PTR: The Dunning Family's Triumphant Return to the World - Page 33 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We just found out that he is getting a severance package that will get us through about four months if we budget carefully. And hopefully he will find a new job quickly. He already has two leads! Though one would have us moving out of state...to Las Vegas! Don't know about that...being close to family is pretty important to me and our support system with David's illness is all set up here. But anyway. Pixies for good news soon! Woot.
I'm sorry Jess!!! What horrible timing. Through watching my dad working in various companies you come to quickly realize people don't mean what they say and are very cut throat. It's really sad how there is very little compassion. Hopefully he finds a job soon. If you have to move it might as well be to Florida and work at Disney !
Oh Jess - I am so so sorry
Totally understand what you are going through. Darren was laid off/entire department cut and was off 11 1/2 months and now my mom lost her long term job as well. Despite many leads and interviews Darren hadn't found anything but was rehired at his original company (only 2 of 49 were rehired) except at a lower pay rate and a different department. Does relatively the same work but one level of security lower. Mom's is a workers comp case so it is now an ongoing court issue leaving us financially in a hole...so I totally get it.
It is never good timing but hopefully he can find something soon. Can he apply for unemployment despite the severance package? I hope this work situation doesn't negatively effect the progress he seems to be making medically. Know you and your family are in my thoughts. I hope with all this you are taking good care of your self!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
As of last count before they disconnected David from the email system, 68 people had been laid off from his company. (Part of his job was issuing and deactivating people's security passes, so, ironically, he was informed every time someone was let go...including his name. )
I think, in some weird way, seeing just how many people lost their jobs helped David. He wasn't being malicious about it, but he said "Knowing it really wasn't my fault, that they are really doing a major house cleaning and laying a bunch of people off, made me feel less guilty and depressed about losing my job." I told him it was perfectly fine to feel that way, and that I never blamed him for losing his job to begin with! He's a hard worker, and has been trying to so hard to work despite his rough days.
We went back and forth for hours about whether or not to cancel our Disney World vacation. We looked at the refund policies and talked to AJ (who, you'll remember, was laid off a couple months ago as well), as well as several of our friends. In the end, we decided that we would lose more money than made it worth it. We bought non-refundable flights, and the flights from Seattle to Orlando are not cheap...that's a couple thousand dollars. And then we have all the Disney gift cards that add up to about 1100 dollars that people have given to us and the big one we had purchased with our tax return, that wouldn't help us with bills or food or gas or anything, so that was like throwing money away.
The clincher for us was when David's father, a man who has always been very vocal about his disapproval of our vacations and always seems to be coming down on the negative side about anything and everything we want to do, looked at us at dinner last night and said, very sternly, "I had better not hear anything about a canceled vacation. You guys worked hard to pay that off, and it wouldn't make sense to cancel it now. It's paid for, your daughter is excited about it, you guys are less than two months out...GO ON VACATION. And don't feel guilty. This was absolutely unexpected, losing your job, David, but you DESERVE this vacation."
I am not going to lie. I burst into tears in the middle of the restaurant. I almost hugged him, and we do NOT have that kind of relationship, haha. I think he was mortified that I started crying, because he ignored me for the rest of the meal, except to ask if I was feeling okay because I wasn't eating much. (The meal wasn't agreeing with my pregnant belly, not that it matters...I ate something when I got home. )
It was his reaction I was most concerned about if we decided to go anyway, so to actually get spoken approval from this very-hard-to-please FIL of mine made my whole week, especially after such a crummy couple of days. I know it's so silly to crave his approval so desperately when he doesn't like me and never has, and even has a kind of rocky relationship with David...but it felt so good to have him give us his "A-OKAY" stamp of approval for allowing ourselves this vacation.
So that's my silly pregnant woman confession of the day...bursting into tears in the middle of Jimmy Mac's Steakhouse.
He even offered the use of his car when my MIL drives us to the airport, which is great, because it has the most room in it for people and luggage! He's being so sweet...which is so unusual, lol.
Anyway...Briana and I have finished making our Mousekeeping Envelopes. I'll try to remember to post pictures in the next day or two. And yesterday, I did online check-in! We requested a ground floor room in the 70's section, but we will be happy with whatever they give us...I just thought the ground floor might be better than making our downstairs neighbors hate us when the kids run all about and behave like elephants.
I need to do our Garden Grocer order in the next couple of weeks, buy David a new pair of shoes and some sandals, and buy Chelsea a pair of sandals. If I can swing it, I'll buy myself some more maternity tank tops, but if not, I'll make do with the ones I have and some t-shirts. We need to buy batteries for the stroller fans (and a small screwdriver so we can actually get the battery compartment open), and I need to finish up the touring plans now that we have our FP+ times.
I need to finalize our packing list and figure out which suitcases we will be bringing, and for non-perishable snacks, my mother-in-law has offered us a trip to Costco to stock up on things like packs of fish crackers and granola bars and whatever else would be easy to transport in a suitcase. The smaller our Garden Grocer order the better!
I had just bought Briana two brand new swimsuits in a size 4T at the beginning of the summer, but when we went out of town this past weekend for David's family reunion and took her swimming at the hotel, she had basically grown out of both of them! We made do for the weekend, but the day before we found out David was losing his job I found a Disney Princess swimsuit (in a 5T, holy COW) at Target for $12. I can't believe she's in a 5T already when she doesn't even turn 4 until November, but I guess I've been buying her 5T shirts for a while now, and she's about to get too tall for her 4T jeans, so I just have a cute little beanpole on my hands. David's mom offered to buy her a second swimsuit so that she won't have to put a wet one on if we go swimming more than once in a day. Chelsea already has two adorable ones that she got for her birthday...one makes her look like a little watermelon! *heart melts* My kids are so beautiful...and I'm not ashamed to say it!
David getting laid off is terrifying, and I'm not going to lie and say I'm not stressed...but at the same time, I just have to hold onto my firm belief that EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON, and that something better for our family is right around the corner. With everything we've been through in the last three years, I refuse to believe that more hard times are coming. This is a good thing disguised as a bad thing. I can feel it. We are going to be fine.
I usually lurk...but I have to give you some hugs. I agree, with the usually unagreeable FiL...you would lose more money than you would save...GO. Have a good time, make many many memories!!! for new opportunities.
:group hug: I usually lurk...but I have to give you some hugs. I agree, with the usually unagreeable FiL...you would lose more money than you would save...GO. Have a good time, make many many memories!!! for new opportunities.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
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I usually lurk...but I have to give you some hugs. I agree, with the usually unagreeable FiL...you would lose more money than you would save...GO. Have a good time, make many many memories!!!
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