Don't Stop - part one of Disney trip COMPLETED - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great start, keep it coming, can't wait to read more about your adventure. I can't beleive those pictures were of the airport it looked like a huge shopping mall. It was nice to meet you guys on the 29th.
What an ordeal to get to the hotel airport and then being there too! At least you had good food.
It seems like the splurge to fly Upper Class sure was worth it! And you look like you belong to me.
I can't remember if you already said or not, but did you fly out of Heathrow? If so, it's certainly changed a lot since the 80's! The lounge looks wonderful, and I can't wait to read more about your travels!
Sadly not - I couldn't bear to look at what they were up to, let alone photographing it... who knows? They may have even put on a show for me if they saw me with a camera...
Too funny! I was going to ask the same thing - I was scouring your photos to see if there was one
__________________
Stacey
Why do these kids look so pathetic?
Find out in: A New Grade, A New House, and A Surprise!Final Thoughts 01/30
Oh my heck . . . if I didn't know that you had said you were at Gatwick airport, I'd have thought you went to a fancy shopping mall! That is one fancy looking airport!
I can't remember if you already said or not, but did you fly out of Heathrow? If so, it's certainly changed a lot since the 80's! The lounge looks wonderful, and I can't wait to read more about your travels!
Thursday 10 December – part two: a true Upper Class massage!
Finally, we settled down and ordered our breakfast. I went for the gardeners’ delight, an unusual combination of tomato, egg and mushroom on top of a bun with hollandaise sauce on top and boy, it was good, along with the red berry compote, a mimosa and a cup of tea. Mark went for the full English breakfast and tea and then we both had a round of toast on top later on. By the time we finished all that, boy we were both full.
My egg and mushroom before I started it.... ... and once I massacred it!
That done, I logged on to the computers for a while to send some e-mails and catch up on the boards and then it was time for our massage. It was a bit of an odd experience, as it was done fully clothed and in plain view of everyone else, which is not what I’m used to at all. : It took me a while to work out how to climb on the massage chair, which Mark described as a torture implement, as that’s what it looked like, but my goodness, the massage I got wasn’t torture at all, it was absolute bliss. As I said to the woman afterwards, I am picky about my massages, as I have them every six weeks or so and I know what I like and she was excellent. Mark also seemed to enjoy his.
The contraption that we had to sit on for our massages!
Then it was time for my hot stones treatment and I had the same woman. This was absolutely lovely, combining a hot stone massage, with hot towels on my legs and feet and all the time Mark was watching and flinching, as he can’t bear anyone touching his feet, so watching his face while I enjoyed my massage was good fun.
About to enjoy my massage
I went back on the computers for a while and, as we’d both got quite cold by now, we ordered some more tea. Then Mark tried out the Wii Sport for a while, while I sat and read the paper and got some more photos.
The Wii play area ... and Mark playing on it! The children’s area Isn’t this cool? The view through the windows to outside
By the time we’d done that, it was time to go, as our flight was being called for boarding.
This lounge was a real treat and there really wasn’t anything I could fault about it. : Everything was wonderful and I even got some photos of the restrooms, I was so impressed with those!
It was a reasonably short walk to our gate and when we got there, there was no-one in line, but heck, we still used the priority line for the heck of it! The plane was already boarding by then and we were told that there were only 100 people on it today, which is something we’ve never come across before. Maybe that’s why we got such a good deal on the seats in Upper Class?