The Big Kahuna Family's Welcome Home **Updated 6/6** COMPLETE! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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The Big Kahuna Family's Welcome Home **Updated 6/6** COMPLETE!
Destination: Disneyland
Dates: May 17-20, 2008
Adventurers:
Rich & Kathy, aka Two4Disney, veteran Disneyland and WDW travelers who just returned to the west coast after living outside the gates of Walt Disney World
Resort:
Paradise Pier
Dining Plans: Saturday:
Leave Home in AM
Lunch: Tortilla Joe’s
Dinner: Redd Rocket’s Pizza Port
Sunday:
Breakfast: Blue Ribbon Bakery
Lunch: Rancho del Zocala
Dinner: Vineyard Room
Monday:
Breakfast: Bakers’ Field Bakery
Lunch: Blue Water Grill (side trip to Newport Beach)
Dinner: Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen
Tuesday:
Breakfast: Storyteller’s Café
Drive Home
You may have heard of us from the WDW Passporter Boards, both as a trip reporter and commenter on Bob & Larry’s trip reports. Or maybe you read our Two4Disney blog (which later became the Two4Disney: After the Safari blog) when we lived in Florida for 4 years, including 1 year outside the gates of WDW. If so, you know that I grew up near Disneyland, supposedly met Walt Disney when I was too young to remember, and worked as a technical writer for WDW and blogger for the Orlando Sentinel.
And as fun as that time was for us, I couldn’t forget my first love for Disneyland. To make a long story short (too late), we moved back across the country and are now just 4 hours from Disneyland from our new home in Las Vegas.
After living so close to WDW and going at least once a week for a year, we knew we’d eventually have to have a Disney fix. And living this close to Disneyland, it was only a matter of time before we’d book a trip. We can’t believe we haven’t been to Disneyland in over 6 years (or is it 8 years already?) and the last time we went, DCA was getting ready to open so we haven’t even experienced that park at all. Where did time go?
When we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years, we made annual trips to Disneyland but never had an Annual Pass. But after having a WDW AP while living in Florida, we decided we must have one for Disneyland. Woo hoo – we are now AP holders for Disneyland! Looks like we’ll just have to go quite often over the next year. So many new things to try and we’ll look forward to sampling something new over the next few trips.
Note: We used to eat at Blue Bayou on every trip, but now that there are other choices for the same amount of money, we decided to skip it this time. I can’t justify paying over $20 for a Monte Cristo. I say that sitting here but we’ll see what happens when we’re actually there. That’s true for all of our plans, of course.
Last edited by Two4Disney; 03-28-2008 at 07:12 PM..
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Thanks, everybody, for the encouragement - it's been awhile since I posted a report on Passporter. We can't wait for the trip - we have our plans written on the white board in our office, decorated Disney-style (of course), and just looking at them make me smile.
I am so excited to get your take on DCA! It is my favorite CA park - I it - and I hope you do, too!
Wow! That's exciting to hear! We're thinking that it may just have some of the things we miss about WDW - sipping a drink by the water, Tower of Terror, Soaring Over CA, etc. We can't wait.
We got our confirmation in the mail and were so excited to see the envelope.
Today our Mickey desk lamp arrived - that should pull the office together.
Less than 3 weeks to go and we made a couple of changes to our plans. I'm sure the reality won't exactly match up with the plans anyway.
We called Disneyland to ask where we could convert our AP voucher and the only place to do that is at Guest Services on Main Street inside Disneyland Park. We had planned to go to DCA first but since we can only get our AP inside Disneyland, we changed our first day touring plans. That means we also changed our lunch plans.
We now have a PS at Cafe Orleans for lunch on Saturday. We plan to have dinner at Rancho del Zacolo, the beach day is now Sunday instead of Monday - we'll be back in time for a quick tour of DCA and dinner at the Vineyard Room. Monday morning we hope to get to the Sub ride first thing in Disneyland and finish the morning riding rides we couldn't get to on Saturday, afternoon at DCA, finishing up with dinner at Ralph Brennan's Jazz Kitchen.
Confused yet? Tuesday morning we'll check out and have breakfast at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm and then drive home. Gotta get back to Mrs. Knotts.
Whew! There's so much we want to pack in on this first short trip back to Disneyland - the first one in years. We can't believe it's been so long since we've been (especially since I grew up there), but we moved to Florida several years ago and just moved back. There's a lot of catching up to do. We'll just have to make several trips.
But then this morning we were thinking we really aren't going to have much time for DCA. Maybe we should make a quick dash to the beach Tuesday morning instead of breakfast at Mrs. Knott's so we won't have to leave the Resort at all until we check out and have more park time.
Don't be surprised if the actual trip report is nothing like this pre-trip report.
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it - and I hope you do, too! 
Tuesday morning we'll check out and have breakfast at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm and then drive home. Gotta get back to Mrs. Knotts.
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