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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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hi. it's me again. with another PTR. you know, because i'm now always in pre-trip mode.
so...i may have three disney trips planned for 2017. ok, they are more than planned. they are booked. i'm not sorry. here's why:
as many of you know, i've had some health issues which aren't great. and while i am getting better, i'm still not at the 'hey let's go to madrid next week for no reason' level (which is where i was pre-sickness.) so on our last disney trip, my husband and i upgraded our tickets to APs (good for 13 months!) with the understanding that while we may do short domestic trips to non-disney locales next year, for the most part 2017 is going to be the year that we go to disney. a lot.
there are worse problems to have, am i right?
so i'm starting a PTR which will become a TR which will become a PTR and then a TR and then another PTR and so on and so on into the horizon. or until the end of 2017. we shall begin with:
january: a very magical birthday
who: me and my mom, and then me and my mom and my husband, and then me and my husband
where: 1 night at the boardwalk (1 bedroom villa), 4 nights at the floridian (1 bedroom villa), 3 nights at caribbean beach (pirate room because reasons).
when: january 8 - january 16
why: because my mom wanted to take me for my birthday week and then my husband wanted to join me for my actual birthday and why wouldn't a grown childless woman want to spend her 37th birthday in disney world. am i right?
hi. it's me again. with another PTR. you know, because i'm now always in pre-trip mode.
so...i may have three disney trips planned for 2017. ok, they are more than planned. they are booked. i'm not sorry. here's why:
as many of you know, i've had some health issues which aren't great. and while i am getting better, i'm still not at the 'hey let's go to madrid next week for no reason' level (which is where i was pre-sickness.) so on our last disney trip, my husband and i upgraded our tickets to APs (good for 13 months!) with the understanding that while we may do short domestic trips to non-disney locales next year, for the most part 2017 is going to be the year that we go to disney. a lot.
there are worse problems to have, am i right?
so i'm starting a PTR which will become a TR which will become a PTR and then a TR and then another PTR and so on and so on into the horizon. or until the end of 2017. we shall begin with:
january: a very magical birthday
who: me and my mom, and then me and my mom and my husband, and then me and my husband
where: 1 night at the boardwalk (1 bedroom villa), 4 nights at the floridian (1 bedroom villa), 3 nights at caribbean beach (pirate room because reasons).
when: january 8 - january 16
why: because my mom wanted to take me for my birthday week and then my husband wanted to join me for my actual birthday and why wouldn't a grown childless woman want to spend her 37th birthday in disney world. am i right?
up next: the plan.
Doesn't everyone want to spend their birthday at Disney??
Birthdays at Disney are perfect! I've never done mine at WDW, given my birthday is in August and I won't go to WDW then, but I have had multiple birthdays on both DCL and at Disney's HHI resort!
Can't wait to hear all about your trips!
Birthdays at Disney are perfect! I've never done mine at WDW, given my birthday is in August and I won't go to WDW then, but I have had multiple birthdays on both DCL and at Disney's HHI resort!
Can't wait to hear all about your trips!
you may have just come up with the ONLY good thing about a january birthday! now let's just hope that i can make it there and back without snow having an impact on air travel!
I'm a lot like Colleen in that I'd love to spend my birthday at WDW, but mid July is just way too hot and humid for me. It is going to be so fun following along for your planning and then the actual trips.
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Nice start to the PTR and it's so cool that you have 3 WDW trips booked for 2017!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
please note: i love sharing my plans here because it helps me think them through and also allows feedback from all of you. so if you have any thoughts or suggestions on what to change, please feel free to do so! thanks!
sunday: arrival day
well, in theory anyway. i haven't booked my flights yet because of the nature of my work life (i don't yet know where i'll be departing from )
anyway, the goal is to arrive as early as possible on sunday and then check into our room at the boardwalk (for only 1 night --welcome to another elbodans trip!) we have a FP for frozen at 4:30pm and reservations at restaurant marrakesh at 7:15. we then plan to watch illuminations before walking back to the boardwalk. i'd say there's a high percentage chance i will then spend the rest of the evening at jelly rolls, assuming i have the energy.
monday: epcot and moving day
we're checking out of the boardwalk already! after dropping our stuff of with bell services, we will walk back over to epcot for a 10:30am soarin FP. mom wanted to do both frozen and soarin, so breaking our epcot day into two days allowed us to do that. we then have a spaceship earth FP and a character meet FP, along with lunch at coral reef (i mostly just want the octopus appetizer.)
when we are done at epcot we will take the monorial to the floridian and check in for the next four nights. we don't have dinner reservations anywhere, and the MK is only open until 8pm, so i'm not sure what i'll do after that. there's a possibility mom and i will attempt wishes this night, as it's early and thus do-able for mom. i may choose to spend the evening at disney springs or, more likely, catching up on some work back in the room.
question: what do you all do when parks close super early?
tuesday: magic kingdom day!
it's all MK all day this day. we plan to be there for rope drop and then ride a few attractions standby before the end of our 9:20 mine train FP window (so we will ride around 10:20). we also have late morning haunted mansion and dumbo FPs.
lunch and dinner are combined this day in 4pm reservation at the garden view tea room. we did this several years ago for mother's day and mom wanted to do it again. and mom always gets what she wants.
after tea mom wants to go back to the MK for wishes. she loves her some wishes! it's at 8, and epcot has EMH until 11, so i'll likely end my evening alone with a stroll around world showcase while mom heads back to the floridian to sleep.
wednesday: AK in the evening
we are sleeping in this day. well, sort of. we have a 12:30 FP for festival of the lion king, and then plan to spend the rest of the afternoon at AK.
mom wants to try tiffins, and no amount of me explaining that it is really expensive (and not really her style) can convince her otherwise, so to tiffins we shall go. we have a 5:20 ADR which means we will be leaving the park just as it is closing for the night, assuming nothing magical happens and rivers of light opens before then (it's looking less and less likely.)
i'm not sure what i'll do after dinner, but it will be something. thoughts? MK is open until 10pm--i'd likely not be able to arrive until around 7pm with bus transportation from AK.
thursday: doug arrives!
MK is mom's favorite park and, well, we're staying at the floridian, so back to MK we go on thursday morning. our morning FPs are for pirates, the mine train, and jungle cruise--in that order--with a skipper canteen FP right after the jungle cruise (because i like themes.)
by the time we are done with lunch, my husband should be arriving as of now, the plan for that is:
-he lands at MCO and boards the DME.
-he drops his stuff off in our room at GF.
-he gets on the monorail and heads to the MK.
i'm thinking i'll probably want to be at the room to greet him and take his first monorail ride of the trip with him. but maybe not. i don't know that he's ever done anything disney solo, so maybe that would be nice for him?
mom wants to take us to see wishes from the top of the world lounge. wishes is at 8pm. i then made a welcome to disney world ADR for just the two of us at citricos at 9pm. i'm assuming mom will be too tired to join us, but if she can i'm sure they will find room for her at our table. right?
note: it is at this point that The Festival of My Birthday begins. i'm basically celebrating my birthday for four nights. i'm not sorry.
friday: this is where it all gets kinda uncertain
because we added doug at the last minute and because we can't make FPs for the weekend yet and because mom is still in WDW this day, our plans get kinda murky at this point. here's what we are thinking for friday...
we wake up at the GF (obviously). we take our bags to bell services (also obviously). depending upon if we sleep in or get up super early, we either:
-go to morning EMH at MK for like an hour an a half.
-go directly to epcot for the 10:50am soarin FP my mom got for all three of us.
then we are heading to world showcase, as this is the first day of the new epcot arts fest, details still to be announced. we plan to spend the afternoon there before heading to CBR to check in.
mom will then head to AKL to check in, as that's where she's spending her last evening.
after checking in to CBR, we hope to make it over to AK for a little while, as doug wants to see it at night. i feel this is going to be a rather long day, but since my husband's time WDW is short, we want to make the most of it. we can have a relaxing time in march when we return for eight nights.
i then have my official family birthday dinner with mom, doug, and heather at Sanaa, which is one of my favorite restaurants on property and is also quite small and intimate and thus good for a family celebration (a quiet, laid back celebration.)
we will then uber back to CBR and sleep
our plans for saturday and sunday will have to wait until later because it's getting late and i have to drive to newark.
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You are so lucky to have so many Disney trips in the works! 
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--welcome to another elbodans trip!) we have a FP for frozen at 4:30pm and reservations at restaurant marrakesh at 7:15. we then plan to watch illuminations before walking back to the boardwalk. i'd say there's a high percentage chance i will then spend the rest of the evening at jelly rolls, assuming i have the energy. 
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