Making lemonade out of lemons…. In a titanic way! COMPLETED 5/13 - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Left the house at 6am and through security by 6:50? That's pretty good!
We were very impressed with that. It will be interesting to see how long it takes at Heathrow... gosh a week today!
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Despite Mrs Grumpy pants, your delay wasn't terrible. As you say, what's the rush?
Very cool that you got to switch seats. I don't care how short or long a flight is, having someone behind your kicking your seat or talking too loud or whatever is way too annoying on an airplane! When my kids were little, I purposely split DH and I up in such a way that the smallest kid with the highest potential to kick a seat would be only behind one of us - not a stranger. It seems simple, but it is hard to stay on top of the feet kicking thing. If they're at just the right (or wrong) height, their feet just naturally reach the seat with every movement. Believe me, it's just as annoying to a parent as it is to the stranger!
Oh I'm quite sure it is and it sounds like you're a very diligent parent who's aware of that sort of thing.
This sounds like an interesting trip. Joining in so I can find it later. Just curious how you can work a job, travel all the time, write 3 TRs at the same time and write a new e-book all while suffering from chronic fatigue. I got tired thinking about that list. Hope the family is doing better.
This sounds like an interesting trip. Joining in so I can find it later. Just curious how you can work a job, travel all the time, write 3 TRs at the same time and write a new e-book all while suffering from chronic fatigue. I got tired thinking about that list.
The funny thing is it's my body that's the problem, not my mind, so as far as my job goes and all the writing, that's my mind doing it, not really my body. Ok, so now I'm down to just commuting three days a week to work, as my body can't cope with the drive, but that's it. Yes, the travel is tiring, but I think it's exhilarating too and that helps, as it's something I desperately want to do. We've seen too many people (both people we know and people we've never met before) either struggling to see things later in life or unable to, and we're both determined to do as much as we while we're young, so at least we have the memories to look back on. That's what keeps me going. And trust me, we take a lot more breaks these days than we used to before I had chronic fatigue. On a Disney trip, we'll easily have a couple of hours in the room in the middle of the day where I just write and, as I say, to me that's fun and it keeps my mind active. Does that help explain it?
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Hope the family is doing better.
They are - we saw them last night and they're much better.
We grabbed ourselves some breakfast on board (paid for sadly ) – chocolate cookies for me…
… and a bacon sandwich for Mark…
Eventually we were flying above the clouds…
.. but it wasn’t long before our captain came on to tell us we were flying over Wales and Anglesey Island, which I could see below us.
Then we were soon flying over Ireland, and you can see from up here why they call it the Emerald Isle.
However, it was fascinating how the scenery suddenly changed, and we were flying over Belfast…
I was pretty impressed with these shots, as when I later looked at Google Maps, I had managed to get the city and its shipyards, without even knowing what I was aiming at, never having actually visited the city before. Not bad going!
Then we were back into countryside again as we came into land…
The funny thing is that as we did come into land, I saw what I was convinced were cows. There seemed to be some black, some brown – you get the idea. Anyway, they were very close to the airport. Remember this for later on…
When we landed, we were quickly off, and guess who was the first one off? I had to lead the entire plane full of passengers off. Thank goodness they put a sign out for me to help me!
When we walked into the airport, we couldn’t see Avis anywhere, which is the company we’d booked with. The guy at the Budget desk overheard us, and told us that Avis were outside, so we headed that way, and we figured they were trying to advertise local food and drink here…
Just as we came out of the airport, we saw the shuttle bus that we’d been told to take over to Avis. It was waiting at the pedestrian crossing for us to cross, so what was probably a hysterical pantomime of mime ensued, with us trying to convey to the guy that we wanted to board his shuttle bus. He was pretty bemused, but eventually opened the door, probably to see what these nutcases were doing. We thanked him profusely, and explained, and he was absolutely cool with it. As he said, he wasn’t busy… the bus was completely empty, so we literally had the VIP experience!
He chatted to us all the way over to Avis, just a five minute bus ride away. He explained how he was about to finish his 12-hour shift, which really shocked me, as I couldn’t understand how he’d been working all night, as surely the airport doesn’t have that many night flights, and no it doesn’t. They have a night shift just to get all the 200 cars they have ready for the day ahead. Wow, I had honestly never thought of that, and how on earth they do that. Fascinating… and tough work too, I’d imagine.
We thanked the guy profusely when we got to our destination. He’d been completely and utterly charming, and a real star.
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Great start to your TR and glad all worked out with the flight delay and all of the air traffic on the tarmac! Glad you were able to change your seats as it made it a much better flight experience! Some nice photos from your flight and I always do that as well. Great ride to Avis!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Great start! How disappointing that Mark's parents couldn't go after this trip was meant to be for them. I'm really looking forward to this, as I went to Ireland last year, but we didn't make it to Northern Ireland.
Great shots from the plane, sorry you had to settle for cookies for breakfast.
There's no merely "settling" for cookies for breakfast, IMO. I might easily have preferred those over anything else available. Chocolate cookies with a coffee beat a whole lot of other in-flight options in my books.
Won't surprise me at all if Cheryl says that's what she wanted.
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“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
There's no merely "settling" for cookies for breakfast, IMO.
Well said!
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I might easily have preferred those over anything else available. Chocolate cookies with a coffee beat a whole lot of other in-flight options in my books.
Won't surprise me at all if Cheryl says that's what she wanted.
Well, it was what I wanted out of the selection available, let's just put it that way...
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Believe me, it's just as annoying to a parent as it is to the stranger!
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) – chocolate cookies for me… 
I had to lead the entire plane full of passengers off. Thank goodness they put a sign out for me to help me! 
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