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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Taking a break from packing for our almost 2 week trip to New England (Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and possibly Rhode Island).
Plus, we're stopping at Niagara Falls on the way home!
Advantages to this trip vs. others: We have kids who ALL drive! No more mom and dad driving all of it while the kids sleep. None of us have ever been to any of it, so no way anyone can say "I did that already, I don't want to do it again" (happens almost everywhere we go), and: it's cooler in Vermont than it is here!
Disadvantages: the kids drive. Sometimes not as cautiously as I'd like - they sometimes scare me! Can I just say: 16 hours there, 16 hours back. In a car. With a 16 y.o. and a 21 y.o. who both seemed determined to drive me crazy. Plus, a husband who.... well, I think I'm about two steps from the loony bin sometimes because of him. He's a guy, what can I say?
#1 disadvantage: NO matter how many times I said "I am NOT making all the plans, I am NOT packing everything up, I am NOT being wholly responsible for this trip - NOTHING has been planned, because no-one else did ANYTHING.
A quick lesson on life in New England - if you don't like the weather, wait a minute. Yesterday morning, here where I live in MA, it was very, very muggy (shorts weather and it was still gross). By early afternoon, the temperatures and humidity dropped to the point that I had to close the windows in the house and put on jeans.
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A quick lesson on life in New England - if you don't like the weather, wait a minute.
So very true!
New England is a beautiful place, but also very diverse. Mountains, countryside, lakes, ocean, villages, cities.... I'll be interested to see where you visit. Are you going to do a TR?
BTW, if you get nervous with your young adult drivers, wait until you experience some of the New England drivers . MA has recently rolled out a safety campaign...."Use Yah Blinkah".
My kids all learned to drive in Northern NewEngland and are very good drivers. The motto in NH is "Drive with Courtesy-it's the NH way" and it is. One thing that bothers me when we travel is that I am so used to people waiting, taking turns and being considerate of one another that I need to recalculate when I am somewhere else. I will say that courtesy is not the norm in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, nor is stopping at stop signs (they roll through).
I would feel pretty comfortable with most teen driving in the northern half of NE. You just have to realize all the states are pretty small so you have lots of out of state (and Canadian drivers).
If you have a chance, go to RI. It is a gorgeous little state and the mansions in Newport are breathtaking.
I'm a Massachusetts driver. Born and raised. We are known to be quite aggressive. I don't like to think I am, but I am. I'm an equally aggressive pedestrian. Everyone is go go go. I'd say you or your Dh should drive in Massachusetts.
Have a wonderful vacation!! My kids say they want to drive, but get bored after a half hour or so. Remember, there's no sales tax in New Hampshire, so if you have shopping to do, check out our outlet malls for tax free treasures.
I will say that courtesy is not the norm in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, nor is stopping at stop signs (they roll through).
If you have a chance, go to RI. It is a gorgeous little state and the mansions in Newport are breathtaking.
Well, I didn't want to call out the Massachusetts drivers specifically, but that's who I meant . I should clarify -Eastern MA and RI drivers specifically seem to be the most aggressive.
I agree there are some gorgeous places in RI. The beaches are great, but unfortunately so is the traffic in the summer. It is a tiny, tiny little state though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawnam1868
I'm a Massachusetts driver. Born and raised. We are known to be quite aggressive. I don't like to think I am, but I am. I'm an equally aggressive pedestrian. Everyone is go go go. I'd say you or your Dh should drive in Massachusetts.
My DBiL is a born-and-raised MA driver and we have him drive whenever we travel somewhere new (rented a car in CA and who did we choose to brave the freeway.....) I agree. I wouldn't have the teens drive in MA -particularly the greater Boston area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JoanneS
Have a wonderful vacation!! My kids say they want to drive, but get bored after a half hour or so. Remember, there's no sales tax in New Hampshire, so if you have shopping to do, check out our outlet malls for tax free treasures.
If the OP drinks alcohol, I would add a stop at the state liquor stores in New Hampshire. MUCH cheaper than elsewhere in New England, particularly my home in CT. Just be careful not to buy too much (not sure what the limit is for taking over the state border but there is one).
That reminds me -OP, you may want to track gas prices. There is a difference from state to state due to state gas taxes. CT is one of the highest I know. As the states are so close together, it shouldn't be too hard to plan fill-ups to take advantage of better prices.
My son used an app on his droid to track gas prices. Prices vary quite a bit even within a state and a short drive off the interstate can mean much lower prices.
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One of my biggest fears is pedestrians who not only do not stop, they do not look. When I picked DD up at Brown I felt like we were playing dodge the pedestrian on Thayer Street-no one stopped, no one looked and lights meant nothing. Add in a few Ipods, tablets, other pulled in things and an occasional book reader, and I always sighed a sigh of relief when I got on the interstate.
One of my biggest fears is pedestrians who not only do not stop, they do not look. When I picked DD up at Brown I felt like we were playing dodge the pedestrian on Thayer Street-no one stopped, no one looked and lights meant nothing. Add in a few Ipods, tablets, other pulled in things and an occasional book reader, and I always sighed a sigh of relief when I got on the interstate.
This seems to be a college campus phenomenon. DH works at the University of CT. He says the students rarely, if ever, pay attention to the vehicles traveling on the roads. He has to be extremely cautious as he drives around campus.
Welcome to Massachusetts where the pedestrian, who can stop on a dime, has the right of way, not the car that can't stop on a dime. The sad part about it - it's actually a law in this state where the cars have to stop for pedestrians.
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In NH, too. Cars yield to pedestrians. Is Boston still in Massachusetts? I think the run over anyone phenomena started there. Maybe there are too many college students so drivers eeither go through the masses or never move.
I can't think of any state where the pedestrian does not have the right of way. But having the right of way shouldn't mean that pedestrians can not pay attention and do unsafe things.
Currently doing 5 New England states in 7 days : ) enjoyed Water Country in Portsmouth, NH very much today. Legoland Boston tomorrow, then on to RI for 5 nights : ) thanks for the gas tip on CT, holly! Will fill up before we cross!
Of course we drove straight to Disney store outlet yesterday in Merrimack!
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One day we will make it to New England....
. MA has recently rolled out a safety campaign...."Use Yah Blinkah".
. I should clarify -Eastern MA and RI drivers specifically seem to be the most aggressive.
) I agree. I wouldn't have the teens drive in MA -particularly the greater Boston area.
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