PassPorters playing together at Hallowe’en! THREAD 6 UPDATED 1/22 - Page 6 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thursday 9 November – part one: the drive that nearly never was! :grin:
I really didn’t want to know when the wake up call came at 6.50, but hey, at least it was Stitch and the call we’re used to at Disney World, although it didn’t have the new addition of the Pirates of the Caribbean that we had had over the past few weeks.
We quickly got going and were out the door before 8.00, stopping at IHOP for breakfast. This was what we needed, good food and quick service, although we did have fun with our order for hot water. Let’s just say that I think our server could pretty much only deal with requests from the menu. Her grasp of English wasn’t the best, therefore I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised when she came back with ice water. She then thought we meant Coke and at that point, she fortunately went to get another server, who immediately understood what we wanted and why. Problem solved!
I had the pancakes with cinnamon apples on and Mark had the full English breakfast. Just like last night, there was way too much food for me, although I made a valiant attempt at it.
IHOP:
Food 7½ 7½
Service 5 4½
Atmosphere 6 5
Value for money 8½ 8
Average score: 6.50
Then we were on the road and heading for Charleston. This was the trip that nearly didn’t happen, after the Cast Member at the lobby last night told me that to get there would take four hours. I was shocked, but fortunately I checked it on MapQuest and it came up with a few more reasonable two hours. Had I listened to that Cast Member, then we might never have tried this journey.
Not long after we set off, my dad called, as I’d emailed him to see if he could get me an opticians appointment when we got home, as I wanted them to check my eyes out and tell me when I could go back to wearing my contact lenses again. He had got an optician’s appointment, just not with my regular opticians, so that was something at least.
Not long afterwards, Marnie called as well, so we chatted for a little bit and it broke the journey up a bit.
In all, it took us two and a quarter hours to get to Charleston and it wasn’t too bad, although there is a pretty painful stretch, where you can only do 50 miles an hour and can only pass at certain points. If you don’t get past in those areas, then you’ve got two or three miles to wait for the next one again. We saw some beautiful fall colours on the way. Boston may be famous for its fall colours, but this part of America does pretty good too.
Crossing the bridge into Charleston
One of Charleston’s many churches
The city’s main library
We found our way to the parking lot by the Aquarium, which was well sign posted and pretty easy to find.
The view as we came out of the parking lot
And a boat being repaired
We headed for the Fort Sumter National Monument as soon as we arrived. I knew we had a problem with our plans for the day as soon as we got there. The next boat was due out at 12.00 and the whole thing would take two and a quarter hours in total. The problem? Lunch was booked at Magnolia’s at 1.00. Oh well, we’d have to miss that, which was a shame, but couldn’t be helped.
We got our tickets, $14 each and had a look around the visitor centre an got some more stamps for our National Parks Service passport ( for that Terri! ) and then headed off to catch the boat. I couldn’t believe how warm it was outside! Talk about a total change from the day before! As we stood there and admired the view, I was having to apply the suntan lotion and I already had the feeling that Charleston was more my type of city than Savannah and that feeling continued as we boarded the boat.
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I spent the last few hours reading your updates since you left WDW and have really enjoyed all your pics. My DH and I went to Charleston in September for our 25th anniversary and spent a couple hours in Savannah. We thought it would be a day trip but after doing a trolley tour which took 90 minutes I have to say we weren't all that impressed with Savannah. We got back in the car and drove back to Charleston which we absolutely fell in love with. We spent four days and did so much sightseeing. We're both history buffs and couldn't get enough of the ambiance of this beautiful city! Hilton Head looks lovely and the Disney Resort is beautiful.
Thursday 9 November – part two: what am I going to eat?
The only problem was that on board, they didn’t have much for vegetarians, just chicken, chips and hot dogs, so Mark got in the very long line and got me a couple of bags of chips to keep me going, as there’s food available at the Fort.
So we were underway and I was busy snapping away. I’m glad I did, as we followed a different route on the way back, further away from the shore and there was no way I’d have been able to get such good close up shots of the Historic District. Those views only confirmed my initial thoughts that Charleston was a beautiful place and well worth spending more time in.
Charleston’s a popular cruise ship stop off
Waterfront Park
The spire you can see is that of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church
The boat ride over to Fort Sumter takes 30 minutes and on the way there, they narrated the journey and explained what you’re seeing as well as giving you some good background information about the Fort.
This was the place where the first shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861. At that time, the fort was occupied by Union soldiers, but in the initial attack, it took the Confederates just 34 hours to gain control of it. Perhaps that wasn’t the best move for the Union, as they then spent the next four years trying to get their hands on it again. In that time, something like 34,000 shots were fired at the Fort, which had never really been completed before the outbreak of the war. After the war ended in 1865, the fort sadly fell into disrepair and was used again in the Spanish American war, before finally being decommissioned in 1947, after which time, it was passed to the National Park Service, who preserved it.
As you get closer to the island, you get a feeling of how those troops must’ve felt either attacking or defending this place. It’s very desolate and in the middle of the harbour, making it harder to attack. And that feeling continues when you get off the boat.
We walked down the pier and through an archway into the main part of the fort…
… and that’s where you could listen to a 20 minute talk about the history of the fort. I felt that I had learnt everything that I needed to on the way over on the boat, so decided that we should miss it and explore the fort and the museum inside and I think that was the right decision. We first got a few silly photos:
Then we went for a look around the museum and this is a great way to learn everything you could ever want to know about the fort and its history. My favourite was the display of artillery that bombarded the fort. The size of some of those things – oh my goodness!
This is the flag that was on the fort during the Civil War
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Oh well, we’d have to miss that, which was a shame, but couldn’t be helped. 
for that Terri! 
) and then headed off to catch the boat. I couldn’t believe how warm it was outside! 
Talk about a total change from the day before! 
As we stood there and admired the view, I was having to apply the suntan lotion and I already had the feeling that Charleston was more my type of city than Savannah and that feeling continued as we boarded the boat. 
[b]Looking over to the Aquarium 
Glad you re-checked the math and got your trip in! Great pics!
More please 
Charleston’s a popular cruise ship stop off 
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