Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - Page 37 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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C'MON CHEZ!!! Don't you know that reading this TR is my holiday this year?? I need a fix already!!
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Tinkerboo (or in the real world, Toyah) Reading Challenge 2015: 0/84
Follow my journey from sweaty panting mess to running goddess (I hope!) Out walking with The Boy...
Wednesday 6 April – part one: could things get any worse?
Today was probably the worst day possible as a prelude to a magical vacation. I don’t really want to go into what happened in any depth, but let’s just say that decisions were taken at work that would have serious and long reaching consequences for me personally, which left me, not to put too fine a point on it, absolutely distraught. I was told by lots of people to go away and have a great time and just forget about the whole thing and I swore that I would, as I was determined that I wouldn’t let what had happened get me down or spoil our vacation in any way. No-one messes with my happy place. :
Having said that, the rest of the evening was a complete rollercoaster ride for me – and anyone who knows me will know how much I love rollercoasters. We were due to leave for the airport at around 7pm, with one of our brother-in-laws, Sean, due to pick us up. He was there on time and was just like a chauffeur to us, bless him, picking up the two suitcases we had ready and getting them into the car for us. We still had a couple of errands to finish off, so he waited for us until we were ready. Finally, we were heading out of the front door and away to the airport.
The whole drive up, I just wasn’t in the mood to talk. I kept getting messages of support from friends at work, which did help but I was still brooding over things and even the sight of lots of lovely cows couldn’t cheer me up. We had a very clear run up to the airport, but I hope Sean got back home OK, as there was an accident going the other way, which had led to massive delays, with miles and miles of traffic jams. Fingers crossed it had cleared by the time he headed back.
Sean dropped us off at the South Terminal, and then we were faced with the longest walk we’ve ever had there. Anyone who read our Vienna trip reportwill know that Gatwick is currently undergoing a £100 million refit, but when we were up here a couple of weeks ago, we barely noticed. Today it was very different.
After hiking our way up the winding ramp, through two whole floors, which was exhausting enough, we were then faced with a “no entry” sign at the top and instead you had to go outside, walk further down and then enter the terminal. We were absolutely shattered with all this walking and I’m sure there’s a better way that they could’ve done this, without killing people.
Finally we made it into the terminal and headed straight to the Virgin Atlantic check-in. Well, at least this was where it was supposed to be... There were two families ahead of us, checking in and we have never seen check-in take so long before. There was a lot of disappearing out to the back and coming back to the customer again. We must’ve stood there, first in line, for about five or ten minutes. As we did, a massive line started to grow behind us. Suddenly I was very glad that we had pushed ourselves to get here, as I recognised families that we’d gone past on the way here.
Eventually, a third person came out to check people in, starting with us, explaining apologetically that they don’t have many people for twilight check-in any longer. I guess that’s a sign of cutbacks. She also told us that they’d barely had anyone check in for hours. Well, that was hardly a surprise, as a lot of people work, so you would expect it to get busy later on in the evening. She was complaining that they wouldn’t finish at 9pm, which is when twilight check-in closes, but to be honest, I didn’t have much sympathy. The motorway you use to get to Gatwick from most destinations is notorious for delays and accidents and I can’t imagine many people leaving home much before 7pm, as we did, as you want to avoid all of the evening rush hour.
We were checked in quickly enough and our three suitcases were on their way. We headed off to the Hilton, following the very contorted walking route to reach it, as the tunnel that usually links the Hilton directly to the airport was – guess what? – closed for a refit as part of the refurbishment work. This is getting old.
We checked in and headed up to our room, which was right at the end of a corridor. It looked as if it had been refitted recently and was very nice.
We were both hungry, so headed down for a buffet at the hotel restaurant that we’ve eaten in a number of times before here. My goodness, they’ve hiked their prices! The buffet is now £26 each (about $40) and, although it’s very nice, we both came away feeling that it really isn’t worth that much. If we come here again, either I’ll pre-pay for dinner (I think that would’ve cost us about £30 or $48 for the two of us) or we’ll eat at somewhere cheaper in the terminal building.
Still smiling... just about
It was a pretty rowdy meal, with two of the country’s major football teams (and that’s our football, not the American version you call soccer! ) playing each other in a major European competition. Thank goodness no-one scored while we were down there. I don’t know how much noise that would’ve generated. What we experienced was bad enough.
To make matters worse, I thought the wine selection was truly awful, so I didn’t have any wine. I really could’ve done with that to help me forget about my lousy day. Full, but a bit disappointed with the price (the bill came to £62 or $100! ), we headed back to the room and off to bed... Hopefully tomorrow would be a better day. It certainly couldn’t get any worse. :
The weather today was warm and dry with temperatures in the low 60s. The best thing today was our room at the Hilton. The worst thing today was the reception we got from the woman at twilight check-in.
Now that's good service. You should work for Disney...
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Tinkerboo (or in the real world, Toyah) Reading Challenge 2015: 0/84
Follow my journey from sweaty panting mess to running goddess (I hope!) Out walking with The Boy...
Sorry for the distressing problem at work. Hope it resolved in some way while you were away and it isn't something you have to deal with now that you've returned to the daily grind.
I loved reading your live trip reports and am all caught up as I was there too last week.
I had a celebrity Chezp sighting at Test Track...we were already loaded into a car, and saw you in the queue! It was our first time at night too!
The heat wasn't too bad for us....but the crowds were crazy!
We changed our touring plans and went to rope drops (which made for VERY early mornings) and we stayed at parks until mid-day, then napped, and headed back out for dinner. We also noticed how some sit down restaurants still have availability while we were there. We didn't care too much for Cape May...our best meals were Yak & Yeti for lunch, and Jiko for dinner. We loved all the animals we saw at the hotel this time!
I can't wait to read the full trip report! Glad you made it home safely!
Sorry that you had to deal with a work problem wrighing on your mind. I hope that is has resolved itself in a positve way for you. Happy to see you start your report but sorry it was off to a tiring start. Your room there looks very nice though
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Sorry for the distressing problem at work. Hope it resolved in some way while you were away and it isn't something you have to deal with now that you've returned to the daily grind.
I loved reading your live trip reports and am all caught up as I was there too last week.
I had a celebrity Chezp sighting at Test Track...we were already loaded into a car, and saw you in the queue! It was our first time at night too!
Did you yell out my name? I could've sworn I heard someone yell "Cheryl" but I assumed that they were shouting at someone else....
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rollercoasters. We were due to leave for the airport at around 7pm, with one of our brother-in-laws, Sean, due to pick us up. He was there on time and was just like a chauffeur to us, bless him, picking up the two suitcases we had ready and getting them into the car for us. We still had a couple of errands to finish off, so he waited for us until we were ready. Finally, we were heading out of the front door and away to the airport. 
but I was still brooding over things and even the sight of lots of lovely cows couldn’t cheer me up. 
The buffet is now £26 each (about $40) and, although it’s very nice, we both came away feeling that it really isn’t worth that much. If we come here again, either I’ll pre-pay for dinner (I think that would’ve cost us about £30 or $48 for the two of us) or we’ll eat at somewhere cheaper in the terminal building. 
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