Meri's Dream Come True - A Birthday Celebration! - PTR updated 02/04/2014 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
WOW is right! I can't wait to see you all on Thursday morning. It won't be easy NOT to talk about the cruise, when we'll both be thinking about it all the time.
Good luck on your first day at the new job! I know you'll do great, but it's always stressful starting something new.
Love love love your plans!! I must figure out a way to cruise with the kids on Disney!
Good luck on your first day!! Hope it goes well!
There are occasionally some really REALLY great rates in the off seasons! But of course that means missed school, which is hard! Summers are great to cruise, but of course the price goes up! But you'll definitely get on one some day!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
What a great trip you have planned!
Thanks! It's short but sweet! I wish we could spend all day in Orlando on Sunday and leave Monday, so I could see everyone I want to see (you, Hazel, a few other friends of mine) but with the new job, I'm trying to keep the (unpaid) leave to a minimum. *sigh* So many plans, so few vacation days!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What great plans!
Thanks! I can't wait!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
WOW is right! I can't wait to see you all on Thursday morning. It won't be easy NOT to talk about the cruise, when we'll both be thinking about it all the time.
Good luck on your first day at the new job! I know you'll do great, but it's always stressful starting something new.
I'm laughing at the thought of how our conversation will go at breakfast, without being able to talk about the cruise directly! It's going to be SO hard!
Thanks for the first-day pixies... Meri and I have been up for an hour... I still have 10 minutes before I can reasonably leave, and I've been killing so much time because I got up before my alarm and got ready so fast! *sigh* That won't happen often, ha!
What a great birthday gift! I spent my 45th birthday on the Dream, and we were on CC on my actual birthday. Great place to celebrate!
Look on the Dis boards (this is the only time/reason I go there) for the magnets they have for your door. There is a Minnie Mouse birthday hat that would be perfect. I have that from my birthday cruise. Or let me know if you want me to send it on to you!
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
What a great birthday gift! I spent my 45th birthday on the Dream, and we were on CC on my actual birthday. Great place to celebrate!
Look on the Dis boards (this is the only time/reason I go there) for the magnets they have for your door. There is a Minnie Mouse birthday hat that would be perfect. I have that from my birthday cruise. Or let me know if you want me to send it on to you!
That's awesome - you and Meri are "twins"! LOL! OOOOH a Minnie hat? Thanks for the heads up!!! She'd LOVE that! I'll see if I can find it, and I'll print it out. I don't want to take yours! That's special!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
You know you have a friend who works for Disney now, right?
Whoa wait what? Why did I not know this? Has this been on FB? You work for The Mouse? What do you do? Do you like it? This requires a PM, at the very least! I had no idea!!!
That's awesome - you and Meri are "twins"! LOL! OOOOH a Minnie hat? Thanks for the heads up!!! She'd LOVE that! I'll see if I can find it, and I'll print it out. I don't want to take yours! That's special!
Whoa wait what? Why did I not know this? Has this been on FB? You work for The Mouse? What do you do? Do you like it? This requires a PM, at the very least! I had no idea!!!
I'd love to be Meri's twin! And we're so close in age (give or take 40 years)!
And re: Heather, clearly you need more time to get on FB!
This is GREAT!!! I love your surprises for Meri and man do I wish I could be at that breakfast with Laurie..........you guys are gonna have all those weird "eyes" going on........trying not to say too much. So fun.
Your plans sound great! I wish I could be at breakfast with you and Laurie, heck I'd really love to be going on the ship too! I think it's a fantastic birthday present for Meri. I can't think of a better place to be on a birthday than Castaway Cay. Oh and congrats on the new job! I must have totally missed that on FB.
I'd love to be Meri's twin! And we're so close in age (give or take 40 years)!
And re: Heather, clearly you need more time to get on FB!
Hope your first day of work went well today!
You can absolutely be Meri's twin. She gives no thought to something as silly as age when considering "twin-ness". LOL!
And yes seriously - I mean... I post stuff, but if it doesn't pop up immediately in my news feed, I don't see it! I try to keep up, but it's hard! But seriously I can't believe I missed news that big about Heather! Talk about being a bad FB friend!! I'll do better, Heather, I swear!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Linnynad
This is GREAT!!! I love your surprises for Meri and man do I wish I could be at that breakfast with Laurie..........you guys are gonna have all those weird "eyes" going on........trying not to say too much. So fun.
HAHAHA it's so true! I'm already slipping up with comments here and there that I have to keep catching and diverting. I hope I don't jack this up beforehand. I'm so unused to having to keep a secret like this!
Quote:
Originally Posted by num1DVCfan
Your plans sound great! I wish I could be at breakfast with you and Laurie, heck I'd really love to be going on the ship too! I think it's a fantastic birthday present for Meri. I can't think of a better place to be on a birthday than Castaway Cay. Oh and congrats on the new job! I must have totally missed that on FB.
I think Castaway is an awesome place for a birthday, too! It worked out brilliantly!
Just a couple of quick little snippets / updates...
1) Ok, so Jess got us a room for Weds night at Caribbean Beach. I had hoped for Art of Animation, but they only had suites available. Meh. We could have gone super-value at All Star Sports, but... yeah... no. So I went for CBR. It's still cheaper than the Holiday Inn, lol, and it's not far from the Beach Club so our breakfast will be quick and easy to get to! Jess is calling me tomorrow to get the payment, so we're good to go!
2) The FE group is closed now, so I've been trying to figure out what to do. You're all welcome to give me ideas... thus far, I think I'm going to do something similar to what we did on the last one - Mickey / Minnie gift bags with candies, Disney themed stickers / note pads, Disney Pez dispensers and candies. But I'm DEFINITELY open to better ideas, because mine are ok but they certainly aren't anything spectacular. For the cabins with kids, should I be giving bags to the parents, too? On the last cruise I just gave bags to the kids, and in adults-only cabins, I gave one bag per cabin. Should I be giving one per person?
These FE gifts are going to be a HUGE pain in the neck to deal with, because I'm going to have to hide them from Meri! Talk about a dead giveaway, lol! So I figure I'll put all of the "parts" in a cardboard box on the top shelf of my closet... and then I'll put them together one day when she's at a play date, and put them back in the box, and back on top of the closet. Then when we get close, I'll close / seal it up, and it can go in the trunk, and she'll hopefully be none the wiser.
3) My PassPockets came today! YAY! That always makes a trip feel "official"!!
Hard to believe that four weeks from right now, Pirate night will have just ended, and we'll probably be collapsing in the cabin!
Sorry you didn't get AoA, but a good, low price at Caribbean Beach will do nicely! I'm of no use with FE suggestions, but I think one per cabin is just fine.
Linny is right about the "weird eyes" at breakfast. I think I'll have to just not look at you at all. I have a feeling Meri's a sharp one and would pick up on the under-currents! Maybe the characters will keep her distracted!
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Are we there yet???
Linear Mode
