What do you mean we’re not going in March????? PTR - UPDATED 12/9 - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Just a short interruption to our PTR….in a few of our updates I think we will ask some…do you do that questions . For example: The last few days my DW and I have been going through terrible Disney withdrawals..........DO YOU DO THAT?
This time last year we were at WDW!!! We don’t know if we can make it for 80+ days!!!! What a great trip we had last year!
We were even part of the AK Parade!!!
Oh well…I guess we’ll just have to relive old memories and as our Pal Mickey says…see you real soon WDW!!!
And now back to our regularly scheduled update
Where:
We began our trip planning with deciding when it would be best to go again. Our last trip was at the end of September 2011. We had a great time and got to experience two firsts,
MNSSHP
and one day of the FWF in Epcot. But we really missed being at the world during the Christmas Holidays. We knew this would be a shorter trip and the first trip that we were going down with just the four of us.
In previous trips, at least DH’s mom or DW’s dad have joined us for our trips. (DH’s dad went for a few days our last trip, because the kids begged and then he was done. ) This has always been lots of fun and a great help with the kids. But, in planning ahead to 2013 and ensuring we had enough points for hopefully scoring a 1 BR SV at AKL-K for a grandparent to join us, we knew it would just be the four of us this time. So, with school schedules and work schedules we chose December 18-23.
We booked a Deluxe Studio at SSR at 11 months out and kept our fingers crossed for getting into BWV at 7 months out. We got in…or should we say DW on the phone as early as she could that morning got in! J Yay! Let the planning wheels begin turnin’! (DW chiming in here…I actually was going to do it online and saw that there was availability, but did not see a way to book BWV and cancel SSR in the same process. Since it made me nervous, I just called up and got a great CM as usual.)
Now on to the surprise…. When we were planning our 2011 trip, our DD kept talking about how she would like to be surprised for our next trip. She kept going on and on about not wanting to know about the next trip or ADRs etc….. So, when we booked this we decided to try and keep the time and place a secret and tell them we were going in March. Can’t you just hear the evil laugh!
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We have read several threads and watched you tube videos to get ideas on how to surprise the kids…. At this point we are going to try a low key approach. We are fortunate to be able to take trips to North Myrtle Beach, SC as a family to just hang out. We plan to tell the kids that we are going to take a beach trip. We travel highway 95 to get to both places. We will keep driving past our turn off to the beach and see how long it takes the kids to start asking questions. At that point we will have an envelope with customized park maps; each one will get 2 maps printed by Disney and 2 printed on our printer in their envelope. Note to self get the printer working! We’ll probably say something like take a look at these maps and tell us how to get to where we’re going?
We will create the maps with activities we would all like to do for this trip. We will have some other small surprises to pull out along the way, which will give them additional fun activities to do while we drive. We are hopeful they will be super excited!
Soooo…what do you think? Do you have any ideas or have you surprised your kids in the past? We’d love to hear your feedback and experiences!!!
Coming up next….travelin’ down and a dilemma on our arrival day …Help!
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surprises!!! Can't wait to hear how you let them know they are going sooner!
]
. For example: The last few days my DW and I have been going through terrible Disney withdrawals....
......DO YOU DO THAT?
What a great trip we had last year!
) This has always been lots of fun and a great help with the kids. But, in planning ahead to 2013 and ensuring we had enough points for hopefully scoring a 1 BR SV at AKL-K for a grandparent to join us, we knew it would just be the four of us this time. So, with school schedules and work schedules we chose December 18-23.
…. When we were planning our 2011 trip, our DD kept talking about how she would like to be surprised for our next trip. She kept going on and on about not wanting to know about the next trip or ADRs etc….. So, when we booked this we decided to try and keep the time and place a secret and tell them we were going in March. Can’t you just hear the evil laugh! 
PassPorter Guide Author
…Help!
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