From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - Page 42 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Love the theming of the Legoland Hotel which looks so cool! Too bad with the mall as it's so sad. You can pretty much blame Amazon and internet shopping for this I would think!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
The LEGOLAND hotel is so cool! Very well done! Quite a few malls in the US are closing due to a lack of customers. Our local mall has lost the Sears anchor store and though it is not as creepy as the one you all visited, I'm not sure it will be around much longer.
How sad.
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We're getting a big shopping area across town, which has been touted as the new model for shopping.
I find this fascinating, as we seem to be lagging behind on this idea. As I mentioned, we don't really have any big malls being built any longer, but the concentration is very much on trying to keep our existing town centres alive. I think it's partially working in that the deterioration appears to have been stemmed, although ours certainly still has a fair few empty stores. I think the saving grace at the moment is if people order things online, a lot of the time, they're arranging to pick them up from a shop (which avoids delivery charges), so at least that's keeping people going into town centres.
We literally must have just missed each other. I think we left there somewhere around 5:45- 6. It was a gorgeous resort and originally that is where we were supposed to stay but then they changed it to Sapphire Falls. I was disappointed...though Sapphire Falls was much nicer than I expected...I really wanted to stay at Portifino. It's still on my bucket list and I will some day!
Now we've visited it, it's on my bucket list too!
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When you messaged me I was at Pat O'briens for dinner with our group and it was really slow service...very slow! We didn't get out till really late, so it probably wouldn't have worked like I had hoped anyways. Thats the bad thing about work trips...almost everything is mandatory to attend and we get very little free time. They had us going since 8 AM that morning and even our lunch break consisted of a boxed lunch at round tables with business discussions.
Ugh, that is a long day...
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Hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.
Oh I hope so too. I was gutted we missed each other.
still catching up....
We were not impressed with LEGOLAND either. The food options were few and far between as were spots to get drinks. We felt the staff was for the most part just awful the day we were there (3 years ago).
We didn't really interact with any staff, so I can't comment on that, but the food options certainly don't seem to have improved since your visit, which is a real shame, as if you're at a park all day, you want to be fed and watered!
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The Heartland area was something totally different when we went...and that is Claire's favorite in legos...I bet she would have enjoyed that area more.
I'm sure she would've done.
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Our favorite was the Cypress Gardens area. I went once when I was like 4 I think....sooo a REALLY long time ago. I loved the Banyan tree. It's so huge and just amazing.
Isn't it something? I was so glad we took the time to walk around there.
Loved all the pictures. We enjoyed the miniatureland a lot too...and it was hot!
You did explore more areas than we did. honestly we got fed up with the place and many of the staff...and just got the heck out of there and decided not to worry about the rest of the lands.
I think we probably would've done too, but I had a long list of things I needed photos of, and of course they were all over the park, so we didn't have much of an option but to visit each land.
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I remember the areas around there being dead too. We stopped to get drinks in the morning and it was kind of creepy in the little strip mall we stopped at.
Sears is closing down many of their stores in the US this year. I guess they are losing money left and right and trying to save themselves. I only know this as my dad have several gift cards and went to use them up for fear our local one would close soon too. ...so when he told me about it I looked it up online. LOL.
That is sad, but it's happening to so many companies these days. We've seen so many major shops over here go out of business and many others are still struggling.
Love the theming of the Legoland Hotel which looks so cool! Too bad with the mall as it's so sad. You can pretty much blame Amazon and internet shopping for this I would think!
Yes, I'd think so too. Then again, in terms of blame, I think everyone of us who shops online probably needs to accept a share of the blame.
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Tuesday 28 February – part eight: a magical Grand Marnier slush!
With everything done, we headed back to Disney, seeing some cows on the way!
Soon we were back on property, seeing some of the work that we suspect is for Star Wars Land.
We valet parked the car, and headed into the BoardWalk…
Just after 5:00pm, we headed back out, as I was getting hungry – hardly surprising, given I’d barely eaten much, and one of those ice cream macaron sandwiches in France was calling my name. We’d just literally missed the boat to Epcot by probably around 30 seconds, which was frustrating to say the least, so we ended up walking along the BoardWalk instead…
It was a pleasant enough walk, although still hot. Thank goodness it was starting to cool down…
When we got into Epcot, I was surprised to see this tree in bloom. In all the years we’ve been coming here, I don’t think I’ve seen it in bloom – either that or I’ve never noticed it before.
We stopped to get some Photopass shots…
We made our way into France, and got a bit side tracked by the fact that the Flower and Garden topiaries were already out, ahead of the Festival starting in earnest tomorrow. Everything else, in terms of the shops and booths were all closed up, but it was lovely to be able to get a sneak peek at the topiaries as we made our way around World Showcase…
But something much more important was calling my name…
And look what I found in here…
I was proud of myself for ordering in French, and a couple of minutes later, we were both the proud owner of these:
We then headed over to get a Grand Marnier Slush. I don’t know what it was with people this evening, but there was a group of people just hanging around, we thought, but apparently they were in the line. Good grief guys, don’t ever come over the pond to the UK with an attitude like that about queues, we take them a lot more seriously than you do, and you will not be popular!
From there, we drank around the world, and I joked that my Grand Marnier slush must be magical, as it seemed to last much longer than Mark’s…
By Germany, the magic sadly did run out though…
It was around this point that we stopped off to get some Photopass shots done, and honestly these are some of my favourite ones done ever!
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I wonder - did you beat the boat to Epcot? I can't remember the rotation, but if it made more stops, I bet you beat it by walking! Lovely photos on the bridge too!
Mmmm, Grand Marnier slush and macarons. Gosh I miss Epcot.
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Tanya
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Oh, the macaron ice cream sandwich sounds wonderful! Are you able to pick cookie & ice cream flavor, or are they all made up already?
Those are nice shots of you & Mark!
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Hahah, only at Disney would the slushes be magical! Great shots of the 2 of you, you both look so happy and relaxed.
An hour and a half wait? Better be something really good!
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Too bad with the mall as it's so sad. You can pretty much blame Amazon and internet shopping for this I would think! 
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Quite a few malls in the US are closing due to a lack of customers. Our local mall has lost the Sears anchor store and though it is not as creepy as the one you all visited, I'm not sure it will be around much longer.
We’d just literally missed the boat to Epcot by probably around 30 seconds, which was frustrating to say the least, so we ended up walking along the BoardWalk instead… 
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