Living the dream and remembering the Bagman LIVE UPDATE 10/2 - Page 7 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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You really are a super planner! I hope you have good luck with the Fairmont. You never know when a discount might fall in your lap. Draining Niagara Falls? My, that does sound like it would be a joke, doesn't it? As Mark said, that would be fascinating to see, but not when you've never seen it in its normal state. Glad it's not when you are going.
You really are a super planner! I hope you have good luck with the Fairmont. You never know when a discount might fall in your lap. Draining Niagara Falls? My, that does sound like it would be a joke, doesn't it? As Mark said, that would be fascinating to see, but not when you've never seen it in its normal state. Glad it's not when you are going.
I must admit I thought it was a joke when I first heard it, but then my second reaction was thank goodness it's not during our trip....
Pre-trip report – part seven: you can stay with us in Boston
Thursday 4 February
I couldn’t help but think of Bill as I drove home from work tonight. I saw the most stunning sunset, and immediately I thought of him. I also couldn’t help but think it’s a good way to be remembered – beautiful sunrises and sunsets. I think I’d be happy with that. I have thought of him a fair bit this week, as there have been some other lovely sunsets, although nothing as striking as this evening’s. It’s a bit odd, as early February is not a time of the year I expect to see that sort of thing.
Friday 5 February
I heard back from Donna (DMA) today, who I’d messaged last night about our visit to Niagara Falls. She mentioned on my Disneyland trip report that she thought we’d be visiting there in September, although I’d said November. The simple reason is I write as I go along, which is fine, until things change. It doesn’t often happen, but as you’ll be aware already from this pre-trip report, that’s what happened with this. She has our dates and hopefully we’ll get to meet up with her, as I’ve read so many of her trip reports and loved them and would love to get to meet her in person.
I also heard back from my friend Dave, whose wedding we flew out for last September. I’d originally been in touch with him last October and thought I’d better follow that up. I couldn’t believe how quickly the time had flown by! The last time I’d heard from him, he might be away on sabbatical when we were in Boston, but he told me that his sabbatical plans were to stay put, which was great news, although his email said that he’d be around to see us when we visited in the “end of October”. I emailed back and gave him our dates for early September. Fingers crossed he and Rob will be around then!
Tuesday 9 February
Remember I said before that I was thinking about swapping over to one of those Polynesian waterfront bungalows for a couple of nights to use up all our points? Well, given our seven month mark to try for that was fast approaching, I thought I’d double check on how many points we have left. I have a spreadsheet, which I was confident was correct, and I figured we’d still be Ok, even given we’d paid for three rooms (yes, you did read that right! ) for Disneyland Paris for ourselves and family, but when I logged into my DVC account online, I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. It didn’t seem to include our Disneyland Paris bookings in the points left, and more worryingly, we seemed to have points missing from our August 2016 use year. As far as I was aware, when I booked everything, I’d made it clear I expected all the points to come from the August 2015 use year to make sure they were used up. What on earth was going on? I guess I’m going to have to call them to find out.
Wednesday 10 February
I heard back from Dave and, sure enough, he and Rob are around the night we’re in Boston, and he’s invited us to stay with them. Well, I don’t need to be asked twice! That is so kind of him. He did ask if we’d be getting a rental car, and offered us their parking space outside their house. We will need to get a rental car, but I just don’t know if I can face doing it at Logan, as it was such a nightmare last time.
I may look into whether there’s anywhere around Harvard we can pick up a rental car, and then either we pick it up the next morning, or we take a taxi there to pick it up, and drive over to Dave and Rob’s. Equally, I can see where else major rental companies have pick-up locations, and perhaps we’ll get a cab to one of those places. I know there was a rental pick-up point near the Aquarium, as we saw it on our last visit there, but equally I’m not sure we want to be picking up a car from there, then driving to Harvard. It sounds to me like I’m going to need to do a bit more research into this… especially as now we know what we’re doing when we arrive in Boston, and hopefully in just over a week’s time, we should have our Southwest flight booked from Buffalo to Orlando, so at that point, we can then book a rental car, as we’ll know our return time.
Well, when I got home from work, I had a look at rental car companies, and there are a couple in Cambridge. Enterprise is 10 minutes’ walk from Dave’s place and Budget is 15 minutes’ walk. Neither of them are open on a Saturday afternoon, but we could pick the car up on the Sunday morning, which would save us money, and it would save us the hassle of having to deal with rental car pick-up at Logan, which we hated last time. Budget is probably going to be the one we go with. Although it’s a bit further in walking terms, it’s reasonably priced, and the price includes insurances, which we need, whereas Enterprise’s price doesn’t include that. Budget’s office also opens earlier, and given we’ll be jet lagged and probably up early, so that works better for us.
I happened to check out JetBlue’s website, and they’d opened up flights for our dates, so I figured I might as well just get on and book our flights. I looked at the times for LaGuardia and for JFK and LaGuardia was better, and had had more positive reviews on the boards, so I went for that route. I booked the blue plus fare, I think it was. It’s the one with one piece of checked luggage each, and it was $15 more than the base fare, and given JetBlue charge $25 for the first piece of baggage, I thought that was a good deal. I did look at the other fare they had, but it was something like another $75, and given a second bag is only $35, I couldn’t see the point in getting that.
I also got their Even More Space deal, and we’re booked in seats in the first row. Given our flight gets in just before 4:00pm (I couldn’t go for much earlier, as Disney doesn’t recommend flights out from the day you return from a cruise before midday), I figured we’d want to get a move on, as Cirque du Soleil’s show is at 7:30pm that night. Fingers crossed, we’ll be Ok getting to that on time. I also liked the idea of expedited security with Even More Space. I think they said it was a limited time deal, but it worked for me, especially as it includes Orlando.
I also phoned the Disney Vacation Club tonight, and got everything straightened out with the points. They’re all there, it’s just some were taken from a different year to the one I thought. Members will understand the significance of that, while the rest of you may be wondering what on earth I’m talking about. The simplified version is that it’s all sorted, and the points on the website are now the same as the details on my spreadsheet, so that’s good, and I know we’ve got enough points to indulge in a couple of nights in the waterfront bungalows at the Polynesian, which is the main thing, given I can book those in a couple of weeks’ time…
Thursday 11 February
I saw on the boards this morning that they’re starting to take reservations for the Skipper Canteen from tomorrow, which is really good news. I am such a planner and much prefer places where I can make my ADRs in advance, rather than taking my chances and just pitching up on the day. Does that mean it’s definitely on my list? Hmmm… I think it is, given the reviews I’ve seen recently of it, all of which seem to be very good so far.
I also read in my All Ears newsletter about warnings to guests staying at Disney to keep their patio doors locked when you’re not in your room, because there have been so many cases of electronics stolen from resort rooms, principally at Saratoga Springs, in recent months. Apparently Disney are now putting warnings in the rooms about this. I have to say I’m very surprised to read this, as I just took it for granted that everyone would lock their patio doors when they’re not in the room, as we always do. I guess it’s the vacation mind set. I must admit I couldn’t help but think of Bill when I read that, and I could just imagine his reaction to it, much the same as mine I’d guess. Then again, I could also imagine him then going on to give us funny stories about the stupid things people do. We always used to love those stories he shared. Just another reason he was such a wonderful guy.
Now I have previously mentioned my plans for New York City in this pre-trip report, but I didn’t actually get as far as adding them into my itinerary. D’oh! Well, now I’ve put that right, and I have the details of Cirque’s show Paramour included, some possible hotels near the Lyric Theatre, where the show is, along with details of the Disney Store, as we may just want to visit that.
I’ve also had a more in-depth look at the 9/11 memorial and museum website, and I noticed they had an option where you can visit the museum and take a 45-minute guided tour of the memorial, which sounds like a really good option. They have another option, which is a guided tour of the museum, and I’d personally prefer to take it all in in my own time, but the tour of the memorial I think really could add to the experience. I have a note of the times of the memorial tours, although you can only book at three months out, so we’ll need to wait until July to do that. My goodness, that sounds so far off now, but I’m sure it’ll be here before we know it.
It also occurred to me tonight that I should look up where I can find Bath and Body Works on our travels. I’m going to employ the same tactic I used last year and go for Canadian stores, as unless something changes dramatically, the exchange rate will be much more favourable to us north of the border. I now have a list of various stores that are either in some of the cities we’re visiting or on the way between places, so we should be able to stop off at one somewhere along the way.
Next: the park hours start to make their appearance!
Sounds like everything is coming together very well! Glad you were able to get your flights booked and the car details worked out! It's funny to read this and think this took place 6 months ago and your trip is not too far away now!
I'm looking forward to meeting you and Mark!
I just caught up with your last couple postings and my have you got quite a busy itinerary planned! I get overwhelmed thinking about all the changes and reservations/tickets that you have to buy for this trip but I certainly love hearing all about it! So glad that you were able to fit NYC into your plans. We did the 9/11 memorial tour for my birthday last year and it was quite informative but also very moving since we live so close to NYC and remember that day so vividly. You will truly appreciate the stories that they tell during the tour. We did our tour inside the museum. It sounds like all your plans are coming together to make this a wonderful vacation!
Glad he points got worked out. That can be such a pain to keep track of. We have 3 contracts, with two use years, so I'm always getting confused!
Nice to have a place to stay in Boston!
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I’d originally been in touch with him last October and thought I’d better follow that up. I couldn’t believe how quickly the time had flown by! 
The last time I’d heard from him, he might be away on sabbatical when we were in Boston, but he told me that his sabbatical plans were to stay put, which was great news, although his email said that he’d be around to see us when we visited in the “end of October”. 
I emailed back and gave him our dates for early September. Fingers crossed he and Rob will be around then! 
It didn’t seem to include our Disneyland Paris bookings in the points left, and more worryingly, we seemed to have points missing from our August 2016 use year. 
I looked at the times for LaGuardia and for JFK and LaGuardia was better, and had had more positive reviews on the boards, so I went for that route. I booked the blue plus fare, I think it was. It’s the one with one piece of checked luggage each, and it was $15 more than the base fare, and given JetBlue charge $25 for the first piece of baggage, I thought that was a good deal. I did look at the other fare they had, but it was something like another $75, and given a second bag is only $35, I couldn’t see the point in getting that. 
Well, now I’ve put that right, and I have the details of Cirque’s show Paramour included, some possible hotels near the Lyric Theatre, where the show is, along with details of the Disney Store, as we may just want to visit that. 
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