FL residents, what are your thoughts and input? - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Discussions have come and gone over the years of moving to FL but have picked up speed over the last yearish. DH and I have narrowed down the possibility of a move south to either Summer 2017 or Summer 2018, chosen because eldest DD will graduate high school May 2017 and our youngest will begin high school fall 2018 and we would want to do it before that or wait until after she graduates too. While I am from Michigan, I have travelled to many areas in FL and do love the state so I can picture ourselves happy there. DH is from the Caribbean and has endured about three too many winters up here in Illinois so he is just ready to be back in a sunny environment year round. He works remotely so his job will remain the same. I will need to look for a new job and as a librarian the market in FL does not appear as great as it is in IL but I think it is possible to find work there, it just may take longer for me. We stayed with a his sister from July to early December early in our marriage in the Deerfield Beach/Boca Raton area so we are familiar with that area and the summer heat. His sister has since moved to Jacksonville so she is no longer in south FL. I have some friends in the Tampa area and in Bonita Springs area otherwise we would be on our own without friends/family nearby...although that was the same case when we moved here to IL, where we have lived since 2002.
Our wish list is to be near the ocean, no further than 30-45 minutes inland at the most. We want to enjoy the beach weekly. We would like a smaller to midsize, not so busy town, but be close enough to access a larger city within a short (1-3 hr) drive on a weekend. But almost anything compared to Chicago suburbs will likely feel smaller. We are just looking for a more relaxed lifestyle, where we can get out an "smell the roses" so to speak. Here we feel like nature is limited and we are surrounded by concrete/developments everywhere. We enjoy fine dining and need to have a culturally diverse neighborhood. Good shopping opportunities are also a plus. We realize that both quality public schools and a lower crime rate can be a challenge to find in FL but we would like both a safe area and good schools since we will still be raising our youngest there. Towns I have loved include St. Augustine, Sanibel Island, Boca Raton, Naples, and I LOVE the FL Keys. He has loved Boca Raton, Clearwater, Naples, and the Keys but he has not been to as many areas in FL as I have. We do know we want to avoid the panhandle and northern parts of FL, preferring to be in the Central to Southern half of the state.
Given all of this background, please share your experiences, tips, recommendations on moving and living in FL. Do you have certain towns that may be a perfect fit for us? What do you enjoy about the area you live/lived in? What are dislikes for the area or things to be aware of? Which is the better beach side to live on, Atlantic or Gulf and why? I'd love to hear what my fellow PP's opinions are. TIA.
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