From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - Page 41 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wow! The Legoland Hotel is really cool! The theming is awesome!
How sad that the mall was so barren. Unfortunately that is not unusual these days. Malls are becoming obsolete.
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I had some clients stay there last year (or the year before?) and they loved it. Said it was so unique and totally worth it! The rooms have 4 different themes too, so you can pick which theme you want in your room when you book it.
Ha! I never see birds like that when I'm headed for a gas station. Florida thing!
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Legoland looks like a lot of fun. I can't imagine how many hours it took to build all of those creations.
That mall sounds really creepy. We had a mall like that over here. It closed a few years ago. There just wasn't enough customers to keep it open anymore.
Liz
I the bathroom doors at the Lego hotel!!
Most malls in the US are going the way of the dodo. They now favor setups like Disney Springs - what I see as manufactured Main Streets. Funny, since the mega mall concept put many real Main Streets out of business years ago. And of course, Amazon doesn't help - I never go to the mall or its equivalent if I can just click on Amazon and have it on my door within 2 days.
Wow! The Legoland Hotel is really cool! The theming is awesome!
How sad that the mall was so barren. Unfortunately that is not unusual these days. Malls are becoming obsolete.
It's not quite that stark over here... yet... but the major supermarkets are withdrawing from building big out of town stones, in favour of smaller stores in town centres.
I had some clients stay there last year (or the year before?) and they loved it. Said it was so unique and totally worth it! The rooms have 4 different themes too, so you can pick which theme you want in your room when you book it.
I'd have loved to have seen those rooms. I doubt we'd ever stay in them, as they're definitely aimed at families.
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Ha! I never see birds like that when I'm headed for a gas station. Florida thing!
Legoland looks like a lot of fun. I can't imagine how many hours it took to build all of those creations.
That mall sounds really creepy. We had a mall like that over here. It closed a few years ago. There just wasn't enough customers to keep it open anymore.
Liz
Sadly, I suspect that's probably the way that one will go as well...
I the bathroom doors at the Lego hotel!!
Most malls in the US are going the way of the dodo. They now favor setups like Disney Springs - what I see as manufactured Main Streets.
I hear you on that - that's a good way of describing Disney Springs.
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Funny, since the mega mall concept put many real Main Streets out of business years ago. And of course, Amazon doesn't help - I never go to the mall or its equivalent if I can just click on Amazon and have it on my door within 2 days.
That's the overall problem isn't it, and much as we may say how terrible it is about the real Main Streets (high streets for us) going out of business, a lot of us of course don't help, as Internet shopping is just so simple... and sadly often cheaper too....
The LEGOLAND hotel is so cool! Very well done! Quite a few malls in the US are closing due to a lack of customers. Our local mall has lost the Sears anchor store and though it is not as creepy as the one you all visited, I'm not sure it will be around much longer. We're getting a big shopping area across town, which has been touted as the new model for shopping.
Now the only downside was that we were hoping to meet up with Jennifer (jenseib) tonight, but we got into Bice early, so finished our meal early, and then we were literally only given five minutes at the Hard Rock, so I messaged to let her know that sadly it wasn’t going to work out. I am so sorry we missed seeing her, as I’ve really wanted to meet her for so long. Even worse, it then transpired after I put a photo on Facebook that she’d been at Portofino Bay at the same time we had. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be this trip.
We literally must have just missed each other. I think we left there somewhere around 5:45- 6. It was a gorgeous resort and originally that is where we were supposed to stay but then they changed it to Sapphire Falls. I was disappointed...though Sapphire Falls was much nicer than I expected...I really wanted to stay at Portifino. It's still on my bucket list and I will some day!
When you messaged me I was at Pat O'briens for dinner with our group and it was really slow service...very slow! We didn't get out till really late, so it probably wouldn't have worked like I had hoped anyways. Thats the bad thing about work trips...almost everything is mandatory to attend and we get very little free time. They had us going since 8 AM that morning and even our lunch break consisted of a boxed lunch at round tables with business discussions.
Hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.
still catching up....
We were not impressed with LEGOLAND either. The food options were few and far between as were spots to get drinks. We felt the staff was for the most part just awful the day we were there (3 years ago).
The Heartland area was something totally different when we went...and that is Claire's favorite in legos...I bet she would have enjoyed that area more.
Our favorite was the Cypress Gardens area. I went once when I was like 4 I think....sooo a REALLY long time ago. I loved the Banyan tree. It's so huge and just amazing.
Loved all the pictures. We enjoyed the miniatureland a lot too...and it was hot!
You did explore more areas than we did. honestly we got fed up with the place and many of the staff...and just got the heck out of there and decided not to worry about the rest of the lands.
I remember the areas around there being dead too. We stopped to get drinks in the morning and it was kind of creepy in the little strip mall we stopped at.
Sears is closing down many of their stores in the US this year. I guess they are losing money left and right and trying to save themselves. I only know this as my dad have several gift cards and went to use them up for fear our local one would close soon too. ...so when he told me about it I looked it up online. LOL.
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. That place is cool!! I'm so glad you checked this place out!!
Florida thing!
the bathroom doors at the Lego hotel!!
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