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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sunday, April 15, 2012.
Actually our story begins on Saturday, April 14 at 9:00pm when we went to bed. Well, some of us went to bed. One of us was up all night long. All. Night. Long. If you guessed that it was Josh, then you must have read my PTR . I heard him several times. Open the door. Close the door. Go to the bathroom. Open the door. Close the door. The alarm was set to go off at 3:00am (and my clock is set a little fast so it was probably 2:50 or so.) His door flew open as soon as he heard the alarm and he said, “Is it time to get up now?” Thankfully he didn’t once come in to tell me that he couldn’t sleep. I did manage to sneak in a few hours. When I woke up, Ted was in the spare room. Maybe I was snoring a bit .
We showered and got ready quickly. The car was loaded and we were ready to go by 3:30am. The airport is only about 45 minutes from our house so we really didn’t need to leave yet, but we were ready so we did. We stopped once at an all-night convenience store with a Dunkin Donuts attached. Unfortunately, DD was closed. Josh fell asleep on the way to the airport .
I’m glad we left early. We were near the beginning of the luggage check-in line. It didn’t open until 5:00am, but the line got really long before it opened. Out the door of the terminal long! We checked our bags and were off thru security. There we averted near tragedy when Josh discovered that I had dropped my driver’s license on the way to the x-ray scanners . Thanks, Josh !
We got behind a couple of ladies who weren’t that familiar with airport security. The first lady went thru the scanners and then called to her traveling companion, “Okay, so you can pass me my shoes now.” Um, no, that’s not how it works . Her traveling companion then proceeded to take off her shoes and left the shoes sitting on the floor by the x-ray machine and headed thru the scanner . I told the screener that the lady had left her shoes there on the floor. He rolled his eyes and I offered to put them on the belt. “That’s the second one this morning,” he said. I’m guessing that the first was her friend. I don’t know how they thought they were going to get their shoes back. Their party was also stopped for additional screening. They had been pulled aside and the TSA agents were going thru their bags. I'm guessing that maybe they hadn't read the "allowable carry-on" info and had jumbo liquids in their bags or something.
Ted picked up DD (Dunkin Donuts coffee for those not in the New England area) in the terminal while I waited at the gate with all the bags. Soon we were boarding. We were in Boarding group B (5, 6, and 7) even though I had checked in exactly 24 hours ahead of time. I figure many people must have bought EBCI. A ton of people boarded with Family boarding and then we got to board. Now, here’s a pet peeve of mine. I wholeheartedly support families with young children getting to board between A and B so they are pretty much assured seats together. But when a group of 6 adults and several older “children” (teens) all board with one toddler…….I think that is abusing things a little bit. They can’t all sit together any ways. Jeeze .
Okay, rant over. I wasn’t too worried about getting seats together. If we did that was good, but I wasn’t going to worry about it too much. As long as one of us was sitting with/near Josh it would be fine. We did end up getting a row together at the back of the plane (second to the last row). Our flight took off on time (Love Southwest!). Ted and Josh dozed a bit during the flight and I took the opportunity to start this TR . I thought about paying for WiFi –but I figured that I might try to catch a few zzzz’s myself.
We ended up being ahead of schedule. A funny incident happened as we were preparing to land. The Captain announced our decent and just then we hit an air bubble and had a jolt! The four year old in the row behind us excitedly yelled, “We’re going down!!!” ( I think he was just excited to be in Florida. I don’t’ think he thought we would crash.) We all had a good laugh about the coincidence. The best news is that we did land safely and we were almost half an hour early! We were scheduled to land at 9:15am. We landed at 8:45am. I love Southwest!
Up Next: DME and AKL -Jambo. Will we have a savannah view?
Great start! Glad the flight was uneventful, yay for getting in early. Love the story about the little boy and the plane "going down"! Looking forward to more!
PS - I don't know if it was a problem on my end or not, but the link for thisTR in your PTR wasn't working
I'm excited to read your TR! We are planning a trip next April around the same time and will be staying at AKV-Jambo as well. We are planning on Club level and my 11-month window is in a few days. It will be our first trip on our points to our home resort. We did two trips to DLR on our points but haven't been to WDW yet!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I can't wait to hear all about your trip. We'll be staying as DVC for the first time too this November. (I need to check out your PTR first I guess, lol)
What a perfect way to start your trip... with an early arrival! We love SWA, too. And we also love AKV. It's our favorite resort! Looking forward to hearing all about your first DVC stay!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
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. I heard him several times. Open the door. Close the door. Go to the bathroom. Open the door. Close the door. The alarm was set to go off at 3:00am (and my clock is set a little fast so it was probably 2:50 or so.) His door flew open as soon as he heard the alarm and he said, “Is it time to get up now?” Thankfully he didn’t once come in to tell me that he couldn’t sleep. I did manage to sneak in a few hours. When I woke up, Ted was in the spare room. Maybe I was snoring a bit 
.
.
. Thanks, Josh 
! 
. Her traveling companion then proceeded to take off her shoes and left the shoes sitting on the floor by the x-ray machine and headed thru the scanner 
(Dunkin Donuts coffee for those not in the New England area) in the terminal while I waited at the gate with all the bags. Soon we were boarding. We were in Boarding group B (5, 6, and 7) even though I had checked in exactly 24 hours ahead of time. I figure many people must have bought EBCI. A ton of people boarded with Family boarding and then we got to board. Now, here’s a pet peeve of mine. I wholeheartedly support families with young children getting to board between A and B so they are pretty much assured seats together. But when a group of 6 adults and several older “children” (teens) all board with one toddler…….I think that is abusing things a little bit. They can’t all sit together any ways. Jeeze 
.
and I took the opportunity to start this TR 
. I thought about paying for WiFi –but I figured that I might try to catch a few zzzz’s myself.
( I think he was just excited to be in Florida. I don’t’ think he thought we would crash.) We all had a good laugh about the coincidence. The best news is that we did land safely and we were almost half an hour early! We were scheduled to land at 9:15am. We landed at 8:45am. I love Southwest!
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Pixie Dust
I can't wait to hear all about your trip. We'll be staying as DVC for the first time too this November. (I need to check out your PTR first I guess, lol)
Aimee
SWA too! Especially when my flight lands earlier than scheduled! 
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