2 Rings, A Birthday, And Life on the Savannah, AKL June 29-July 10, 2011 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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2 Rings, A Birthday, And Life on the Savannah, AKL June 29-July 10, 2011
Where does a Disney trip begin?
Oh... well... you just get the idea in your head and book it, right? I don't think so. I think, for me, it was when I was 3 years old and in the hospital for a hernia operation(a birth defect). Someone, my parents probably, gave me a Pluto doll. Pluto was my favorite from then on. But really, in the fifties, every red blooded, American boy and girl was glued to the TV in the afternoons watching "The Mickey Mouse Club". We were all Mouseketeers dreaming of going to Disneyland someday, knowing we probably never would. Through the sixties, it was "Disney's Wonderful World Of Color". The beautiful Cinderella Castle encouraged our dream along as Tinkerbelle released her pixie dust over the castle every Sunday night. Then, along came Walt Disney World, and the "dream" became "a possibility", a remote possibility, for sure, but a possibility just the same. Well, for me, Florida was still a long way away, and Disney World was way too expensive to even think about, and I... I had grown up! (perish the thought!) Way back then we couldn't allow ourselves to dream of more than one trip to a Disney Park, whether it be Disneyland or Disney World. After all, even one trip was probably just a dream.
Life goes on. But for us "Mickey Mouse Mouseketeers' of the fifties and sixties, there was a part of us that never grew up... and we could never quite let go of that dream of going to Disneyland. Oh, you explain it all away in your head and to your children. "We can't afford to travel to Disneyland when we have a perfectly good Six-Flags amusement park just down the road." "That rich Walt Disney charges so much that, even if we could get to Disneyland, we couldn't afford to get in the gate!" "I'd rather go fishin' than spend all my money at Disneyland." All excuses. Sure, Disney is expensive. But for those few moments of your life that you are in a Disney park or resort, or ship... you are swept away from reality into a dream, a beautiful, carefree dream world that no other amusement park, vacation resort, or cruise ship can bring you to. Oh, most people, I think, continue to tell themselves that Disney costs too much and they would never want to have a "Disney vacation"... but, that spark lives on... that "Disney Dream Spark" that was subliminally embedded in our souls so many years ago... never goes out. And when you are sitting around watching TV, and a Disney commercial comes on, a smile forms in your head and you relax... just a little... just for a few seconds, 'til the commercial goes off, and then you put "the Dream" away until the next time you see something "Disney", a shirt in the store, a movie, a billboard... that castle and pixie dust spreading fairy are everywhere! And someday, somehow, some of us break through our stubbornness, and find ourselves inside a "dream come true"... and nothing... nothing will ever satisfy us again until we are back in our "Disney Bubble"!
Before I go on, rambling away, let me introduce the players in this dream:
This is me, Kenny, from our Disney Cruise.
And this is my DW (...sometimes my Girlfriend), also from our cruise.
When Brenda and I were married in 1999, we talked about what we wanted to do in our lives. One of the things I said I wanted to do was to take my Grandkids to Disney. When I was 52, in the Spring of 2005, Brenda asked me if I wanted to take our Granddaughters to Disney World. I, of course said, "I'd love to, but we can't afford to go to Disney." Well, she displayed a particularly irritating wifely trait... she showed me how wrong I was! She was able to save a few hundred dollars over the next few months until my vacation pay came in and we were able to pay off Disney. That week in September 2005, I was immursed in my dream of a lifetime.
Brenda and I and our Granddaughters, Jhaela (left) and Janelle.
And I was hooked. I would, forevermore know that "Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough."
So, where does a Disney trip begin? This one began in a Dream... Waiting for the Dream
As I read your post KENNY I started to feel really really old as I too remember every afternoon sitting and watching The MICKEY MOUSE CLUB (Friday Round Up Day feature Spin and Marty) worse yet that Original Title of Sun show was The WONDERFUL WORLD OF DISNEY and getting progress reports every so often from Walt himself on the progress and ideas and plans for WDW in Fla once it was known that Disney was coming
I remember wishing with all my heart that we could go to DISNEYLAND one day (With 7 kids and my Dad being a NYC Cop it wasn't going to happen) Then being mad at my best in kindergarten for moving to California at the end of the school year and actually going there Worse yet my disappointment when I was told that the 20000 Leagues under the Sea ride didn't have a real submarine
Today when I talk with friends most don't get that even my wife as we prepare for her first ever trip Hopefuuly her inner child will emerge and she will come over to the MOUSE SIDE
About This Page: 
I think, for me, it was when I was 3 years old and in the hospital for a hernia operation(a birth defect). Someone, my parents probably, gave me a Pluto doll. Pluto was my favorite from then on. But really, in the fifties, every red blooded, American boy and girl was glued to the TV in the afternoons watching "The Mickey Mouse Club". We were all Mouseketeers dreaming of going to Disneyland someday, knowing we probably never would. Through the sixties, it was "Disney's Wonderful World Of Color". The beautiful Cinderella Castle encouraged our dream along as Tinkerbelle released her pixie dust over the castle every Sunday night. 
Then, along came Walt Disney World, and the "dream" became "a possibility", 
a remote possibility, for sure, but a possibility just the same. Well, for me, Florida was still a long way away, and Disney World was way too expensive to even think about, and I... I had grown up! 
(perish the thought!) Way back then we couldn't allow ourselves to dream of more than one trip to a Disney Park, whether it be Disneyland or Disney World. After all, even one trip was probably just a dream.
also from our cruise.
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Pixie Dust
Nice to see you off on an adventure. This is a great start and I'll be looking forward to the updates.
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