Florida flowers and Caribbean cruising THIS THREAD COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Friday 27 February – part two: things have changed since we were last here!
We made our way over to the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex…
Things have certainly changed since I was last here. I think my last visit was maybe 2007 or 2009, and then I vowed that I wouldn’t be back until they did something with the place, as it was just heart breaking to see the state of it. It really needed some love and serious investment, and now it’s had that, it’s transformed it. Mark last came here in 2011 with friends we were on holiday with, and loves the place.
The first thing we noticed is that you now pay $10 parking for cars a day, which we don’t remember from the last time we were here, but I guess they have stuff worth paying for – look at this!
We headed up to the entrance, really feeling the cold now. It was not going to hit the mid 60s, which had been forecast for today, at this rate. We decided to get our photo taken with an “astronaut”, which was a fun touch.
I made a beeline for the restrooms, and was still outside in time for the opening. I think we were about third in one line – there were two to go through security and the turnstiles.
At 9:00am, they announced that the center was open, but first it was the National Anthem before anyone was allowed in. I have to say that the security checks here were pretty poor – you walk through a metal detector, but your bag undergoes no check at all. There were areas for checking bags, but I guess they just pick people at random, which seemed a bit bizarre to me.
We headed past the Rocket Garden…
… and got some photos of the complex on the way over to Atlantis…
The entrance is very impressive, and gives you a good sense of scale of the size of the thing!
Yes, that is me standing underneath it!
Then you enter, and you wind your way up a slope that circles the inner structure that holds Atlantis.
Wow! They certainly have made some improvements! Sounds like a very interesting, informative day ahead of you. Sorry about the weather being chilly. Hopefully you were able to stay warm though!
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When we go to WDW I usually take one day and do something else - this year it is LEGOLAND but next visit I am considering Kennedy Space Center. I went there on my very first visit to Disney "1975-ish" all I remember was a bunch of cement slabs and an incredibly boring bus ride to look at all of them. Not like that now. we have come a long way in 40 years.
When we go to WDW I usually take one day and do something else - this year it is LEGOLAND but next visit I am considering Kennedy Space Center. I went there on my very first visit to Disney "1975-ish" all I remember was a bunch of cement slabs and an incredibly boring bus ride to look at all of them. Not like that now. we have come a long way in 40 years.
They've come a long way since I last visited and I think that was back in 2007....
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We decided to get our photo taken with an “astronaut”, which was a fun touch. 
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