Celebrating Like Superstars - updated March 10 - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm so glad it all worked out!! I guess between the two of us mentioning it was your anniversary, etc, every time we called, Disney got the hint, huh?
Yep! They sure did!
You guys, "wow" and "holy moly" is right! We couldn't believe how amazing our room looked and we loved being able to watch the fireworks while we were in bed. It was like a private showing for us - no crowds! The room was a bit on the tiny side because of the space taken up by the little foyer, but we didn't need anything larger. And I loved the carved lighted headboard!
So the downside to falling asleep at 8:30 last night was waking up at 4:30 this morning. Nothing is open that early! So we made coffee, watched some TV, got showered and planned where we were going to eat breakfast and what we wanted to do in Disneyland. The park didn’t open until 10:00 so there was certainly no rush, although we planned on taking advantage of our Extra Magic Hour privileges since we were staying at DLH. Once the sun rose we could see that it was really foggy this morning:
Looking from our room towards California Adventure and The Grand Californian.
For comparison's sake, here's the same view when it's clear:
We went downstairs to kill some time in the shop and we discovered complimentary coffee in the lobby. Finally we decided that we should go grab some breakfast so we went down to Steakhouse 55. Well that was expensive! $36 (including tip) for breakfast. And here’s the sick part. I had an apple juice and an egg white omelette and Dan had a coffee and an omelette. Thirty. six. dollars.
We got done breakfast at 8:30 and went back up to our room to grab our tickets and head over to the monorail station. On our way we took a picture of the team building the Christmas tree in front of the hotel.
By the time we got to the station it was almost 9:00 but the first monorail didn’t come until pretty much 9:00 on the nose. We had to go through Security and use our tickets to get into the platform area.
The seating is different in the Disneyland monorails from the WDW monorails. You sit on a long bench lengthwise.
Once we got into the park, there were already people inside so I guess it’s faster to walk in rather than ride the monorail in. The monorail drops you off in the middle of the park and the first ride you come to is Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. We haven’t been to Disneyland for over 10 years but as soon as we got inside the sub I remembered that smell. (If you’ve been in it, you know what I mean. )
I took a few photos but my camera has a little orange light that I guess it uses for focusing or something and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. It was bothering Dan and probably a few other people around me so I gave up. But here’s a page I made for my scrapbook with a couple of the pictures I did take and a couple Dan took.
Next we headed to Space Mountain. It was a walk-on. And a lot of fun! Then we decided it was time to head across the park to the other side. But of course I had to grab a couple photos first:
Nobody’s here yet! Sleeping Beauty’s Castle is so small compared to Cinderella’s Castle but it’s very charming. And so pretty all decorated for winter.
The decorations in New Orleans Square were gorgeous and I couldn’t resist snapping a quick photo on our way to Pirates.
I love Disneyland’s version of PotC so much better than WDW’s. You get a lot more of the story at the beginning because you start out in the bayou with the fireflies twinkling and a banjo pickin’ fellow sitting on his porch.
This is where you board. The other side is the Blue Bayou Restaurant.
Time to head to Fantasyland! Along the way we ran into Princess Tiana:
And these were so pretty that I couldn’t pass by the chance to snap a shot of them too:
We decided to walk through Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. I’m glad they have re-opened it because it’s so cute. They’ve animated it now instead of it just being a walk-through-and-read-the-story attraction. To spare you having to load a whole bunch of photos, here’s a page I scrapped about the Walkthrough:
I thought I had some photos from the ending of the story, but I guess I don't.
Once Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip lived happily ever after, we decided that just because we didn’t have children, didn’t mean we couldn’t ride the Fantasyland rides! So onward we went! We decided on Alice in Wonderland. Funny story about Alice in Wonderland. I’ve always associated this ride with pot! On our first trip to Disneyland you could smoke anywhere and somebody lit up a joint on the ride. It was the first time I had ever smelled it and to this day I associate Alice in Wonderland and pot. Anyway, the CM boarding us was an older gentleman and I noticed his big ring right away so of course I asked him about it!
Rich has worked at Disneyland for 50 years! He said there was one man still working at Disneyland that had been there since opening day!
Some of Disneyland’s beautiful topiaries.
Now it was time for a little faster ride. The Matterhorn Bobsleds! There’s nothing that says Disneyland more than the Matterhorn Bobsleds! We did the Fantasyland side.
Here we go!
After we survived our encounters with the Abominable Snowman, we headed back to New Orleans Square and do the attraction I was the most excited about. I have wanted to ride the holiday version of Haunted Mansion for years and years and now I was about to get my chance!
We had done all of this in 3 hours! It was only noon. By now we were getting hungry again and one of my must-do’s was eating at the Golden Horseshoe Saloon and catching a show. But I’m going to make you wait to find out what the show was!
You had a great morning, getting so much done in such a short space of time! I love the way they decorated the castle - that is so sweet Hopefully we'll get to see that for my 40th next year!
I am glad you could knock off so much in a short time. On our trip this summer, we felt like everyone in SoCal liked to sleep in; the crowds were so manageable in the morning!
Ouch, that was an expensive breakfast...guess no more early morning meals at Steakhouse 55.
I am so jealous....I really want to visit DLR for the holidays...when it is quiet, too!
danielle
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~Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will land among the stars~
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On our first trip to Disneyland you could smoke anywhere and somebody lit up a joint on the ride. It was the first time I had ever smelled it and to this day I associate Alice in Wonderland and pot. 
Anyway, the CM boarding us was an older gentleman and I noticed his big ring right away so of course I asked him about it!
PassPorter Guide Author
Great pictures! 
Waiting to eat with Goofy - DLR May 2010
I love your scrapbook pages!!!
TinkBrat
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