The Great Procrastination PTR--Trip in Aug. 2011 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I've spent more time on the boards today than I usually do as this is a good, positive place. You are all so kind and caring towards one another; I always get a happy feeling reading your interactions. Your kindness to one another has helped me deal with these past four days that have gone from inconvenient to worse.
I'll include a link to my blog which explains the absolute worst of it, but the rest just piles on top of it. http://arewethereyet-j.blogspot.com/ (Of course I'm having a problem with this link. If it tells you that this doesn't exist, click on the "Are We There Yet? link. That should bring you there...figures)
Everything else pales in comparison to this, but...
Work! I'm in the middle of my summer vacation and I'm working on work stuff. I was invited to put in 2 1/2 days helping with aligning the curriculum to the common core. That's not so bad--I actually find all that stuff fascinating, but only a handful of people were invited and so the people who weren't invited to participate are crabby about it. Then there are some staffing changes. This can mean that what I teach in the fall will not be decided until the fall. Who knows what's going on? I don't. I had wanted to get all my planning done because I'm going to Disney two weeks before I head back to school and I DON'T WANT TO BE (RE)WRITING CURRICULUM when I get back!!! It wouldn't be so annoying except for the reason for the shift has nothing to do with city-wide staffing problems so much as the principal trying to get her friend a job. Getting this guy a job affects what three separate teachers (myself included) will be teaching in the fall. He knows what he'll be doing and I was asked to put together materials for him to use, but I have no clue what I'll be doing. I kind of wish that was a little more fair. And everyone complains about it to me. I'm not sure why, but they do.
Oh. And dd was sick last week and now ds is sick today. Hopefully he didn't catch what she had because she was sick for about 5 days straight with a virus that caused really high temperatures. And since I'm whining...dh went off to the track today to help out a friend, so I've got the two kids by myself. One in my room with the AC, the other in the living room, both calling to me to be with them. Thankfully, Jack agreed to come downstairs with his puke bowl.
How am I cheering myself up? I think I'm going to make a list of things I need to pack. After the funeral, I will take out the suitcase and start to pack the things we aren't using.
Suggestions for packing? What is something you absolutely cannot live without when you travel to the World?
Thanks so much for your goodness to everyone. It really has helped me out today!