Taking Our (PassPorter) Friendship to the Next Level - Page 15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Being late to the party is, sometimes a good thing. You can catch up without any breaks in the action... but the downside is you miss a lot of the first hand excitement. Though I wanted to catch this meet from the beginning, I find myself very late and I'm sorry about that.
Sorry you missed Dylan's first basket Kelly, but that will happen. You just can't be there for everything. Good score on your flight! I can't really take advantage of early check-in because I never know if they will send me someplace else.
Having met each other on Skype, I know it was easy to just get right into this weekend like you were all old friends just getting together one more time. I have met Kelly and I know how easy she is to talk to and get along with. We hit it off right from the start, too, I think.
It's good you all delegated a job for everyone... you have someone to blame if things go wrong on any particular part of the weekend! The plans sound great! How can it go wrong when it started with a greeting from DME!
I'm totally loving the whole North Jersey/South Jersey thing going on. Sounds a bit like the Scotland/England thing but a lot more friendly! Is Atlantic City part of the what is called the Jersey Shore I have friends from New Jersey who always talk about holidays at the Jersey shore that sound fab.
Sounds like Linny scored a nice room but hope you were out painting the town red and didn't spend to much time in it!
Hmmm.........how can I put this. Yes AC is at the Jersey Shore, but not the "Jersey Shore" you see on TV. All those reality shows about NJ are all filmed in North or Central Jersey shore towns. The South Jersey shore towns are much different and some are even dry towns too. AC is in it's own category though because it is a destination city all year long with casinos, nightlife, fine dinning and LOTS of shopping. Of course the beach and the boardwalk are fun too. This fall will be exciting as ever since Miss America will be coming back to town
Hmmm.........how can I put this. Yes AC is at the Jersey Shore, but not the "Jersey Shore" you see on TV. All those reality shows about NJ are all filmed in North or Central Jersey shore towns. The South Jersey shore towns are much different and some are even dry towns too. AC is in it's own category though because it is a destination city all year long with casinos, nightlife, fine dinning and LOTS of shopping. Of course the beach and the boardwalk are fun too. This fall will be exciting as ever since Miss America will be coming back to town
Thanks for the education. I think I need to broaden my horizons and visit some other states!
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I had my alarm set for 6am since I wanted to get on the road no later than 8:30am, just in case there were any hiccups along the way. I think I was the only mom on the trip that was leaving their child for the very first time. I guess I should say, leaving their child for longer than a day for the very first time. She spends the night with her grandparents all the time, but it's only for one night, so this was definitely going to be an adjustment for me.
What made it even harder was the fact that she had gotten really sick the Friday before. All season she's gotten by with just a runny nose, but as soon as I'm about to leave, she comes down with a really high fever, a cough and a sore throat. I did everything I could to try and get her better before Sunday came, but she still had a low grade fever when she woke up that morning, plus her cough was still sticking around. Needless to say, I left tons of post-it notes around the house for Chad with instructions on what medications to give her, and at what time, along with all the other little things that he wouldn't remember.
So when it came time to leave, I had a really hard time holding back my tears, especially when she kept telling me how much she was going to miss me, and I realized I just had to walk out the door quickly, instead of drawing it out. I had two stops to make before hopping onto 95, the gas station and Starbucks, and once I was on the road with my music going, I started to take my mind off of leaving Hope behind.
Everything was going great until I came to a major fork in the highway. My google map directions told me to follow a certain route, which I thought I had done, but then there were all of these other route signs saying what seemed like a million different things, and before I knew it, I had gotten myself off track. Or at least that's what I thought. Thankfully there was a visitor's center at the very next exit, so I ran in and got what I thought were even better directions from a very helpful lady. She told me there were three different ways to get into AC, but gave me directions on the fastest.
So back in the car, and feeling much better about my situation, I set off again. This was a long stretch of road, and all I needed to do was get off on exit 28, which was going to take a while since I had just taken exit 2 for those directions. Finally I was coming up on exit 26, knowing that my exit would be coming up shortly after that, and then all of a sudden I was looking at exit 1. What?!?!?! Where was exit 28????? But after passing exit 1, the highway got all crazy again, and all of these route signs were popping up, so I took the very next exit I could, and then once off the main highway, I pulled into a parking lot and grabbed my phone so I could look up google maps.
Now I'm sure most of your are wondering why I didn't use GPS, and the reason is because I don't have it in my car, and if I used it through my phone I had to hold it up to my ear to be able to hear it. So after sitting there for what seemed like forever, and trying to figure out exactly where I was and what I needed to do to get where I wanted to go, I got back on the highway. Finally I made it to the AC Expressway, and decided I should probably call Linny to make sure I was going the right way, and of course she didn't answer. But she called me back a few seconds later and confirmed that, yes, I was indeed going the right way, and I should be seeing her in about 40 minutes.
By now I knew I was going to be arriving later than 11am, which is typical for me. I'm always running late or the last one to arrive anywhere, but this time there was nothing I could have done about it. Soon enough I was coming into AC and could see all the casinos lining the horizon, and within a few minutes I was pulling up to valet and walking into the lobby of The Showboat. It's a weird feeling walking into such a big place and only knowing that you're looking for someone you've only seen pictures of or have talked to over the internet, but as soon as I saw Linny, all of the weirdness went away, and I felt like I was with an old friend again.
We gave each other a big hug, and talked the whole way up to the room, with me being shocked that I had arrived before Dawn and Kelly, even with getting lost...twice. The room Linny had booked was wonderful, with great views of the Atlantic Ocean and the new casino, Revel, right next to us.
As I was starting to put my things away, Linny got a text from Dawn that they were here, so she left me in the room to finish up while she went down to meet them. Before I knew it Kelly and Dawn were walking in, and once again big hugs were exchanged with girls that I felt like I've known all my life.
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I am joining late in the game but I am all caught up now...what a great start to the trip, love your welcome Dawn - nothing better than a magical Mickey welcome and a thumbs up on your towel Mickey.
Glad you all made it to AC - now the fun can start, can't wait to read more!!!
You girls are hilarious! And I know what you mean about wondering if it will be weird to meet someone in person even if you've talked to them a lot online - and then get face to face and it's like you've been friends forever! Love the view!
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Though I wanted to catch this meet from the beginning, I find myself very late and I'm sorry about that.
The plans sound great! How can it go wrong when it started with a greeting from DME! 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
. Yes AC is at the Jersey Shore, but not the "Jersey Shore" you see on TV. All those reality shows about NJ are all filmed in North or Central Jersey shore towns. The South Jersey shore towns are much different and some are even dry towns too. AC is in it's own category though because it is a destination city all year long with casinos, nightlife, fine dinning and LOTS of shopping. Of course the beach and the boardwalk are fun too. This fall will be exciting as ever since Miss America will be coming back to town
!!!! 
you girls and miss you SO much!!!
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
I think I was the only mom on the trip that was leaving their child for the very first time. I guess I should say, leaving their child for longer than a day for the very first time. She spends the night with her grandparents all the time, but it's only for one night, so this was definitely going to be an adjustment for me. 
I did everything I could to try and get her better before Sunday came, but she still had a low grade fever when she woke up that morning, plus her cough was still sticking around. Needless to say, I left tons of post-it notes around the house for Chad with instructions on what medications to give her, and at what time, along with all the other little things that he wouldn't remember. 
especially when she kept telling me how much she was going to miss me, and I realized I just had to walk out the door quickly, instead of drawing it out. I had two stops to make before hopping onto 95, the gas station and Starbucks, and once I was on the road with my music going, I started to take my mind off of leaving Hope behind. 
Or at least that's what I thought. Thankfully there was a visitor's center at the very next exit, so I ran in and got what I thought were even better directions from a very helpful lady. She told me there were three different ways to get into AC, but gave me directions on the fastest. 
Finally I was coming up on exit 26, knowing that my exit would be coming up shortly after that, and then all of a sudden I was looking at exit 1. What?!?!?! 
Where was exit 28????? But after passing exit 1, the highway got all crazy again, and all of these route signs were popping up, so I took the very next exit I could, and then once off the main highway, I pulled into a parking lot and grabbed my phone so I could look up google maps. 
I got back on the highway. Finally I made it to the AC Expressway, and decided I should probably call Linny to make sure I was going the right way, and of course she didn't answer. 
and talked the whole way up to the room, with me being shocked that I had arrived before Dawn and Kelly, even with getting lost...twice. 
The room Linny had booked was wonderful, with great views of the Atlantic Ocean and the new casino, Revel, right next to us. 
PassPorter Guide Author
I'm glad you made it in the end and I love the view from the room. 
"Sparky"(My first trip.)
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