Don't Stop! PRE-TRIP AND LIVE TRIP REPORT COMPLETED - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sounds like a great trip you have mapped out. I was thinking that you've stayed with Sue and Steve over New Years before. I can imagine that their place is gorgeous that time of year. Can't wait to read your take on Key West. Would love to visit there someday.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
The Keys are a photgrapher's dream and the weather should be gorgeous. If you can stop by Big Pine Key and look for Key deer. They are really little and so cute. My kids also love manatees and we got some good shots of them the week between Christmas and New Years.
Have a great trip!
Excellent to hear they're a photographer's dream - we'll be in hog heaven.
I always thoroughly enjoy your TR's, Cheryl-and will admit that I'm exhausted just by seeing all of the checking in/checking out youns will be doing on this trip!! That being said, I hope you have the best of times-and one day I hope to have the honor of meeting you & Mark in person!!
Sounds like a great trip you have mapped out. I was thinking that you've stayed with Sue and Steve over New Years before. I can imagine that their place is gorgeous that time of year. Can't wait to read your take on Key West. Would love to visit there someday.
Sadly : - it will be our first time with them and I can't wait to see their place. I think we'll probably be visiting at a perfect time of the year to see it at its best...
Sounds like another perfect holiday thanks to your great organization Chez. You just put vacations together with such flair and get so much packed in yet you never seem rushed. I think you will definitely enjoy the drive down to the Keys. We have always enjoyed Miami (even though it has been pushed to the side lately for Disney )
Okay...I am alreay jealous of your amazing Disney trip around the world that I followed in your TRs. But now I am wicked jealous of the amount of time you get for vacations!! Amazing!! And you certainly have packed enough into your trip. My favorite part is the 5 nights at BC Villas for your b-day and Christmas. What a great way to celebrate both (as you know BC is now my FAVE resort )
Pre-trip report – part two: it’s going to cost how little?!”
There wasn’t much more I could do with planning for this trip, until the flight prices opened up in early February. When they did, it’s fair to say I was disappointed with what I found. The flights we’d got for October 2008 hadn’t been as cheap as we were used to, but I knew that oil prices were at a high at the time, so I had figured that we’d be able to get a cheaper deal this time around. Not a bit of it. : The prices were coming in almost exactly the same as what we’d paid before, which I wasn’t expecting. As a result, I kept debating... and kept debating... and then debated a bit more. I watched the prices in the hope that they would go down, as sometimes happened. They didn’t.
Eventually, in mid March, I decided enough was enough. Those prices, no matter how much I hoped for it, just weren’t going to go down. I went to purchase our tickets and then, just as I went through one window, I got on to the next one that gives you the option to upgrade to Upper Class (Virgin’s first / business class service). Usually they’re asking for the sort of money that you’d need a second mortgage for. To give you an idea, at one point, they wanted something like another £3,000 (about $4,600) per person for our flight to Tokyo. Yeah, right... we have that sort of money just lying around, ready to spend on a flight upgrade. Well, only in my dreams...
This was very different. I stared at the screen for a moment, unable to believe what I was seeing, so much so that I called Mark in to verify it and asked him “upgrading to Upper Class is another £300 per person – do you want to go for it?” It took all of about two seconds for his face to light up and for him to tell me to get on with it. We’d secretly talked of one day flying Upper Class, but it had always been a dream that we thought would be out of reach. Not today. I completed the transaction and was walking on air for the rest of the day, and probably most of the next day as well, knowing that we’d finally be experiencing what it’s like to fly the way that most celebrities and big business people. I couldn’t wait!
That done, it was time to phone DVC member services and get our bookings in for our Disney accommodation. We had no problem getting a one bedroom villa at the Beach Club Villas for the second part of our stay, something we had promised ourselves after our last all too short, one night stay in a one bedroom villa there in October 2008. We also added the Deluxe Dining Plan for that part of our vacation, as we had really enjoyed it last year and figured that it would work for us, with signature meals most nights. It would also help us avoid the hike in buffet prices for the holiday season.
We also booked Saratoga Springs, our other home resort, for the first part of our stay with the full intention of swapping it at the seven month mark.
Planning went very quiet after that – something to do with the appalling level that the pound had sunk to against the dollar. I had to purchase my Annual Pass before the Decade of Dreams tour, so I went ahead and did that, but that was about as far as I got. My plan was to hold fire and hope the exchange rate improved somewhat.
Not long after our return from Japan in early April, I was on the phone to DVC member services again to see what I could swap to for the first part of our stay. I was delighted to get two nights at Animal Kingdom’s Kidani Village in a savannah view studio on the first attempt and even more delighted that I managed to snag one night at Bay Lake Tower, although not in a Magic Kingdom view room. Bearing in mind that these take up a small minority of the rooms there, I wasn’t really expecting or hoping for one, so that was fine with me. I put us down on the wait list for the first night in the hope we might get a second night at Bay Lake Tower or the Wilderness Lodge Villas.
At the same time, I booked us a night at the Vero Beach resort, which I was looking forward to returning to. I just hope it’s warmer this time than on our previous visit there in December 2004, when it was freezing, not long after one of the major hurricanes, so the resort was looking very sorry for itself and was also when the tsunami struck. That had certainly taken some of the enjoyment out of our ocean view room...
Congrats on the upgrade to a first class flight! Sounds like you got the resort bookings you wanted also (other than the MK view). Sounds like things came together....
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I was thinking that you've stayed with Sue and Steve over New Years before. I can imagine that their place is gorgeous that time of year. Can't wait to read your take on Key West. Would love to visit there someday.
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Pixie Dust
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: - it will be our first time with them and I can't wait to see their place. I think we'll probably be visiting at a perfect time of the year to see it at its best... 
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Cathy
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