Let's Start at the very beginning - PTR:August 17-31 2014 - Page 24 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Oh my goodness. I fell so far behind and now I'm about in tears for you and all you are going through. I know that canceling the trip is sad, but the news about your mom is a tough one. I truly hope that it is bone/breast cancer. But then that sounds awful as I don't hope that anyone has cancer, but since they have already diagnosed as cancer and the bone/breast sounds like the better of the two as they know how to treat it. Besides your mom already won the breast cancer so she can do it again! Right now you just need to take everything day to day. WDW isn't going anywhere and although it is a bummer to have to wait it's important to keep your families sanity and finances in order.
Thanks everyone so much for the thoughts, prayers and pixies. Mom's surgrey yesterday went well and they got a good sample. We won't know the results until the 19th and I'm going with her to the doctor for that one. Not anticipating a happy day - but at least we will have some answers and a direction.
I cancelled most of the Disney stuff - I just need to call and cancel the tours and see if I can get anything back on the House of Blues. I cancelled the flights and was hoping I could use the funds to book for next August but I have to use the credit by March 3 2015. So there is still a glimmer of hope that I may take Evan down in November for Jersey Week. It will be tighter in the funds department but I'd hate to lose the airfare completely and there is no other time that he will be out of school other than the holidays - no thanks. I just need to check with my mom if she would mind if we used all the credit as the flights are more expensive now that all the cheap rates are gone. Afterall she did pay for them so technically it is her credit.
Keep your fingers crossed for all of us on all the stuff going on right now. Hopefully I'll be back on the 20th with good news.
I'm so sorry for all you're going through, Holly. I know it was hard to cancel the trip you've planned for and saved for, but of course you had to do it. I'm glad the surgery went well and will hope for good news.
Mom has breast cancer in her bones and lungs. This was really the best news we were hoping for. At this point she is going on hormones as her treatment and does not need chemo or radiation. If she responds well to this treatment her life could be relatively normal. She will never be cured or in remission but it will just be a matter of how well the doctors can manage the disease. She began the medicine last night and goes back to the doctor in a month for her blood counts and to see how things are going. I know she has been waiting for a month to get this ball rolling so I know that mentally she is already doing better. Physically she is better than she was but will never go back to how she was before all this happened. She is learning her new limits.
I will officially close out this thread and move her updates over to the Family and Friends forum.
We had to cancel all Disney this year. I tried to rebook for November but the credit on South West could only be used by each person. I thought Evan and I could use the whole credit but we could only use our portions. After pricing it all out I would have owed another $500 since we got the cheap rates and they are now all gone. I just couldn't come up with that money.
I’m sending a doctor’s letter to SW for see if we can get an extension on the credit as their rules state we need to complete travel one year from the date of booking which was March 2014. So we only have the credit until March 2015 and all travel must be completed by then. I don’t see us being able to use it by then since Evan is in school. Hopefully SW will give us a refund or extension. Here is to hoping anyway.
I'm gonna save real hard this year and planning on WDW in August of 2015 instead. I'll start a new TR when that time gets closer.
We are planning a trip to DC in November over teacher convention so hopefully Mom will feel up to the trip. So keep an eye out for that PTR sometime in October.
At this point I'm hoping that next August's trip will mimic what I had planned for this year except not staying at Shades of Green and now I need to see about getting Evan into the new Cars ride-along at the Disney Speedway. He would love that.
Thank you all for following along with me and for your thoughts and prayers and well wishes. Unfortunately too many of us can relate to illness and cancelling trips. But Disney is my happy place and I will be getting back there soon.
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I'm glad you got the news you were hoping for and the bone cancer is primary breast cancer. It's amazing that they can now treat many cancers as chronic diseases and manage them over time. I hope all goes well for your mom as she adjusts to her new limitations. So sorry you won't get to WDW this year, but you'll have a better trip when you can do it without the stress of getting into debt and having too many emotional loose ends.
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