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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Fun at the (Cold) Beach PTR
Pre-Trip Report
Destination: Reston, VA and Ocean City, MD / Rehoboth Beach, DE
Dates: November 8-16
The Cast:
Me (BJ): Hi everyone!
I’ve written one PTR/TR before for my prior trip to WDW / Universal, and I have been meaning to write another one since 2010, since I’ve traveled other places that aren’t WDW or DL, but have messed up and haven’t. That’s being remedied this trip for sure. I’m the only person going on this trip that I feel comfortable posting pictures of so you’ll probably see a few pics of me, a lot of landscape/building/food pics, and not much else. Sorry about that. So... here’s a pic of me the last time out to help you remember who I am.
DM: My mom’s coming along on this trip with me, and we’re going to see her dad/my grandfather before we go to OC so I cannot be more excited.
DCW: This is a friend of both my mother’s and mine who is tagging along, but I’ll refer to her simply as DCW for much of this PTR/TR simply because I am working on this practically in secret so I can actually get more excited about this trip and I am going to conceal her identity out of respect.
Anyways, what’s the deal? My mother is a huge fan of going to the beach at altogether weird times to avoid the crowds. Me, not so much, but I go along because it’s a chance to go to the beach, for crying out loud! We’re going to Reston for a night before we go and again on our way home because we are in essence tacking this part on to break up what would ordinarily be a 7-8 hour trip to Ocean City and Reston is sort of at the halfway mark between my place and Ocean City.
We are trying out a new website my mother and I discovered this summer, VRBO.com (Vacation Rental By Owner), and we are renting a condo from Saturday-Friday, i.e. for a full week. I haven’t been to Ocean City, MD for that length of time since I was a kid and I cannot be more excited to go! Although if this experience with VRBO goes well, it *could* mean more WDW trips for me because I am noticing they have the same kind of thing around WDW for relatively cheaply AND I can justify getting an annual pass... maybe...
I used to come to Ocean City and stay in similar condos to the one we are renting as a kid because a lot of family members of mine live in the general area and this is a hub of sorts that we could all come to and be together for a week or so, and this was the one and only time I got to see many members of my family.
As far as actual plans go? We don’t have them, really. This is the first trip I’ve gone on in awhile where the plans are basically chucked out the window, and while we’ll have some meals out, we’ll have other meals in, and we will also have some things we do during the day, which my research will actually play into what we do. I am discovering lots of new things in my research, so I might detail some things that I got to do that maybe if you live in the general area you might want to check out at some future point for a close-to-home vacation!
I mean there’s some general planning, like going into Rehoboth Beach, DE and going to the boardwalk (those are fairly obvious if you know anything about OC), but there are no specific plans we have, really.
In terms of my actual pre-trip report, that’s it. Of course, I am more than likely going to write response posts, etc., but I am not currently planning to have any updates between now and the time I get to leave and be on my fun little week-ish trip in less than a month, but hey, anything can happen!
BJ
P.S. I *hate* the new PhotoBucket site. Anyone else?
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Great start! I think we'll all agree with you on the distaste for the new Photobucket site!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great start!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Great start!
I'm with you 100% on the new Photobucket site.
Glad people agree with me about how awful Photobucket is nowadays
And thanks for all the well-wishes! I actually have what I am going to call a Mini-Update, just sort of giving a few little updates here and there about what I'm doing to prepare for this, which is NOT going to comprise an "official" update of sorts. It's just me giving some pointers I've been discovering in my research:
Mini-Update #1: App recommendations and Yummy Food
Okay, gotta give out a few app recommendations, because people will almost certainly ask what I think as far as apps specifically geared towards the area are concerned (so TripAdvisor's out... which is okay because I enjoy using the TripAdvisor app now, finally). I've used the official Ocean City MD mobile app on my iPhone and... it's okay I guess. I think it's more useful as an informational hub for first-timers than anything else. The OC Deals app isn't much to write home about in the off-season, but when it is the silly season of summer, you'll be swimming in deals! And there are one or two others that focus on OC but they're ehh at best.
But I wholeheartedly recommend Rehoboth Beach In My Pocket if you are considering a trip to the area, which discusses Rehoboth Beach, DE, which isn't all that far from OC. It's a pricier app at $3.99, however the guy writing it has quite the humorous writing style, and it's from a website I frankly didn't know existed till yesterday, called RehobothFoodie.com. No, seriously...
Anyways, I wrote the Rehoboth Foodie because I was curious about where I could get a really good clams casino, and he actually wrote me back! He recommended a couple of places, one of which I think is almost a certainty for me to talk about but that might be saved for the TR proper.
And one other thing that is sort of tied into the above is I found a really interesting tour that we actually have tickets for, the Eating Rehoboth Food Tour at eatingrehoboth.com! It'll be what I do on the Sunday of our trip but it will be most enjoyable for me to see some new restaurants I haven't given much of a chance to before on prior trips to the area, so that's fabulous for me!
Anyways that's it as far as the mini-update. I'll see you guys later!
Sounds like you've got some great food contacts for your trip!
Indeed! I can't wait to look at the menu for the Henlopen City Oyster House (one of the two places he recommended for clams casino). I am doing so because we have someone going on our trip who isn't necessarily a big seafood person and I want to make sure we are all going to eat well at that place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Thanks for sharing the apps you've found - that's really useful information for anyone planning to visit the area.
Bearing in mind the negative feedback about the Photobucket site, I am amazed they've stuck with it...
I think so too. But man, there's a barren wasteland apps-wise. The ones I mentioned for the area? Besides like one or two others, that's it. (Unlike for WDW, where there's an app for almost every need... wish there was a Disney Food Blog app, though...)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great info! Sounds like you will be eating well.
More than likely. Seafood is one of my favorite things in the world to eat, and finding a good seafood restaurant at the beach isn't hard if you know what you're doing. Some of those places are... shall I say... tourist traps.
Okay folks, here's the final mini-update before I leave!
Mini-Update #2: Lots of yummy food, and tentative plans
I leave this Friday, can't be more excited!
On the first full day we'll be in the OC/Rehoboth area (Sunday) we'll be going on the EatingRehoboth.com tour. To say I am excited beyond belief is an understatement to the nth degree.
Then we'll alternate days of going places and staying near where our condo is until Friday when we'll leave the area. I have to say I can't wait to tell you guys about all of it. Including the super yummy food.
One of the last independent bookstores (in the US if I recall right) is in Rehoboth Beach, Browseabout Books. It's essentially always a must-stop while we're in the area. Ironically, the last time we stopped at Browseabout Books was when The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by the late Lilian Jackson Braun had just come out in hardcover, as this was way back in 2007. The fact that it turned out to be the last book in the series that she wrote and published before her death, especially with the shocking ending (especially for a series that never went for that level of shock value before this, and that is the most I can say without spoiling it), was a very sad milestone. So, we're going back this time for sure. This time I'll be armed with a ton of books I'll be looking for in-store.
One of the best parts of a visit to OC is getting Dolles Salt Water Taffy, stopping in the Candy Kitchen (yeah they may be tourist traps but sweet tooth that I am, I love the place) and the coup de grace, Thrasher's French Fries. All three of those things are time-honored traditions in my family and all three of those things we are going to do this time also.
But, unlike more recent prior trips, we'll be arming ourselves with great places to eat as well as great food to eat in the condo. Yeah we'll go to the fried chicken place (another time-honored family tradition), and yeah we'll probably find a couple of chain places to eat at, but overall we're going to basically take this trip nice and easy.
But one place we're going to eat at the last night is the Henlopen City Oyster House, one of the two places the Rehoboth Foodie recommended for a good clams casino. I don't think I've ever eaten here so this is going to be a treat. Usually we go to Phillips for our seafood fix but we'll see how this one shakes out.
Have a great trip! I love the beach at off-peak times. The sea and sky and bite in the air-- the best. It's so sad that the independent bookstores are disappearing. We still have a few around here that I try to patronize. Your food plans sound delish. Good luck fighting with photobucket so you can show us the food porn plus the beautiful landscape.
Sounds like a great time and food to be had as well!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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He recommended a couple of places, one of which I think is almost a certainty for me to talk about but that might be saved for the TR proper.
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