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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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, watching Frozen at the El Capitan looked like so much fun! What an amazing experience for Lexi!
The Joshua Tree National Park looked cool! Loved the Furby pictures, fun for Lexi!
I am jumping up and down waiting for you to get to DL!!!
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Hum... I think I maybe took this trip back in 1997. We went to Hollywood, Joshua Tree National Park, and Disneyland. Didn't get to see Frozen back then though. I found Hollywood to be crowded and a little scary. Not the best part of town. That showing of Frozen looks really cool. I have yet to see it, but I think I'm going to pre-order the DVD.
What a great time you had in Hollywood! Too bad it was a little crowded and those weird characters were out. They have characters like that out in Times Square too, and they are so annoying! And their costumes are horrible!
Seeing Frozen at the El Capitan looked very cool. The preshow seemed really fun!
I'm cracking up over here about the "elusive Furby", what a great idea!
The theatre is AMAZING! I can only imagine how beautiful it is in person.
OMG, so funny about Furby! I hope he gets to visit DL too!
Sadly Furby doesn't make it out of the suitcase in DL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FanOfMickey
Loving your report so far. I definitely have to add Hollywood to my places to visit. Never heard of Joshua Tree National Park before but it looks beautiful. I think I will add that to my list of places too
Thank you! I recommend a visit to both places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
I'm glad I finally got some time to catch up on your report! The photos from Joshua Tree NP are amazing. Lexi is quite a little mountain goat and looks so cute with her front tooth missing! You did pretty well maneuvering around the sleezy crowds in front of the theater. Those "characters" would be funny if there weren't something creepy about them. Lucky you to have seen the Frozen show at El Capitan. There was something non-Disney there when I was there. Did you buy any of the Frozen merchandise? I'm at WDW right now and with the overwhelming demand people are pretty mad that there's not much around to buy. All the dolls are out of stock, and the playsets, too! The lines to meet Elsa and Ana are sometimes more than 2 hours long. I peeked in at them, and they do look wonderful. I loved that movie.
Lexi got so much Frozen stuff for Christmas that she already had a lot of the dolls/toys they were selling. I did not see any Frozen merchandise while at DL, so I think they must have had the same problem as WDW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jackid2
Beautiful pictures!! Love the furby.
Thank you!
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
Oh, watching Frozen at the El Capitan looked like so much fun! What an amazing experience for Lexi!
The Joshua Tree National Park looked cool! Loved the Furby pictures, fun for Lexi!
I am jumping up and down waiting for you to get to DL!!!
It was such an amazing experience and I am glad we took the time to check out Hollywood.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stardust190
Hum... I think I maybe took this trip back in 1997. We went to Hollywood, Joshua Tree National Park, and Disneyland. Didn't get to see Frozen back then though. I found Hollywood to be crowded and a little scary. Not the best part of town. That showing of Frozen looks really cool. I have yet to see it, but I think I'm going to pre-order the DVD.
That is funny that you took the same trip! Definitely pre-order Frozen, you will love it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKnott17
What a great time you had in Hollywood! Too bad it was a little crowded and those weird characters were out. They have characters like that out in Times Square too, and they are so annoying! And their costumes are horrible!
Seeing Frozen at the El Capitan looked very cool. The preshow seemed really fun!
I'm cracking up over here about the "elusive Furby", what a great idea!
Thank you Jenn! The preshow at Frozen was a lot of fun and added to the excitement of the movie.
I set my alarm for 5:30am the night before and it was soon going off. I got up to shower and then I woke Justin and Lexi so I could finish up the packing. Brian and Whitney were up and moving around shortly after us and we were soon heading out the door.
The boys had gone to fill up the cars the night before and they also picked up drinks and donuts for breakfast in the car. The drive to Disneyland was very scenic it was dark when we drove to their house, so we had missed a lot of the views. I kept busy taking pictures while Justin drove and Lexi played on her Kindle in the backseat.
We have windmills all over KS, so I had to take a picture of CA windmills.
After about 2 hours we were finally turning onto Disneyland Drive and my excitement was through the roof! Brian and Whitney could not check in to their hotel until after 2:00pm, so they were going to park at the theme park parking lot for now.
As we drove up to the Disneyland Hotel the GPS told us to take a left into the parking lot. I assume that parking has recently changed because just as we were turning I noticed a giant flashing sign that said stay straight for Disneyland Hotel parking. Oops! Where we turned was now Downtown Disney parking. We got a ticket at the booth, made a U-turn and headed right back out. Luckily the first three hours are free!
Upon exiting the parking lot we discovered you can only make a right hand turn and we needed to go left. Another oops! We turned right and found a place to turn around, the little detour did give me a look at the Paradise Pier Hotel as well as the entrance to the Grand Californian. I caught a picture of PPH, but missed the GC.
Finally we were heading in the right direction and this time we made sure to follow the giant flashing sign we had previously missed.
We pulled up to the guard station and gave our name, the attendant placed a parking pass in our window and we were directed to the next attendant. He directed us to a numbered lane in front of the hotel. They have the arrival process down! We got out of the car and were greeted by “Uncle Dan”. Lexi got a kick out of his name because my sister's husband is Dan, so she already has an Uncle Dan. Uncle Dan offered us valet parking at $22/night or self parking at $15/night. Since our car would just be sitting there for the next three days, we chose to self park.
As Uncle Dan was helping with our luggage he mentioned it was his 25th anniversary with Disney. Wow! He really was a great help, so I added a bit extra to his tip to help celebrate his anniversary. We had arrived around 9:30am, so we figured our room would not be ready and we had our luggage stored with bell services. Lexi and I then set off to check in while Justin went to park the car.
We were greeted in the lobby by a very cute and very large gingerbread house.
We headed over to the check in line which was quite long. The line moved quickly though and we waited maybe 5 minutes to be helped.
A quick picture of Lexi while we waited.
The check in process was very simple, I showed my ID, added a card for incidentals and parking, and we soon had our room keys in hand. The CM helping us also had great news that she had a room available in the Frontier Tower. Sweet! Just as we were finishing up, Justin walked in and we set off to find our room.
I will say this now that I absolutely fell in love with the Disneyland Hotel. I loved the theme, I loved how compact it is, I loved our room....it is now a favorite resort.
If you are not familiar with the Disneyland Hotel there are three separate “towers” which have changed names several times over the years. The Fantasy Tower (formally known as the Marina or Magic) is where check in and the gift shop are located. The Adventure Tower (formally known as Sierra or Dreams) is the closest tower to Downtown Disney and also has rooms facing the theme parks. The Frontier Tower (formally known as Bonita or Wonder) is the furthest tower, but also the quietest. The resort is so compact the Frontier tower was maybe an extra 150 yards to Downtown Disney. We really enjoyed the Frontier Tower.
Our tower.
Rug greeting us in the lobby.
Our room was on the eighth floor, so we headed to the elevators. Once off the elevator I started taking pictures in the hallway and Justin and Lexi disappeared around the corner. I went to catch up with them and they were gone. Justin soon popped out of the first door on the left to come find me. Our room was a great location on a corner, right near the elevators.
Carpet just outside the elevator.
Hallway carpet.
Hallway light fixture. You can see why Justin and Lexi left me behind.
The room was very spacious and I loved all of the Disney touches! I went a bit camera happy.
The carpet.
I loved this picture.
Our view....a parking lot...
The bathroom/vanity area:
The blue tile had hidden mickeys but I failed to get a close up.
The faucet handles for the sink and shower were hidden mickeys.
I found the switch that turned on the headboard lights and Lexi freaked out when she saw the “fireworks”. I knew she would love that.
I decided to call for our luggage now since I didn't want to worry about it later and Justin called Brian to find out where they were at. Brian had vouchers for their tickets, so they were getting those exchanged. We told them we would meet them outside of the Disneyland entrance as soon as our luggage arrived.
It took maybe 10 minutes before our luggage was dropped off and then we set off to find our way to DL. As soon as we got to the lobby I realized I forgot my sunglasses, so Justin ran back up to the room for me. Dear! Lexi and I busied ourselves by checking out the Big Thunder Mountain model.
Big Thunder Mountain RR is one of Lexi's favorite rides and sadly it was down for a refurb and would not open while we were at DL. She was super bummed.
The lobby of the Frontier Tower.
Justin joined us again and we set off to DL. This was just outside the door.
We passed the little area with Cascade Falls and Ol' Unfaithful and I thought it was a neat little area, so I had Justin and Lexi pose for a picture. As they were posing Ol' Unfaithful began to erupt.
I loved all of the Frontierland touches at the Frontier Tower! I wish I had more time to explore the other two towers, but sadly I never made it over to really get a good look at them.
We followed the signs and made our way to Downtown Disney. The hat at the entrance to the DLH coming from Downtown Disney.
In front of this Christmas Tree was Olaf's skating rink. It was just a small rink that opened up in the evening for ice skating. It looked like fun, but not worth what they were charging as the rink was small and it looked very crowded every time we passed by.
I was in a bit of an overload making mental notes of where different things were located, such as the monorail entrance and the World of Disney store.
Soon we were at the entrance of Disneyland and we made our way in. The entrance was absolutely mobbed and that should have been a sign of what we would find inside. We soon found Brian and Whitney and we headed to our first attraction.
Don't let these pictures fool you, we had to be creative to cut out the crowds!
Christmas tree inside Disneyland.
Up Next: Small park + Large crowds = bad combination!
I LOVE all of the Disney touches at your hotel!! I've been wanting to go to DL for a while now, but now I really need to figure out how to make that happen
The hotel looks like it surpassed expectations! I love that headboard. Even without the fireworks it's beautiful. All the extra Mickey magic in the decor is great. I'm always taking pictures of the carpets at Boardwalk! I love when there is different carpeting at the elevators and hallways. Not too excited to hear about the upcoming crowd issues!
I love your room. We last stayed at the Disneyland Hotel in 2006 and the rooms have undergone complete renovations since then and look so much better for it.
Your next instalment doesn't sound too promising.... and having been at Christmas to Disneyland, I think I know what sort of things you might be running into....
I love the pics of Ol' Unfaithful and Cascade Falls! I went to DL for the first time in 2011 and was there for 5 days and I somehow missed that entire area and didn't know it existed until now! I stayed in the Fantasy Tower but I did go over to the Frontier Tower and spent time in the lobby and the Adventure Tower. Who knows how I missed it!
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I love all the pictures of the hotel. I also really like how compact everything is out there. Having just been in WDW where everything is a bus ride away DL sounds wonderful in how close together the magic is.
I knew I should have read you arriving at DL at home. It made me cry. The DL hotel is just so nostalgic and brings me back to my childhood. I am glad you loved it! I loved all your pics!
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Brian and Whitney could not check in to their hotel until after 2:00pm, so they were going to park at the theme park parking lot for now. 
He really was a great help, so I added a bit extra to his tip to help celebrate his anniversary. We had arrived around 9:30am, so we figured our room would not be ready and we had our luggage stored with bell services. Lexi and I then set off to check in while Justin went to park the car.
I loved the theme, I loved how compact it is, I loved our room....it is now a favorite resort.
Justin soon popped out of the first door on the left to come find me. Our room was a great location on a corner, right near the elevators. 
Dear! Lexi and I busied ourselves by checking out the Big Thunder Mountain model.
She was super bummed.
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