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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Oh gosh......Karen you have me laughing so hard! I know the whole KS ride was not funny at the time to you guys....it actually sounds down right scary! But, the way you tell it, I couldn't help but laugh!
I am really trying to understand why Zack felt the need to sleep in the closet? Did he just want his own space? Well, it sounds very uncomfortable and I am hoping that the poor boy was able to sleep in a bed at some point in this trip!
I love the pictures of Maddie trading with the Jawas! Too cute!
Thanks for chiming in Miss Kawen!
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That’s when he explained to me that it was what I thought of as a “water fountain” but to him a “water fountain” was the thing in the middle of the BLT courtyard and not for drinking from.
If you drink from it, it's a bubblah (gotta say it with the Boston accent) and if you don't drink from it, it's a fountain.
This is all I what I was doing reading about your safari . And I too say it was very unDisneylike how they handled it for you considering your bruises and how frightened it made your daughter
Just getting a chance to read your report Jill and I am enjoying re-living all the fun of the trip.
Our meal at Yak and Yeti was so good and the company was even better! You reminded me about the kids table playing the quiet game and that really made me laugh. I can remember telling Kinley (Kayla's 6 year old) after lunch that their behavior at lunch was excellent to which she responded "Yeah, we were playing the quiet game with the adult table and ya'll lost badly, REALLY BADLY!" I told her that was all Mr. Charlie's fault because he got confused and thought we were playing the make everyone laugh game!
And the "Safari Incident" is much funnier now than it was when you first told me! Something about you diving out of the way to avoid being attacked by a tree is funny but I am sorry to hear Mary Devall was so spooked by it. I guess the Safari may never be the same again for her which is very sad.
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went off to ride Kali (no comment necessary) with the Fastpasses they'd gotten earlier
And Karen is the only one who has it right!! Karen! We headed to Kali where I got incredibly drenched (as usual) before going on the Safari. We had gotten Fastpasses to both before lunch. Actually, we had gotten tons of fastpasses before lunch! With 10 of us we really paid attention to the next fastpass available time and as soon as it was time, one of us would dart off with everyone's tickets to get more fastpasses to something! Macy declared this the best day ever in Animal Kingdom because she was able to ride Everest 7 or 8 times before 3 o'clock!
Jill, I am glad my pictures are coming in handy in your trip report. I am a much better photographer than writer even though this was probably the trip that I took the least amount of pictures.
As a side note, Kinley's birthday was last weekend so we went to her party. She told me she really wished her new friend Mary from Disneyworld could have come to her party!
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oh my goodness jill that was a crazy safari - sorry about the bruise and mary devall being so shaken up
glad everbody is having a fun time
hurry back with more please
I still can't believe what happened! And I'm so disappointed that there was no follow up. Jill did have a pretty big bruise after that. But at least we can laugh about it now. And Karen, thanks for chiming in! I almost posted a few of your pictures, but figured if I did, that wouldn't give you any reason to put in your two cents. I'm sneaky!
Monica, thanks for inviting us to lunch with your family - it was a blast! Even though we lost the quiet game so badly!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
I can't believe that safari ride! I would be scared too, just like Mary Devall. I really hope they took Thom's info and followed up with that driver. Bad juju.
And Thom - I would appreciate a bubbler on those stairs too! I can't believe more people don't use our Wisconsin term. A water fountain is totally a feature in a courtyard - you can't drink outta that!!!!! We love our bubblers here in WI!!!!!
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Tanya
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We took a quick swim with Maddie and then the girls got spiffed up and headed out to our "double date" with Bob & Larry. I those two guys so much, and it was so good to see them again. They were gracious and charming (and ordered the perfect wine too!) Dinner seemed to fly by, but I'm sure the staff that was waiting for us to leave the restaurant so they could close the place down didn't feel exactly the same.
Right backatcha, Karen! [Miss you!]
What a wonderful, relaxing, delicious, enjoyable meal! And we just picked up like we had parted the previous weekend instead of months ago.
Good times, good times.
I don't think the staff suffered, and we weren't that far behind the other party! When did they leave?
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Just catching up... wowza... cannot believe that safari story! That's crazy. I totally would have made a bigger deal of it (secretly hoping for a prized spot on a parade float, a dream pass or some other form of well-deserved magical compensation). Seriously, poor MD... what a scary experience.
Karen- so glad you chimed in! It's so much fun to hear about the trip from so many different perspectives. Sorry you lost so much time on your first day. But sounds like you rebounded quickly. And how wonderful that you got some special time with Maddie... with all that opportunity for winning her favor!
Monica, thanks for inviting us to lunch with your family - it was a blast! Even though we lost the quiet game so badly!
I was our pleasure to have you join us. I loved every minute of it and am so glad I finally got to meet you, and Larry &Bob (I am gonna follows Karen's lead and change it up a bit just for fun) .
Another great update, Karen! We've been at AK during a rain storm and it is more difficult than anywhere else to seek shelter. But that KS ride has to be the worst ever. Truly glad you all survived it!
We woke up about 8 a.m. again, had a little breakfast, got ready and headed for Epcot. The resort monorail was down so we had to take a bus to the TTC and then take the monorail to Epcot which made a longer trip even longer.
Once we finally arrived, Thom went ahead to get FP’s at Soarin’ before we continued on to Nemo. The line for Nemo was out the door but was continually moving so it wasn’t that long a wait.
We were considering heading over to Test Track next, but ran into Karen and Sharon who reported a long standby line. We went back to The Land where Karen and Sharon got their Soarin’ FP’s and then we rode Living with the Land.
We saw Larry and Bob on our way out and stopped to speak, but we had to get to China where we were meeting Monica and her family for lunch. When we walked up, the children were in line to see Mulan, so of course my two hopped right in.
Monica checked in us and, within minutes, we were seated at one big table. We had fantastic service especially since we had a party of 14! One CM handled our entire party except for assistance when the food was brought to the table.
I love when restaurants have an option for the dining plan that allows you to get three courses instead of two because I love usually love my appetizer more than the entrée. As soon as I saw that Nine Dragons had this option, I was sold.
I ordered Hot and Sour Soup, the Chicken Duo which included General Tso's Chicken Dumplings (steamed dumplings bursting with flavor and drizzles with tangy Chinese Red Sauce) and Honey Sesame Chicken and Caramel Ginger ice cream for dessert. Thom didn’t want dessert so I asked him to order ginger cake so that I could try both. The hands down dessert winner though was the strawberry red bean ice cream that Monica let me try.
Several of us ordered the same drink , but it was served in an extremely small glass and I literally finished it in a few sips. Monica and I quickly moved to the FAB that Kim had originally ordered that was served in a larger glass and was the clear winner.
Once again, there was a lot of laughter in between the delicious food. Prior to this lunch, I had only eaten at Nine Dragons once about 15 years ago and I don't remember being that impressed. After this visit, however, it won't be 15 years before I return.
The funniest thing was at the end of the meal when Kim and Michelle were packing up their leftovers. They asked if I wanted to box mine, but I declined. The next thing I know they asked if they could have mine since they loved eating leftovers for breakfast! I hate wasting food, so I was all for that. They cracked me up with their protein loading in the morning. Every time I had leftovers with lots of protein that week, I thought of them.
After lunch, we watched the acrobats outside and then all went to ride Maelstrom. Monica and her family had FP’s for Soarin’ so they headed in that direction while we headed towards Germany to meet Karen for a Kim Possible mission. We stopped on the way for a face painting for Maddie and then stopped for an Italian margarita for me and a cookies and cream gelato for girls to share.
When we met up with Karen, Sharon, Zack, Bob and Larry, I went with Karen, Mary Devall and Maddie to play KP while the rest of the gang went to Ellen’s Energy Adventure.
After KP we headed back to TT where Karen and Mary Devall rode the single rider line while I took a sleeping Maddie to find a bench in front of MS to wait for everyone. I spent the time catching up with my mom, taking pictures of Maddie and just relaxing. You can see where she smeared her face painting when she brushed her face while she was napping.
Everyone soon showed up, but half of them left again to ride MS. Thom, Maddie, Mary Devall, Bob and I kept our bench warm and continued to chat.
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Sometimes words aren't needed . . .
Last edited by Jillybean; 07-03-2010 at 09:14 AM..
After MS, Zack headed back to the hotel while the rest of us rode SE and afterwards watched Maddie and Mary Devall play the Power Game. They somehow manage to turn it into a contact sport. We were all surprised when they lit Paris.
Most of the group’s FP’s for Soarin’ were ripe except for a couple that had about 45 more minutes. Thom volunteered to take all of our FP’s and try to get us all in together, but he wanted to do it alone and he wasn’t going to tell us what he told the CM. Fine by me since the truth would have probably made me cringe. Within a minute, he came back with ripe FP’s for all of us.
Karen had Mary Devall ask for row one and we all were able to fit on the next flight except for Bob who volunteered to move to row two (of course, now that I think about it, he may have needed a little break from us ). As always, it was a wonderful ride, but it’s always a tad more stressful with Maddie since she loves to sit on the edge of her seat and look below her.
We were headed back to the hotel to spend the evening at the Top of the World lounge, but Bob and Larry opted to stay for Illuminations. We said a sad to them since we probably wouldn’t see them before they left the next day. My girls must have taking a liking to those two because they gave them big too! How special it had been to spend some time with these wonderful guys and finally introduce them to my family! And they're still speaking to me, so it must not have been too traumatic!
Sharon needed to go back to her hotel, so Karen came with us. We dropped by the room to drop our bags and the stroller and then went back downstairs to enter the lounge. The hostess was very nice and escorted us to the north tower elevator reserved for Top of the World lounge use.
As soon as we got upstairs, we spotted Monica and Charlie at a large table which wasn’t hard since the place was practically empty. Monica’s villa was literally steps away from the lounge, so she asked the girls if they wanted to hang out with Macy and Brett. They were nodding their heads enthusiastically before Monica could even get the words out of her mouth. Hanging out with older girls was so much than hanging out with boring adults.
Monica and I took the girls to their villa, made them some Easy Mac and got everyone settled before leaving. Those girls were as happy as clams. When we returned, Thom had gone downstairs to get Sha and Zack and was soon back with them.
I ordered a blueberry martini which was very good and quite different. I also ordered aBuffalo Mozzarella Flatbread (with roma tomatoes and pesto) that was yummy and was all I needed after a big lunch. Thom, on the other hand, couldn’t seem to get full. I know that he ordered at least two flatbreads and a dessert sampler. Apparently his work outs were draining him of calories!
We all had a great time that night topped off by a wonderful view of the fireworks. It never got too crowded although around fireworks time all of the tables were full and a crowd had grown outside. I really enjoyed the lounge and our time there and, once again, we closed it down that night.
After we settled our check, we went to get the girls and found them all snuggled in the king bed together. They had the best time with the girls! Macy and Brett for taking care of my little ones!
It was so nice to just be able to head down to the 8th floor and go to bed!
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I know the whole KS ride was not funny at the time to you guys....it actually sounds down right scary! But, the way you tell it, I couldn't help but laugh! 
Did he just want his own space?
Well, it sounds very uncomfortable and I am hoping that the poor boy was able to sleep in a bed at some point in this trip! 
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Pixie Dust
. And I too say it was very unDisneylike how they handled it for you considering your bruises and how frightened it made your daughter
Karen! We headed to Kali where I got incredibly drenched (as usual) before going on the Safari. We had gotten Fastpasses to both before lunch. Actually, we had gotten tons of fastpasses before lunch! With 10 of us we really paid attention to the next fastpass available time and as soon as it was time, one of us would dart off with everyone's tickets to get more fastpasses to something! Macy declared this the best day ever in Animal Kingdom because she was able to ride Everest 7 or 8 times before 3 o'clock!
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
But at least we can laugh about it now. And Karen, thanks for chiming in! I almost posted a few of your pictures, but figured if I did, that wouldn't give you any reason to put in your two cents. 
[Miss you!] 
Aimee
When we walked up, the children were in line to see Mulan, so of course my two hopped right in. 
We had fantastic service especially since we had a party of 14! One CM handled our entire party except for assistance when the food was brought to the table. 
Monica and I quickly moved to the FAB that Kim had originally ordered that was served in a larger glass and was the clear winner. 
Fine by me since the truth would have probably made me cringe. 
Within a minute, he came back with ripe FP’s for all of us. 
to them since we probably wouldn’t see them before they left the next day. My girls must have taking a liking to those two because they gave them big 
than hanging out with boring adults. 
Macy and Brett for taking care of my little ones!
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