Dine with an Imagineer/Undiscovered Future World - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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 realize this is asking people to compare apples and goats, but I was wondering whether anyone had done either of these, and what they thought about them. I've got an odd-shaped day in my schedule, and either of this might fit nicely into it.
Thanks. Hard to believe ADR day has snuck up on me and I need to be on the computer at 3:00 AM Tuesday!
(and, oh yeah, I really need to get my counter updated!)
Hi, Mark! I'm one of the few here who did not like the Dine with an Imagineer experience. The Imagineer we had was a very boring speaker and had little of interest to say. He said he was quite new to working in Florida and, when asked for details of what he did (Isn't that what we're there to hear?) he was evasive and talked in general terms, not giving any insight at all. We were not asking for state secrets-- just wanted to know really what his job description was, what his work-day was like. I'm sure it would be a totally different experience if you had someone fun and interesting. I really enjoyed Undiscovered Future World-- a fairly typical on-stage and back-stage tour with a guide who was full of knowledge about Epcot. I'm not sure if this is always done, but we were also given passes to the VIP viewing area in Italy for Illuminations that night. It's not exactly an Illuminations Cruise, but was a nice perk. Have fun, whichever you pick!
My daughter and I had a great experience with our Imagineer. She was an engineer who had been with Disney long enough to be able to talk about past projects, including the Enchanted Art on the Disney Dream, the queue activities in Soarin, and a few exhibits in Innoventions. She was engaging, and asked us questions too to keep everyone engaged as well.
That said, while we enjoyed it, it was expensive for what we got, and your enjoyment does depend on the Imagineer you get. The Epcot tour would still depend on the tour guide, but would be harder to mess up completely. But if dining with the Imagineer sounds intriguing to you, it probably wouldn't be a bad choice either.
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We loved the Dine with an Imagineer. We had a very good Imagineer who was working on the refurbs. He was evasive about certain things but was very interesting about his background and how he came up through the ranks at Disney. I think that it depends on who your Imagineer is and unfortunately that is out of your control. BTW - we also had a wonderful meal at The Brown Derby!
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I'm one of the few here who did not like the Dine with an Imagineer experience. The Imagineer we had was a very boring speaker and had little of interest to say. He said he was quite new to working in Florida and, when asked for details of what he did (Isn't that what we're there to hear?) he was evasive and talked in general terms, not giving any insight at all. We were not asking for state secrets-- just wanted to know really what his job description was, what his work-day was like. I'm sure it would be a totally different experience if you had someone fun and interesting. I really enjoyed Undiscovered Future World-- a fairly typical on-stage and back-stage tour with a guide who was full of knowledge about Epcot. I'm not sure if this is always done, but we were also given passes to the VIP viewing area in Italy for Illuminations that night. It's not exactly an Illuminations Cruise, but was a nice perk. Have fun, whichever you pick!
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