Just Mom and Me at Disneyland - *Updated with Final Thoughts 2/26 * - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Just Mom and Me at Disneyland - *Updated with Final Thoughts 2/26 *
Just Mom and me at Disneyland
Cast of Characters
Me---I’m the mom, certified Disney Nut
Jack---My nine year old son, baby of the family, lover of legos, collector of stains, drinker of coffee
Janice---My good friend since the first grade
Jenny---My cousin and good friend
This trip was born over the summer this year, and I blame it entirely on my good, old (as in I’ve known her since first grade, she’s not eighty ) friend Janice. She came to visit us over the 4th of July week, and while visiting let it slip that she lived only ten minutes from Legoland and had 2 empty bedrooms at her house just waiting for company. Now, I’ve known all along where Janice lived and how many spare rooms she had, but we’d never taken her up on her generous offer, because five of us in her single adult household just didn’t seem fair. I was afraid we wouldn’t be friends for very long if she had to put up with us for any length of time.
Anywho, shortly after Janice left, I started checking Dings! And looking for discounted Legoland tickets online, and decided Jack and I should take a short trip when we were out of school in November. Now, I have two other children, but they’d be in school, and I asked DH if he wanted to be included, and got a firm “no.” So, it was a trip. I can’t stand to go to Southern California without a visit to Disneyland Resort.. So, I checked on one day park hoppers, and found that it wasn’t much more to go to the parks for two days so why not. I didn’t fancy driving the hour between Janice’s house and Disneyland more than once, so I booked a room at the Candy Cane Inn for two nights. I also decided it was important to do a little family visiting, and made plans to drop in on my 90 year old great aunt Martha. I spoke with my cousin and let her know we were coming, and she said to call her back when we had everything firmed up, so she could take some time off and join us in the parks.
A couple of weeks later, I happened to be looking at the Disneyland Website one evening and clicked on the link to all the special Halloween Time doings. I did a quick check of the calendar and decided if I bumped our trip up a week, we could see all the seasonal stuff! I perused the Legoland site as well and discovered that they had a “Brick or Treat” event that was included with your admission. A few websites later and I had booked airfare, rented a car, changed our reservation at the Candy Cane, and purchased tickets for both parks. WooHoo! I’m going to Disneyland!
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Just Mom and me at Disneyland
Cast of Characters
Me---I’m the mom, certified Disney Nut
Jack---My nine year old son, baby of the family, lover of legos, collector of stains, drinker of coffee
Janice---My good friend since the first grade
Jenny---My cousin and good friend
We had only one bump while preparing for our trip, and that was major fires in Southern California, particularly in San Diego county, as in surrounding Janice’s house and closing Legoland. We had a couple of tense days (nothing compared to residents) and created a plan B that would have us staying at Jenny’s house and skipping Legoland in exchange for an extra day at Disneyland. After many anxious discussions with Janice, the night before we left everything seemed like it was going to work out. She wasn’t evacuated and her house was okay. So, back to plan A. We packed our bag, made sure DH and the girls had groceries and clean clothes. We made a list of all appointments/activities for DH, and went to bed early. But I didn’t sleep a wink. Well, maybe about four hours worth of winks, but certainly not enough to feel well rested. As anyone who knows me well can tell you, I’m a girl who needs her sleep. :grin: I’m pretty sure I was just way too excited!
DH dropped us off at the airport at 5:30 am for our 7:00 am flight. We expected a line for checking bags which has been our usual experience at this time of day. However, I’d forgotten it was a Saturday, so we didn’t have any line at all! Security was virtually empty as well, so we were at our gate before 6:00am. Jack was hungry, so we hit the coffee bar in the airport where he had a decaf Mocha and an apple fritter, and I had hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll. We were flying on Southwest for the first time in a long time, and I’d read that boarding procedures had changed. Well, they haven’t changed at our local airport. There was much jockeying for position in the A line, and as usual, it brought out the worst in several people. Jack was worried about us getting seats together, but I assured him we were in A group, so no problems. The gate clerk announced that there were only 43 people on our flight and everyone would get a good seat in hopes of calming some of the folks down, but it didn’t make much difference. In any case, we had a whole row to ourselves, and a smooth flight down. We were only offered coffee or orange juice during the flight, no cup of water even. So, I arrived at LAX thirsty! Our first stop was the newsstand for a bottle of water. Our suitcase arrived quickly, and we walked outside to find our car rental shuttle waiting for us.
A short ride later, we arrived at the lot and we’d signed up for Budget’s Fastbreak service, so we checked a screen which told us to choose any car from category 6. In category 6 we found several convertibles and SUVs. I was stoked, apparently we’d received an upgrade. After trying out several, we settled on a sporty little red number and drove it to the check out gate. Where I was promptly told I was to choose from category 2. :sad: So I had to back out , park the car and try again. This time we chose a red Pontiac of some sort, and when I got to the checkout lane (a different one this time), I explained that the monitor said category 6. She checked it over and said, that I indeed had received an upgrade, but since I was returning the car to a small satellite location, I couldn’t take a specialty car. That made a little more sense.
We were soon on our way to my Aunt Martha’s house in Redondo Beach. We arrived in about 20 minutes, and were soon visiting with all sorts of relatives. Jenny’s son (who’s a student at UCLA) even stopped by. We had a lovely morning catching up. About 1:00 we left to find some lunch as we were starving after having eaten breakfast so early. We found a Togo’s sandwich shop on our way to the 405 and stopped for a bite. I had a turkey sandwich with cranberries, and Jack had tuna. And then we were on our way. A little over an hour later we arrived at Janice’s house.
We unloaded the car, and were amazed at how “unsmoky” the air was. We’d driven by a still smoking Camp Pendleton and had expected smoky air when we got out of the car. Janice explained that the wind had shifted and it was their first “unsmoky” day in nearly a week. We headed in the house and engaged in another round of catching up (well, Jack had been visited out, so he vegged in front of cartoons while we talked). Janice’s parents called and offered to take us out to dinner, which I was very happy about, as I hadn’t seen them since my wedding nearly 16 years ago!
We had a yummy dinner at a little local Italian restaurant, and that’s when fatigue began to set in. Not long after dinner, we were heading off to bed. We needed to be well-rested for our big adventure at Legoland the next day! So far, our little trip is off to a fantastic start…
Up next, our Brick or Treat adventure at Legoland…
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) friend Janice. She came to visit us over the 4th of July week, and while visiting let it slip that she lived only ten minutes from Legoland and had 2 empty bedrooms at her house just waiting for company. Now, I’ve known all along where Janice lived and how many spare rooms she had, but we’d never taken her up on her generous offer, because five of us in her single adult household just didn’t seem fair. I was afraid we wouldn’t be friends for very long if she had to put up with us for any length of time.
I perused the Legoland site as well and discovered that they had a “Brick or Treat” event that was included with your admission. A few websites later and I had booked airfare, rented a car, changed our reservation at the Candy Cane, and purchased tickets for both parks. WooHoo! I’m going to Disneyland!
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PassPorter Guide Author
Sorry to hear about the upgrade issue, though. 
That's cute. 
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