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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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WOW!!! That was some plan flip. I agree with Skip's logic about the pricing and how to save money by spending it on Universal tickets. Hope it was a fun day.
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Oh boy, a last minute change like that would definitely throw me for a loop, even though I enjoy Universal! I hope it all works out well!
It did, but he is famous for last minute so i am good with making changes for a lot of things luckily.
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Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great photos of the pool area!
Thanks
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Originally Posted by chezp
My goodness, that was a dramatic last minute change to your plans for the day!
It was..not what I planned at all. And originally I had asked him if he wanted to do Sea World this day and spend the night once more and he said no we'll just relax.
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Originally Posted by NanaTink
Wow! I so feel you about the last minute plan change…but Universal is great too! Can't wait to hear how your day goes!
It was really a shock but a fun one.
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Originally Posted by lindawdw
It's tough changing plans last minute so I hope you had fun at Universal after all that
We did. Claire was missing out on the swimming, but she lived.
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Originally Posted by rhinohunter
WOW!!! That was some plan flip. I agree with Skip's logic about the pricing and how to save money by spending it on Universal tickets. Hope it was a fun day.
I still shopped at Universal though. LOL!
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Originally Posted by Cam22
Your pictures around OKW could be used in Disney materials. That was a drastic change in plans.
We drove over to Universal and they have a choice of regular parking or a preferred parking lot which costs a little more but you are closer to the parks. Since we were on a time limit Skip said to park in the preferred. Well let’s just say I think we were in the furthest spot away from the gates in the preferred parking that you can get. But nothing we could do about that.
Had I known this is what we would do today I would’ve tried to get here at opening.
As we walked through City Walk I took a few pictures.
We bought our tickets and headed in.
It was nice to be back at Universal. We last were here in 2012.
Shaggy and Scoobie.
Claire wanted to go ride Despicable Me right away but the line was long so we thought we would try that later before we left.
The funny thing is, Skip said this was his favorite park in Florida and then started asking the way to this ride and that….each time he named a ride I would say….that’s at Disney World. LOL!
Transformers was new since we had been here last so we headed that way.
It was closed for repairs at the moment but they did have one out for a meet and greet. This guy was huge.
We kept moving.
Claire wanted to stop here, but Skip said no. This was one of Claire’s favorites last time, but Skip hated it.
And then I saw it….It was behind walls yet and no one knew at the time when it would actually open but it was predicted to be early summer….Diagon Alley.
I got all giddy and excited to see peeks of it.
At this time I had no clue that in about 4 ½ months I would be back in Florida and spending a day here.
It really looked good!
We had a goal and were going the long way around for some reason….there it is across the lake.
More of Diagon Alley.
It looked like it was going to be fabulous and I couldn’t wait to see it when it was finished. I was so happy that I did get that chance in August. They did a wonderful job.
On we went.
Oh, …and we all wore pants today since we were heading back to cold Ohio…..and it was quite warm here and I regretted wearing them pretty quickly.
The wait was not long at all. In fact much shorter than it was our last trip. Universal was much less crowded than Disney had been and I was glad for that. We LOVE the Simpsons ride and it was a top must do while we were here.
We love the warped sense of humor with the jokes.
We had a blast as usual on the ride…I think we only rode it once, but we might have gone right back on again…I just can’t remember. The Simpson area had been built up too since we had last been here so it was neat to see all the new things.
We also really like the Men in Black ride so we made a dash over there.
I put my bag in the locker.
We rode it and had a blast. There is a certain time where they tell you to press the red button and if you are the first one to do so you earn a lot of bonus points. I was the only one who remembered this and waited for the right moment and hit it and won the points. This brought on tears from Claire. It was no fair and she should’ve been reminded to win.
We exited with the baby, who was pouting and headed off to the bathrooms and had a seat for a few minutes.
I was now getting hungry. That breakfast was long gone, but Claire was still pouting so we agreed to go on one more time. And then Skip hit the red button. WHY on earth would he do that when the whole reason we went back on was to let Claire win. She was tired and at her last straw from this trip and I was trying to make her pleasant so she wasn’t crying on the whole flight back. UGH! Men!
So we get off with her crying once again and she wants to ride again and I tell them they have to go as I need food. Skip says he doesn’t want to go and argues about it. I got to the point that I said he could deal with her crying but I am getting food and he then decided to take her back one more time. I went off in search of something to get rid of my headache.
Of course I took pictures as I went.
I caught a glimpse of Krusty!
And Sideshow Bob!
These guys cracked me up.
Yes I was looking for food.
I thought about stopping and getting a Flaming Moe, but I didn’t….wish I would have now.
Inside there are several options of food places to order from.
And the lines were massive for all of them. It actually was into another room to get started. I just couldn’t wait that long.
I believe this was Luigi’s only before the refurbishment.
I headed outside to see if something out there would be faster….I really debated on donuts.
I settle for here!
The line wasn’t too long…it wasn’t fast, but it was better than inside at least.
While in line I saw my favorite Movie props.
I made my order and waited for it to be done and then found a seat.
It really hit the spot and I was back to being nice again.
As I waited for Skip and Claire I took some more Back to the Future pictures.
It seemed to take forever for them to come over to find me. (I had Skip’s phone by the way…ugh). I guess the line had gotten much longer this time around so it took them longer to get through it, but at least the tears were gone. But they were hungry too. They didn’t want tacos so we moved on to find them something different.
Skip got Claire some nuggets and I sat with her at the table while he went to find something for himself.
We spotted Doc off to the side talking to people. How exciting. I don’t think I have ever seen him here before. I took this picture with my phone and posted it on facebook.
My friend Cass replied “Great Scott! Someone needs to empty the trash can”! LOL.
I always push the red button! Glad it all worked out in the end. I almost tried those tacos while we were there as they sounded so good but we always ended up eating somewhere else. I did wind up with a pink sprinkle donut though
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