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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Sounds like you are having the trip of a lifetime!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
It's so great that your kids are experiencing so many different landscapes and can really envision how vast and beautiful this country is. This is something I never appreciated until I was an adult.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dlandmom2
I thought I had replied early on in your TR, but I guess I didn't! I'm all caught up now, and it's all looking like so much fun! I like the pictures of your kids playing together, reading, just keeping themselves amused. I also loved the alien pics!
You sure are having an adventure! I can't wait to see what's next!
We had a nice, short 30 minute drive to Carlsbad Caverns this morning after packing up camp at Guadalupe Mountains. This was a nice break in the longer drives… We arrived at Carlsbad just 7 minutes after they opened the gates. We were among the first in the visitor center, despite this the 9am tour that I was planning for was booked solid. The 10am tour had openings, but it wasn’t the tour we wanted. So, we decided to do the self-tour and decide on a guided tour afterwards. I figured we would do a lot of walking on the trail and there was no line for the elevators. As we were preparing to go down the elevator, the ranger told us that the walk down into the cave is really nice as it allows you to have a true understanding of how deep (75 stories deep) that the cave goes. When we were told that, I was regretting the decision to take the elevator, but we went ahead with it and decided we could always walk down the path/entrance afterwards. Once we got to the bottom, we literally had the place to ourselves! Everyone else had taken the natural entrance and it’s over a mile path, so we were over a mile ahead of everyone (we were there when the cave officially opened for the day). We toured the entire path to the Big Room which took close to two hours seeing less than 5 people along the way and those were all as we approached the exit… So, if anyone ever goes to the Caverns- arrive at opening, take the first elevator of the day and have the cave completely to yourself!
Touring the cave was simply unbelievable and something everyone should do if they can! The sights were just amazing and although I took a good bit of pics, pics simply can’t do it justice. The cave was AMAZING! The whole time we were down there, I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing was real. And the kids were SO good. They ask you to be quiet down there and the kids couldn’t have been any quitter; it was a very memorable experience!
After doing the Big Room tour, we looked around the gift shop and visitor center. Some of the kids got all the information to become junior rangers at the park. We then walked over to the natural entrance to check it out, but decided not to walk down it as we were tired at this point a portion of the walk was in the outside and it was miserable hot outside. I did take a few pics of the natural entrance, but we did not walk it.
By this time, it was around 11am and everyone was ready for lunch. The picnic area in the park was in full sun and it was sooo hot. We found a shaded spot on the way out of the park to picnic just sitting on some rocks.
We had booked a hotel just a short 4 miles from the Caverns. Thankfully when we arrived, our rooms were ready and we were allowed to check in early. Unfortunately, this place was to have a waterpark and the kids had been looking forward to it for days; but it turned out that the waterpark didn’t open for the season until June 1st. I wish I had been notified of this when I booked the place as this was a pretty expensive hotel and I mainly booked it for the waterpark and because it was so close to the Caverns. Also, we had two rooms here and the a/c in one of the rooms didn’t work properly. We called about getting it fixed, but they only offered to change our rooms. This would have been a huge headache as by the point we realized it wasn’t working, we had stuff everywhere! So, instead they offered us a fan and a discount and I took it….
But we enjoyed the hotel all the same and it did have a pool that the kids enjoyed, although it was a bit of a tease as the pool sat directly beside the waterpark…
Later that evening, we headed out for the bat flight program at Carlsbad Caverns. I had really been looking forward to this. We headed back a little early so that the kids could turn in their junior ranger booklets and get sworn in as rangers. At this park, they only offered a option for the badge or the patch- whereas Guadalupe Mountains gave out both. All three kids selected the badge because they could put it on their shirts, but the actual badges were much nicer…
They ask you not to video or take pics during the bat flight as it causes harm to the bats. I desperately wanted the bat flight footage, but of course I followed the rules and didn’t do so… I did take a few pics as we waited for the flight to start. It was really cool to see the bats fly out, but it wasn’t as dramatic as I expected. They said there were several thousand bats and I expected them to all come out at once. Instead they came out in groups of what appeared to be a few hundred at the time. Don’t get me wrong, it was very cool and I would have not wanted to miss it for anything; but it was less dramatic than I anticipated. When we left and got back to the van, I tried to get some video footage of even just a few bats as we were now a safe distance from the cave but we were too far away and no bats can be seen in the video.
The next day, long after we had left Carlsbad- I realized I forgot to get my national park passport stamped; I was soo bummedL. Hopefully I can go back again someday and get it stamped as I would love to explore these caves some more…
Here are the pics from this day: Road Trip Day 11 - YouTube
Day 12) Albuquerque, New Mexico)
We stayed around Carlsbad until around 10:30am this day before heading to Albuquerque. We had our longest drive of the trip this day- 5 hours. But we had no plans once in Albuquerque other than to just rest- which was a welcome changeJ. It was an interesting drive into Albuquerque as the scenery was very nice; lots of mountains all the way up until a few miles out of the city. I just couldn’t believe how rural the outskirts of the city were. Our hotel was nice. It had an indoor pool, but it was very crowded and thankfully the kids agreed to skip swimming this day and just lounge around the room. I did get some laundry done… Not much today, but here the few pics we did get: Road Trip Day 12 - YouTube
Oh wow, this is a part of the country I want to see - Carlsbad Caverns looks amazing from the photos I've seen of it and the architecture in Albuquerque looks beautiful. It's on my list for one day...
Oh wow, this is a part of the country I want to see - Carlsbad Caverns looks amazing from the photos I've seen of it and the architecture in Albuquerque looks beautiful. It's on my list for one day...
You would definately love the Caverns! And I also took notice of the architecture in Albuquerque; I noticed even there government buildings had that southwestern look.... very unique....
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Great day at the caverns. I'd love to see the bats some day. Too bad about the water park. That would have been fun for the kids in the heat.
The bat flight was very cool!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
More beautiful pictures from your trip!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
More great pictures! The caverns look great!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark
Great pics! I really enjoyed seeing the TX and caverns ones. Really neat. I think it's so cool too that your brother came along on this trip.
Day 13 and 14) Holbrook, Arizona// Petrified Forest National Park//Painted Desert)
We left Albuquerque and headed for Arizona. We didn’t head out until about 10:30am. We stopped for lunch at Subway before crossing over into Arizona. We were staying at the Wigwam Motel (tee pee’s) and the office wouldn’t be open for check in until 4pm, so we went ahead and stopped by the Petrified Forest National Park since it was on the way. We went to the visitor center and got maps, watched the park film, got my passport stamped, and the kids picked up their Junior Ranger booklets.
After doing all of this we headed to our wigwam’s for the night. We were all excited to be staying in the tee pee’s. Their Wi-Fi doesn’t work inside due to the tee pee’s being made of concrete; so I have to sit outside to get internet. The rooms have a very vintage feel to them, but they are perfectly comfortable.
That night, just before heading to bed Austin started complaining of a sore throat. I checked and sure enough he had a low grade temp. I suspected strep throat and I called my wonderful pediatrician who called in a prescription for the Safeway across the street. I was able to pick that up and since we caught it early, we went on with our plans.
The next morning, we woke up around 5:30am (yes, we get up around this time 365 days per year). We were out the door around 6:30am and arrived at the Petrified Forest at ten till 7. They open their gates at 7am and we were first in line with only one other car behind us. Throughout the entire trip through the park, we basically had the place to ourselves- which is always nice!
Our first stop was the Rainbow Forest Museum, but it didn’t open till 8am- so we headed on to the next stop- a 1 mile trail that dead ended into a well preserved original Native American dwelling. It was so nice to get this out of the way first thing before it got hot… There was another short trail behind the Rainbow Forest Museum and by the time we finished the trail, the Rainbow Museum was open.
Two of the kids finished their ranger booklets and got sworn in as junior rangers; they also received both their badge and patch. Afterwards we continued down the 28 mile scenic drive that had a few dozen plus stops along the way that included both trails and scenic overlooks. One of the stops included a portion of route 66- apparently it once ran right through the park. There was a stop with petroglyphs, but you had to use provided binoculars to see them. We saw several of the 650 petroglyphs that were in the area. But I was a little disappointed that we were unable to get up close to the rocks. So, I was so excited when a few stops down- there were more petroglyphs that we were able to get right up next to! They do ask you not to touch them though- so we didn’t, but it was nice to see them up close and personalJ. There were several stops allowing nice views of the Painted Desert. And while I thought it was beautiful, I sure wasn’t having my breath taken away…. No sooner than I had that thought, we came over a hill that just blew my mind and truly took my breath away! Now, this was the Painted Desert I pictures in my mind…. It was so huge, so colorful, so amazing… I took multiple pics, but they absolutely do not do it justice.
The petrified wood itself was way cool also. This wood has literally turned to stone. I had seen pictures online, and even seeing it in person still didn’t give the full effect of it… I had to actually touch it to realize that these logs have literally turned to stone- it’s just crazy… This park offered way more than I originally anticipated. I absolutely loved it! And I love the way they have it set up where you drive through the whole park and stop along the way. I was originally thinking we would only need a couple of hours to cover this park, but we ended up spending over 5 hours here!
There was a nice picnic spot that overlooked the Painted Desert, so we stopped there for lunch. By the time we reached the other/original visitor center at the end- Winston had finished his booklet and also got sworn in as a junior ranger. They were having special junior ranger this day also that consisted of digging in sand; doing a paleontologist dig that Austin and Winston loved! They were able to earn an additional “special” badge for doing so…
We all had a great time at the park; here are the pics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REw23F8u7d8
Looks like another fantastic day on your road trip adventure. The scenery is amazing, especially the painted dessert and the Wigman Motel was really neat. What an awesome experience you are having.
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.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
The caverns look great! 
"Sparky"(My first trip.)
Linear Mode
