A Grown Woman Crying--Our First Trip (Finally Posted!) - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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ok...on to the end of day two and day three. this was literally the longest day of my life (minus one very jet-lagged 40 hour period between NYC and london, i have never slept so little!)
after leaving AK i had to go back to the beach club to get my convention stuff and then get back on ANOTHER bus to go to CSR where the bulk of the convention was held. i won't bore anyone with the details of that, just know that it involved just as much walking (sometimes running!) as a day in the park.
i returned to the resort around 5:30 and had a mojito at the Stormalong Bay pool bar--it was much needed and well deserved! after a quick shower i started fielding text messages from both my husband and from a friend who lives in the tampa area--she was coming to visit us at the resort for the evening. they--the friend and my husband--arrived at exactly the same time (about five minutes after i emerged from the shower) so with dripping wet hair i met them at the pub in the yacht club.
my husband incorrectly thought this was a brew pub, as i believe it had 'brew pub' in the title--no special disney microbrews here. just regular beer, which he made due with quite well! we stayed there until a bit before our dinner reservations across the lake at flying fish cafe. thinking it would take us longer to walk there than it actually did, we ended up at some sports bar (not espn zone) next door to flying fish at the boardwalk--my husband was happier with the beer selection here (i know you are all heaving a sigh of relief!)
flying fish cafe had a lot to live up to, as friends of mine who visited last year said it was the best meal they've ever had. now, to be fair, these friends are not huge food snobs--i am--and these friends have not made it their job in the last few years to travel around and eat (i have!) but i was very disappointed with my meal--so disappointed, in fact, that i sent it back. here's where the disappointment ended. you see, i NEVER send food back, but this was just so bad that i wasn't going to eat it anyway (gummy scallops and crunchy risotto). it must be a disney thing, but the waiter was SO NICE about taking the food back and he insisted he bring something else out for me to eat. i wish i knew this guy's name because he deserved a phone call to the manager to compliment him on his extremely amazing service. he brought me a salmon dish that i can't even describe--it was in some kind of amazing white sauce that i'm thinking was made, at least partially, of angel's tears and diamond powder. it was that good.
i also must mention that the spicy salmon roll appetizer and the calamari were both quite good.
after dinner we walked out onto the boardwalk to find illuminations going on--yet another moment that i could never have planned had i tried. it was beautiful.
upon returning to BC, my husband decided he needed to sleep (all of the beer, maybe?) and my friend and i--who had not seen each other in almost ten years--stayed up until almost 2am in the solarium (great public space!) talking and drinking a bottle of wine.
the alarm went off at 6am for day three--a full day of convention going followed by a full night of epcot!
Photos: 1. browsing the convention program, poolside with mojito! 2. Appetizer at Flying Fish--spicy tuna roll.