From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30
As we're now home from this wonderful vacation, let's get this trip report on the road. If you want some background to this trip, you may want to read the pre-trip report, which also includes live updates from the trip itself.
Thursday 23 February – part one: “you’re due back on 4 March”?
The day started at 3:05am for me. That’s when I was woken up by the howling wind outside created by Storm Doris. Ugh. Thankfully I did go back to sleep in the end, and woke up a few minutes before the alarm, which was something. And when I turned the news on, that wasn’t even the worst of it, as apparently Doris was battering west Ireland, before heading for the north of England. Deep joy!
Well, let’s just say later on in the day, I knew all about Doris. I walked into the centre of Canterbury (that’s where I work), and I was literally lifted off my feet a couple of times, the wind was that strong!
As I was getting swept off my feet, I was thinking about what I needed to do, and one of the things was to add some more money on to our travel money card. Suddenly I realised that I hadn’t yet got our actual dollars out of the drawer… oh my goodness, I didn’t want to leave those behind. I rang Mark, told him where they were, and said if he got home first, could he get that out, and thankfully by the time I got back, they were safely waiting to come with us. Phew – crisis averted!
I was hoping to leave earlier than I did, but I finally emerged at 4:45pm. Let’s just say the last couple of days at work have not gone to plan, and leave it at that… I had a nasty journey home through Doris, and at points, I was the fastest car on the motorway, and I was only doing 60 miles an hour! (the speed limit is 70) That tells you something. The wind was definitely buffering everything around, and I got past any lorries as quickly as I could… just in case.
When I got home, we packed up the final bits and pieces, and then the suitcases were ready to go. Our weight limit is 23kg, and I figured we’d be fine. We checked the smallest case first – 9kg, so no problem there, and the other two came in at 15kg and 17kg. Result! We don’t actually plan on buying that much either while we’re out there, so hopefully we won’t have the usual issue of “will our cases come in under weight?”
I also double checked, then triple checked, and may have checked a few times after that to ensure I had the passports with me. Anyone who’s read my Baltic cruise trip report will know what I’m talking about!
Even as we loaded the car, I was still there, double checking on the passports, and thankfully they were still there. We set off about 6:45pm, and we had a smooth run up to Gatwick, despite the winds still being quite strong on the way there. Let’s just say we were rocking a bit. I am so glad we weren’t in the worst affected areas, as I dread to think what it was like there.
We phoned the valet parking company, as instructed, 20 minutes out, and found our way into the short stay car park, which is where they’re currently located. You have to drive round a bit, but once you get there, it’s a very short walk over to the elevators that take you to the terminal.
I did get a bit of a shock though, when the guy said to me “you’re due back on 4 March”? Er, we’re back a week after that. I went to get out my confirmation, confident it would show the right date, but it didn’t! Oh my goodness, that’s the first time I’ve ever done that. I couldn’t believe it. Oh well, we’ll have an extra charge for that, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.
When we got there, there was one guy getting off, who frankly dithered. You know, you’re either getting off or you’re not, but make your mind up! The doors nearly closed on the couple with a luggage cart, but then they proved to be the absolute nightmare. They couldn’t control the darned thing when it got to their floor and they needed to get out. I held the door open for them, and eventually the guy thanked me, after ramming my hand luggage with the cart on the way. At least he did apologise for being useless in being able to control it…
We headed into the terminal building, and it was absolutely dead in there, as it often is in the evening. That’s why we like to do twilight check-in. We literally walked up, and there were three Virgin Atlantic members of staff, all waiting to help us out! We quickly checked our luggage in, joked about whether we could get an upgrade to Upper Class – in fairness, we knew it was a joke, as we’d already seen the seats were all taken.
However, during our discussions, she did tell us how wonderful the new Clubhouse lounge was at Gatwick. I asked her if there was any way we could get in there, even if it meant paying, and she said we could ask in the morning at customer services. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We’ll give it a go then… the worst they can do is say
We made our way out through the terminal, and I took the opportunity to try out my new camera. My first impression of it is that it’s pretty darned good in low light conditions, and that’s good, because that’s how I often use the camera, without any flash. It’s a good start.
We headed down one level and made our way over to the Hampton by Hilton. I love staying here, as it’s just a short, covered walk from the terminal building. I really did begin to wonder what I was on when we checked in, as apparently I’d managed to book it for one adult only. Wow! I guess last minute organisation of holidays is not my forte… thankfully it wasn’t an issue.
I’d booked a corner room, and we were both very impressed it, and again I was impressed with the camera’s performance without flash…
We didn’t stay long, as we were both hungry, so we headed down to the restaurant. I went for the one part that didn’t have the football (soccer) showing – exactly the same comment that another woman made as she came in.
We started off our holiday in fine style, as you can see!
I went for two appetisers, the first a prawn cocktail…
… and the second tomato and mozzarella. The first was definitely better than the second. The tomato and mozzarella were both lacking flavour, and needed salt.
Mark went for the chicken wings for appetiser, and told me they were just a little on the spicy side! Not good when you have a long flight the next day…
He then got the burger as main course…
I’m not going to score this, as to me, it wasn’t really a proper restaurant experience. We had to go up to the bar to order, so service didn’t really exist.
Once we were done eating, we headed back up to the room to chill for a bit and to try and download a few final TV shows to watch while we’re away.
The weather today was exceptionally windy, but dry, with temperatures in the low 50s. The best thing today was starting our vacation! The worst thing today was Storm Doris…
I read about that storm! I have a question about your camera. The lowlight pictures are indeed very nice and I was wondering what settings you used for them. Great start to your adventure!!
Good start. I can't wait to read more. Your food looks ready good.
We had some high winds here on Wed. I had a doctor's appointment and the emergency exit door kept blowing open. It was horrible driving home. I don't think I ever got close to the speed limit on the expressway.
Liz
I read about that storm! I have a question about your camera. The lowlight pictures are indeed very nice and I was wondering what settings you used for them. Great start to your adventure!!
I'm using the "scene" setting generally, which lets the camera pick out the best setting for whatever I'm shooting and it seems to work very well.
Good start. I can't wait to read more. Your food looks ready good.
We had some high winds here on Wed. I had a doctor's appointment and the emergency exit door kept blowing open. It was horrible driving home. I don't think I ever got close to the speed limit on the expressway.
Liz
Yay - you have the passports!
That wind is something else. We had that a few days ago too and it's wicked! Hope it goes away by morning for your flight!
Camera is doing a great job so far.
__________________
Tanya
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Seems like the start of this TR is already quite exciting bw the storm/wind and the booking snafus. Glad you enjoyed your room - it seemed very spacious. Love being part of your TRs from the beginning. It gives me something to look forward to during my late night routine.
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Thankfully I did go back to sleep in the end, and woke up a few minutes before the alarm, which was something. And when I turned the news on, that wasn’t even the worst of it, as apparently Doris was battering west Ireland, before heading for the north of England. Deep joy! 
I rang Mark, told him where they were, and said if he got home first, could he get that out, and thankfully by the time I got back, they were safely waiting to come with us. Phew – crisis averted! 
I had a nasty journey home through Doris, and at points, I was the fastest car on the motorway, and I was only doing 60 miles an hour! (the speed limit is 70) That tells you something. The wind was definitely buffering everything around, and I got past any lorries as quickly as I could… just in case. 
We don’t actually plan on buying that much either while we’re out there, so hopefully we won’t have the usual issue of “will our cases come in under weight?” 
We set off about 6:45pm, and we had a smooth run up to Gatwick, despite the winds still being quite strong on the way there. Let’s just say we were rocking a bit. I am so glad we weren’t in the worst affected areas, as I dread to think what it was like there. 
Oh my goodness, that’s the first time I’ve ever done that. I couldn’t believe it. Oh well, we’ll have an extra charge for that, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. 
We quickly checked our luggage in, joked about whether we could get an upgrade to Upper Class – in fairness, we knew it was a joke, as we’d already seen the seats were all taken. 
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Pixie Dust
I have a question about your camera. The lowlight pictures are indeed very nice and I was wondering what settings you used for them. Great start to your adventure!!
Linear Mode
