A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 56 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Catching up here as well. Your photos are just gorgeous. Love the story about the sake. That was a hoot! I'm surprised that it made you so mellow to not defend Disney.
Loved the pictures of the Tori gate in the water. (reminds me of Epcot ) Very interesting about the deer just hanging out. Such a strange site.
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What great updates...the photos from the train were great, loved the ones from the gardens also. They were beautiful, what a peaceful place (but that is the overall impression that I get from most of the photos - as much as it is modern, it still carries such a tranquil feel).
The hotel room was great - the size of that bed - WOW talk about comfort. Glad you were able to enjoy dinner at the hotel (and not have to watch any meat cooking). I could not get over the deer that just walk freely, it must be so strange.
A group of amazing "Awwww" pictures of Cheryl and Mark! I am so impressed with your planning and research for this trip. I am inspired to do some of the same for our northern european cruise, with time in London, next year!
Beautiful pictures, but I especially liked the ones from the gardens in your previous post. I love how still the water is. I'm loving reading about all these places you are going, and how they compare to what you learned in your research.
Okay - I'm sure whoever translated the sign about the deer just meant to watch your children around them but..."Please pay special attention to your babies" Am I the only one picturing Bambi gone wild and snacking on our infants ?
Just catching up. The gardens you visited were beautiful, and you seemed to have them all to yourselves. What great pictures! I love that you had the better view on the ferry than the pushy people!
We pretty much did have that garden to ourselves - I think it was something to do with the fact that we visited it so late in the day.
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A group of amazing "Awwww" pictures of Cheryl and Mark! I am so impressed with your planning and research for this trip. I am inspired to do some of the same for our northern european cruise, with time in London, next year!
Tuesday 7 April – part two: some good Western restrooms – bonus!
The Itsukushima Shrine was founded in 593 and is built on stilts over a cove. Part of the dock includes the oldest Noh (a form of Japanese theatre) stage in the country. It’s a stunning place and the vibrant red colour of it makes for a wonderful image.
Look at the crabs, that were scurrying around!
You walk through this on the way and then came into the main square of Miyajima. That’s the most amazing thing about this place, people actually live here. We had seen cars (well, one car actually) being transported on the ferry that came back to the mainland to pick us up earlier, but I didn’t realise how many cars and vans there were here and how many houses. It must be amazing to live here. We also discovered that there’s a hotel here, having seen so many people with suitcases. Staying here must be something. Maybe that’s an idea for a future trip…
We walked up a set of steps and found this ancient tree:
Our next stop was the two storey Tahoto pagoda, where we also got some great views back towards the Torii gate:
We carried on along the path and got to the Daisho-in Temple, a Buddhist temple and wonderfully peaceful. I was so glad that we had gone up there, if for no other reason that it had some great restrooms with western style toilets, always a bonus! The ones I had seen as we entered the island didn’t exactly look great shall we say.
No, he didn’t walk up the steps, we came up a gradual incline up the hill!
You could also walk around the main hall here a) without removing your shoes, which is rare in Japan and b) you can take photos which is a bonus.
As we headed down the steps from the temple, we saw 500 small Buddha statues in a garden below – quite a sight. We had a closer examination and every one was different and each one I could see had at lest one coin in or on it somewhere.
You managed to capture some beautiful "postcardlike" pictures in this update! It's very interesting about the coins and Buddhas, kinda like a wishing well?
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) Very interesting about the deer just hanging out. Such a strange site.
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