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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Have a great trip. I enjoyed your last report, and look forward to this one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Safe travels!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
with the packing!! Have a safe trip
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDolphin
Good luck with all the packing!! Have a safe drive to your first destination.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Safe travels!
Thanks everyone!!
I'm mostly packed and the house is mostly cleaned. I am not setting an alarm, but I'm quite sure I'll be up before the sun in the morning.... We will be out the door as soon as we can finish up the last minute cleaning and packing.... I don't expect to have wi-fi tomorrow, but should be able to post the first update Tuesday.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Monday, June 10th No alarm was set. I woke up several times during the early morning; 3:30am, 4:15am, 5:30am, before finally officially getting up at close to 7am. I knew we were in no rush, so I was trying to get in as much rest as I could…
I think it was about 8:30 or 9am when we got out the door. I had filled up the gas tank the night before, but still had one pit stop before getting out of town… I had to stop by my sister’s and pick up some CD’s she had made for us for our listening pleasure.
I was set to drive this leg of the trip because Kentucky doesn’t accept out of state learners permits for those under age 16. Plus Wesley had some honor’s English required summer reading that he wanted to knock out early.
Today we were headed to Mammoth Cave National Park. This is actually our second time visiting this park. On last year’s road trip, this was our last destination before heading home. When planning this year’s road trip, I was looking for a mid-way stopping point to break up the drive on the way to Indiana. I was originally just going to stay in a hotel for the night with no real plans; but then I realized Mammoth Cave was less than a half hour out of the way round trip and it would be a much more fun stopping point. We loved the caves last year and I liked the idea of taking a different tour.
We were then heading straight for Mammoth Cave National Park. We had a five hour drive in front of us. It wasn’t long before we were in Tennessee and about 10:30am we started keeping our eyes peeled for a lunch spot. We spotted a Steak and Shake that sounded good, but when we got off the exit we saw the sign listed it as 5.5 miles off the exit, so we just kept straight and continued right back onto the interstate.
We ended up spotting a Cracker Barrel and while it sounded delish, I was worried it may take a bit longer than I wanted to stop for. But I knew we weren’t in a rush, so I went ahead and stopped. I had the chicken and dumplings with okra, mac n cheese, and sweet potato. Their meals come with three sides plus bread; it was so much food. But it was so yummy! The dumplings were divine, but the sweet potato was a close runner up- they gave me cinnamon to put on it and I could have eaten that for my main course…
The kids all had a variation of chicken strips. Wesley had it with fries and mashed potatoes; Dillon had it with fries and mac n cheese; Austin had it with okra; and Madilyn & Winston had it with just fries. They enjoyed it very much as well.
When we had first entered the Cracker Barrel, Winston spotted a stuffed animal Scooby doo. I normally wouldn’t consent to making a “souvenir” purchase this early on in the trip- but Winston loves Scooby and I knew it was a good buy for him. He spent his own money on it. After lunch, we quickly got back on the road. We did stop once more for a bathroom break; but other than that we stayed fast and steady heading for Mammoth Cave despite the occasional rain that was even heavy at times.
We arrived at Mammoth Cave at 2:30pm. We had changed time zones and it was 3:30pm “our” time. We were a tad bit early for check in, but they checked us in quickly anyhow.
We had rented a four bedroom, 8 bed cabins. This was larger than what we needed. The price was a great bargain though and when I originally booked other family members were considering joining us for just this first night since it’s a reasonable drive from home. But long story- short no other family ended up tagging along; leaving us with lots of space for just the six of us…
We had a very, very difficult time finding the cabins- well technically they are called “woodland cottages”. We spotted a group of cabins, but all their numbers were in the 100’s and 200’s; we had 503. Finally, we headed back to the visitor center- which is literally just across the street in walking distance- to get better directions. The campground ranger ended up trying to help us, but she couldn’t find it either! Long story short- we had to recruit a second park employee to help us find it and it turns out we were walking right past it the whole time… It’s just the only 500 building, so it simply wasn’t in chronological order making it easy to miss unless you were checking the numbers on every single cabin.
Once we found the cabin, I barely looked in it before we started unpacking the van as rain was threatening any minute. Once we did get the van unloaded- Austin immediately noticed a half-eaten plum on the night stand- yuck! Immediately, after that Madilyn seen that several of the beds were unmade as someone had slept in them and they hadn’t been made/sheets changed. Then I looked around and seen dirty clothes and towels in the floor! I was seriously worried we had been assigned a cabin someone was already rooming in. Thankfully my cell had service, so I could call the check in desk and report that our cabin hadn’t been cleaned. They sent someone quickly, but one of the housekeepers was extremely defensive and it was uncomfortable. I honestly was NOT upset that the room hadn’t been cleaned- I figured it was an honest mistake. But I did expect the housekeepers to be polite and maybe even apologetic. We were getting ready to head out of the cabin and Austin was looking for his shoes- he said half to me/half to himself (but certainly NOT to the housekeeper)- “where is my other shoe”. She responded- “that’s not my problem”. I’m still in shock by what she said!! I don’t know if she thought we couldn’t hear her or what. I chose not to immediately say anything because I wanted the room cleaned properly and by this time the kids were itching to do something other than continue to deal with the cabin situation.
The lodging guests had a tennis court and basketball court that provided the equipment to play. Dillon plays tennis with the school, and he spotted the courts first thing and was itching to play before the rain set in. So, we headed over to the courts where the four older kids played tennis and Winston and I played basketball.
After that, we headed to the visitor center. I went ahead and picked up my tickets for our tour in the morning. I had purchased online, but you had to get the tickets in person. We also picked up junior ranger packets- the kids got sworn in as rangers here last year, but wanted to do it again. We also looked in the gift shop for a vest to keep Austin’s junior ranger badges on. Last year, he bought a hat to keep badges on, but it is slap full with the badges he earned last year. Unfortunately, they didn’t have vests in his size. But the lady gave me a card and suggested I check their on-line selection. I’m hoping we will find his size at the next NP we visit though.
We then left the visitor center and headed back to our cabin. We had sandwiches for dinner. I had read online that they do have grills, but they were a good walk from the cabins. I decided to just play it safe- in retrospect the grills are just across the street and wouldn’t have been overly difficult to walk over there to cook…
We also noticed in the room that it still hadn’t been cleaned fully. A half eaten plum had been on the night stand earlier. They threw away the plum but left the residue on the night stand- yuck! It made me worried how well they had cleaned the rest of the cabin… The cabins have no A/C and I had been worried we would be hot. But zero worries- they are well shaded by trees and have ceiling fans and we were perfectly comfortable. It was actually a little chilly overnight.
We had four bedrooms with two beds in each room. Madilyn and I took one room, the little boys in one room, and I told Wesley and Dillon they could each have their own room. They have mentioned more than once that they’d like to have their own room at home- they share and will continue to do so even in the new house. But to my surprise, they wanted to stay in the same room here even though we had an extra room! Additionally, Winston and Austin slept in the same bed! So, we had one full bedroom go completely un-used and three total beds un-slept in. I’m going to remember this if ever a time comes in the future where I feel bad that my kids have to share rooms… They chose to share rooms even when they didn’t have too….
The next morning, our Frozen Niagara Tour was set for 9:15am. We were to arrive at 9am in preparation. I set the alarm for 8am knowing good and well we wouldn’t need it, just to be safe. We were all awake between 5 and 5:30am and had a few hours just to sit around the cabin waiting for the visitor center to open. For breakfast we had an assortment of pop tarts and granola bars. (The cabin was very large- but it did NOT have a kitchen unfortunately- just a small fridge and a coffee maker—but I knew this in advance and planned accordingly) When we first booked I had extended family saying they would like to join us for the cave tour, so I booked with that in mind. Last year, we did a “Moderate” tour- I believe it was the Historic Tour. This year I had planned to either do another, different moderate tour or maybe even a more strenuous one. But some of the family member’s going would be more physically restricted than us; so I went with an “easy” tour. Turns out, the family isn’t coming- but we were already booked with the “easy” tour- so we kept it. I’m excited all the same because it will be a different part of the cave than we have seen before. We are taking the Frozen Niagara Tour. We headed over to the Visitor Center around 8am. The three youngest got sworn in as Junior Ranger having completed their “assignments” the night before. They actually got this badge last year, but decided to get it a second time.
We also looked in the gift shop again. Last night, Austin had looked at some lanyards as an option to put more National Park badges on. I was hesitant, but upon further looking at it thought it might be a good option since we weren’t sure if we’d be able to find a vest in his size. So, we purchased the lanyard and he put his new Mammoth Cave Junior Ranger badge on it and is looking forward to adding more. Our Frozen Niagara Tour was scheduled for 9:15am and about 9am we headed over to meet under the pavilion. This tour took us through a different part of the cave than the tour we took last time including a different entrance. Last year we went in through the natural entrance and this year we entered through a manmade entrance that they kept sealed with a vault door; it was pretty cool but I definitely prefer the natural entrance. The tour was great as expected and like last year’s tour, included having a few moments where they turn off their lights and let you experience the total darkness that exists in the cave. We seen a lot of cave crickets and they are huge! I don’t remember seeing that many of them on last year’s tour. It was a great tour and the kids and I would both like to take some longer, more strenuous tours. So much so, in fact that we talked about just driving up to Mammoth Cave later in the year and spending a few nights there with no other motive than just to do several of their cave tours.
When checking out of the cabin, I did go ahead and complain about the rude remarks from housekeeping and the un-cleaned night stand. I was probably the opposite of aggressive and I don’t really think they were very interested in my complaints. I may consider sending an email to management which is probably who I should’ve asked to speak with when I complained. I just felt it was unacceptable and want the problem addressed for future guests.
We then headed out of Mammoth Cave and on to Clifty Falls State Park in Madison, Indiana.
First day was great, with the big exception of the room situation. YUCK to the condition of the room, the person who came to "clean" it, and to the front desk staff you spoke with. I'm glad you're doing the wonderful videos again this year and don't know how you have time to do it as you're traveling! Fun to see how the kids have grown in the past year.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
First day was great, with the big exception of the room situation. YUCK to the condition of the room, the person who came to "clean" it, and to the front desk staff you spoke with. I'm glad you're doing the wonderful videos again this year and don't know how you have time to do it as you're traveling! Fun to see how the kids have grown in the past year.
Thanks! I use One True Video on Youtube to make the video's and they make it sooo easy; all I do is download the pictures/video's and they put it in the slideshow format for me
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great first day in spite of the poor housekeeping! I grew up not too far from Mammoth Cave and we visited often when I was a kid.
Did they have the boats that went through the cave when you went? That sounds sooo fun and cool to me! But they no longer offer the boat rides....
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Great start to your trip, except the situation at the room. How horrible!
Thanks...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Sorry about the rude housekeeper and the cabin condition! Otherwise, it sounds like you had a great time at Mammoth Lakes!
Thanks; we did have a great time!
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
Aside from the room situation, sounds like a great start to the trip!
Thanks; we've gotten off to a great start for sure!
Though they had the boat rides when I was a kid, we never did that tour. My Mom was not fond of being in a cave in the first place. Putting her on a boat would have sent her over the edge. Several youth groups I was a part of did different tours, but always the walking ones.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
. I am not setting an alarm, but I'm quite sure I'll be up before the sun in the morning.... We will be out the door as soon as we can finish up the last minute cleaning and packing.... I don't expect to have wi-fi tomorrow, but should be able to post the first update Tuesday
.
. 
I grew up not too far from Mammoth Cave and we visited often when I was a kid. 
Otherwise, it sounds like you had a great time at Mammoth Lakes! 
Linear Mode
