There’ll Be a Smile Where a Frown Used to Be - PTR - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm hoping that the Disney Magic will help ease his troubled little heart. Thank you for the pixies.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Alaska
Oh! My heart goes out to you all and I will be praying for Eric's healing! You are very wonderful to try so hard to make a difference for this little boy. I truly believe that each of us can be a blessing to others. Sometimes in small ways and sometimes in life changing ways. I pray this will be a life changing way for Eric!
On a different note, do you have anybody that your furry babies can stay with instead of boarding them? We lost our 16 year old pookskie (really a male shih tzu) about 5 years ago. Then 6 months later we had friends get a new puppy. When our friends go out of town, Rascal comes to 'VACATION' at our house. We are too busy for a full time dog, but we still get our doggie fix. We all love this arrangement!
kim
Thanks so much for your prayers! It's a struggle but every day we work toward healing.
I wish we had someone who could stay with our girls instead of boarding them, but there really isn't anyone that my husband would feel comfortable with staying in our home. This trip we are trying a sleep-over company. We are interviewing people who will take dogs into their homes and provide them with care on a 24 hour basis. My pups are used to 24/7 indoor/outdoor access and human companionship for the majority of the day. One of them has serious separation anxiety so we usually don't spend more than a few hours at a time away from her if we can help it. Hopefully, we'll be able to find the perfect match for my baby dogs!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What a wonderful thing to do for Eric. He deserves it after everything he's been through.
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Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
This is such a wonderful thing to do for Eric. I hope you guys have a very magical trip!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Sorry for the loss of your brother! What a great thing you're doing for Eric!
Thanks for the good wishes and pixies. Disney World has provided unimaginable healing for so many members of my family that I belive with all my heart that this is just the very best thing for our nephew.
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I can definately see you relucyance about leaving your GIRLS . Putting my two the stinky sisters at CAMP is not easy. Fotunately for us they know them and keep them together (had them in seperate areas 1st time we had to board them and within 3 hrs we got a phone call asking if it was okay to put them together) They don't seem to mind too much as the owners have kids that love to play with them and they just go nuts for Human Puppies. We thought about taking a friends rcommendation about getting a pet friendly camper as we stay in campground anyway but Maggie get nervous when fireworks are around Local display is 5 miles away on 4th of July and she's in my lap for entire thing and since Maggie is upset WookieBear has to ge upset too.
My heart goes out to you and your family over loss of your brother. Hopefully young Eric will come to terms with such a tremendous loss and see that his dad still lives on in the way others emulate him
I can definately see you relucyance about leaving your GIRLS . Putting my two the stinky sisters at CAMP is not easy. Fotunately for us they know them and keep them together (had them in seperate areas 1st time we had to board them and within 3 hrs we got a phone call asking if it was okay to put them together) They don't seem to mind too much as the owners have kids that love to play with them and they just go nuts for Human Puppies. We thought about taking a friends rcommendation about getting a pet friendly camper as we stay in campground anyway but Maggie get nervous when fireworks are around Local display is 5 miles away on 4th of July and she's in my lap for entire thing and since Maggie is upset WookieBear has to ge upset too.
My heart goes out to you and your family over loss of your brother. Hopefully young Eric will come to terms with such a tremendous loss and see that his dad still lives on in the way others emulate him
WookieBear???? That is too cute for words!!! My girls are usually boarded at a pet resort that provides indoor/outdoor access, doggie ice cream, swimming pool (they hate water), and their own flat screen tv in their suite. The problem is that my dog Cody is always anxious when other dogs are around, even if they are in not right next to her. I've seen her on the webcam and she just doesn't relax. When we pick her up she's a 75 pound lap dog for a week. So hopefully this new arrangement will work out better for them.
And Mike, thank you so much for your beautiful closing paragraph. Your kindness really made my heart lighter today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazanya
What a wonderful thing you are doing for Eric.
Thank you. I appreciate the pixies more than I can say.
Not being a fan of WDW during summer vacation , we really wanted to be able to take Eric when the crowds would be smaller. This would mean asking his mom to allow him to take a week off from school. Frankly, we never took vacations during the school year when our son was young, so I wasn’t sure how his mom would feel about him missing school. She didn’t even pause before saying yes. She was in tears as she thanked us for asking him. She has been doing everything she can to help Eric, but she worries that he is shutting down a little more each day.
Now that we had his mom’s permission, we needed to find out if he would be willing to a) leave his mom and sisters for a week; b) spend a week with his crazy aunt and uncle; and c) take his very first plane ride!!!
Because we’re so close, he’s very sensitive to my grief. I worried that he would agree to go with us because he thought it would make me happy. I asked his mom to talk to him about going to WDW and to let him know that it was completely up to him – we would still him if we didn’t take the trip.
Later that day, March 6th, I received a text from Eric, “I can’t wait till September!!! I love you so much.” About an hour later another text, “Thank you very much. I’m so excited. I’m having trouble concentrating.” And at around 11:00 p.m. (two hours after his bed time) I received this text, “Can I start telling people? Can I come over to start looking at that book?” (He was referring to my Passporter Guide.)
Four days later – I’m not kidding – the Discovery Channel started showing programs describing the parks at Disney World. I started getting more text messages, “Auntie, Discovery is showing everything about Disney World.” “I’m watching it now.” A few minutes later, “Maybe you should come and get me and we should watch it together at your house.” Five minutes later, “Are you coming?”
So, the past 5 months have been spent planning and re-planning and re-planning this special trip. Eric has blown hot and cold about the trip depending on other things going on in his life. I think that’s pretty normal for a 12 year old. Still, every day he sends me a countdown text. Today the text was, “How many days Auntie. 49!!!”
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WookieBear???? That is too cute for words!!! My girls are usually boarded at a pet resort that provides indoor/outdoor access, doggie ice cream, swimming pool (they hate water), and their own flat screen tv in their suite. The problem is that my dog Cody is always anxious when other dogs are around, even if they are in not right next to her. I've seen her on the webcam and she just doesn't relax. When we pick her up she's a 75 pound lap dog for a week. So hopefully this new arrangement will work out better for them.
She got that name as my wife thought she and she did looked like a Star Wars EWOK but couldn't think about what they were called. Their camp isn't quite that elaborate but they do get baths and then they are stinky pretty. During the drive home they both try to crawl into my lap And do the driving for me and once we get home I have 2 everpresent companions till they get so bad I have to very sternly tell them to go lay down and the cookie jar is now closed.
So glad to learn that ERIC is looking forward to his upcoming trip and that you two are so close
I'm joining in a bit late, but I'm hooked now! Such a tragic, but lovely story of what you're doing for Eric. He sounds like a very sweet child. It's a rough path ahead for him, but with family like you and trips like this to remind him that life can be wonderful he'll be okay. So great that he's getting excited!
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Don't you LOVE modern technology? Eric's texts are priceless! You have given him such a wonderful gift to put his focus on... The anticipation is even better since he has never been to the World and has never flown... He will have so many wonderful firsts! I'll bet his excitement has been so much fun for you!
I'm joining in a bit late, but I'm hooked now! Such a tragic, but lovely story of what you're doing for Eric. He sounds like a very sweet child. It's a rough path ahead for him, but with family like you and trips like this to remind him that life can be wonderful he'll be okay. So great that he's getting excited!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Eric is delightful in his excitement!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Alaska
Don't you LOVE modern technology? Eric's texts are priceless! You have given him such a wonderful gift to put his focus on... The anticipation is even better since he has never been to the World and has never flown... He will have so many wonderful firsts! I'll bet his excitement has been so much fun for you!
kim
Eric is a pretty special little guy. He has always been a sweetheart - very gentle and kind. It's always amazed us that he's so unspoiled because he's been doted on since he was a baby. He's the only son of a son - the last to carry our father's name. My father did not have any brothers or male cousins. My other brother has no sons. My sisters and I have sons, but obviously with different surnames. So in a rather patriachal family he's very special.
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kim
, we really wanted to be able to take Eric when the crowds would be smaller. This would mean asking his mom to allow him to take a week off from school. Frankly, we never took vacations during the school year when our son was young, so I wasn’t sure how his mom would feel about him missing school. She didn’t even pause before saying yes. She was in tears as she thanked us for asking him. She has been doing everything she can to help Eric, but she worries that he is shutting down a little more each day. 
him if we didn’t take the trip. 
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