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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Michael's recent post about Facebook and a personal incident prompts me to ask...
Have you ever been 'found' by someone on Facebook that you didn't want to have contact with?
I just received a note in my Inbox on FB from someone our family has not had any contact with in about 10 years - and I would rather they not have found us. (I checked my privacy settings and found they were less than private - bad me.) It's a small world, I know and easy to find just about anyone you want. I don't have to respond to this person (and don't plan to) but still...
I just ignore the friend request invitation. That way they can't see anything but your name and profile picture. Make sure your settings won't allow anyone except who you want to see your info and posts.
Yes happened to me not long ago. An exboyfriend found me. To say the least I was shocked. Haven't seen or talked to him in 16 years. I just clucked ignore. He was my past and that is where I want him to stay.
I check my settings every time Facebook makes a change now because I used to have everything set to Private, then Facebook changed to that new format and it changed my privacy settings on me. I didn't know about it until a friend of mine mentioned in her status that that had happened to her, so I checked mine and yeppers, it happened to me too. (FYI - it's just happened again with this new username change thing)
As far as people contacting me that I don't want to, yeah I've got a few family members in my friends' list that I really would prefer they don't get to see everything on my FB page. So there's a setting for that too. It's hard to find and takes some digging, but if you are determined and persistent it is there somewhere. I can't even remember where it is now to tell you how to find it. And there is one person who was stalking me that I have blocked every person on FB with her name, plus I changed my FB name to not use my last name so that she (and others) can't find me easily. Pretty much the only way to find me now is if I find you, I tell you my name, or if you know a friend of mine who recommends you to me (which is how I got those unwanted relatives).
ETA: Ok, I found it. It's called "Customise". Go to Privacy Settings. Then click on Profile. Then there's dropdown boxes for all the different info available on your profile. Click the appropriate dropdown box, and go to Customise. Then you just enter in the names of the friends you want to block from seeing that info.
I check my settings every time Facebook makes a change now because I used to have everything set to Private, then Facebook changed to that new format and it changed my privacy settings on me. I didn't know about it until a friend of mine mentioned in her status that that had happened to her, so I checked mine and yeppers, it happened to me too. (FYI - it's just happened again with this new username change thing)
Well - that explains it! I was fairly certain I had my privacy permissions set the way I wanted; guess FB decided otherwise. Thanks for the heads-up, Donna!
Cathy one of the very first things I did was place my settings on very strict-because a certain someone has still tried to contact me using a bogus name but I saw straight thru it.
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I've had a couple of people try to friend me that I didn't want to be friends with. I have no problem denying them. I only have people I really know and like on my list.
After looking around at a couple of peoples pages, I finally figured out how to set my permissions. It was easier than I thought.
I wasn't even on FB and had two requests from people I know to see their sites. I couldn't view them unless I had an account. The person was our old neighbor who is getting ready to open a pizza place and she has been updating everyone on FB about the progress. So, instead of having to send me an email every time, she just directed me to her site.
I can see where people you don't want to be contacted by could find someone. I found a friend of mine from Middle School, who I had looked for in the past. I found him in LA, but I also found out some not so nice things about him from someone else. It may have been a good thing I didn't find him.
Facebook Privacy Settings are your friends! I definitely learned that the hard way. I've never had my profile as public, but also didn't really set filters so certain friends couldn't see certain things on my page. My thought process was, "I'm not saying/doing anything inappropriate, so why does it matter?" Well, maybe I'm not, but some people can get a little too interested in your information, which is creepy.
A couple of neat things you can do - you can view your profile "as" someone on your friends list - so after changing your settings, you look at your profile and it will show it to you exactly as they would see it - that way you can double check to make sure nothing is showing you wouldn't want that person to see.
You can also create friend groups and set settings for that group as a whole - so, for example, "Work People" "Family" "My Mom's Friends Who Think They Are Cool," etc.
Also, I would highly recommend editing the Search options so that someone cannot find that you have a FB page under a common search engine like Google. Again, my profile wasn't public, but used to, someone could google my name and see I had a FB account, including my profile picture and a couple other things. Got some gross "friend-requests" from some random stangers, so I changed that setting REAL fast.
Facebook Privacy Settings are your friends! I definitely learned that the hard way. I've never had my profile as public, but also didn't really set filters so certain friends couldn't see certain things on my page. My thought process was, "I'm not saying/doing anything inappropriate, so why does it matter?" Well, maybe I'm not, but some people can get a little too interested in your information, which is creepy.
A couple of neat things you can do - you can view your profile "as" someone on your friends list - so after changing your settings, you look at your profile and it will show it to you exactly as they would see it - that way you can double check to make sure nothing is showing you wouldn't want that person to see.
You can also create friend groups and set settings for that group as a whole - so, for example, "Work People" "Family" "My Mom's Friends Who Think They Are Cool," etc.
Also, I would highly recommend editing the Search options so that someone cannot find that you have a FB page under a common search engine like Google. Again, my profile wasn't public, but used to, someone could google my name and see I had a FB account, including my profile picture and a couple other things. Got some gross "friend-requests" from some random stangers, so I changed that setting REAL fast.
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