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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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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02-25-2016, 05:10 PM
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#1
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PassPorter Guide
 Community Rank: Globetrotter 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,041
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Feature Article: Easy Day Trips From Disneyland - A Disneyland Planning Article
Easy Day Trips From Disneyland - A Disneyland Planning Article
by Cheryl Pendry
In the second of this series of articles, looking at day trips you can enjoy away from the various Disney parks around the world, we head over to Disneyland in California.</p> Located in the urban sprawl that makes up the massive city of Los Angeles, on our first visit to Disneyland, we took the opportunity to explore more of the surrounding area. Think of Los Angeles, and so many famous sights spring to mind – Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and of course the city’s various beaches. We took a guided tour, which we met up with in front of the TCL Chinese Theatre. We opted for a Saturday, as we figured the traffic wouldn’t be as bad, and it was fine. I was glad we got there early, as the place certainly gets packed out. Our tour then took us to the Hollywood Bowl, through Hollywood, Beverley Hills, and La Brea Tar Pits, before stopping for lunch at the Farmers’ Market, and then visiting downtown LA. Sadly, the exact tour doesn’t seem to be offered any longer, but if this sort of tour does interest you, we used Viator for ours, and they still have full day tours of the city available, albeit with slightly different itineraries. Somewhere that is now included on some of those itineraries is Griffith Park, home to the famous Hollywood sign. We’ve made it to Griffith Park on one occasion, although our planning wasn’t the greatest. We decided to spend our final couple of hours in the morning at Disneyland, and because we were visiting during Christmas and New Year, by the time we got to Griffith Park, there was no car parking to be found anywhere, which was a huge disappointment, as I was really looking forward to seeing the views, the sign, the carousel that first inspired Walt to build Disneyland, and I fancied exploring the Griffith Observatory. Sadly, it was not to be on that occasion, but it’s a day trip I fully intend to still take one day…
One trip we were able to take on that vacation was to the California Science Center, and our main reason for visiting was to see Space Shuttle Endeavour. I’ll admit that, now having visited Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center, their presentation is so much better, but it’s still a very impressive moment when you first emerge into the hangar where she’s located. The size of the Shuttle really does have to be seen to be believed! Timed reservations are required at busy times of the year, and can be made through the center’s website or via phone, and best of all, although there’s a small service charge, that’s it. You don’t have to pay a full admission price, which we both thought was a complete bargain.
If you have children, the next suggestion may not work for you, but for adults, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens is a fantastic visit. We went to specifically see the gardens, which cover 120 acres, and they were absolutely stunning. In particular, we loved the Chinese and the Japanese Gardens, both of which were very peaceful, and beautiful. For those of you who don’t mind venturing a bit further afield than Los Angeles, there are many options located in the surrounding areas of southern California. On our first trip to Disneyland, we spent a couple of nights in San Diego first, but it’s within easy reach of the park at around an hour and a half’s drive. The world famous San Diego Zoo wowed us, and it’s the first zoo we’d come across with moving walkways to take you from one level to another. Honestly, you could spend the entire day here! However, there is so much more to see (perhaps in fairness San Diego deserves more than a day trip), and if you want to get a taste of the city, a harbor tour is a good way of doing that, with some superb views of the city. Other places we enjoyed visiting included the Seaport Village, the Midway Aircraft Museum, and the Hotel del Coronado, the model for the Grand Floridian Resort at Walt Disney World.
An hour and a half in another direction is Palm Springs, which literally felt like an oasis in the desert as we approached it. The main draw for me was the city’s Aerial Tramway, although here again, we needed to do more planning. It’s quite a tough place to find, located some distance from the city along a private road, and we were hoping to get up for sunset, but a lot of people obviously had the same idea as us, as there was an hour’s wait for the next tram, by which time it would be dark outside. One day, we’ll get back there to finally enjoy the Tramway. We did see the Forever Marilyn statue, and standing nearly three stories high, you can’t exactly miss it. It’s a bit of a surreal thing to see in the middle of the place, but surreal was a good way to describe Palm Springs. Let’s just say it had a unique feeling to it…
We were making our way over to the Joshua Tree National Park, but even that’s only a couple of hours’ drive, if you go there directly from Disneyland. It’s home to some stunning scenery, and like many of America’s National Parks, it reminds you just what huge expanses of nature have been preserved for visitors to enjoy. You really feel as if you’re a million miles away from daily life, and sometimes the silence is almost overwhelming, as we’re not used to such quiet these days. It’s a photographer’s paradise, so I was in my element here, with the views spreading out some distance in front of you, allowing you to get a complete feel for just how big and beautiful this park is.
As you can see, Disneyland certainly has a lot of options for day trips, and they’re perhaps the most diverse that you’ll find at any Disney park. In the next part of this series of articles, we’ll hop across the pond to explore day trips from Disneyland Paris.
Added to PassPorter's Article Collection on 02-08-2016 11:02 AM
What do you think? Please add your own comments, experiences, or news related to this article in this thread! Reader feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
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