The way We do a Disney Re-Do ~~ Beach club Aug 13-22 - FINISHED!!! 1/20 - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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It definitely is a slow moving boatride from DHS to the resorts....but most of the time we found the time to relax a plus and as your little one figured out, it is a great time to take a quick nap
Loved the surprise in your room, those strawberries looked delicious. I actually made some at home recently (with some dairy free chocolate chips) and even my oldest proclaimed them better then the ones that they sell at the bakery (even though I think the true trick is getting some amazingly sweet starwberries )
The slow moving boat was nice--when not in a hurry--when rushed the pace is torture! LOL!
Dairy free chocolate chips???? Where do you find such things??
Not really sure what time we awoke this day; we were in no rush! We ate breakfast in the room and decided to check out the pool before making our way to Epcot.
We had not yet adjusted to FL weather, and we thought a nice cool swim would be a great way to start our day. The temp at this time of day was in the high 80’s but the dew point was already about 74 putting the heat index in the high 90’s.
I knew the pool would be great--after all, SAB is the reason that I chose BC over the other deluxe resorts. That said, we loved it more than we ever expected! We happened to arrive at the time the pool opened (10:00). At this time of day we had our choice of chairs. Not sure where the best place for us would be, we staked out a spot by the beach area, slathered on the sunscreen and made our way to the water.
The water was not cool and refreshing…but it was wonderful. My littlest loved that she had such a big pool to explore without needing floaties. (We swim a lot at home in the summer, but the pools we use are deeper than her height, so she always has to swim with floaties). The oldest two loved playing in the sand.
Although MN is known as the “land of 10,000 lakes,” our summers are so short and lake water so cold, that we spend more time in heated pools than cold lakes. Since we do not often get to beaches, playing in wet sand and making sand castles was a huge treat for our kids.
We did not bring our camera to the pool, as we did not want to worry about it getting wet or lost. I hoped to take more pics as the week went on, but alas, no. I will refer you now to Cam’s last TR for awesome pool pictures!
We got lunch at Hurricane Hanna’s as soon as it opened (11:00). The kids loved that the kids meals were served in sand pails! Such a nice touch! I ordered the pesto turkey sandwich with fries. The sandwich was HUGE and I ate 1/3 of it and gave the rest to DH (we were planning to be frugal with our meal credits to ensure we would never “go hungry.”) The smoothies here were awesome and I was thrilled they counted as a dessert for the adult meals!
Cooled off and well-fed, it was time to return to the room and get ready for Epcot (and time for me to load up on ibuprofen and caffeine for my splitting headache!).
From this point on, I will try to provide the daily “weather report.” I have seen many threads here discussing the temperature at WDW in August. Like so much of my WDW research, I keep reading until I find a perspective, or experience that fits my view of the world (or how I wish it would be).
Long ago, an August visitor wrote that she “prepared herself for the surface of the sun.” Compared to that, the reality of WDW in August seemed very manageable! I connected with that idea, and tried to prepare myself “for the surface of the sun.”
Well…
Here in MN, the summer temperatures are often presented with dew point information as well. All of our lakes and farmland can make it pretty muggy in the summer, and our weather folks have trained us to know just how uncomfortable it will feel by looking at the dew points...40’s and below are nice and dry—air warms and cools quickly based on the sun; 50’s are pretty comfy; 60’s are getting very sticky…and 70’s are “oppressive.” The heat index (“feels like” temperature) is the air temp with the dew point factored in. In MN, as we approach heat indices close to 100, activities are cancelled and most sane people stay in air conditioning or near water.
How was I to know that the dew point temperature could really go much higher than our “oppressive”…???
Reflecting on it now, I imagined the surface of the sun to be more of a “dry heat.”
What we stepped into was a sauna—air so damp your glasses fogged as soon as you stepped outside; so thick you could feel it enter your lungs—My “reactive airways” reacted and made it difficult to breathe.
I was not about to let that hold us back or ruin our Disney joy—I grabbed an absorbent towel, my inhaler and managed through. (DH said he was pretty impressed by how quickly I adapted to pony tails and wiping off sweat!)
That said, we still spent much of our days finding shade, choosing the inside attractions, and trying to avoid long outside lines while the sun was shining. It changed our touring plans. Instead of getting an early start, and getting back to the resort, we often stayed at parks after dark, then slept in and got to the parks in the afternoon.
By about day 4, I stopped using sunscreen, because I was realizing that I would have less of a tan AFTER our WDW trip than when I left!
Ok…next up….Future World—Here we come (really this time!)
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I give you credit, girl, I would never go in Aug! It's hot enough in the middle of Sept.
SAB sounds fab! It is the only reason I would ever want to stay at the BC and they get you with the fact that you can't use that pool unless you are staying there. Thus, I will prolly never make it there, LOL.
What great updates, I've gotten behind. I love the weather update, ugh. SAB just sounds so fun. Glad that you found good touring routines that worked for you guys! Can't wait for more!
Just got all caught up! Sounds like things have improved compared to your PTR. I am so glad that through the GAC you can enjoy your trip. Awesome that you got TSMM in! We rode it twice as well. The hotel is gorgeous though I wish you had stuck with the larger photos lol. I cant wait to hear more!