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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I thought I'd update you all on my communications with Guest Services regarding the new DAS. As you may know, we visited WDW in early November and had a less than magical trip due mainly to the new changes. I emailed Guest Services a week or so after our trip to outline my disappointment and experience. After many weeks and an awful lot of phone tag I just got off the phone with a CM. Here's the abridged version:
They (WDW) are very VERY interested in feedback from guests regarding their experiences. The system is still very new and the "Executives" are being made aware of guests concerns. The system will definitely need some tweaking and/or changing but no time frame on when that will happen. Every correspondence is being sent to the "Executives" and they "are listening and taking this issue VERY seriously". What will come of it? Who knows but I do suggest that anyone who has used the new DAS system reach out to Guest Services with your experience. The CM did say that they don't know how a system is/isn't working without feedback.
I am not a "squeaky wheel" kind of person so it was out of character for me to even email but when it comes to something I'm passionate about I can get my NY Italian blood all boiled up, lol
Thanks for the update.. It helps all of us when feedback is given to Disney.
I am having concerns myself about our up-coming trip.
Being a ECV user I am sure I will have issues getting a DAS card. I can use mainstream ques most of the time but there are some I can't deal with & needed a GAC in the past to use alternate entrances. Hope things are running better in November
Thanks for the update.. It helps all of us when feedback is given to Disney.
I am having concerns myself about our up-coming trip.
Being a ECV user I am sure I will have issues getting a DAS card. I can use mainstream ques most of the time but there are some I can't deal with & needed a GAC in the past to use alternate entrances. Hope things are running better in November
Hi Eeyore,
What I noticed while I was there in December was that for ECV users who could not take the ECV through the regular lines, they would give them a handwritten fast pass with the current time, current standby time and a return time, which is all the same information they put on the DAS card. This allows the ECV user to return to the fast pass line when their time arrives and enter that way. So instead of ECV riders getting a DAS card, it's done on an attraction by attraction basis depending on whether or not the attraction's main queue can handle ECVs. I saw hand written return passes being issued at Big Thunder Mountain and at Buzz Lightyear. There are CMs stationed at each fast pass entrance with a clipboard. These are the CMs you want to speak to as they will be the ones to issue the return pass.
What I noticed while I was there in December was that for ECV users who could not take the ECV through the regular lines, they would give them a handwritten fast pass with the current time, current standby time and a return time, which is all the same information they put on the DAS card. This allows the ECV user to return to the fast pass line when their time arrives and enter that way. So instead of ECV riders getting a DAS card, it's done on an attraction by attraction basis depending on whether or not the attraction's main queue can handle ECVs. I saw hand written return passes being issued at Big Thunder Mountain and at Buzz Lightyear. There are CMs stationed at each fast pass entrance with a clipboard. These are the CMs you want to speak to as they will be the ones to issue the return pass.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eeyore Tattoo
Thanks for the update.. It helps all of us when feedback is given to Disney.
I am having concerns myself about our up-coming trip.
Being a ECV user I am sure I will have issues getting a DAS card. I can use mainstream ques most of the time but there are some I can't deal with & needed a GAC in the past to use alternate entrances. Hope things are running better in November
As a fellow ECV user, I have had no problems obtaining a DAS pass. I have other issues besides mobility ones. Being a new WDW local, I renew mine every 14+ days. No problems with the renewal. My info is in the system and just need a new picture taken. Hopefully you will not encounter getting the DAS.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
I write to WDW Guest Communications after every trip with praise for great CMs as well as letting Disney know about other not-so-magical experiences so that Disney can address them. Disney can't fix problems if they don't know about it and they also can't praise CMs if they don't know about it so I make sure that I write Disney after every trip. I've found the CMs that call me back to great and explaining anything that may need explaining but also for listening to concerns and issues. Even Disney Management aka Executives will listen to feedback. I recently had to write to the Disney Theatrical Group about an issue I had at one of their stage productions. I addressed it to the head of the division. I got an email about a week later from someone in the Disney Theatrical Group saying the head of the division passed my letter on to him. He thanked me for my letter and explained what had happened and what he was going to do moving forward.
I thought I'd update you all on my communications with Guest Services regarding the new DAS. As you may know, we visited WDW in early November and had a less than magical trip due mainly to the new changes. I emailed Guest Services a week or so after our trip to outline my disappointment and experience. After many weeks and an awful lot of phone tag I just got off the phone with a CM. Here's the abridged version:
They (WDW) are very VERY interested in feedback from guests regarding their experiences. The system is still very new and the "Executives" are being made aware of guests concerns. The system will definitely need some tweaking and/or changing but no time frame on when that will happen. Every correspondence is being sent to the "Executives" and they "are listening and taking this issue VERY seriously". What will come of it? Who knows but I do suggest that anyone who has used the new DAS system reach out to Guest Services with your experience. The CM did say that they don't know how a system is/isn't working without feedback.
a quick note to chime in that I wrote my own email last week, and I also got a call today from "Brianna" at WDW - She told me almost all of the same things...they need our feedback, they can't make changes if they don't know what needs to be changed, she was to report her findings to executives, etc. I really appreciated the personal touch, and I told her so. The conversation lasted about 20 minutes, and I really felt more optimistic about the future of the DAS. Time will tell, but I am hoping that Disney does implement some improvements.
One additional note. I contacted the Autism Society of America about opening conversations with Disney about how the system could be improved, and the response I got from them was quite troubling to me...essentially that they feel Disney's system is acceptable and that one of their goals was to encourage people with autism to learn to adapt in the non-autism world. Some of the wording of the reply was so convoluted that I really couldn't decipher it, but I gathered enough to be ticked off at the lack of concern they seemed to have for the people for whom they are supposed to advocate. I had them understand that I spend part of every day teaching my son to try to get along in the regular world. Yet, he still has autism, and he always will. I really viewed their email as a brush-off.
Let's just say that given the two exchanges, I feel more encouraged by Disney than I do by the Autism Society.
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PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Definitely anytime after the time listed on your DAS. We had the CMs even tell us that we could return anytime after "insert time here" when they filled out my DAS card.
The GAC and Fastpass give two times that you have to revisit between. Are you saying that the DAS lets you visit whenever you like after a certain time with no cut-off?
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