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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Here is a very brief introduction to our Cast of Characters and our basic itinerary. If you would like to read more about that please refer back to the PTR.
Cast of Characters
Me - Stefani - the Disney geek
Pat - my DH - loves going to Disney, hates planning anything
Shana - DD13 - loves Disney, mostly the thrill rides and art
Hunter - DS 11 - loves Disney - starting to like thrill rides, loves technology
Our Trip Itinerary:
February 21 - Pre-Travel Day
February 22 - Travel Day/Stay at Animal Kingdom Villas - Jambo
February 23-27 - Disney Cruise to Nassau/Castaway Key on the Dream
February 27-March 6 - Disney World stay at the Beach Club Villas
Today's Update: The Adventure Before the Trip!
February 21st - Pre-Travel Day
This day is not technically a part of our trip, but it was the day we left our house and that counts as leaving for me.
My alarm went off at 6:30am and I stayed in bed and checked in for our flight at 6:40am using my iPhone. This was our first time flying SouthWest as a family and I wanted to try to make sure to get a good chance of sitting together. I secured A43, 45, 46, 47. Clearly someone snuck in and snagged A44. Strange. This part of SW wasn't too bad. We did not have the best experience with SW and I will discuss that further in the TR, I really tried to like them, but things were just not working in our favor after this point.
After checking in Pat and I stayed in bed a little bit and snuggled with Chessie (our yellow lab) and then finally got up at about 7:30am. Shana and I had a few Girl Scout cookies to deliver and we hopped in the car and ran those out to a couple of people. When we got back, Shana and Pat cleaned out the chicken coop (yes, this is always a fun thing to do right before vacation :roll eyes. I striped the bed and put clean sheets on for my dad, he was staying to take care of our dogs and chickens. I also ran the other sheets through the washer/dryer so we would have clean sheets when we returned home. I did the last minute packing and reweighed our bags to make sure we were good to go.
We left the house at about 11am for our 2 1/2 hour drive to Albuquerque. Just before we drove out of our town (which is only 5 minutes from our house) I realized that I had forgotten to pack my tennis shoes. We returned back to the house and I stuffed them in a bag. Then we got back on the road. As we were driving and were about 17 miles from home Pat realized that he had left both of his cell phones at home. This was his personal iPhone and his work Blackberry that he is required to have with him at all times. So, we turned around and headed back for home again. :roll eyes: When we left the house this time it was about noon. Which wasn't really a problem, but it was a bit annoying.
When we got to Albuquerque we had to go to the Chrysler dealer to pick up my van. Earlier in the week it had started having problems when I was in Albuquerque to pick up Girl Scout cookies. We couldn't find the problem and when I went back to Albuquerque the Tuesday before the trip, I left it at the dealer and got a rental car, planning to pick it up before the trip. We got the van and Pat was driving it and it immediately started having problems again and he drove it right back to the dealer. I had to get the rental car returned and drove to Enterprise. We decided, at least tentatively to leave the car at the dealer for the duration of our trip, which messed up a couple plans. Pat wanted to stop at Sports Authority and get some shoes and we were planning our favorite BBQ place for dinner. But instead Enterprise picked Pat up at the dealer and drove us to our hotel. We arrived there about 3pm.
We were chilling out at the hotel for a little bit, until we could walk somewhere for dinner. Here is the first official picture I took of the trip:
Yep, all 4 of us were goofing around on our phones or iPods. At about 4pm, I got a call from the dealer and they had found the problem with the van. Turned out that one of the spark plugs was bad. We decided that if we got the van back we would still have time to get Pat's shoes (the dealer called, just before Pat placed an online order to be shipped to the AKV) and go get some dinner. The dealer sent the shuttle to come get us but it didn't arrive until about 5:15pm. Thankfully the van was finally running great!
We stopped at Sports Authority and Pat ran in and found the shoes he was looking for and we made our way to County Line Barbecue! Little back story with County Line… Pat and I went on our 2nd date at the County Line that used to be in Denver. It closed about 8-10 years ago and we have been so sad. One of the best things about us moving to New Mexico was that we can get County Line when we go into Albuquerque! They have beef ribs and they are so good! Plus, our dogs love the bones.
Here is our first meal of the trip (enjoy the picture, because most of our meals I forgot to take pictures, again )
Now I want to go to Albuquerque right now, because that looks so yummy!
We were all exhausted and went back to the hotel and everyone got showers, except for me because I prefer to take mine in the morning, and then we were quickly off to bed for our early wake up.
Next Update: No Plane Change Doesn't Always Mean No Plane Change!
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Yay! You started your TR! So sorry about the multiple returns back to the house, very much a pain as we have BTDT. Glad you finally got on the road though. How annoying about the Van but glad the finally got it figured out and fixed. What an ordeal. Dinner looked absolutely yummy and now I want BBQ! lol
Glad this is started! What a pain with the delays, but great that they didn't really impact the trip because of the built-in pre-flight day. Sorry SW didn't work out for you. I've never flown with them because they don't have many flights from Logan, but always hear glowing reports.
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
Thank goodness you all had the pre-travel day so the van could finally be repaired. We've had those time when we had to return home to get stuff we suddenly realized we'd forgotten.
Great start! The food at County Line Barbecue looks delicious
County Line is so good! I love the beef ribs, so much better than pork ribs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Great start! Glad they were able to fix your van. The food at County Line Barbecue looks so good. I'm so hungry now.
We were happy too, even though leaving it at the dealer would have been fine, it was nice to be able to get Pat the shoes he needed and get a nice dinner.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russi01
Great start. Glad they were able to get the van up and going for you before your trip!!
The whole issue with the van was a bit stressful, but it worked out in the end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vegasgirl0825
Can't wait to hear more! That BBQ looks good!
I might try to get another update up today, but it may not happen, I have to prepare for school for the kids this week. County Line is so good!
Quote:
Originally Posted by taylan1
Yay! You started your TR! So sorry about the multiple returns back to the house, very much a pain as we have BTDT. Glad you finally got on the road though. How annoying about the Van but glad the finally got it figured out and fixed. What an ordeal. Dinner looked absolutely yummy and now I want BBQ! lol
I had to get it started or it may not have happened. Very rarely do we forget things like that. The whole mess with the van for the week preceding the trip was such a mess. I was impressed that the dealer even bothered to look at it that day, knowing they had it for 12-days. I'm impressed with that dealership. We ended up making the trek to ABQ last night and got County Line.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Glad this is started! What a pain with the delays, but great that they didn't really impact the trip because of the built-in pre-flight day. Sorry SW didn't work out for you. I've never flown with them because they don't have many flights from Logan, but always hear glowing reports.
I've been trying to get started, but kept getting derailed. I'm really glad we added the pre-flight day, we've done the early morning drive and it is always tough. The delays didn't really hurt us because we had planned to leave around noon, and got out early. :roll eyes: I will say the flight crew was great on SW, but there were a lot of logistical problems, as you will see in both our flights.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bsblady01
great start
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Thank goodness you all had the pre-travel day so the van could finally be repaired. We've had those time when we had to return home to get stuff we suddenly realized we'd forgotten.
I'm really glad we added the pre-travel day, especially with all the van problems. I remember your returning home for something. I'm just glad we got on the road early and it didn't really affect our plans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lfredsbo
Great start! well......except for the van........glad they were able to fix it before you left
I was shocked when they called to say it was fixed. I didn't even expect them to start working on it till the next day, knowing that we didn't need it for 12 days. I'm really impressed with the dealership in ABQ.
I had forgotten all about Pat's shoes. After looking at that picture, I can see why you drove to ABQ to get more last night. Now I'm hungry...
The shoes were the main reason we needed the van back, but we were working on the solution of shipping some to the resort. But being able to try them on was a better solution. It was so worth the drive last night, we did stop at Lowe's and got some other things we needed, so we had more than one reason to go.
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. I striped the bed and put clean sheets on for my dad, he was staying to take care of our dogs and chickens. I also ran the other sheets through the washer/dryer so we would have clean sheets when we returned home. I did the last minute packing and reweighed our bags to make sure we were good to go. 
and we made our way to County Line Barbecue! Little back story with County Line… Pat and I went on our 2nd date at the County Line that used to be in Denver. It closed about 8-10 years ago and we have been so sad. One of the best things about us moving to New Mexico was that we can get County Line when we go into Albuquerque! They have beef ribs and they are so good! Plus, our dogs love the bones. 
)
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County Line is so good! I love the beef ribs, so much better than pork ribs. 
Liz 
~ Jenn 
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