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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Cast of Characters
Me, Bonnie - mom of 2 daughters, grandma to 3, high school history teacher, avid reader, & love Disney!
DD, Beth - 18 (at time of trip) just graduated High school and passed my love of Disney on to her.
How this trip came about.
The Beginning...
If you didn't read my PTR - here's a recap. I've always wanted to travel more, especially to Europe due to the historical connections but have not had a travel partner and DH traveled so much in the Navy that he's not interested. My older DD is interested but has 3 children and her DH would want to go which means the grand-kids too and that wouldn't work at this time. One day, half joking, I said something like this to DD (Beth) "Maybe we should go to Europe for your graduation..." She thought that was cool, she's very into London and Paris (calls herself a city-girl). I worked the idea until I figured out a way to pay for such a trip and planned big but couldn't fit everything in that I would have liked to do; so we focused on 4 bigger cities, Athens, Paris (DLP too), London, and New York City.
I planned tons of course but as we all know that is 1/2 the fun. I was so excited about going but at the same time that I was purchasing air tickets and making reservations for the trip the spring of 2017, we also bought a house, moved into new house, preparing for DD's graduation and all that entailed, had family fly in from Alaska and Indiana for DD's graduation, & on top of this I was involuntarily transferred to a new position in my school district (due to position cuts) so I had to prepare to teach new subjects. It was a crazy spring and I did not feel ready for the trip. In fact, we left on Thursday and the Monday and Tuesday before I worked those days, shopped for DH, cleaned house, was finishing unpacking, and on Wednesday we had Dr. appts, paid bills, made lists for me and DH, saw family and friends and still had to do laundry and pack Wednesday. My notes say I didn't go to bed Wednesday until nearly 2AM and my alarm was set for 4AM .
Which brings us to the first part of traveling to Greece.
I planned this is stages so here we go!
Thursday June 29th. Alarm rang promptly at 4AM. Up, ready, tea kettle on and tea prepped. Woke up DH & DD. Made tea. Suitcases to car.
Had chuck drive since I had gotten less than 2 hours of sleep and knew he had at least 5 hours which wasn’t optimum but better than me. One thing about little sleep is it may help with time change. I can hope anyway.
Leading up to this trip I was going to try to get up a little earlier each day which would lead to going to bed earlier each day in preparation for the time changes but that did not happen. Still I figured with so little sleep last night we shouldn’t have too much trouble falling asleep tonight.
Made it to airport with plenty of time even with all the traffic there was at 4:30AM. Said to DH then into the airport.
We got pre-check which was really fast! Arrived at gate an hour early.
Went to hunt for nourishment and found a plain bagel for DD and an egg/cheese bagel for me. Beth couldn’t eat then as felt sick due to so little sleep so we wrapped hers up, stuck in it in the backpack for later. But I had to eat something to be able to take meds. I managed almost ½ and tossed the rest. It was pretty bland and on the dry side but at least I could take my meds.
We boarded and got bulkhead so had a little more leg room which helps for Beth because shes 5’9. The best part was that no one sat with us but it didn’t help as much because the arm rests would not lift. Don’t know why planes are doing this. We were on Delta who is a partner with Virgin Atlantic so I was thinking of airline miles.
I was so exhausted, I scrunched up on the floor, laid a blanket down and my travel bag for a head rest and actually dozed a bit but floor so hard with metal strip which hurt my hip.
DD said she could see mountains and I knew I couldn’t sleep so I sat up in preparation for getting up when a flight attendant came up and said “Maam, you can’’t sit on the floor in a snotty tone. Yet they let me lay there to sleep…?
We got to see Mount Rainier and the Rocky Mountains from the air, very cool.
Here are pictures I took from the air.
I thought the clouds looked like they could be walked on.
A valley.
Could see this city in between the mountains.
DD snapped this of us.
I kept nodding off and Beth dozed off for a bit. Then, I felt the plane beginning it's descent into New York City!
A nice start to your trip and quite an early one! Love the photos from the air. Wondering what city that is below the mountains? Very strange about the flight attendant not wanting you to sit on the floor but let you sleep their earlier!
__________________
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!
I was waiting for you to say the flight attendant told you that you couldn't sleep on the floor. How weird they were more worried about you sitting there.
A nice start to your trip and quite an early one! Love the photos from the air. Wondering what city that is below the mountains? Very strange about the flight attendant not wanting you to sit on the floor but let you sleep their earlier!
[SIZE="4"]Yes, definitely early but I cannot sleep on planes so wanted to fly during the day which means an early start. I thought the view of the mountains were amazing! I do not know the city but I looked up flight path on Delta then went to google and my best guess is just after the Rockies and before Yellowstone is a valley between the 2 mountains that has several cities. I thought so too because I laid on the floor for nearly an hour or maybe a little longer./SIZE]
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I was waiting for you to say the flight attendant told you that you couldn't sleep on the floor. How weird they were more worried about you sitting there.
Looking forward to hearing all about your trip.
I know, I thought it was odd too about the flight attendant. Thanks for joining me as you make a guest appearance.
Great start! I'm so excited for this report! Especially since I'm hoping to take a trip to London and Paris (and DLP) in the not-too-distant future.
How annoying that the arm rests couldn't be lifted! And I hate when flight attendants are snotty.
Hopefully you will get some helpful info. Booth DD & I are pooh sized and we were so excited when no one sat with us so we're have more wiggle room but since the arms were locked in place it wasn't as much of a bonus.
I'm sure there are policy's about staying in a seat, I would have curled up on the 2 seats if the arms had raised; but I need to lay down to sleep. I thought the attendant could have had a better attitude.
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but couldn't fit everything in that I would have liked to do; so we focused on 4 bigger cities, Athens, Paris (DLP too
. I was so excited about going but at the same time that I was purchasing air tickets and making reservations for the trip the spring of 2017, we also bought a house, moved into new house, preparing for DD's graduation and all that entailed, had family fly in from Alaska and Indiana for DD's graduation, & on top of this I was involuntarily transferred to a new position in my school district (due to position cuts) so I had to prepare to teach new subjects
. It was a crazy spring and I did not feel ready for the trip. In fact, we left on Thursday and the Monday and Tuesday before I worked those days, shopped for DH, cleaned house, was finishing unpacking, and on Wednesday we had Dr. appts, paid bills, made lists for me and DH, saw family and friends and still had to do laundry and pack Wednesday. My notes say I didn't go to bed Wednesday until nearly 2AM and my alarm was set for 4AM
.
.
to DH then into the airport.
. Don’t know why planes are doing this. We were on Delta who is a partner with Virgin Atlantic so I was thinking of airline miles. 
, I scrunched up on the floor, laid a blanket down and my travel bag for a head rest and actually dozed a bit but floor so hard with metal strip which hurt my hip. 
Yet they let me lay there to sleep…? 
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
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