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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Upon waking up, Thom discovered that he had forgotten two things. The first and more “fixable” of the two was a volleyball (we’ll get to the second thing later ). Mary Devall was in the midst of volleyball tryouts at her middle school and she really needed to practice over the long weekend since the final cut was the next week. Thom had meant to bring her volleyball from home, but had left it in his rush to get out of the house (and I probably married the one person who is more forgetful that I am ).
He was planning to hop in the car and run get one before Mary Devall even woke up, but he was letting himself back in the room ten minutes later holding a volleyball. When he asked at the front desk where he should go to buy a volleyball, they directed him to their fitness center instead where he could check one out to play on one of their many beach volleyball courts. Wow! Fate was definitely looking out for us because now they could practice on an actual court with an actual net!
He roused Mary Devall out of bed and they took off for a quick thirty minutes of practice. Of course, little sister had to go too, so I was able to take a shower and take my time getting ready while enjoying a cup of that I made in the room. I also checked out the view from our room, since we actually had a balcony (Carol and I didn’t last year).
True to their word, they made it back to the room in thirty minutes. That’s about the time that Thom admitted to me the second thing that he had forgotten. If you remember our trip last fall with his family, you will also remember that we had to make a pit stop by Stein Mart on the way because he had forgotten his hang up clothes on the back of the door. Yep, he did it again.
Now he did have t-shirts and gym shorts, but no polo shirts and no dress shorts. This normally wouldn’t be a big problem at “laid back” Disney, but, at his request, we had booked dinner at Shula’s for the following night. After a little back-and-forth as to whether Thom should drive somewhere to buy “nicer” clothes for Shula, we decided to play the practical card once again and bag the Shula’s reservations.
Once that little mini-drama had passed, we finished getting ready and headed down to the bus stop. I had already raved about the bus service from the Swan, so I was hoping that Disney wouldn’t make a liar out of me on this trip. This ended up being our longest wait of the trip, but it was really no more than 15 minutes until an MK bus pulled up.
Once at MK, the resort monorail was sitting right there waiting for us, so we were at Chef Mickey’s in no time. I had made this ADR for 10:30 since I figured we might sleep in after our late night, but it was just a few minutes past 10 a.m. when I approached the hostess desk. She took my information, but told me we might be seated closer to our original ADR time.
I grabbed my family from the Outer Rim bar where they had found seats and moved towards the waiting area inside Chef Mickey’s. We had just passed the hostess desk when our pager went off. At first, I thought they might just be sending a test page, but when I took it to the check in desk they were ready for us. We were ushered to the elevated area that looks out over the front of the Contemporary which seems to have become “our” place on our last few visits.
We had a fantastic breakfast here with great food and character interaction, but sadly we only have two pictures to show for it.
I bought a new camera (nothing fancy, just a good basic “point and shoot”) this summer specifically for indoor and low light photos since the pictures with my iPhone aren’t the greatest in those situations. My plan was to take most of our pictures with it and I stuck to the plan.
The problem is that when we returned home I was formatting the pictures one evening and did a “save” of the formatted pictures from the first day on the memory card instead of a “save as” to the computer (which is what I normally do). When I realized what I had done, I didn’t think it would be a big deal because I had done this before one or two photos . . . but never about thirty. I’m not sure what happened, but the pictures from our first day saved as “white space.”
I freaked out, but decided to leave it for the night and try to salvage the pictures the next morning after a good night of sleep. I did some research the next day, but none of the suggestions I found online worked. I finally downloaded photo recovery software that you could try for free which thankfully recovered almost all of my pictures from that first day - - with the exception of Chef Mickey’s. Only two photos were recoverable which, oddly enough, are of Chef Mickey himself.
Ironically, if I had taken pictures with my iPhone, I would still have them (the girls might all have green glowing eyes, but I would have them ). I honestly was just thankful that most of the pictures were able to be saved. Goodness knows, we have enough pictures of us at Chef Mickey’s already!
Once we were good and full and had met all of the characters, we decided to make our way over to MK. We took the short walk over and were soon in the park. Maddie had requested to ride BTMRR first, so Thom suggested that we take the train to Frontier Land.
Once on the train, I had a text from Sharon asking where we were today. We soon discovered that both of our families were in MK today, but we ended up being at cross purposes all day long and never managed to find a good time to meet. Don’t worry because we would soon rectify that over the next few days!
When we arrived in Frontier Land, we were excited to see that the standby line only had a 10 minute wait. Essentially, that was just the time it took to walk through the line because we were soon waiting on our train (the pictures taken on BTMRR were not recoverable, so you’ll just have to imagine us hoopin’ and hollerin’ ).
After a great ride, we split up with Mary Devall and I going to ride Splash Mountain and Thom and Maddie hanging out in the Laughing Place playground. We probably only waited about 15 minutes before we were assigned the back row.
We both are huge SM fans, so we laughed and squealed the entire time. We’re trying to get better about posing for the camera before the big drop, but once again, we hunkered down to miss the soaking before our picture was taken.
With Frontier Land taken care of, we picked up Thom and Maddie on our way and mosied over to Adventure Land where we only waited about 10 minutes before we rode PotC. I was loving these wait times especially since we had waited over 30 minutes to ride PotC at the beginning of the summer.
__________________
Sometimes words aren't needed . . .
Last edited by Jillybean; 10-30-2013 at 11:20 AM..
Great beginning to your day.
Sorry you had to nix Shula's, but glad they had a volleyball for Mary Devall. My oldest DD is playing volleyball and LOVES it! I hope Mary Devall made the cut.
What a mess with your pics, sorry not all were recoverable.
Sorry about Thom's clothes (you didn't really want to go to Shula's anyway, did you? ) and the pictures! Glad you were able to get some of them back! Great time at MK!
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Maybe third time will be a charm, and Thom will remember all his clothes next time!
Glad they found a volleyball for MD to practice. That's probably what gave her the edge in making the team!
Frustrating about the new camera! That's always my fear when I switch cameras too close to a trip, when I haven't had enough practice.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Great update and glad the a volleyball court was found and Thom could rent a ball for the day. That worked out great. Love Chef Mickey's. Sorry about your photo woes, but glad you were able to recover most of them.
Perhaps Thom secretly just want to go shopping while you are in Disney to get "new" clothes. Just a thought!
Sorry about the pictures but glad you were able to salvage so many of them. Sounds like a great start to the trip....low waits always are a good thing.
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Sorry about your pictures but glad that you were able to recover most of them!!! The girls looked like they had fun at Chef Mickey's and of course there is always fun to be had at the MK with low crowd levels
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). Mary Devall was in the midst of volleyball tryouts at her middle school and she really needed to practice over the long weekend since the final cut was the next week. Thom had meant to bring her volleyball from home, but had left it in his rush to get out of the house (and I probably married the one person who is more forgetful that I am 
). 
When he asked at the front desk where he should go to buy a volleyball, they directed him to their fitness center instead where he could check one out to play on one of their many beach volleyball courts. Wow! 
Fate was definitely looking out for us because now they could practice on an actual court with an actual net! 
that I made in the room. I also checked out the view from our room, since we actually had a balcony (Carol and I didn’t last year).
This normally wouldn’t be a big problem at “laid back” Disney, but, at his request, we had booked dinner at Shula’s for the following night. 
After a little back-and-forth as to whether Thom should drive somewhere to buy “nicer” clothes for Shula, we decided to play the practical card once again and bag the Shula’s reservations. 
This ended up being our longest wait of the trip, but it was really no more than 15 minutes until an MK bus pulled up.
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Pixie Dust
Liz 
They're super cute! A great start to your first day! Can't wait to hear more! 
*Melissa
,
PassPorter Guide Author
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