations Dessert Party
Thursday 10/4: Liberty Tree Tavern and MNSSHP
Friday 10/5: Wanyama Sunset Safari with dinner at Jiko
Saturday 10/6: Yak & Yeti for lunch; Party for the Senses
Sunday 10/7 (departure day): CS only
We struggled with which of the AKL safari options to choose. But we have never eaten at Jiko, so the Wanyama safari seemed like a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone.
On October 3, we had snagged an 8:30 ADR at Le Cellier. But when we found out that the Disney Food Blog's private IllumiNations dessert party would take place at Rose & Crown at 8:30, we cancelled Le Cellier and chose an earlier dinner at Flying Fish -- a place we've been wanting to try anyway.
Party for the Senses reservations open up on 8/14, so I'm hopeful we'll be able to get tickets in the reserved Wine View Lounge.
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Whoa, sorry for the long break between updates! I've been immersed in the Olympics so haven't been on the computer much.
Anyway, when we left off, we had our dining reservations squared away and now I was worrying about flights and a small luggage issue...
Sometime in the spring, I started thinking about airfare. I checked prices on Southwest and United, and they cost the exact same with similar flight schedules that would allow us to leave around 7:30 a.m. and return in the late afternoon/early evening. Of course, United charges bag fees, while Southwest does not, and with a 10-day trip, I’m assuming we’ll be checking bags.
Nonetheless, David is not a big fan of Southwest and the unassigned seats. So, I decided to wait a bit to see what happened with airfares. I checked again exactly a week later, and United had gone up about $50/ticket. So now we’re looking at a $100 difference in airfare, along with around $100 in bag fees round trip. That certainly didn’t make economic sense, so I went ahead and booked us on Southwest and paid for early-bird check-in. I was afraid prices would keep going up with the rising cost of fuel.
I also signed up for a Rapid Rewards account with Southwest. I was very loyal to Continental Airlines (it was our hometown airline, after all), but I’ve not been impressed with what I’ve seen so far from United, especially since the completion of the merger back in March. : So I’m now much more inclined to fly Southwest domestically. United!
With airfare booked, we made our DME request and got that squared away.
We went to Las Vegas in late March, and the handle on my rolling bag mysteriously broke. It was fine on the way there, but after I packed my bag to come home, the telescoping handle wouldn’t raise up. Okay, time to get a new bag. I had bought this luggage set (large roller, small roller and duffle) at an after-Christmas sale about 5 years ago for something like $79. So I got my money’s worth. I had used this red luggage to replace my black luggage because everyone had black luggage and it was getting hard to identify my bags at the airport. Well, of course, as soon as I bought it, lots of people started using red also, which didn’t help matters! (Actually, I’m sure plenty of people had red before I bought it, but I just never noticed it until I had red also).
Nonetheless, the large roller and duffle were still fine, so I planned to replace only the small roller, which is the one I use the most anyway since it fits nicely in the overhead bin. I happened to get an email from Rapid Rewards that they were offering triple points on purchases at eBags, so I pointed my browser there to see what was available. The Disney bags were cute, but too expensive. As I browsed around, I saw that I could get a whole new set of luggage on sale for around the same price as a single, small roller bag. After going back and forth about what I wanted, I finally chose a 4-piece set (3 rollers and a shoulder bag) that is black with huge pink and white polka dots. Those shouldn’t be hard to see on the baggage carousel!
When the luggage arrived and I took it out of the box, David just rolled his eyes at what a girly pattern I had chosen.
They also had a cute Mickey wallet on sale, so I bought that also and, altogether, I earned about 2500 Rapid Rewards points.
Now we have a way to get to Orlando and something to carry our stuff in. Check that off the list!
Up next: Planning for F&WF (aka Information Overload!)
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Congrats on your flight and luggage. I hope David will come to love Southwest. I think when you factor in everyone else's luggage fees, it will almost always be more economical to do EBCI and still get a seat you like. The only thing that's a bummer is that there aren't a lot of non-stop flights for my usual destinations, but I think I'm learning to live with it because none of the other airlines seem to come close in customer service. I used to like United as well, but now they're "just ok" to me. If I can't fly Southwest, I'll usually fly United.
I can't wait to see a pic of your "girly girl" luggage. It sure won't be hard to locate!
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I can't believe I've missed the beginning of your PTR but thankful that I caught up with it before it ran away from me! haha I'm blaming the Olympics on my lateness and signing my only baby up for Pre-K for the fall Everything sounds great!! I've been training for a 5K (first time runner) using C25K and it's really helped me a lot. Good luck on your run!! F&WF is AMAZING!! I love it!!
Over the course of the last few months, I've been keeping my eyes open for the release of F&WF information. It is, in a word, overwhelming! There are so many different kinds of events going on!
For a while, I just went into shut-down mode and basically didn't even think about planning anything!
We knew we wanted to Party for the Senses on October 6, our last full day. But beyond that, I have struggled with wanting to participate in the special events but also not feeling like we've spent our entire vacation doing F&WF stuff, if that makes sense.
When we found out that August 14 was the date that reservations would open for F&WF special events, I finally forced myself to sit down, sift through the information, figure out what interested us and what would fit into our schedule. Once I really got focused, it turns out it wasn't so overwhelming after all! Some events just didn't fit into what we already had scheduled or weren't going on during our trip, so that knocked out some stuff. We have narrowed it down to these 4 events:
1. Italy Regional Lunch on Wednesday, October 3. Disney Food Blog describes this as: "Over a leisurely lunch, you’ll enjoy casual, authentic dishes paired with wines." It takes place at Tutto Gusto, which I'm looking forward to trying out for the first time. If we get this reservation, we'll cancel our Sci-Fi lunch ADR that day. I already found another lunch ADR at Sci-Fi the next day so I snagged that just in case.
2. Kitchen Memories on Friday, October 5. This will feature Duskie Estes and John Stewart from Zazu Restaurant Farm in California. This was an open day on our schedule; the only other thing on our schedule is the Wanyama Safari/Jiko dinner in the afternoon.
3. Silver Oak/Twomey wine seminar on Saturday, October 6. This is one of our favorite wines, so we are looking forward to this! Reservations for the culinary demonstrations and wine seminars opened this morning for DVC/TIW/AP holders, so I was able to call this morning and buy our tickets for this. Yay!
4. Party for the Senses on Saturday, October 6. You will recall that this is the whole reason we extended our trip and decided to do the split stay at AKL. If we don't get these tickets, I'm not sure what I'll do, other than this:
So, fingers crossed for Monday morning when I can make reservations for the other 3 events!
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My BFF and family will be there for their first Disney trip so it would have been awesome. At least her DH is running the race though!
with the rest of your training!
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Pixie Dust
It was like an April Fool’s joke that I inadvertently played on myself! When I finally did remember mid-morning that I was supposed to have gotten up early to make our ADRs, I sprang into action.
PassPorter Guide Author
Good luck with the training! 
: So I’m now much more inclined to fly Southwest domestically. 
United!
I had bought this luggage set (large roller, small roller and duffle) at an after-Christmas sale about 5 years ago for something like $79. So I got my money’s worth. I had used this red luggage to replace my black luggage because everyone had black luggage and it was getting hard to identify my bags at the airport. Well, of course, as soon as I bought it, lots of people started using red also, which didn’t help matters! (Actually, I’m sure plenty of people had red before I bought it, but I just never noticed it until I had red also).
The Disney bags were cute, but too expensive. As I browsed around, I saw that I could get a whole new set of luggage on sale for around the same price as a single, small roller bag. After going back and forth about what I wanted, I finally chose a 4-piece set (3 rollers and a shoulder bag) that is black with huge pink and white polka dots. Those shouldn’t be hard to see on the baggage carousel! 
Everything sounds great!! I've been training for a 5K (first time runner) using C25K and it's really helped me a lot. Good luck on your run!! F&WF is AMAZING!! I love it!!
Reservations for the culinary demonstrations and wine seminars opened this morning for DVC/TIW/AP holders, so I was able to call this morning and buy our tickets for this. Yay!
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