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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thanks Laurie - I'll have to see if in fact they do take reservations. I know, I'll call and say...."I'd like to make an ADR -and then see what the person on the other end of the phone says! - pretty slick, right?!
I think I'm up to day four - If I haven't run completely out of money, I think this morning we will have a full breakfast out somewhere. Everywhere you look up there you see something with Maine Blueberries on the menu. So blueberry pancakes sound great to me. If the coffee stinks, I'll have to venture over to this great coffee place I found last year - Coffee Hound Coffee Bar (I think that's what it's called). That java is good.
Today I believe we will grab some sandwhiches to take on a picnic drive to Asticou Gardens and Thuya Gardens in Northeast Harbor. That is just a short drive towards the other side of the island. (When I hit the lottery, I plan to buy property in Northeast Harbor. Martha Stewart has a house here apparently. And all of YOU are invited to visit.)
The gardens are beautiful to walk through. IF YOU CAN FIND THE ENTRANCE! Seriously, it took us quite a while to find this locale. But it was worth it. I took some pictures and will post them here - albiet they are wee in size because as you all know, I haven't figured out that Photobucket thing yet. So just click on the pic and it will be large enough for you to see without needing your readers....LOL
The sandwiches will be from Adelman's Deli. I figure we can drive back into the Park and find a scenic place to eat our bags full of yumminess.
Here's a comical story for you - well I thought it was hilarious at the time. Anyway, last year I was once again searching for some good iced coffee and I stopped into some place on the main drag. The service was painfully slow, but hey I was on vacation so I didn't care. And I could relate to being the young kid working behind the counter, as I was one of those kids at one time! So Tom and I are patiently waiting and waiting (for two iced coffees, mind you) and this customer walks in and asks.....wait for it....."can you tell me where I can find a good lobster roll"???? We all look at eachother. I mean really, guy, you are in Downeast Maine - the "land of the lobster! The nice girl behind the counter tries not to laugh, and she says...umm there's a place right next door. Then my wise-ass Tom says, go out the door, turn left walk two feet and you'll find a place. Or turn right and walk two feet and you'll be sure to find ten places that serve good lobster rolls. Everyone starts to laugh. Except the guy who came in to ask I think Tom was getting impatient....what do you think?
My real hope for this trip is that I can swing taking them on some sort of boat excursion. Puffin and whale watching. Or on this cruise at dusk on the Margaret Todd - a beautiful schooner. I would love to fit that into our week somehow. And I can't forget trying to get in at least two nights of sunsets on top of Cadillac Mountain.
Keep your fingers crossed for decent weather - I have to STOP looking at Acu Weather, it is making me crazy
Well, I guess that is it, as the next day we drive home - perhaps I'll stop off at Boothbay Harbor, on the way home. I hear that is nice too and believe it or not, I have never been there. Even though I could have driven there at least once in my 48 years of living in New England! Thanks for reading along as I enjoyed typing out my thoughts and sharing them with all of you....
Here are those tiny photo's from last year's trip: IMG_2685.jpg
While I was digging through my tiny photos, I came across these and thought I'd share! I was lucky enough to go to a PowerSchool University training at the Disneyland Hotel last June!!!! SCORE!! We use PowerSchool as our student information system at work, and they felt I was important enough to go.
Disneyland Hotel is amazing and here are some pics: We only had time to go into the park one night and it was crazy busy and the people I were with, although super nice, were not Disneyfied - like us...oh well:
(tiny pics - please click on them to enhance. on second thought keep them small, as I look smaller
This bar had animal bar stools and I was on the zebra one - it had a tail1 and I was in black and white so go figure! 1008768_10151503102933837_1103075222_o.jpg
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Oh, the gardens in Northeast harbor, YES! As if you don't have enough on your list, check to see if the Rockefeller gardens are open to the public at all while you're there. The gardens are phenomenal there-- incredible perennial borders-- and they used to be open one day a week in August. You've got me very excited for your trip! (the little photos of little you are just fine!)
Love your plans - and how lucky were you to go to Disneyland for your Powerschool training. Our district uses Powerschool as well - but our people were trained by a trainer that came to us - no fun trips on our budget
It's been a while since I've been to Bar Harbor but your plans look fantastic - you have some lucky girls! I have fond memories of blueberry picking on Cadillac Mt. - there were wild berries growing everywhere!
For those of you following along here is an update: rain! It looks like rain for all or most of the week. All of my plans can/will change. So I will post when I get back for all of you that are wondering what to do in Bar Harbor in inclement weather
Well thank goodness there is internet access in our room! Yup its raining today - ALOT. However, yesterday was beautiful!
Here's what we did yesterday. Our road trip was uneventful and passed rather quickly. We stopped at our local coffee shop before leaving our town and grabbed some breakfast sandwiches and good iced coffees for the road. The sky was blue the whole way up! We stopped after three hours at a McDonalds for a stretch and bio break (thanks Cam for that cute phrase). We grabbed two cokes and finished the rest of our journey to the Holiday Inn Regency.
The very nice desk attendant checked us in, but he was a bit new. So he needed his supervisor to finish the check in process. I wanted to pay in full in cash (so I wouldn't spend the $) and he needed help. I had originally booked a partial ocean view and when I was shown on a map the location, I asked if he had a full ocean view and he did for $20 more a night. I took it. The room is great. The view is amazing.
We headed right out to the pool, as I figured this may be our only opportunity to do so. A side note here, President Obama stayed at this hotel 3 years ago. I was staying at the Harborside on that trip and was here when he came. All I'm saying is that it was super disruptive on that trip and people here STILL talk about it!
Anyway, the pool is beautiful. The view is sweeping of Frenchman's Bay. This hotel has the best view on the island. We ordered a great BBQ chicken sandwich which came with yummy sweet potato fries that we split, along with spinach dip and chips. My daughter got a non-alcohol pina colada and I got a margarita. Both were tasty. We swam and sunned ourselves. It was so relaxing. They have music piped in at the pool area and all the songs were from my era .
We headed back to the room for a shower and a change and grabbed the free Island Explorer Bus service to the downtown area. You see, parking in downtown is very very difficult. This is the first time I took this free shuttle service and found it very efficient. The bus arrived the minute we walked out the door!
Because we ate by the pool and were still full, we decided after some shopping to get ice cream only. As usual, the ice cream was delish. We did some shopping and got some gifts for those back home. I got a sweatshirt for myself, but when I got back to our room and tried it on, I found it too small. I'll have to return it at some point this week. So our first day and night were fabulous!
Unfortunately, the rain is bad today and will continue through tomorrow. So I'll have to see how that goes....
I'm glad you got one day of perfect weather in at least! How fabulous to have such a wonderful view. Well worth the money for the upgrade, especially since you will probably spend more time in the room than planned if the rain continues. Such a shame you've got this rainy period when we've had a very dry July until now. Hope the sun comes out tomorrow!
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- pretty slick, right?!
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. I mean really, guy, you are in Downeast Maine - the "land of the lobster! The nice girl behind the counter tries not to laugh, and she says...umm there's a place right next door. Then my wise-ass Tom says, go out the door, turn left walk two feet and you'll find a place. Or turn right and walk two feet and you'll be sure to find ten places that serve good lobster rolls. Everyone starts to laugh. Except the guy who came in to ask
DLinNH
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