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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Yes it really it that big, no trick of the camera!
You can see the bathroom to the right and the room door to the left. There is a little "drink tray/station" right there as you enter the room and the ice tray was always full!
Sorry for the suitcases and stuff....
Sorry for the odd angle. I think Kent was trying to avoid getting "caught" in the mirror. There are two sinks here and lots of counter space plus those small shelves there that were nice for thing you want away from little hands. There was a small potty room and well as a shower.
This was a shot of this whole box of goodies for our use. I am trying to remember all of it. Small pocket sized calendar, toothbrush and paste, razor and lotion, comb, powder, a cloth shoes bag and more. This was all one top of the usual shampoo, conditioner, soaps, lotions and bath salts. The bath salts were so yummy smelling that I asked if they sold them and the answer was now but the housekeeper gave me 5 to take!
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Waiting to eat with Goofy - DLR May 2010
Last edited by MinnieJen; 03-16-2011 at 06:32 PM..
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This is just as you enter and Ty was so excited right away by the huge whale!!
This is the Shark egg I mentioned. The green pod kind of a thing is the egg and the brownish thing inside is the baby shark and it did move around quite a bit.
This was the Sea Lion and Seal tank and one sea lion was swimming down right in front of Ty. I thought it was a cool shot even without the marine life in it.
Then Ty got all silly on me!
This one Otter was spinning in a perfect little ball!
Tanya
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Just catching up. Sorry you were feeling so sick, but glad to know you're better now. I love the look of your hotel. It really does look kinda like a palace. Love all the pictures, too. Looking forward to more.
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
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We got up and going the next morning with the last of the packing to do and some organizing of bags since we would be checking in and dropping off luggage and heading right to the parks to meet up with Tricia and Roger and Katie.
I decided that Ty and I would wear our new Woody and Jesse hats. If you have read my past TRs you know I always wear a Disney hat of some kind in the parks and usually mickey ears. I was excited to mix it up with such a cool find. Kent was asking me how many times I thought someone would ask were I bought it since it was not a Disney purchase and they would not be in the parks. I am trying to remember the number we settled on. I knew I would feel bad telling people the long beach harbor.
In this process I was trying to find our trading pins and lanyards. All but my lanyard was missing. We had moved them around some as they are heavy and we were tight on weight in the larger bags. I do not lose things very often so it drives me batty when I do. I finally had to give up and we would have to buy some pins to trade and an extra lanyard if we need too. So I double-checked our drawers and the closet and we were on our way.
This was the day of the DL half marathon and I knew that getting into the resort might be a trick so Kent called ahead to see if we would be able to valet the car or if we might need to park it and leave our luggage inside which i did not want to do. They gave us directions to get around the closed roads and it was a piece of cake. We checked in at the Grand Californian, which is our all time fav!!! The boys were so excited just walking in those doors. We gave them Kent cell number to text the room number, got our keys and off we went.
I texted Tricia to see if they were still in DCA, they were. We went through the Grand Cali entrance into DCA and it was very sunny and quite warm already and it was only 10am. We added sunscreen to the boys as we circled around to where Tricia and Rog were waiting in line to meet and greet Jesse. It took a little bit but we finally found the Davids and the boys were excited yes but even more excited as Woody just come out. With Ty and I in our cool hats it was perfect, so in the line we went. Katie was too excited to see us and was not pleased that we were in a line that she had already done. She wanted to hang out with her friends, Tricia did her best to keep her close to us as we waited. Woody was thrilled to see our hats and “asked” us all to pose just so. Ty did his best but he was more exited about Woody than any hat. We got some cute pics anyway.
We asked Ty if he wanted to ride Jumpin Jellyfish (a big time fav) and he said no! Although surprised, we took him at his word and headed of to Bugsland so all the kids could get some rides in. We did Heimlich’s Chew Chew, which actually had a wait. Then we did Tuck and Roll bumper cars although Katie and Ethan were still too little to ride. Up next was Lady Bug Boogie and Flik”s Flyers and then a potty break since the restrooms right there by Flik are so nice. It is one of the few that offer a family restroom, which is nice when we all need to go. We decided to head over to DL since we wanted to do lunch at Plaza Inn and we had only done a little breakfast.
We got the Plaza Inn and we walked right in. We had never eaten here but Tricia and Rog had (of course) so I just followed their lead! The guys took the kiddos over to a big table and Tricia and I went off to get food. Kent and I were both planning on getting fried chicken and the portions were huge so I only ordered one plate of chicken with sides of mashed potatoes and green beans and then a marinara pasta plate and a couple of pieces of fruit and some drinks. We headed back to the table were all the boys and Katie were waiting for mommies with food. Ty got our chicken leg and some fruit and was happy as a clam. Ethan went to town on the pasta and fruit I thinkKent ate a little of the pasta too. Kent and I split the rest of the chicken and sides and had just enough. It was such good fried chicken. Katie lost her hair bow during our meal but auntie Jen found that it had wondered off under a table of other princesses and blended in with their “pink”. Once we were all full and cleaned up and had secured Katie's bow, we headed out into Tomorrowland.
I ran ahead to see what the wait time was for Buzz and it was 25 minutes. I had thought ahead and got everyone’s AP so I grabbed fast passes and we diverted over to try Jungle cruise. It was only a short wait and off we went! We hit up Pirates next which is our over all favorite as a family. Ty is all about anything "pirate" and I might just include a pic of him in his Halloween costume as well as our other pics for this post. After we proved that dead men DO tell tales I texted with Tanya (Disney_Duke) to see if she was up for our meet. We stopped and picked up pirate mickey ears for Ty. Tanya was ready to meet us and off we went to Bengal BBQ.
Now for those of you that have never done DLR this is a small counter with yummy kabobs and a small outdoor seating area. It was very hot and all the seating was in the sun. Kent and the boys LOVE the kabobs but I had not planned that there was 4 of us, 3 of the Davids and Tanya and her friend. So lots of hot people and not a lot of seating. I found Tanya right away and she looked fabulous for having just run 13.1 miles a few hours before. I am quite sure I did not look that good after my race. We made introductions and Kent went to get the boys a kabob or two and some cold drinks. It was lovely to chat and catch up. We talked about the race and what Tanya and her friend had done at DLR. Kent raved about my planning and organizational skills, which was very sweet. As we all sweated in our seats Tanya commented on how good the boys were being while they roasted in their stroller. They have always handled the heat really well, which is nice. We all decided to head out so we could cool down and Tanya wanted to go for a swim back at her hotel from what I recall.
Of course just as we separated and our group headed over to use our Buzz FPs I realize we did not take one picture of our group or of Tanya and her hard earned metals. I felt bad…......oh well....time to go shoot at Zurg!
I will (again) post pictures tonight after I get Kent to shrink them down for me……
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Waiting to eat with Goofy - DLR May 2010
Last edited by MinnieJen; 03-20-2011 at 10:33 AM..
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Waiting to eat with Goofy - DLR May 2010
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when I do. I finally had to give up and we would have to buy some pins to trade and an extra lanyard if we need too. So I double-checked our drawers and the closet and we were on our way. 
Although surprised, we took him at his word and headed of to Bugsland so all the kids could get some rides in. We did Heimlich’s Chew Chew, which actually had a wait. Then we did Tuck and Roll bumper cars although Katie and Ethan were still too little to ride. Up next was Lady Bug Boogie and Flik”s Flyers and then a potty break since the restrooms right there by Flik are so nice. It is one of the few that offer a family restroom, which is nice when we all need to go. We decided to head over to DL since we wanted to do lunch at Plaza Inn and we had only done a little breakfast. 
Ty got our chicken leg and some fruit and was happy as a clam. Ethan went to town on the pasta and fruit I thinkKent ate a little of the pasta too. Kent and I split the rest of the chicken and sides and had just enough. It was such good fried chicken. 
Katie lost her hair bow during our meal but auntie Jen found that it had wondered off under a table of other princesses and blended in with their “pink”. Once we were all full and cleaned up and had secured Katie's bow, we headed out into Tomorrowland. 
I found Tanya right away and she looked fabulous for having just run 13.1 miles a few hours before. I am quite sure I did not look that good after my race. We made introductions and Kent went to get the boys a kabob or two and some cold drinks. It was lovely to chat and catch up. We talked about the race and what Tanya and her friend had done at DLR. Kent raved about my planning and organizational skills, which was very sweet. As we all sweated in our seats Tanya commented on how good the boys were being while they roasted in their stroller. They have always handled the heat really well, which is nice. We all decided to head out so we could cool down and Tanya wanted to go for a swim back at her hotel from what I recall. 
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