My Very First Trip Report - Pop Century 2013 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Since I've never done this, I guess I'll have to see how it goes, but I wanted to try. I'll start with the day we left. I was up early, about 6:00, to do last minute packing and dry one last load of laundry. I woke up DS Joel about 7:00, we both got ready, and then we packed the car with our suitcases. DM/GM, who was traveling with us, had a dermatologist's appointment at 9:30. After that, we were to pick her up, check on any RX she might have gotten, load her stuff, and hit the road.
All went as planned, and we were traveling by 10:30. I chose my usual route out of Knoxville...I-40 east to I-26 east to I-95 south to I-4 west. The plan was to drive all the way to Jacksonville, but not quite all the way to WDW, because Mom doesn't like to make the 11 hour drive all in one day. She says it wastes a night on property to just arrive, check in, and sleep, so she pays for an overnight stop about two hours out...works for me.
Along the way, Joel was in charge of Disney and Star Wars trivia games. My angel has Asperger's and is currently over the moon for all things related to the Star Wars movies, so this trip was for him to visit Disney's Hollywood Studios for Star Wars Weekends. Off and on, over the course of the first 5 hours or so of the 9 hours on the road, Joel quizzed his mother and grandmother and routinely amazed us with his extensive knowledge. In between games, we stopped for a quick lunch at McDonalds just east of Asheville, NC, Joel played his Nintendo DS game or watched a movie on the portable DVD player while his "Meem" and I chatted.
The only glitch in the day was totally expected. Mom is generally a bit negative/critical, not of us but just of things in general. Actually, I guess it's more that my opinions differ from hers, and when she makes her critical remarks, it bugs me, especially when we're on vacation. But, she's my mom and she is very good to us. She did some complaining about the world. She knows we have differing outlooks. We just agree to disagree about things like politics and my super-stressful job. We all love and support each other...but that's an aside.
So, we arrived in Jacksonville and checked into the tricky-to-find Holiday Inn Express at exit 344. It was quite nice, and since it was in an area of mostly office buildings, it was really quiet on the property. We had already stopped for a quick dinner at KFC, where I learned I don't care for the new boneless chicken, so now all we needed was to take in an overnight bag, clean up, and hit the hay. The night passed uneventfully. We all slept well...zzzzzzzzz
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