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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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The gang's all here! So here's who all is coming on the trip. See if you can follow...
Room 1 - Kenny, Charlotte, me
Room 2 - my parents (Rick and Lynne)
room 3 - Kenny's mom (Kathy), dad (Ken) and sister (Bethany)
room 4 - Kenny's aunt Barb and Uncle Matt
Room 5 - Kenny's cousins Steve and Sean (Barb and Matt's kids who are both in their mid twenties)
Room 6 - Kenny's cousin Monica (Barb and Matt's daughter) her husband Mike and their 11 month old, Adeline
So altogether that is 15 people (13 adults and 2 babies!)
We all made our hotel reservations separately after we booked our flights. Then, in October the discounts were released for the winter season. Since I have a Disney visa, I was able to call and get my discount applied to my room a day before the general public. I was only on hold for a few minutes. I had to change our room from a standard room to a standard pool view, but it still saved us money overall. Everyone else in our group had to call the next day when the discount went live for the general public. Some of the people were on hold for 5 hours! When Monica got through, she was able to get the discount applied to some of the other rooms since she knew their contact information. If I had known you could do that, I would have tried to get the discount applied for the whole group when I called, I haven't even thought of asking!
I'm going a little out of order here, but we (I!) made the dining reservations for our group at our 180 day mark. I was wary about trying to get reservations at some of these places for this many people, but luckily I was able to get everything we wanted with no trouble! We didn't want too much of this trip to be planned in advance, but we did know that we would want a few nice sit down meals. My husbands birthday is the Saturday that we are there, and his favorite is Ohana. However, this is the night before the race. There was no way that I was going to eat at Ohana and run 13.1 miles the next day! so we settled on Ohana for Friday night, Via Napoli for Saturday, and Sci-Fi for Sunday. I also scheduled the Wishes dessert party as a birthday surprise for Kenny (but of course the surprise was ruined a few hours later when he saw the reservation on my MDE account, oh well! Neither of us are good secret keepers lol).
Other other random things (sorry this post is all over the place!) my mom and dad were planning on coming down Friday night, while we are all getting there Thursday night. She is a secretary in a school and only gets two personal days. Well two weeks ago (on her birthday appropriately!) she showed up at work, and the ended up canceling because of snow after she got there. She was allowed to go home, but asked the principal if she stayed and worked all day, if she could add another day onto her Florida trip and he said yes! They were able to get their flights changed with no problem, but we have been checking for two weeks and there are ZeRO rooms available at the pop century for that night! Boo! So they have booked a hotel near the airport, and we're hoping that they can snag at room at the Pop at thr last minute!
Ok that is all for now! Next time I'll get into our day by day schedule, and by the time I finish that we'll be on our way! I have one more long run to do tomorrow and then finishing packing! We are currently smowed in at my parents house who live about an hour away from us. We were planning on going home this afternoon but the weather is awful! So maybe I'll get another update in tonight!
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