Pop and Legos on Our Annual Feb. Trip! - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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He was picked up off the streets by the SPCA, there they called him Colonel, when Angels of Assisi got him they called him Ryder. He'd only had the name 3 weeks, so we could have changed it, but we liked it. He has lots of nicknames, Ryder Bider, Red Ryder, etc.
Oh, and we've decided his breed is a Scottish Whisky Hound. He loves the smell of DH's whisky!
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Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
Love all the pictures! You dog is super cute and love his name! Those bricks are really . My son would love that. Have to put it on my list for next time for sure.
We had decided to leave around 8:30am this morning, thinking it would take about an hour to drive to LegoLand in Winter Haven.
I had the hardest time trying to figure out what to wear today. The last two days had been cloudy and drizzly, in the low 70s. It was supposed to be warmer today, but still a chance of rain. But we were also going further south and it looked like most of the rain would stay in Orlando and north, in Daytona unfortunately, where they were trying to run the NASCAR race that had been rained out yesterday.
So anyway, I ended up wearing my jeans and a short-sleeved shirt (a Disney shirt, which DH teased me about, but I didn’t have a non-Disney short sleeved shirt!) I had DS wear pants that he could unzip into shorts, which was good, because it was sunny in Winter Haven and got close to 80 degrees. I should have worn shorts, but oh well, you just never know!
We had to say goodbye to my sister and brother-in-law this morning. Their flight left in the afternoon. I felt bad about leaving them alone, but LegoLand was not open on Tuesday, so this was the best day for us to go.
The drive to Winter Haven was quick and picturesque. We drove through orange groves and cattle farms. There was some development, a few strip malls and housing developments, but really just a lot of open farmland.
We arrived before opening at 10am, and walked to the entrance. It wasn’t crowded at all! We were probably one of the first 25 cars in the Parking Lot.
We parked as close as we could get. This area was reserved for Passholders or something. There was a handicapped parking area too even closer.
We used the bathroom, exchanged our tickets – I had a buy one get one free coupon that we got in a Lego set DS got for Christmas so that saved us $75.00. I used that for my and DH’s tickets. And my parents had purchased $50.00 gift cards at Publix for themselves and DS, which saved us $45.00. That was a good start!
We took lots of pics around the entrance area, everywhere you look throughout the Park there are statues made out of Legos. At the entrance were Dinosaurs.
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Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
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We walked through “The Beginning” area and into “Fun Town”. The first thing you see is The Grand Carousel.
DS said he’d never ridden one (but he has, he just doesn’t remember) so we hopped on. We went up to the upper deck. It was a nice ride, but not essential to do. I think it was part of Cypress Gardens, although they have changed some of the horses to look like Lego horses.
We walked through “Fun Town” taking more pics, Darth Vader and R2D2 are outside the “Lego Studios” store.
I didn’t let anyone stop to look in “MiniLand” yet, the models are amazing and I knew we’d spend a lot of time there, so we marched on to the “Lego Technic” area. I had read a tip somewhere to start at the back of the Park, and since most people go right, I took my family left.
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Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
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