Forums Closed
|
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
|
|
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
|
01-28-2016, 09:50 PM
|
#1
|
PassPorter Guide
 Community Rank: Globetrotter 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 3,041
|
Feature Article: 10 Things I Want to Do on Our Next Disney Vacation - A Follow Up! - A Walt Disney World Planning Article
10 Things I Want to Do on Our Next Disney Vacation - A Follow Up! - A Walt Disney World Planning Article
by Lisa Smith-Lester
Early in 2015, I wrote an article called " 10 Things I DO Want To Do on Our Next Disney Vacation". This is a follow up article to see if we succeeded or not!
1. More downtime at our resort pools: Though we visited the pools at each of the two resorts we stayed at (Old Key West and Kidani Village), we didn't spend as much time at them as we had hoped to. My daughters had particularly wanted to swim more in the evenings, but we had quite a few late nights with dinner reservations and plans, so other than our second evening, we were not back early enough to do this. 2. Visiting the Boardwalk, Beach Club and Yacht Club resorts: This was both a success and a fail! We spent a lovely afternoon/early evening walking from Hollywood Studios to these resorts and had a walk around the whole area, before having dinner then walking back to Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately, on our planned evening/night-time walk around the area it was a bit chilly and windy, and our youngest daughter and niece were both tired so we made the decision not to walk all the way around.
3. Properly seeing World Showcase: We did not visit each country in depth, but we saw a lot more of the countries than we did on our previous trip. We enjoyed the model railway in the Germany pavilion and the Matsuriza drumming in the Japan pavilion. Coming from the UK, it is always fun to see the UK pavilion and we enjoyed looking around this area in more detail, and particularly liked seeing the British items for sale in the stores
4. Enjoying family time together: This was definitely a success. In our large family group of 16, we enjoyed many different combinations of time together, from all of us on my sister's wedding day, to an amazing meal at Yachtsman Steakhouse with my brother, sister-in-law and niece, to my family of four spending so much quality time together. We enjoyed plenty of park time, pool time and dining with all the different members of our family and came away with so many incredible memories. 5. Riding certain rides: This will also go down as a success. Though my eldest daughter hated the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (we were sat at the back so it was very fast for her), we did get her on Soarin', which she and my youngest daughter loved. My youngest daughter was amazingly brave and went on Test Track, which she loved and we were so proud of her. We also got three rides on Toy Story Midway Mania, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. After Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, we couldn't get the girls to try Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, so we will have to save that for another time.
6. Try some new places to eat: We got to try quite a few new restaurants to us. Some major highlights include Portobello at Disney Springs, Trattoria al Forno at Disney's BoardWalk, Yachtsman Steakhouse at the Yacht Club, and California Grill at the Contemporary. We had amazing meals here and would highly recommend them. Some old favorites included Raglan Road at Disney Springs, and Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom for breakfast. Some new ones we weren't overly impressed with were Trail's End at Fort Wilderness and Hollywood and Vine in Hollywood Studios.
7. Go on a Disney Cruise: Wow, what can I say but wow! This was the most incredible experience. We sailed on the Disney Dream and it is such a beautiful ship. We were on the first sailing after dry dock for the Oceaneer’s Club and Lab refurbishments, along with upgrades to the adult areas and the addition of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique and Vanellopes Sweets and Treats, which were all incredible. Castaway Cay is absolutely stunning. There is so much to see and do, our 4-night cruise was not long enough and we will hopefully do another cruise in the future.
8. Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique appointments: This was a resounding success. I was able to book both of my daughters (7 and 4) on the same day, at the same time. They were seated within minutes of each other and at stations next to each other. We were able to enjoy the experience of watching both girls at the same time and they got to experience this together. Hundreds of photos and a full video recording later, the girls both had loved their experience and had had a fantastic time again. Their Fairy Godmother's-in-Training were brilliant and we loved the whole experience so much. I was so happy we were able to do this.
9. Seeing Wishes and IllumiNations: We had a mixed bag with this one. We didn't get to IllumiNations as we had an early morning and long day planned for the day after we planned to see these, so we made the decision to give it a miss this time. We did see Fantasmic! and I unfortunately was not overly impressed with it. We did get to see the Magic Kingdom fireworks twice, both from an incredible location - the first time was regular Wishes on my sister's wedding day and the second time was HalloWishes, both or which we watched from the Grand One Yacht. These were both such amazing experiences and I loved both, especially the 180-degree fireworks during HalloWishes.
10. Enjoying ourselves and not overdoing it: We really enjoyed ourselves and managed to get so much more done than I had hoped for, and I don't feel that we overdid things. We did start off the first couple of days having early nights to help with the jet lag but still managed to see and do all we had wanted. I even squeezed in some shopping at the malls, without compromising on the time we spent in the parks.
Added to PassPorter's Article Collection on 01-26-2016 09:01 AM
What do you think? Please add your own comments, experiences, or news related to this article in this thread! Reader feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
|
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
|
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Threaded Mode