Our Little Disneyland Pick-Me-Up **Updated 5/5** - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Our Little Disneyland Pick- Me-Up Trip
April 16-19, 2009
Cast of Characters
Me!---Crazy Disney Nut, mother of three
DD1 (15)---Aspiring Imagineer, and practicing driver. Disney lover for sure. Definitely her mother’s daughter
DD2 (13)---The one who loves an adventure and the one we love dearly, but also the one who provides most of the family drama. Strangely enough she can ride even the most daring thrill ride without a problem, but put her in a car for more than a half hour, and it’s barf bag “Here we come.”
DS (10)---Favorite parts of any vacation, the snacks, the gift shop and the pool! Will swim even if it’s freezing. Also NEEDS something in EVERY SINGLE gift shop he enters.
And a brief appearance by
DC—Dear Cousin, who happens to live in Southern California and is just as much a Disney Fan as I am.
This trip was born in March when I just couldn’t stand it anymore! Reality was bearing down hard, and I just needed to get away. Unfortunately, living with two teenagers and another busy kid made it so I had a month off of work (I teach at a year-round school.), and no way to squeeze even the shortest of family trips in. We had no more than two blank days during the entire month (and they weren’t together even). So, I started toying with the idea of a little jaunt over Spring Break when all of us were out of school and the calendar only had two commitments. I booked a room at our usual Candy Cane Inn, and felt better already. I figured I could cancel the reservation if something came up.
Fast forward a couple of weeks later and I’d put the idea to DH who said it was a fine idea as long as he didn’t have to go. Gotta love the guy! That day my cousin called and said she and her mom had tickets to see Momma Mia in Los Angeles the night before we planned to go to Disneyland. Then she called me back a little later and asked if we wanted to see the musical too. I knew the girls would love it, but it wasn’t one of DSs favorites and I really wanted to go to Disneyland! Can you imagine the singular focus there?! So, instead of driving straight to Anaheim, we decided to drive to my cousin’s house instead. We’ll spend the night there, and then visit some relatives, possibly check out the beach briefly, and then DS and I will be off to Anaheim that afternoon. We’ll check into our hotel, DS can swim his heart out and we’ll check out DTD. Meanwhile the girls will stay on with my cousin and hit LA that evening for dinner and the play. They’ll meet us at Disneyland the next morning. It’s a plan!
Up Next…a few changes to the plan….
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Great start! So, your Spring Break isn't until next week? We're on it this week. I never really thought about different districts in such a small state doing different spring breaks...
Great compromise on letting DD's see Mamma Mia (it was here for years and I never went to see it) while you and DS get settled in.
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We stayed next door on our Spring Break (at the Desert Palms April 4-11) and adored the landscaping at the Candy Cane. It looks like you're having warmer weather than what we had!
Terribly sorry for the delay. Real life took over again.
Changes to the plan…
Change is a good thing, right? Well, in this case it is. Once I knew for sure that our little excursion was a go, I decided to see if I could get a better deal, hotel-wise. What totally shocked me was that there was all sorts of availability at just about anyplace I could think of staying. Usually Spring Break would be difficult at best to book this close to travel dates.
So, I decided to check out package deals through Costco. I didn’t have as much selection with the off-property lodging as booking a room-only, so just for grins I plugged in the Grand Californian (my first choice, always) and discovered that it was still way over budget. Oh well. I’d expected that anyway. The website also gave me quotes for DLH and PPH and those were considerably less expensive. In fact, when I did a cost/benefit analysis (one of my favorite pastimes) I was quite surprised to find out that it would cost us right about $10 more to stay on property than at our beloved Candy Cane Inn. What with DSs pool fetish, it was a “done deal.” It was also interesting to note that the DLH and the PPH quotes were the same for a standard room. I decided to go with PPH, since 2 out of 3 of the kids hadn’t stayed there. My BFF and I stayed there on our last trip and really loved it. So package booked, Candy Cane Inn cancelled, and we’re one step closer…
I had already decided to rent a car for the trip for various reasons that are boring and part of the reality based pressure that led to said vacation. Booked that, and got a great rate on an SUV (actually less expensive than a car!). I also received my delightful little packet of goodies. So we have new luggage tags featuring Donald all decked out in his celebration attire, our 2-day park hoppers, a free character breakfast , $200 worth of gift cards, and all the various coupons and discounts. Honestly, I booking a package so I get all that stuff.
We were all ready to go. And then, as usual, as always (at least in the last year, it seems) happens when we’ve got a trip planned, DD (13) gets sick. And it’s a doozy requiring multiple doctor and urgent care visits as well as a fun filled trip to the ER. It also meant me missing six days of work. Anyone who’s ever been a teacher knows that is not good:. The scary thing was that the doctors could never agree on what the problem actually was. She actually did start to improve and was feeling better by Easter Sunday, and it looked like everything was still a go. DD (15) slept most of the day on Sunday, but she’d been burning the candle at both ends, so I wasn’t too concerned. Until she woke up Monday morning and said she couldn’t breathe and had a fever. A quick trip to the doctor and hospital for a chest x-ray and it’s decided that she has atypical pneumonia, because the doctors can’t really find anything wrong with her. Here we go again.
Thankfully, this kid got to feeling better enough by Wednesday (she’s never one to get sick in the first place), and we were still able to travel. My grandma had a doctor’s appointment in the morning, we’d have lunch with her after and then hit the road.
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Honestly, I 
booking a package so I get all that stuff.
:. The scary thing was that the doctors could never agree on what the problem actually was. She actually did start to improve and was feeling better by Easter Sunday, and it looked like everything was still a go. DD (15) slept most of the day on Sunday, but she’d been burning the candle at both ends, so I wasn’t too concerned. Until she woke up Monday morning and said she couldn’t breathe and had a fever. A quick trip to the doctor and hospital for a chest x-ray and it’s decided that she has atypical pneumonia, because the doctors can’t really find anything wrong with her. Here we go again. 
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