PTR: Thingamabobs, Zebras, & Giraffes, Oh My! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Today we will most likely have breakfast at Landscape of Flavors, as the menu looks interesting for breakfast options.
We will be heading to Epcot for opening at 9:00 a.m. Our first fastpass+ of the day is scheduled for Spaceship Earth……..and I am thinking we really will not need this…….maybe? So if we walk in and see no line for it – we may get right onto the app and cancel that fastpass?
Then depending how quickly Spaceship Earth goes, we might check some of the areas behind Innoventions to see if any of the characters are out and about, the last few trips we have been lucky to find some there, including Chip ‘n Dale, Snow White with her Prince, Aurora with Prince Phillip…………so we will see who we can find!
Our next fastpass+ is for Soarin’! We LOVE this ride! And I will be keeping my fingers crossed for middle section, top row!
Next Fastpass+ is for Living with the Land, again, this ride usually has a pretty short wait time, but we will use that Fastpass+ as we are hoping to be able to get more Fastpasses for the evening time!
Again, all our Fastpasses are for before 12:15, so we will still have plenty of time to wander around. We don’t really have a set plan for this Epcot day, other than do what we can, when we can. We will probably get in to do our Disney Visa meet and greet………..you all know how we love our character interactions! And more than likely we will grab something for lunch around World Showcase. I would like to try to catch more of the movie attractions that many of the countries offer, as we have skipped quite a few of them in the past.
We do not have any real set plans for the later afternoon – but I am thinking we will want to head back to the resort to change and freshen up as we have dinner at Hollywood Brown Derby this evening. We haven’t eaten here in about 9 years or so? So we are looking forward to it!
Disney Hollywood Studios is open until 10 p.m. this evening, so we will fit in what we can after dinner. I am sure all the characters will already be done for the day at this time of the evening, so we will most likely try to ride rides, or possibly see Fantasmic depending on the crowds.
Have I mentioned that we really ARE “Go With the Flow” type of people, and this whole having to book Fastpass+ has its pros and cons for us!!
Oh, and just an tidbit of info………….I caught Scott checking rental car prices again!!!
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Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
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Love all the purchases. Hotopic has become a favorite of ours for Disney purchases. I am going back to spend the $50 gift card I one of shirts for our Oct trip. I love that they pretty much keep the Buy one get one 50% off going all the time and I got one of the reward cards now so I can get some more discounts too!
Day 3 looks great! I have gotten to be more of a go with the flow too, as much as can be with our dining reservations anyway.
Great purchases! I'll be interested to hear how FP+ works for you. I HATE having to plan for them. Hard to play bus roulette in the mornings if you already know what park you're going to!
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Love all the purchases. Hotopic has become a favorite of ours for Disney purchases. I am going back to spend the $50 gift card I one of shirts for our Oct trip. I love that they pretty much keep the Buy one get one 50% off going all the time and I got one of the reward cards now so I can get some more discounts too!
Day 3 looks great! I have gotten to be more of a go with the flow too, as much as can be with our dining reservations anyway.
Thanks! Yes, I do have to say their sales are pretty decent, I got the buy one, get one 50%, then another 15% off my total purchase from an email coupon! . And yes, we pretty much base our park destination on our dining choices.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Great purchases! I'll be interested to hear how FP+ works for you. I HATE having to plan for them. Hard to play bus roulette in the mornings if you already know what park you're going to!
Thanks. It did work well her nit was just two of us at a time when it was still in testing phase.....I am a bit nervous with it being wide open now
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
Sounds like you had a wonderful Mother's day!! Love the purchases, especially that Beauty and the Beast skirt! Plans for the day sound great!
Thanks! I did.
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Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Plans sound great! I'm thinking you'll be getting a rental car for your vacation.
Thanks! We'll see.........we really should SAVE our money.........as we have a possible large expense when we return.........will elaborate on that in next post!!!
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Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
Another brief interruption to this report..............
As many of you know, we recently lost our Lulu (our beloved Pug fur baby). We loved her so much and she was our first family dog ~ and she showed us that we can be a dog family! She came to us when she was 5, left us when she was 10 Way too soon, but it was sudden and she did not suffer, which we are so very grateful for. We started to discuss the possibility of another dog pretty quickly - but decided we would NOT do anything until we returned from this vacation as we would be gone for almost 2 weeks - and although I know my brother would have LOVED to puppy sit - we just didn't want to do that, plus it was just too soon in our hearts. So we had started throwing out ideas, Em had been searching Pet Finder as she wanted another rescue. Well, come to find out one of Em's friends from school family breeds pugs!!! We hadn't even considered another pug, but it was just odd the way this was all playing out. The are very local, very well known show quality (not that we want a show dog - but VERY HEALTHY!) pugs! And they have a litter due at the end of this month or early June, therefore they will be ready to go home end of July or early August - 2 weeks after our return............enough time to get home, settled and prepare house for a puppy!!! So we are now officially on the "notify list" and waiting to hear the news of the arrivals!!! We are BEYOND excited!! So now we will have a HUGE expense basically as soon as we return - with purchasing the puppy and all those puppy vet visits! But it will so worth it - as it is so hard coming home missing that scrunchy face greeting me at the door - and besides our younger cat, George, is still very sad - he really missed his buddy -they truly were best buds! So hopefully George won't mind a fat little ball of energy!!
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Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
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So if we walk in and see no line for it – we may get right onto the app and cancel that fastpass? 
And more than likely we will grab something for lunch around World Showcase. I would like to try to catch more of the movie attractions that many of the countries offer, as we have skipped quite a few of them in the past. 
Liz 
Way too soon, but it was sudden and she did not suffer, which we are so very grateful for. We started to discuss the possibility of another dog pretty quickly - but decided we would NOT do anything until we returned from this vacation as we would be gone for almost 2 weeks - and although I know my brother would have LOVED to puppy sit - we just didn't want to do that, plus it was just too soon in our hearts. So we had started throwing out ideas, Em had been searching Pet Finder as she wanted another rescue. Well, come to find out one of Em's friends from school family breeds pugs!!! We hadn't even considered another pug, but it was just odd the way this was all playing out. The are very local, very well known show quality (not that we want a show dog - but VERY HEALTHY!) pugs! And they have a litter due at the end of this month or early June, therefore they will be ready to go home end of July or early August - 2 weeks after our return............enough time to get home, settled and prepare house for a puppy!!! So we are now officially on the "notify list" and waiting to hear the news of the arrivals!!! We are BEYOND excited!! So now we will have a HUGE expense basically as soon as we return - with purchasing the puppy and all those puppy vet visits! But it will so worth it - as it is so hard coming home missing that scrunchy face greeting me at the door - and besides our younger cat, George, is still very sad - he really missed his buddy -they truly were best buds! So hopefully George won't mind a fat little ball of energy!! 
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