What are some of the LAST MINUTE things you do ... - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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Re: What are some of the LAST MINUTE things you do ...
I wash all clothes, dishes, etc. Take out the trash. Then we turn off the water and hot water heater and turn up the air - no use for paying for a cool house when no one's there to enjoy it!
Then we leave the tv on pretty loud (or the radio sometimes) and a light or 2, to leave an appearance that someone is home.
Re: What are some of the LAST MINUTE things you do ...
I am starting to think maybe we should also turn off the hot water when traveling (if the kids aren't going to be around). Never gave a thought that it could cause a problem but a friend of ours recently went away and the hot water tank sprung a leak... not good!
When we take the dogs to the kennel, I always make sure they have a phone number where we can be reached in an emergency (I also call to check on them... they are my fur kids [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img] )
Re: What are some of the LAST MINUTE things you do ...
clean the house, run errands, give DH last minute instructions on how to manage without us (he hasn't gone with us, but is planning to for the first part of the next trip 5/03), check in at work and remind them that i cannot be paged on vacation, and go to the bank one last time!
i did forget one very important thing on last trip. i had announced to dh, 8 months earlier, that i was taking the kids to wdw in may. he didn't mind, even bought the kids mickey mouse toothpaste the day before we left. but...i neglected to tell dh where we were staying or how to reach us if he needed to [img]images/icons/blush.gif[/img] . he went to the nursing home that i work at and asked them to page me, explaining that he hadn't heard from me and didn't know how to get in touch. the nurse told him that they had strict instructions not to page me on vacation, but since it was dh (he's a regular where i work, but not a patient!) they tried-my pager won't reach florida. luckily i called into work a bit later; the nurse said "please call steve, he doesn't know where you are or how to get ahold of you, he thinks you're mad at him. he's been here once and called in twice to see if we've heard from you". meanwhile he had called my bil, got my sister's work number, called her to find out where the hotel number was (she knew which resort i was at), then called her dh back with instructions on where the number was located. we finally did connect, but he still hasn't gotten over the fact that i could leave for vacation and not even think to tell him where i was [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] . i said, 'i did tell you, i'm at wdw!!!' honestly, it just slipped my mouse-consumed mind!
i'll try to remember him next time, of course he could just go with us if he's that worried [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]