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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Glad that you enjoyed the parade and were able to keep warm moving around! We never made it to the pool area of the hotel to see what it looked like since we only stayed the one night before moving on to Disney. It was a nice size pool area though!
Too bad it was a bit too cold for you at night! Sounds like a great parade and looks like you really enjoyed it!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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It's great to see your pictures from Universal as I was just there in April, so you're bringing back fun memories! I love how they have so many single rider lines there!
The parade looks like a lot of fun and how neat to see shots of the Universal resort at night. I just realised looking at your photos that we've never seen it after dark. My goodness, we'll have to put that right on our next visit.
It really is pretty at night! I love all the colors of the lights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindawdw
Glad that you enjoyed the parade and were able to keep warm moving around! We never made it to the pool area of the hotel to see what it looked like since we only stayed the one night before moving on to Disney. It was a nice size pool area though!
it really has a nice looking pool. I never used it though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperDave
Too bad it was a bit too cold for you at night! Sounds like a great parade and looks like you really enjoyed it!
It did get chilly that night, but I survived!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
The parade did look so colorful and lively.
It was so much fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
It's great to see your pictures from Universal as I was just there in April, so you're bringing back fun memories! I love have they have so many single rider lines there!
I love the single rider lines. It makes getting through so much faster.
I think I slept till around 7, which is good for me on vacation and then got up and put on some shorts and a shirt and made my way down to get some breakfast.
After I ate, I headed back to my room to shower and figure out what I would do today. I had several thoughts of different things, with checking out the Outlet Malls, something I keep saying I want to do, or go to Gatorland, which I could get a free ticket of admission with my credentials.
Before I headed into the shower, I messaged my friend J. I wasn’t sure if she was done with her race yet, but I just let her know that if she wanted to hang out or do anything then I was game. She said….Hey would you like to go to the Cast Member store? Um heck yeah! She told me to drive over to Pop at a certain time (I believe she was checking in there today) and she would be there about then too, so I quickly showered and then made my way over.
Pop was my first onsite resort and we have stayed there 4 times I believe and it will always hold a special place in my heart. And of course I needed some new pictures.
I found her and it was great to see her again! We hopped in her rental and she told me they tried to make her take a pick up or van as well but she ended up talking them into a crossover vehicle.
We chatted away and headed to the Cast Store and I realized this was right by my hotel. We went in and shopped around. I ended up buying like $75 worth of stuff, but so much was really cheap…like $5 shirts, a $169 pair of shoes for $9.99. It was so cool. I got stuff for myself, Claire and Gracie too. I took a picture of some stuff in there but I am not sure if I am allowed to share, so I won’t post them. The furniture area was so cool too. They had tables and desks from resort rooms for like $5-10! J said stuff like that usually goes fast with the locals as they bring trucks and buy a bunch of stuff. They had Christmas trees that had to be either from Hollywood Studios or Art of Animation, because they had film reels on them, for like 15 and 20 dollars. So cute….and sure enough I saw someone taking those out before I left.
That was such a fun experience. I am so glad she asked me to come. Then she said she was going to go to Magic Kingdom for a few hours to basically just walk around and stretch her legs out so they don’t get tight from the race…would I like to come….hmmm….let me think about that…..OK.
We drove back to Pop and then took the bus over to MK and went through bag check and security and then she was able to get me in.
This is how crazy it was just trying to get to bag check.
We rode the people mover, which had a long ride for it, but still not horrible and it is just a nice ride to chill on. Then we moved on and decided we needed to take a selfie. Neither one of us is very good at taking them, and I was trying to get the castle too but this was what I got.
We decided we were hungry and headed over to Pecos Bill’s. I got nachos and I don’t remember what Jeanne got. I devoured them and did not take a picture. After we ate we wandered some more.
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How fun that you got to shop at the CM store! When I worked at our local Disney Store back in the 90's, I was able to visit the CM stores in the parks that are hidden behind stage and I found it so interesting! So nice of your friend to get you into MK with her pass! The MK looks pretty crowded but getting in for free makes it so that you don't even care about the lines!
How cool to get to shop in the Cast Member store! The deals sound incredible. Nice time at MK, too.
It was so cool to just be able to go to the store. They had some really neat stuff in there. It's an opportunity I never thought I would ever get.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
How neat to get into the Cast Member store! What great bargains you got in there.
It was so cool. One of the shirts I got for Claire she wears all the time. it has Dumbo on it and is so cute. And totally Claire's style and she is super picky these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindawdw
How fun that you got to shop at the CM store! When I worked at our local Disney Store back in the 90's, I was able to visit the CM stores in the parks that are hidden behind stage and I found it so interesting! So nice of your friend to get you into MK with her pass! The MK looks pretty crowded but getting in for free makes it so that you don't even care about the lines!
It was such a treat to be able to go to the store and then to MK was a total added bonus. We had such a fun day. It totally was not in my plans at all to do but it worked out great and since I had left the day up in the air, it worked out perfectly. It's not often where I would go to MK and just not plan to do anything, but it worked for us that day. And no guilt of "wasting" a ticket.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
How fun to go to the CM store! I forget if you mentioned it, but where does your friend work for Disney?
It was such a neat experience.
I am not sure if she would want me to say where she usually works, but it is attractions at MK. Sadly, she has put in to quit as she has so many other things going on and living out of state makes it hard sometimes to be able to work as much as she would like there. She may possibly just do a leave of absence if possible. She also has a full time job at home and she is also a co-worker of mine, so she keeps really busy.
J asked if I wanted to ride anything and I told her it was up to her totally. She said her favorite ride was Haunted Mansion and I told her mine was Pirates of the Caribbean. We headed to Haunted Mansion and the line was really long. She looked online and was able to make a fastpass for later.
As we walked by the castle we saw the show was going on. J said one of her friends daughter is often Tiana in the show, but she wasn’t today. Elsa, however was a friend of her daughters.
We then decided to head to Pirates and just wait it out. It was a huge line but we had time till our FP for Haunted. We were by some annoying people….just really rude and driving us nuts….well the lines for Pirates are really wide and as you walk along it’s easy to move ahead or get behind depending on how you take the turn. We decided we wanted to move ahead to get away from the rude family. It then became a game for us and each turn we made we would try to get ahead. It was totally stupid and crazy but it was a fun way to pass the time. I think we ended up passing about 50 people. Now we never pushed or anything like that…it was just at each turn we would make the turn the sharpest we could and then we would be ahead. Yep it was childish and we totally laughed about it at the end.
Pirates was great as always and then by the time we got off there we headed over to ride Haunted Mansion….which was also a lot of fun. J was about to call it a day but said I could stay….nah…I want to stop at Walmart yet and get some water and a few other small things yet and fill the van up with gas. But….first I want a dole whip float…..and she did too.
We sat down and talked and joked how we ate our way around the Magic Kingdom today.
Then we rode the bus back to Pop and she headed back to her room so she could get ready for bed as she had to be up super early for her next race. I went and took a few pictures before heading out.
Lenora messaged me that her flight was being delayed a little bit, so she would actually arrive just a little later, which actually worked out best for me.
And I headed out and programed Siri to take me to Walmart…I think I should have asked for Target…the road to Walmart was insane! Traffic was horrible and though it wasn’t far, it took me forever to make a right turn onto the road. I just patiently waited my turn and finally got on the road. They need a light at this intersection!
Walmart near Disney is sooooo cool. They had all sorts of Disney clothing. I wish our local one had all this stuff. I picked up what I needed, water, diet coke and a few other small things and then filled up with gas.
With that all done I headed back to Springhill Suites but somehow found myself on a toll road. UGH! I don’t know how I did that and it was one where I needed to have exact change too, so I had to dig for it.
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How cool to shop at the Cast Member store with some great discounts! Nice time in the MK with some attractions. That bag check line is insane!
__________________
October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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.
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We never made it to the pool area of the hotel to see what it looked like since we only stayed the one night before moving on to Disney. It was a nice size pool area though!
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Sounds like a great parade and looks like you really enjoyed it! 
PassPorter Guide Author
Great pictures of Pop! Oops about that toll road. 
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