From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - Page 60 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 on this one, too! You'd laugh if you saw my calendar right now. I have notes on where to pick up on each of your TRs.
That doesn't surprise me! Imagine how I feel, trying to keep up four updates each morning. At least tomorrow, one concludes and another finishes next week, so then it will all be a bit more manageable...
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Love all your photos from Sea World, but especially that owl. He is a beauty. Something just triggered a thought that made me realize I missed a couple of updates so I need to go back to post 733 to catch the part of Sea World I jumped over. I'll get caught up one day.
I feel like that when we get back from vacation, if that makes you feel any better....
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Last time, I’d forgotten all about the Disney Vacation Club Member lounge, but this time, I was looking forward to trying it out, and we were both pretty tired, and just wanted to sit for a while, and enjoy a drink, and this would be perfect. We checked in, showed our membership cards, and photo IDs, and headed upstairs. What a lovely space it is!
At first, it was tough to find seats, but then Mark spotted people going, so we were able to grab seats, which was very welcome. We had a couple of drinks from the vending machines, and I liked the fact that you could try out all sorts of different beverages. I personally liked the raspberry Diet Coke, very refreshing and unusual.
We ended up chatting to a couple sitting next door to us who came from New Hampshire, and we discussed all sorts of things. Before we knew it, I think we’d been there half an hour or so. A Cast Member eventually brought round complimentary snacks, but it’s worth knowing those are not freely available and you have to wait to be offered one.
All in all, I loved this space. It’s a very nice perk for Members, although the one thing we could do with up there is restrooms, as you have to leave the lounge to go round the other side of the building, if you need to use them, which is a real pain.
Feeling much more refreshed, we headed out, and passed more of the Flower and Garden Festival offerings…
I really lucked out with some superb timing from the monorail for these shots.
We were heading for Pineapple Promenade, as I wanted to try a few things out there.
Oh my goodness, us and the rest of the world, it seemed! The line was long, and of course it was in the blazing heat too. It probably took about 10 minutes to get to the front of the line. Some of the problem was that people didn’t know what they wanted but also I don’t really think Disney had got their act together with the Outdoor Kitchens either. We found this at a number of our stops, that service was painfully slow, and Cast Members appeared to be getting to grips with the menu, which was a bit concerning, given this was now day two of the festival. We also saw a number of managers with staff helping them, which didn’t give me much confidence either.
When we eventually got there, we ordered the spicy hot dog with pineapple chutney and plantain chips that Mark tried. All I’m going to say is that it must’ve been spicy, as he can deal with hot food, and he struggled with it.
We shared the pineapple soft-serve ice cream with parrot bay coconut rum, and oh my goodness, you certainly knew there was rum in there!
I also indulged in the Florida Orange Groves Winery sparkling pineapple wine, which I’d tried two years earlier, but I really hadn’t liked it. I put that down to the fact that I was feeling ill (I had a really bad cold by then ) and I certainly enjoyed it more, but not as much as I thought I would. It wasn’t as sweet as I’d hoped.
Next: somewhere we’ve never had to visit in all our Disney trips….
The DVC lounge looks wonderful and what a pretty view!! Your photos of Epcot are beautiful and make me want to finagle a trip during the F&GF again!! It's been too long. . I love pineapple and all three of those items certainlay appeal to me!!
It would certainly be nice to have a bathroom in the DVC lounge but I'm grateful just to have a place to go to relax and enjoy a beverage. We've been lucky that both times that we visited, the snack cart was brought out and offered to us. Loved all your pictures of the flowers especially with the monorail running through it with SE in the background!
I hope the lounge becomes a permanent fixture - at least until they figure out something to put in that space. Seems better than just keeping it empty & unused.
I hope the lounge becomes a permanent fixture - at least until they figure out something to put in that space. Seems better than just keeping it empty & unused.
The DVC lounge looks very nice! I had really hoped to try the pineapple soft serve with coconut rum on my trip, but I was always too full when we passed that booth. [emoji853]
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The DVC lounge looks very nice! I had really hoped to try the pineapple soft serve with coconut rum on my trip, but I was always too full when we passed that booth. [emoji853]
The DVC lounge looks so amazing in all the pictures I've seen of it. Next time I'm there, I need to find a DVC friend so I can go up there...
Aaah, yes the rum very much adds to the Dole whip float! I love that little treat.
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Tanya
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Imagine how I feel, trying to keep up four updates each morning. 
At least tomorrow, one concludes and another finishes next week, so then it will all be a bit more manageable... 
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Pixie Dust
The line was long, and of course it was in the blazing heat too. 
It probably took about 10 minutes to get to the front of the line. Some of the problem was that people didn’t know what they wanted 
but also I don’t really think Disney had got their act together with the Outdoor Kitchens either. We found this at a number of our stops, that service was painfully slow, and Cast Members appeared to be getting to grips with the menu, which was a bit concerning, given this was now day two of the festival. We also saw a number of managers with staff helping them, which didn’t give me much confidence either. 
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