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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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When: September 22-October 1
Where: Rome
Who: Tara and Muffin
Why: Our 35th Anniversary Celebration
Well! We always try to do something big for our “5th” Anniversaries , and this year will be our 35th!! Although Muffin drives me up a tree sometimes, I have to say, he is the best person I know and I am so grateful to have found a life partner that truly is my soulmate. I cannot believe that we will be married 35 years in September!
Anyway! We originally had a cruise to Greece booked in October this year to celebrate, but of course, things changed. The cruise was going out of Rome and we planned to spend four nights before the cruise and one after here as we visited this beautiful city on our Mediterranean cruise and fell in love with it.
After our amazing Oasis cruise in March of this this year, we were both very excited to do our next one on the smaller but more intimate Radiance class of ship on the Jewel of the Seas. This was to be a 9 night cruise and would leave Rome on October 15th and sail to Athens, Santorini, Mykonos, Rhodes, Naples, Sicily and Valletta. Then!
Muffin called me at work about a week ago and said, “ What if we cancelled the cruse and split our vacation in two?”. Being very used to this, as I am more than sure you all are too, I calmly said, “What are you thinking?”. Mind you, I already put in for the vacation time and was really very excited about this trip.
Muffin said,”What if we go out to Spokane this summer and visit with Mike, Gabby and Logan and then just do a week in Rome for our anniversary?”. We could go to Disneyland with the kids.”
Now you might think I would jump all over that but I just said that I would think about it. There was much to consider:
1. Although I would love nothing more than to see Logan this summer, Spokane is not a well traveled destination making it very expensive to get to from these parts. Then flying everyone down to Anaheim would be an additional expense.
2. Mike can never be certain as to when he can take time off. He isn’t even sure at this point that he can take anytime this summer as he changing jobs and moving to Biloxi in the fall.
3. My in laws, whom I love with all of my heart, are aging rapidly and I am not sure how many more holidays we will spend with them. This is also our year for Sean, Jane and Finn to come and Katie and Andy are living here so we thought it would be really nice to have everyone home. It is Mike’s year to have Logan for Christmas and we are planning to fly the three of them here.
So! I thought and thought. And then thought some more. I countered with a little bit of a different plan. I said that I would love to go out and see Mike, Gabby and Logan but that it would just be too much to go down to LA. I suggested that we could maybe explore more of the area that Mike lives in because we really loved it out there.
We are currently working on this plan and we shall see what shakes down.........
I agreed to the Rome plan because really I don’t care where we go in Europe as long as we get there! So! I will do a separate TR for our summer trip but this one will be for our Italian adventure.
I also had to make sure that I could change my vacation days at work around. We have to put in pretty early for vacation time and I had just handed in my requests for the year, so my boss was actually very nice about switching my time around and thankfully, no one else requested off at the same time. With this done, we were clear to go to Rome!
Fast forward a couple more days and Muffin called me at work again. He suggested an Airbnb apartment in Rome for the week. I don’t know a whole lot about Airbnb but my nieces and nephews have stayed at them and loved them so I thought, why not give it a try?
We searched and searched the site and many of the offerings looked beautiful. We read reviews. Then we read more reviews. We found an apartment with over 500 reviews that were glowing. It was located very proximal to just about all of the major attractions in Rome as well. We contacted the host and he was awesome!! We booked our apartment from September 23-October 1st for 1400 bucks and it looks incredible!!!!!
Not sure if this link will work or not, but here is the apartment:
Check out this awesome Entire loft on Airbnb: Campo de Fiori luxury loft, sleeps 2 https://abnb.me/A7nRWjnTwL
We also booked a Vatican Museums full day tour which I will detail later on. We did see the Vatican when we were here on our Mediterranean cruise, but that was a long time ago and it was only for a whirlwind day. It will be nice to take our time and explore it more fully.
I also bought Rick Steves’ guide to Rome because when you get right down to it, it is a very overwhelming place to visit. It looks like there are enough things to do for a month and all we have are eight days.
Our airfare is booked and paid for as well and we already paid for half of the apartment we are renting so that is always a good feeling. We have some general ideas of what we’d like to do but we really need to sit down and look at the sites that may interest us.
We don’t want to go nuts with plans but we would like to eat somewhere nice for our anniversary. We are also thinking of a day trip to either Tuscany or Tivoli.
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I cannot believe that we will be married 35 years in September!
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