Let's Start at the very beginning - PTR:August 17-31 2014 - Page 21 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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After 2 full weeks in the parks you would think all we are gonna do is hop on a plane and go home. But nope we still have a few things left on our to-do this.
This morning will be a chance to sleep in a little but final packing will need to be done and checking out of the hotel. We will need to do that before we will be heading over to DTD for the House of Blue Gospel Brunch.
I have wanted to do this for some time. There is a HOB in Atlantic City and I have considered going but for whatever reason(s) just have not done it. I enjoy some good, toe tapping, soul uplifting, gospel music at times. I don’t want to hear it all day every day but on occasion I enjoy it. Plus I think Evan will like it too. Again going back to part of his culture and exposing him to more of that. This is a surprise to everyone and afraid that both boys might be like “What? Is this church?” or “I don’t want to go” this where telling them that I want to go and they need to do something nice for me may need to be discussed. Honestly this is the only area I think we may have an issue.
The brunch begins at 10:30 and the next brunch is at 1pm so I assume we will be done by 12:30 at the latest. We will still have our car so hopefully getting to DTD won’t take too long.
After HOB I have one more surprise for the boys. I’m taking them to RideMakerz over in the Marketplace and letting them design their own RC cars. They have no idea this place even exists so if something happens and we can’t go, they won’t be disappointed. I’m planning on giving them each $100.00 to spend so they should really be able to bling up any vehicle they choose. Now normally I would never spend that kind of money but I’m budgeting for it and hey, it’s vacation right?
So after the purchases at Ridemakerz we will again have some free time before we have to head to the airport. Our flight is at 6pm so we will need to leave the bubble around 3pm to be able to return the car and get through security.
I assume we will have a few hours to kill so I will once again let this be the boy’s choice of things to do. Here are a few ideas… Disney Quest, renting a pontoon boat and exploring the
Sassagoula River, walk around DTD to see anything we missed, movies, bowling, back to the SOG pool, water park, theme park ( if we still have days left on our tickets and we can get FP+), explore a new resort, mini golf. What do you all do on your last day with only a few hours to kill?
Well whatever we do we will need to be back on the road about 3 pm. Dinner will be at the airport and then our flight home around 6pm.
What a trip huh!
Firsts:
For all of us HOB Gospel Brunch and RideMakerz
That sounds like a great last day. I love HOB, but have never done the gospel brunch before. I'm going to be curious to hear how it goes. I heard it's quite lively in there! I bet the boys are going to really excited about RideMakerz!
Normally we stay at the Boardwalk Villas so our last few hours typically involves wandering around World Showcase before heading back to catch DME. This year will be a bit different since we're driving.
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Sounds like a great day to me! I hope the parking situation at DTD will have eased up somewhat by the time of your trip. I understand it can be pretty bad with all the construction right now.
My mom loved the HOB Gospel Brunch when she did it! I say leave those final few hours up to chance and do whatever you feel like! If it's nice, rent the boat, if it's rainy head to DQ or the movies!
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So it truly is incredible how your life can change in just one moment. That is exactly what happened to me on Friday (5/16).
As you may have read my mother has been having some issues with her leg and has been going to physical therapy to try and alleviate the pain. Unfortunately it hasn’t been working and she has been getting visible worse each day. She has been having various x-rays and scans done to see what the problem is and was told on Friday she has cancer.
This has been completely devastating to her, me and my family. To say it was unexpected would be a complete and utter understatement. My mom eats well, exercises, doesn’t drink or smoke and has taken good care of herself. We are all just coming to terms with this and the shock is starting to wear off.
Mom had breast cancer about 9-10 years ago and has been doing perfectly well since then. She now has cancer in her bones and lungs. The doctor isn’t sure 100% about her lungs as the scans are not presenting themselves as “normal” lung cancer. We are waiting on getting her an appointment to get a biopsy done to confirm what is going on with the lungs but there is definitely an issue.
She 100% has it in her bones and should begin radiation treatments next week which the doctor said will help with her pain almost immediately.
As far as treatment and prognosis, we are still waiting on the biopsy to get confirmation of the type and stage and then we will know how to treat it.
The good news is (if you can call any of this good news) is it looks like a reoccurrence of her breast cancer just now being presented in the bones and lungs. Doing some research I found this can be fairly common. If this is true it should respond well to the same type of treatment she had before. And then the bone cancer becomes manageable almost like a chronic disease. The doctor said he knows patients that have lived productive lives for 5-10 years.
The bad news is if this is bone cancer and not “Breast/Bone” cancer or it is more wide spread then we will have to see what her prognosis will be.
So how does this affect our Disney trip? Well up until last night I would have said it was a no go. I have considered just going me and Evan but coming up with the extra money on short notice will be tight. I just had a huge car repair bill ($800) for the repair and the 3 day car rental. Plus I can’t get the Shades of Green resort without my mom. I planned on paying half of the 70.00 per night so $35.00 per night. To go to even an All Star resort you are looking at about $100.00 a night and me paying all of that. That is like $65.00 per night increase and 14 nights = $910 plus the full cost of the car and everything else.
I spoke to Evan and told him we may not be able to go but I would work doubly hard to save so we could go next summer although will probably be for a shorter time.
At this point everything is on hold.
However, last night the doctor told my mom she could travel as long as she was feeling up to it. The way her leg hurt her there was NO WAY she could handle all the walking. She is having problems, at times, just walking, standing, sitting, sleeping, driving so Disney was truly out of the question.
We are just now in a holding pattern to see how she responds to the radiation treatment and how her leg feels and then what the outcome of the biopsy is and that treatment plan.
If she responds well to everything and IF SHE wants to go, then we will probably go. But that is a lot of if’s right now. For now I’m holding off on cancelling or confirming the trip until July 4th.
That date would still give us time to cancel if need be but also to order tickets and get the FP+ window of 30 days.
We sure could use lots of pixies from everyone. It has been an emotionally exhausting week.
PLEASE anyone who has ever had breast cancer (including my sister) please talk to your doctors about this. I don’t know if there were test that could/hould have been done for those 10 years. I know she didn’t do anything so I don’t know if anything could have been caught sooner. Also don’t assume that “something weird” is just aging or it will go away – PLEASE TALK WITH YOUR DOCTOR!!!!
On the positive side, Evan made the travel soccer team for our town.
Oh Holly - I am so sorry for all that you are dealing with. And I truly hope that if it has to be bad news, it's the better of the two options. I don't know how most doctors work with any types of cancer, but I know my DH doctor has Scott do a full body scan every year now, as he had Thyroid cancer - and the type of cancer it was tends to spread, therefore, every year, we hold our breath and wait.
I agree that you wait to make the decision about the trip - it might just be what all of you need! And you might want to consider looking into scooter options just in case - even though she may be feeling better, she will probably tire easily.
Will keep you and your mom in my thoughts!
__________________
Lisa Co-Guide to Sharing the Adventure: Disney World Trip Reports
I'm so sorry for the news and all the stress you are now having to go through, hopefully starting the treatment will help alleviate some of your mom's pain! for you all!
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