PassPorters playing together at Hallowe’en! THREAD 6 UPDATED 1/22 - Page 7 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great pics of Fort Sumter Cheryl! While traveling on the boat on the way to the Fort, we had dolphins swimming right near the boat. They were such a sight to see. The Fort was my favorite part of our trip to Charleston. The Park Rangers gave a very entertaining and informative speech on the battles that took place there. I wish we had more time to walk around the museum though. Can't wait for more.
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Great updates Cheryl - and I am glad you and Mark are enjoying the National Park Passport. I wish I could see your photos of Charleston - but NONE of them loaded in the report and I reloaded a couple of times. Not sure why it didn't work - but I enjoyed reading about it.
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Thursday 9 November – part three: stepping back into history
When we finally came out of there, we had already used up half an hour of the time we had on the island. We only had just over an hour on the fort and it really isn’t long enough to see everything. Next we walked to the back area of the fort to get some photos. The sky was beautiful and clear blue with not a cloud to be seen anywhere. It couldn’t have been more perfect if you tried.
We had a quick look in the shop and got a book about the fort and then walked around the outside of the fortifications and then we heard the last call for the boat. It was far too soon. The time had gone way too quickly.
On the way back, there was more narration, but not as much to see. If you come to Charleston, a visit to Fort Sumter should definitely be on your “to do” list, it’s a great use of two hours of your time and I can thoroughly recommend it.
What we did notice was that the vast majority of people that went out to the fort were all pensioners and many of them were on cruises. I couldn’t help but think that was quite sad actually that these people were all doing their dream vacations and a lot of them had problems walking or getting around, so couldn’t enjoy it to the full. It made me more determined than ever to continue travelling while we’re young and fit enough to be able to fully enjoy it.
We picked the car up and the parking here was also pretty reasonable, about $5 for three hours. A lot of the cities could learn from Savannah and Charleston on this issue, as parking is overpriced in many cities, such as San Francisco, Philadelphia and London.
We drove down to the Historic District, so I could get some photos of some of the more famous sites there:
The United States Custom House
Beautiful old buildings
Gas lamps add to the atmosphere
Old Exchange Building
Rainbow Row – a row of multi coloured houses, seen on most postcards, but very hard to photograph!
The Edmonston-Alston House, which was the first house on the High Battery in 1825.
White Point Gardens at the Battery
Carriage rides are popular here too!
The Calhoun Mansion, Charleston’s largest single residence, built in 1876
The Nathaniel Russell house, built in 1808 and considered to be the finest example of a Federal brick style residence in the US. It was restored, after its roof was blown off in Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
First (Scots) Presbyterian Church
St. Michael’s Episcopal Church
The Charleston County Courthouse
Market Hall, which dates back to 1841. This was also severely damaged during Hurricane Hugo.
If you can only visit two sites in Charleston, these are the two to see – Fort Sumter and the Historic District of the town. We both agreed that Charleston is somewhere that we’d like to come back to, as one day hadn’t been enough time to see everything and there is still a lot more than we would like to do there.
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The South is certainly beautiful.
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