Go your own way - Decade of Dreams - UPDATED 6/24 - COMPLETE!! - Page 70 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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When we came out, Wendy decided to head back to the room and even though it was hot as hell, I decided to stick with it, as the next stop was Kilimanjaro Safarias and I never say no to a ride on that, even if we had just gone this morning. As Jennifer said, every ride is different. The wait time said 20 minutes, but we only had a five minute wait and then we were boarding. This time we split into a couple of groups and we didn’t have the whole truck to ourselves, which was a shame, but we still had a good time and saw a fair few animals, so life was good.
We had quite a wait when we came off to meet up with the other group, but while we were waiting, we saw Justin, our driver from this morning’s guides safari:
When the rest of our group arrived, there were lots of presentations of prizes, as sadly this was to be the last official PassPorter meet of the Decade of Dreams tour.
This gorilla wandered down to see us during the presentations!
Just before the presentations, Mark called and it was so good to speak to him, with everyone yelling “hi” to him and Angie screaming “Piglet loves you”. Very funny.
I didn’t want the prize giving to end, as that meant the end of Decade of Dreams really. It was great, despite that.
After it was over, I went around and said my goodbyes to everyone. It was made better by the fact that we would be seeing a lot those faces again in December and I can’t wait for that.
With a lump in my throat and tears threatening, I headed back through the park. I felt really choked up that this was coming to an end and I never thought I would be like this. Of course, this time, there was the silver lining that this coming to end meant that I would be seeing Mark when I got home, which made me feel better.
I stopped for a PassPorter picture on the way out of the park..
… then I browsed a couple of shops, but found nothing I liked. As I left the park, I picked up a Sprite and the guy who was working locker rental automatically said “$5” to me, as that was the refund for the lockers. I told him I didn’t think so and he apologised. I headed out to get a bus back to the Contemporary and fortunately, there was one waiting and, even better, I managed to snag one of the last seats on board it, which was a relief.
Next: that’s the lowest room charge I’ve ever had!
Sorry the tour is coming to a close, but like you said, you'll be back in December (lucky girl!!), and who knows what Jennifer & Dave will have planned for the next decade?
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I love this one: "Hey! Little girl! Ovah heah. Yeah. Got a Mickey Bar on ya?"
Now that's funny enough to make the "coming to an end blues" a little better!
Great updates, Cheryl! The PP meets looked like a lot of fun was had by all. I think it's great that Angie thought enough to call out a greeting from Mark's favorite "pork belly"!
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Tuesday 5 May – part five: that’s the lowest room charge I’ve ever had!
I was back in the room by 4.00 and we spent some time on the Internet, before enjoying our final glasses of wine. We decided to head down after a while, as we were in need of a snack and we found just the thing, a Mickey bar at the Contempo Café. We took it outside on the fourth floor to eat it and to spill it everywhere, well that was mainly me!
That finished, we took some photos and then I went to have a look at the shops. I knew that I had a fair bit of money still left over and I wanted to see if there were any other T-shirts for Mark and I found lots in there. Not just one for him, but one for me, a purple Minnie T-shirt that I had admired the other day, along with some birthday presents for our nieces and nephews, Christmas ornaments and a scrapbooking kit. In fact, I found so much that I decided to leave the purchases there and go to the front desk to find out we owed.
The bill was only $226, which was literally just three meals and the Internet charge. I think we both figured that’s the lowest room charge either of us have ever had. Wow, usually I’m worrying about when they will have to charge because we’ve hit the $1500 limit.
We paid it off and then it was back to the shop, where I decided I still had enough money for everything I wanted. $150 poorer and it was back to the room, where the suitcases were already half packed, to work out how the heck I was going to fit all of my new additions into it. They went in fine though, so that was OK.
We spent some more time online and I have to say here the power of the Internet is very weird. It’s so strange to go into the window seat forum and see things there that you were at jus a couple of hours earlier and even weirder when photos start to appear from meets that are taking place right now elsewhere at Disney. Very, very odd, but fun to see and be able to comment on them.
As the time ticked round, it got to 6.40 and it was time for Wendy to check in for her flight on Southwest for the next day. I swear we were checking every few second and when it finally opened, she got A27. I can not believe how fast these things go…
After that was done, we headed out to the Wilderness Lodge. We were very lucky and there was a boat already there, although as we got closer, we could see that actually we weren’t that lucky, because there had obviously been a protein spill in it, as you could smell the bleach being used in there. The captain was hard at work, so it was clear that boat wasn’t going to be going anywhere any time soon, but fortunately, there was another one already on the way over.
I don’t know how we did it, but when we went to Fort Wilderness a few days ago, that was our first stop and tonight the Wilderness Lodge was the first stop, which worked out perfectly.
When we got there, we explored the grounds and Wendy showed me the beach here that I never knew they had. It’s beautiful with white sand and the more I come here, the more I do love this resort.
We walked into the Villas at the Wilderness Lodge and I really preferred this to the main building. I love the fact they used a lot of different colours when they built this, as it gives it a lot more character and the sitting areas are great. It’s got a very homely feel to it. I think all the DVC resorts are great, although of course, my heart still belongs to the Beach Club Villas.
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