Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - Page 64 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Saturday 9 April – part one: meeting the invisible princess
I was up sickeningly early again today. Having gone to bed at just after 10pm last night, I was awake at just after 4.30am. I stayed in bed and tried to sleep, until 5.15am, when I had to get up to make a bathroom stop, so I figured I might as well get up. I spent the next couple of hours writing up trip report, checking out the boards and our Photopass pictures from yesterday and uploading photos, so it was certainly time well spent.
Just before 7am, I figured I’d make some tea, but of course, we still hadn’t got any milk, so I headed out to the Marketplace to go and get some and replenish our fast diminishing sugar stocks. On the way, I got a few more photos of my beloved Beach Club:
When I got there, you could go in, but only really to refill your mug, with the rest not opening until 7am, so I hung around, did what any self respecting Disney fan would do – and took a few more photos...
Purchases bought, it was back to the room to start the day in true British style, with a nice cuppa. While I was on the boards, I noticed that Wendy was up as well, as had posted on my trip report. I sent her a text message to ask what time she was leaving for the Magic Kingdom and during our text conversation, she told me that the Magic Kingdom opened at 8.00 today. When? I had it down as opening at 9.00. Ok, well, let’s get moving then!
We did get moving and were out of the door by 7.45, which wasn’t bad going. : We drove over to the Contemporary and had no problem getting in there. In fact, we didn’t even get a three hour parking permit, which has to be a first for us. Despite that, we still went valet parking – a bit silly in hindsight I guess.
We saw a lot of these “DH” buses around property – Heather thought it might be Disney Handicapped?
We walked over to the Magic Kingdom and already it was hot and we were sweating when we got there. We stopped to get some Photopass photos done and some photos of our own on the way in.
Then we headed into Town Square, but we didn’t get very far, as we stopped for the new character greeting area in the theatre. Wow, it was really cool in here! It looks like it’s here for a long time, rather than just being a short term thing while the Fantasyland expansion continues.
We had a choice of either Mickey or the princesses and we went for the princesses, as we would be seeing the main mouse tonight for dinner.
We walked straight through and had only a couple of families in front of us. Belle and Cinderella were there, but there seemed to be someone missing. There was an area all set up, but no-one to be seen, so Mark got some photos with the invisible princess.
Then we found out who it was supposed to be, as our missing princess arrived – Aurora. Mark kept joking that maybe she had had a hard night on the tiles!
We saw all three princesses and all wanted to take my prince’s arm. I figured I’d let them, so long as they gave it back eventually!
When we came out of there, Mark spotted Wendy’s favourite princess, Snow White, so we got in line to see her. While Mark was waiting, I also got some photos around Town Square.
This photo netted us some of the “bonus photos” again:
Sadly, Wendy just missed Snow White (I don’t think that really worried her too much... ) and we met up with them, just as we finished there.
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Loving the bonus photos, especially the ones of Donald! I noticed some bonuses on our CD from AK as well in January. Hmmm, this could be something new they're doing.
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Tanya
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