Our Stop and Smell the Roses (a.ka. ditching the itinerary) Trip Report- COMPLETE!! 2/16 - Page 11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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OK Heather, I think you have just gotten me started on wanting a new collection. Those posters are so !! I love the small world one and the HM one. Thanks so much for posting them. I absolutely them! Ken was standing here and said, "Where did that person get those from? How cool!"
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OK Heather, I think you have just gotten me started on wanting a new collection. Those posters are so !! I love the small world one and the HM one. Thanks so much for posting them. I absolutely them! Ken was standing here and said, "Where did that person get those from? How cool!"
They are fun to collect! I'm already thinking about which one to get next time. The small sized print-on-demand are only $22 plus shipping and now that they put the white border around them to standardize the size so custom framing isn't needed, they really are a bargain.
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Originally Posted by booklady1
I have enjoyed your report. LOVE your purse!!
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Originally Posted by MickeyMAC
Great pictures and great trip report.
Thank you both!
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Originally Posted by elisa1006
Sounds like you had a fantastic last day! Awesome posters!
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Originally Posted by Cam22
the posters! Beautiful!
Thanks! The posters make me smile every time I pass them.
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great last day!
Thanks -- I agree!
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Originally Posted by Russi01
sorry to see that your trip is coming to an end.
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Originally Posted by lissybri
So sorry to see your TR come to an end. Thanks for sharing with us. BTW, I love your posters.
I'm sorry to see it end too -- so I'll be back for one more update and then some final thoughts.
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.
We had set the alarm for 6 a.m. and I didn't even hear it go off! DH got up to first and I don't remember anything until he woke me up at 6:30 a.m. We tried to let DD sleep as long as possible.
Shortly after 7:30 a.m. we started heading over to the DME bus stop. Our final folio had never shown up on the door . Not sure if that's because we had requested a print-out the night before, but I stopped at the concierge desk to ask about it and the CM told us that if it hadn't shown up by now it probably wouldn't be coming. At this point I mainly just didn't want it sitting on the door with our personal information after we left. I grabbed some fruit loops for DD to munch on and we were off.
There were quite a few people waiting for DME -- probably more than I'd ever seen on a previous trip. The bus came right on time and we were at MCO by 8:30 a.m. The check-in line at SWA was huge! Between that and security it took us about an hour to get through. I was really glad that we hadn't taken a car service like I was originally planning. If we'd done that I was going to request a 8:30 or 8:45 pick-up and I think that would've been cutting it too close for comfort.
Sadly, I couldn't get my traditional Chick-Fil-A meal because it was Sunday and they are closed on Sundays (plus it was only about 9:30 a.m.!). We settled for breakfast at McD's instead.
We weren't at the gate long at all before they started the boarding process. We had a little bit of a strange experience with the line-up. There was only one person in A 1-15 and then a father and daughter in front of us had A 16 and 17. My family had A 18-20, so betwen the two of them and us we were the A 16-20 group. Yet there was this other guy standing right behind the father and daughter. When we approached he asked what numbers we had. I told him and he said, "oh yeah, you're here" but then only stepped back about half a step -- barely enough room for me, let alone all three of us! I don't know if he was trying to jump the line or what, but at best he had A21 so he should have at least been in the next section, not the middle of ours. So we're scrunching in shoulder to shoulder and DH is trying to keep DD out of the walkway and this guy won't budge. Highly annoying!
In the midst of all this, we had left our folded up stroller in the seating area. Thank goodness a nice lady I had been talking to noticed and ran over to let me know. Man, that would've been horrible to lose our stroller! Phew.
We finally boarded and we got the bulkhead. Yay! I didn't have to worry about DD putting her feet on the seat in front of us or playing with the tray. Loved it!
The flight was uneventful and in no time at all we were back at BDL. It was still early so we stopped over at my parents' house for lunch and to tell them about the trip.
After lunch we hit the road back to our house, listenting to the park soundtrack CD all the way home! It was a little bittersweet.
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!! I love the small world one and the HM one. Thanks so much for posting them. I absolutely 
them! Ken was standing here and said, "Where did that person get those from? How cool!"
Deb
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Pixie Dust
Deb
![[SIGPIC]](signaturepics/sigpic27594_7.gif)
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. Not sure if that's because we had requested a print-out the night before, but I stopped at the concierge desk to ask about it and the CM told us that if it hadn't shown up by now it probably wouldn't be coming. At this point I mainly just didn't want it sitting on the door with our personal information after we left. I grabbed some fruit loops for DD to munch on and we were off.
. Highly annoying! 
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