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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Everyone wore something Disney, whether it was a t-shirt, underwear, trading pin, hat, I didn't care just as long as it was something Disney. Most of us wore the headband type ears that I bought back in '03)
For dinner we had: Le Cellier Cheese Soup, Mustang Sally's Meatloaf(from whispering canyon cafe), mashed taters, steamed broccoli, cheesecake and warm apple cobbler.
The meatloaf and soup were right on!! As soon as I tasted them, I was transported back to WDW!!
The adults like the soup, but the kids didn't care for it. One bite was enough for them. But I'm glad they tried it.
My sister was running a bit late, actually she was on time, dinner was just ready early.
They were the last to eat. It was kind of fun watching my sister eat. She just had her surgery for Carpal Tunnel on Friday and she had to eat left handed. She did well.
After they finished, I gathered everybody in my living room. It was time for FUN!!!
We started off by having everyone say something they remembered about their first trip, or if they haven't been yet(my BIL and niece Aliyah)what they were looking forward to.
Kasey said she remember how hot it was and how much we walked.
Mom remembered her first trip, she rode a ride with her grandma.
Whitney remembered how WET it was(june 02 was really really wet)
Aliyah said she can't wait to meet Mickey and to buy a hat(keep in mind she's only 3)
Carlee said she can't wait to ride BTMRR again.
Ben remembered back in 1971 how riding the Haunted Mansion scared the living daylights out of him(he was 7 years old).
Josh remembered how he got to help open the park by waving a Jolly Roger flag.
Dexter remembered how the first day we were there, we went swimming and he got his toe broken in the pool. Poor guy limped around the rest of the week!
Terri(my sister)remembered that grandpa brought the wrong credit card and mom had to pay for everything(i remember that now, grandpa was very upset).
Kaylie remembered her first ride on TOT.
Steve remembered about going to DL with his dad and that he's really looking forward to seeing his daughter's face when she sees the Castle!
I made Dexter, Kasey, Kaylie, Josh and Carlee journals for the trip. I also had made a journal for myself, my mom and sister.
After that was over, I passed out the PLUTO game. These were hand drawn(badly)squares with things related to WDW on them. For the free space, I had Pluto's paw print. One paper had a castle for the free space.
Mom was the first one to get it, but my sister(at the same time)said PLUTO! Mom graciously let Terri have the prize. LOL!
Terri's prize was a $10 disney dollar. Then I asked what was on their free space. Everyone said a paw print, but Kaylie said "I have some kind of house on mine" so she won that prize--a $5 disney dollar.
Everyone was having a great time. So I bring out the prize for the next game. A three piece set of luggage. I passed out the trivia game and then let them have a go at the answers for 5 minutes. I kind of felt bad, Terri was working really hard at writing with her bandaged hand. In hindsight, I probably should have written her answers down for her, but she did a good job.
Surprisingly, or not so surprisingly, Joshua won the luggage! He answered 7 questions correctly!! Even the "I am not a crook"(richard nixon) at the contemporary question!!
I swear that I did not let my family know the questions ahead of time!!!
Ben was next up with 6.5 answers right!! Guess they pay attention to me after all!
Now it was down to business. I had passed out calendar pages to my mom and sister so we could work out a 'sort of' touring schedule. We have a small list of PS that we want to do.
She wants her first full day at WDW to have MK as the park, so that will also be the day that we have our big dinner together. I had already decided where we were going to eat--Chef Mickeys. Everyone was game, especially when I mentioned that this particular meal was on Ben and I. Lots of from my sister and BIL on that one!
After getting our PS figured out(basically I just mentioned them and they agreed)I brought out THE BAGS.
Everyone knew I was making bags. Some people knew one thing that was in the bag, but nobody but Josh and I knew everything that was in there.
They were a big hit. Mom put hers on and I about cried!! I loved it!! She looked positively goofy in it! Actually, we all looked goofy!
I just made the request that everyone where their shirts and ears when we eat at Chef Mickeys because we get our picture taken.
Terri, Steve and the girls have unused PHP tickets so they'll be able to go to the water parks. I've got my BIL convinced that it really is okay that the kids go off by themselves. I let him know that I'd let Josh and Carlee go off with Dexter and have no problem with it.
Before I know it, the party is winding down. We've discussed everything we possibly could. The trick with my family is, since everyone talks at once, you've got to be the loudest! Ben said I did a great job doing that! Heehee!!
We had a great time, everyone was pleased as punch with their goodies. Everyone left with their bellies still full and I'm sure they slept with visions of Space Mountain in their heads!!
Wow! Wendy, now that is a fantastic planning night party!! What wonderful ideas you had!!! I love the games (and prizes too!!) so cool!!
Gee, back when we were trying to get both sisters, their families and my dad to come with us, I had to gingerly introduce the whole Disney topic to them over dinner. I love that your family obviously loves Disney as much as you do!!!
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Gee, back when we were trying to get both sisters, their families and my dad to come with us, I had to gingerly introduce the whole Disney topic to them over dinner. I love that your family obviously loves Disney as much as you do!!!
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It's been a long hard road. I started basically hounding them in 2003. I told my sister and her family that the room was on us. They're using my points to stay the 5 nights at BCV. My mom and nephew are staying with us. I've tried to make this trip as inexpensive as possible. Now we're just waiting for room only codes to (hopefully)come out for their first 2 nights at POR!!
This was one of the reasons we joined DVC and bought enough points--so that all of the family can use them.
I might do another meeting closer to the time. I can just picture it, discussing our WDW trip while we're swimming in my pool and having a BBQ!
Wendy!! What a fantastic party!!! You have totally inspired me to do this next month....
We had a get-together yesterday with our grand gatethering participants, but it was mostly planning stuff - money, GG events decisions, ticket options. The kids weren't even involved -- they ran off and played. Although, after three hours of the adults talking, the littlest one said -- as he was putting on his coat to leave -- "but.... we didn't get to talk about Disney!"
Now, I'm gonna get to work to make a "launch" party so it's fun for everybody!
What a great party! I had our friends over last Thursday to have a preliminary meeting, but after tax season (my DH is an accountant and we can't plan anything until after April 15!) we're going to have a major planning meeting with Flame Tree Bar-B-Que and any other special recipes I can find online. I love the idea of the bags and think I'm going to do something like that. I have collected so many bars of Mickey soap and bottles of shampoo that I can use to fill some bags. You went all out with the autograph book, tshirt, lanyard . . . ! I wish I were in your group!!
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so she won that prize--a $5 disney dollar.
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