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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Ok, So now we are trying to figure out how NOT to use our car and become "tourist". So after having to stop back by the Pin Trading cart (We all now have our lanyards with all of our pins that I got off of Ebay.) we are on our way down to the buses. YEAH US!!!! We get on a bus that is headed to DTD. Of course my nosey nellies have to ask questions about EVERYTHING!!! Where are we going, what will we do, are there any rides, can we eat there, isn't DTD for adults, how much money do we have to spend (remember they have been earning fake Disney Dollars since Feb by doing extra chores and been getting GC for b-days and Easter, so they both had around $200 of their own money to blow) when are we going to Disney (we ALL call magic kingdom, Disney) etc.....
FINALLY DH said to the both of them, "This entire trip is one big surprise, why don't you two just go with the flow and be surprised when things happen." (I love him soooooo) So they both shut up, sit back and start pointing stuff out along the way to DTD.
On a side note, anytime we go anywhere special I have a goal for my kids to do 5 Random Acts of Kindness a day. I have been doing this ever since each of them was old enough to understand it, so it isn't hard for them anymore. More later on some of the things that they did to make me proud.
So we get to DTD and had an ADR at Rainforest Cafe at noon. We had a little time to blow before that so I hit the Christmas shop and the rest of them hit the Pin Trading store. When we met back up, I then realized that this trip will be ALL about Pin Trading!!! And I mean ALL!!!!! DH and DD10 were HOOKED!!!!! BIG TIME!!! DD13 and I did it but really could care less.
So we get to the Rainforest Cafe and that was WAY cool!!!! This was the start of our overeating for the entire trip!! We had a great lunch and a great server, the kids got B-Day Sundaes and sung too, they LOVED it!!! After lunch I wanted to look through their store but DH and DD10 wanted no part of it and went BACK to the Pin Store while DD13 and I went to the $10 store and did some more shopping. I swear if you look at all of our cell phones the most texes you will see for the entire trip will consist of "Where are you?"
After DH dropped about $200 at the Pin Store ( I am NOT joking!!) we all decide to go back to the resort and check it out before our ADR at Mickey's Backyard BBQ.
So we get back and DH and DD10 went straight to, well you know!!! They also hit up EVERY CM they could find with pins on them. DD13 and I went and checked out the resort, found all of the smoking areas (Yes, I am one of THOSE people!!) and walked all over the place!! What a beautiful resort and even after visiting other resorts for various ADR's the kids even said that they liked OUR resort better!!!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Sounds like a great start to your vacation - can't wait to read more We're starting pin trading this trip - we'll see how hooked my kids get! They are younger than yours though, so maybe it won't be too bad
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Stacey
Why do these kids look so pathetic?
Find out in: A New Grade, A New House, and A Surprise!Final Thoughts 01/30
One thing I forgot to add to the entire "check-in" process. I was NOT allowed to add my Disney Gift Cards to my KTTW card. I was told by a manager that they can only place CC/Debit Cards on file for room charges.
It really did work out best for us because we just used our Gift Cards to pay for purchases and it let us keep better track of how much money we were spending by throwing away used GC's.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
great update for day 1. my cousin's little one, 7 yrs old, also immediately became a pin trading junkie last week...must have been in the air! keep it coming....love reading about your adventure!
So glad that the surprise went off like planned (even though the plans did not go anywhere near how you planned them....LOL - got to love those kids, leave it to them to do everything that they are not suppose to do when you are trying to surprise them )
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
How funny that your DH became a pin Junkie. In his defense it is easy to drop $200 bucks on pins. I know our first year as a family we dropped close to $100 before I realized it.
I am so glad that the surprise went as planned.
Looking forward to reading more.
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They caught us all smiling and looking at the camera!!!
I will continue my report tonight!!! I had some issues with my picture sizes that I was getting help with. They are STILL huge but are within the guidelines!!
So after a great lunch at Rainforest Cafe and a little bit of shopping at DTD. Well a little for me, NOT DH!!! Geez!! I did order a personalized Christmas Tree Ornament from the Christmas shop and had it delivered to our resort and the girls Made-A-Tshirt and also had that delivered to the resort.
Off we went back to the resort to get ready for Mickey's Backyard BBQ. We decided to take a boat to FW and that was just GREAT and the kids didn't want to travel any other way the entire trip!!!
We really didn't know where we were going once we got to FW, thankfully there are signs pointing the way!! FW was really cute, we didn't see much and I would have liked to of seen the cabins, but it was starting to rain so we needed to get to the BBQ. We all stood under some little guard station, or it could have been a place to buy tickets but it was closed. They tell you to be there about a half hour before and we were as well as 3 other families, but that was it. I thought maybe the small amount of rain was making people cancel. But that wasn't true. About 5 mins prior to them letting us in, the flood gates opened with people coming to the BBQ.
The rain is coming down harder now and the CM's with umbrellas are walking people from the little guard place to the open aired set up for the BBQ. We sucked it up and just ran in the rain. One of the families that were there early with us was from the UK and had a little precious one (about 9 months old) asleep in a stroller. They had no umbrellas nor did they have any ponchos. My DD13 took off her poncho and gave it to the mom and told her to put the poncho over the stroller so the baby doesn't get wet and wake up. My heart just beamed with pride and the mom looked at me as if to say "Is this alright with you?". I just smiled. Both the mom and dad hugged my DD13 and was almost in tears. That was the start of my girls RAK for the week!!!
ANYWAY!!!! We get into the pavillion and are lead to our seats. We sat there for what seemed to be a half hour waiting for them to open up the food lines. While we were waiting Goffy and Chip and Dale make their way out and off go my girls!! So DH and I are just sitting there getting eaten alive by mossies!!! FINALLY the food lines were open and off we went. They had ALOT of food and it was good, but nothing to write home about. The whole night other then the show seemed to be chaos. No one seemed to know what to do, where to go AND where to sit!!! We were at the first table on the right had side of the stage and I guess it was good seats if you wanted to see the show from the side but we had sooooo many people coming and standing in front of us, moving my daughters stuff that was sitting next to me so they could sit down in her spot and wouldn't move when my daughter came back with her food. She asked nicely if she could sit next to her mom and the lady said "I am watching the show". OMG!!! DH went and got a CM and he came up and asked her where her seat was and THEN she moved!!! THREE other people tryed to do the same thing!!
Well it was raining ALOT harder now and the roof had leaks everywhere!! So puddles and buckets were a plenty!! I thought it was rather funny UNTIL we got a leak right over our table!!! A CM must have seen us moving our stuff rather fast and without a word came up placed a bucket on our table and walked away!!!
Both my girls got the Princess Jewelry box cakes to celebrate their b-days and when they read off the list of b-days and their names came up ( I had to put their names on the list) that was when the cakes were delivered.
My girls had gotten their pillowcases signed by all of the characters that were there. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Chip & Dale. They were VERY excited about that. Goofy took a liking to my DD13 and messed with her alot. That made the night soooo much better. The show was winding down and BOTH my girls said "Can we go now!!" I had never heard better words then that and you didn't have to ask me twice!!! We were up and out of there in a flash!!!
I am glad we did it this one time, the food was fine and I am sure that the rain had alot to do with our experience but we won't be doing it again.
Back to the WL via boat!!! Once we get back to the Lodge, DH, DD13 and DD11 head to the Pin Lady and to fill up our mugs, I head back to the room to get ready to hit the sack!!! We have a LONG day ahead of us!!!!
I was sooo tierd, I have no reason why, it wasn't like we did much but I couldn't keep my eyes open. I find out the next morning from DH and DD11 about our room upgrade!!! (We didn't think we got one)
They were able to watch the fireworks from our Balcony. I remember hearing "Booms" but couldn't seem to wake up enough to care. There was only one tree in the way but DH said it was almost like being there!!! YEAH US!!! But to be honest, I never once was able to see the fireworks from the balcony. We either got in too late or we were in bed too early!!
EDIT**** I forgot to add something that happened at the BBQ!!! WHILE we were eating there was a young couple behind us, like we were at picnic table 1 in row one and they were at picnic table 1 in row 2, they had two children who looked to be like 1 and 3 or 4. WELLLLLLL, the little boy (3 or 4) must have messed his pants and dear ole' dad decided to strip him down and clean him up right behind my DH in the stroller. Now don't get me wrong, I have three kids and have changed many of a diaper in a stroller BUT...... this child was too big for the stroller AND had to stand up in it because he couldn't lay down. The smell was horrible (what in the heck do you feed that kid!!) and I REALLY didn't want to be seeing this while I was eating!! The bathrooms aren't THAT far away AND my girls told me that they even had showers!!! Save some wipes and take that little one to the showers, you had him down to his birthday suit anyway!!!! GEEZ!!!
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We're starting pin trading this trip - we'll see how hooked my kids get! They are younger than yours though, so maybe it won't be too bad 
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