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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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's shaping up to be a nice trip. But then what trip to WDW isn't nice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shnewell
I'm impressed that you're even thinking about packing. If we start packing more than 48 hours in advance, I consider it a victory!!
Love the idea of a Disney dinner. That should be fun. I can't wait to see what recipes you make!
I could never wait until 48 hours before a trip to pack. I'd go And for the dinner I just hope my attempt to cook isn't a failure. My DH sometimes bans me from the kitchen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jennie622
It's also a great idea to "try on" the backpack harness. My DS got one for my niece and didn't do a trial run so there was a horrible meltdown right on the monorail platform at MK. So embarrassing!! Needless to say, it was never used. And let someone look at you funny, you are correct when you say you'd endure a look rather than lose your child.
DS loves the backpack harness and gives the bear a hug quite often. We tried it on and he didn't mind it, but it causes him to face plant as he's not used to having to stop when he gets going. We'll have to take it out somewhere with us. DS will be in the stroller as much as possible, but sometimes he just refuses and wants to walk so we'll need the backpack harness. Sorry it didn't work out for your niece.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Sounds like you've got it all together at 5 months out!
Maybe I've got the trip all together, but I'm very far from having it ALL together.
Well I fell behind! Sorry your surprise isn't a surprise anymore, but glad everyone is on board with it.
We have one of those backpack harnesses. Worked great when DS was 20 months although it was so crowded it was hard to let him walk without being trampled. Then 6 months later - not so much fun. Refused to wear it.
For our stroller I bought a neon green lei and tied it to the handle. Works good!
I need to get a rain cover for the sit-n-stand stroller before our trip next week!
Well I fell behind! Sorry your surprise isn't a surprise anymore, but glad everyone is on board with it.
We have one of those backpack harnesses. Worked great when DS was 20 months although it was so crowded it was hard to let him walk without being trampled. Then 6 months later - not so much fun. Refused to wear it.
For our stroller I bought a neon green lei and tied it to the handle. Works good!
I need to get a rain cover for the sit-n-stand stroller before our trip next week!
Well hopefully I'll get lucky and the harness will work for DS when he's 18 months. What did you do when DS refused to wear it? Had he already outgrown the "run away" phase. Good luck finding a rain cover! I don't know if I've ever seen one for a sit and stand. Enjoy your trip!
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So here's the menu for our Disney Dinner set for next Saturday:
Appetizer: Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup from Epcot's Le Cellier
Bread: Cobblestone Cheese Brean from the Yacht Club's Yacht Club Galley
Side: Stack of Vegetables from Lumiere's/Triton's on the cruise ships
Main Course: Maple Glazed Salmon from Animator's Palate on the cruise ships
Dessert: Grapefruit Cake and Creme Cheese Frosting from DHS's Hollywood Brown Derby
Here's to hoping I don't mess up the recipes. They're from the Disney cookbook so they should be correct. Wish me luck! I'm writing out the grocery list today for the dinner.
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So we did have our Disney dinner on September 17th. It was a lot of fun. And at the same time a LOT of work. We pretty much spent Friday night frantically cleaning and cutting up vegetables. I'm so glad we did that prep work because everything took a lot longer to make than we had thought. I think my DH thought I was silly for wanting to do so much prep work the night before, but I knew that cutting up everything with a 14 month old weaving between our feet was going to be too difficult so I insisted.
My in-laws came over in the afternoon to watch DS so DH and I could cook. We basically cooked everything on Saturday except for the cake, which I made on Friday and frosted right before my in-laws showed up. Here are the pictures of how everything turned out:
Our Mickey's Not So Scary Trail Mix. We made this one up as the cookbook didn't really have any snack food. I figured that since the MNSSHP had just started we could "fudge" a snack a little bit. It turned out to be a hit!
The Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup from Epcot's Le Cellier. It was wonderful, but I don't remember the soup at Le Cellier being quite so chunky. Maybe I needed to cut the celery smaller. Oh well. It was still tasty. And I'm not a chef so it's good enough for me. I wanted to take a picture of it all dished out in a bowl, but I somehow forgot so you just get a "pot shot".
The Cobblestone Cheese Brean from the Yacht Club's Yacht Club Galley This was super delish and went great with the soup!
The Stack of Vegetables from Lumiere's/Triton's on the cruise ships and the Maple Glazed Salmon from Animator's Palate on the cruise ships It was all wonderful. I'm hungry just looking at the pictures.
The Grapefruit Cake and Creme Cheese Frosting from DHS's Hollywood Brown Derby This was my big contribution. Truthfully DH did most of the cooking. I made the bread and the cake. And I cut up stuff, but most of the cooking was him. But this cake was made completely by me. And it was so
Everyone really loved the meal. Well except DS. He didn't eat any of it! He was too excited about having grandma, grandpa and auntie over to eat. I think my in-laws are now really excited about the food they will be eating in WDW. They were so shocked by how much work we put into a meal. My FIL even sent a Thank You card in the mail - Mickey Mouse Thank You of course!
After dinner we watched the vacation planning DVD I had gotten in the mail. MIL was surprised by how much DS loved the DVD. They were also surprised by how much WDW had changed since they went. They were there in 1997. I'm not positive, but I don't think Animal Kingdom was even around at that point. If it was they didn't go there. So I think they are really excited to see the changes to WDW.
So that was our big trip celebration. I would have had it closer to our trip, but we go in January and the holidays interfere with just about everything so I figured why not have it now! Maybe we'll just have to try and squeeze in another pre-trip celebration.
So you're going to get two updates today. Mostly because things happened with the trip this past weekend, but I wanted to make sure I posted about our celebration dinner before I moved on. So this update has more to do with the actual trip and our plans.
On Sunday morning I got an email from my FIL asking if we knew about the changes to our flight. I emailed him back and told him I hadn't heard of the changes. Apparently he had gotten an email stating our departure flight time had been changed. I don't know why I did not receive that email from Delta as I thought I had signed up for email updates, but I had not received a notice. So I asked FIL what the changes were. Apparently the airline went ahead and moved our late afternoon flight to early evening. Which means instead of arriving at in the early evening we wouldn't get to WDW until way after Cameron's bedtime!
Now I know there is a stipulation when you buy your flights that they can change the flight time on you. I've had it happen when they change by a half hour to an hour and it usually isn't that big of a deal, but an over 2 hour change! I was VERY unhappy. Of course my DH was at work so I had no one to complain to and spent most of the day cranky because of it.
Now when I booked the flights initially I wasn't all that happy with a departure time we had as I hate getting to my destination later in the day. It feels like such a waste. So with initially landing in the evening we probably wouldn't get to the resort until after Cameron's bedtime so we figured we would just go to bed. If we didn't have a little one we maybe would have still gone to DTD, but DS goes to bed at 7:30 PM our time so 8:30 PM would be an equivalent bedtime in WDW. So basically we would arrive, check in and go to sleep. Not really what I wanted to do, but the flights were cheaper in the late afternoon than they were in mid-morning/early afternoon. And since I wasn't interested in the early morning flights the late afternoon flight was the best option money wise.
So needless to say I was not happy with the flight being later. If they had moved it two hours earlier I would have been very happy, but by our arrival DS would have likely lost it. And we wouldn't get tot the resort until 10:45-11:30 PM. Way too late for an 18 month old. And for me for that matter. I wanted to be able to get an early start the next day!
So after talking to DH he said we should look into changing the flights. I checked the airlines website and it said that we "may" qualify to change our flights. And to click on continue and then click on change flights. So I did just that. And picked a new flight and went to modify the reservation. They were going to charge me over $300 to make the change. This was NOT in our budget so DH called his dad and they talked some more about changing the flight. So his dad called and he was able to change the flight for FREE!!! I figured I would call Delta as soon as DS went to bed. I then heard that SIL changed her flight for FREE! So I was sure everything was going to work out. I called and I was told it was going to be $81 in fees. I was not having that so the person got on the phone with customer service and the fee was waived. We talked to FIL and he said he had no trouble changing the flight and no one even mentioned a "fee" it was just free for him.
So we now have a flight that leaves in the afternoon and arrives at dinner time. I couldn't be happier! It was a pain to get it worked out, but truthfully this was the flight I had preferred all along. I just went with the late afternoon flight because it was $40 cheaper per person and saved us a total of $80. Now I have the flight I wanted and I didn't have to pay for it! Thanks for being a pain stupid airline!!! Our original flight is now $175 more per person than we paid for it and the new flight is $195 more per person. So we really booked at the right time - saving $390!
This flight is going to work out so much better for us. It isn't too early so we won't have to wake DS up all that early. And it co-insides with nap time! Not sure if DS will be able to sleep on the plane, but I'm hoping it will work out in our favor. With the other flight we would have been at the airport during nap time and that might have been difficult. Now we'll be arriving right before dinner time. So I have to choose where to eat!
I'm hoping that they won't change this new flight, but if they move it a few hours later or earlier I can deal with that. So I think this will be a good change. Now if only they would make my return flight a little later in the day....
Glad you got everything worked out with the flights, even if it was a pain in the patootie! I've never heard of a flight changing by such a big margin. I've certainly had them change our times by 15, 20 or even 30 minutes, but not 2 hours!!
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And for the dinner I just hope my attempt to cook isn't a failure. My DH sometimes bans me from the kitchen. 
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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