Florida flowers and Caribbean cruising - the trip report! THIS SECTION COMPLETED 4/12 - Page 16 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thanks for the pictures of the Treehouse Villas…we've considered them, but have been concerned with the size for our group. I don't think we could all feel comfortable there. It's beautiful though, and I would adore that little table with the phone! How cool is that?
Yay, you finally arrived! I imagine you guys are just wiped out at this point as it's way past your UK bedtime!
By this time, it must've been about 11:00pm UK time, so yep, definitely time for bed!
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And I also can't imagine anyone staying there and not having a car. That's crazy to say that you could walk from the Treehouse to the lobby/food areas.
I guess if you're super-fit, and in fairness, it was a run Disney weekend, so maybe she thought we were runners...
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Very cool inside of it though - I love that table made of tree trunks to look like Mickey ears!
Thanks for the pictures of the Treehouse Villas…we've considered them, but have been concerned with the size for our group. I don't think we could all feel comfortable there. It's beautiful though, and I would adore that little table with the phone! How cool is that?
How wonderful your flight wasn't full. Many years ago we had a really empty flight coming back from Orlando and Pagie and Michael each took a row and laid down and slept the whole flight back. That was so nice.
The villa looks so beautiful. I did thing the master bath was kind of odd. Is the shower part of the tub or seperate? It looked like it was next to the tub with the glass door and all. Hope dinner is not as bad as it sounds.
It sounds as if your travel day was pretty uneventful which is a good thing. I thought about you when we were traveling by boat past the Treehouse Villas last week. I wondered at one point how one would navigate around there if you didn't have a car. I can't imagine walking to the Sarasota main buildings for everything. One of our boat pilots shared that the Treehouses were first designed and built for Walt's personal guests. I'm not sure if that is completely fact or not, since Walt died before WDW was even finished, but it might have been in his plans.
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How wonderful your flight wasn't full. Many years ago we had a really empty flight coming back from Orlando and Pagie and Michael each took a row and laid down and slept the whole flight back. That was so nice.
Isn't that just the best type of flight? We had one like that in 1987 from our family trip. First class and business class were completely full with traders going back to the UK from the USA - it was a couple of weeks after the big stock market crash. That's the only reason the plane flew, as that paid for it essentially. There were only 30 of us in 300 economy seats!
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Loving the pictures of the treehouse villa.
It's nice to share them, as I haven't seen many photos from inside them....
The villa looks so beautiful. I did thing the master bath was kind of odd. Is the shower part of the tub or seperate? It looked like it was next to the tub with the glass door and all. Hope dinner is not as bad as it sounds.
I think it was separate if memory serves me right - I only used the tub, so I can't be 100% sure....
It sounds as if your travel day was pretty uneventful which is a good thing. I thought about you when we were traveling by boat past the Treehouse Villas last week. I wondered at one point how one would navigate around there if you didn't have a car. I can't imagine walking to the Sarasota main buildings for everything.
Neither can I. I get the idea of it being an opportunity to "get away from it all", but the problem is if you need something... then the plan falls down a bit.
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One of our boat pilots shared that the Treehouses were first designed and built for Walt's personal guests. I'm not sure if that is completely fact or not, since Walt died before WDW was even finished, but it might have been in his plans.
It's a neat story and I kind of hope it is true, as they always looked special to me.
Don't worry - absolutely nothing has changed if all you're planning on doing is central Orlando and/or out to a Disney cruise. The cashless toll roads are generally much further south and you can clearly see them she may have on a map at the car rental desk. It's just I know that Carolyn (silvercat) got the hard sell about this when she picked up a rental car from Dollar and she'd already checked it, knew she didn't need it, so I was prepared for that.
This sounds like she may have had the SunPass added to her contract. We bought it several trips ago but have not had to use it recently. It is easy to avoid the toll roads around the Orlando/Disney area.
This sounds like she may have had the SunPass added to her contract. We bought it several trips ago but have not had to use it recently. It is easy to avoid the toll roads around the Orlando/Disney area.
From what we saw, it was totally different to the SunPass, as the roads referred to on the map were generally around Miami and apparently they just don't take cash at all any longer. From a Google search, it looks as if part of Florida's Turnpike is one of the cashless roads.
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I get the idea of it being an opportunity to "get away from it all", but the problem is if you need something... then the plan falls down a bit. 
Those tree houses are major cool!!!
I must put those on my list of places to stay! 
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