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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Similar to what my wife and I got from Oasis of the Seas in 2010, Disney Dream is offering a book in which one can customize and include all one's photos. Since my wife and I like the photos, we figured we could get at least 8 individual photos to make it worth it (the book is $149 and pix are $20 a pop), even though we were on a 3-day cruise.
We did so, with only two duplicate photos (same pose.) Here's a list of photos in our book:
page 1 - Embarkation - customized two different ones (one with in-laws, other with wife and I)
page 2 and 3 - Four stock photos. These I don't think were customizable. I know they were testing the AquaDuck camera, so despite the flash going off when you're on the ride, that wasn't a photo option (the third pic is a stock AquaDuck photos.)
page 4 and 5 - Four customized photos, all professional with different backgrounds
page 6 and 7 - Four customized photos. We chose all the characters: Mickey in one of the lounges; Aladdin; Minnie; Pluto
page 8 and 9 - Three customized photos from dinner. One is a stock photo. Since the other slots were customizable had there been another dinner pic - or if one was on a longer cruise, then one could place a photo in that space .
pages 10 and 11 - Four customizable slots. Another character page. Goofy; Mickey at the terminal (we didn't get ours done with Minnie, though she was there); Donald; and a dupe of Aladdin.
pages 12 and 13 - Four customizable slots. We have two stock photos and two more professional photos, different poses.
pages 14 and 15 - Four customizable slots, from Castaway Cay. Three of which were filled with our pics, one stock photo.
pages 16 and 17 - Four customizable slots. Three stock pics. Other pic is a dupe of Mickey in one of the lounges. This is where the AquaDuck photo, when operational, would go, I assume, since the stock pics are of the pool deck.
pages 18 and 19 - Four customizable slots. Four stock pics. This is where the Princess character photos would go.
page 20 - Three customizable slots. Three stock photos.
My assessment? Again, if you have only eight photos, consider yourself ahead of the game. By my count, less the duplicate photos, we would have bought 21 pictures otherwise - so this book is a great savings.
However, there were a lot more slots than could hold photos, so while we did enjoy the book, this is really more ideally suited for a longer cruise, or if you have kids (or "older kids" like us) and they have to make EVERY character greeting. (We didn't make it a priority, but if we were in the area, we went to it.)
Minor nits: No port of call pics from Nassau. None were taken. (And there's no slot for them in the book.) The Castaway Cay port pics were taken a few feet apart - would have been nice to have a different background. And maybe one of the stock pics could have been the captain of one's voyage?
As well, not every meet and greet had a professional photographer at it. While we were able to make it up by showing up at character appearances that did - sorry, Chip and Dale, you're on our memory card but not in the book. (Oh, and the photos will also use your camera in addition to taking a professional shot, which was nice. Try bringing your own camera to a photo with Santa and see what I mean.)
One other nit which I mentioned in another thread is that one must pay for the book with the same KTTW card as your organized it. Now, when the photographers take your pic, they'll either 1)not ask for either a card or room number, relying on the faces to properly place photos into a folio; 2)ask for a KTTW card or 3)ask for a room number.
We organized our book using my card, and my wife paid for it with hers. Imagine our surprise when on disembarkation day the book isn't how we laid it out!
We were told that the book as we wanted it - they have a kiosk open on disembarkation day for any problems - would arrive in 6 to 8 weeks. It arrived in 2 to 3, which was really nice.
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First trip to WDW mid-1980s
First trip to Disneyland April 2009
Disney Wonder - Oct. 2007 / Bahamas
Disney Dream - Feb. 2012 / Bahamas
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
I believe there are "some" limitations. That is, if you have a pic taken at the cruise port with you and Mickey, you can't put it just anywhere in the book. If you click on where to insert a photo, it will give you only a certain selection of photos - pics taken at Castaway Cay go only in that section, for example.
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First trip to WDW mid-1980s
First trip to Disneyland April 2009
Disney Wonder - Oct. 2007 / Bahamas
Disney Dream - Feb. 2012 / Bahamas
How would I go about ordering the book? Do we have to wait till we are on-board to sign up? I checked the DCL website, but couldn't find anything about it. Couldn't even find anything about signing up for photopass on the ship either. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place?
Thanks to all for answering my numerous questions!
Gretchen
How would I go about ordering the book? Do we have to wait till we are on-board to sign up? I checked the DCL website, but couldn't find anything about it. Couldn't even find anything about signing up for photopass on the ship either. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place?
Thanks to all for answering my numerous questions!
Gretchen
"Photopass" is only in the WDW parks, on the ship the photography service is a different service and it's called "Shutters." You don't need to sign-up for it. You can find info by typing "photography service" into the search on DCL. I just noticed that this site indicates Disney Magic and Disney Wonder, but I believe the photography services are the same on all ships.
You can pre-purchase photo credits of 10, 20 or 30 credits though the Gifts and Amenities section of the DCL website. A 6x8 photo is 1 credit (or roughly $10/per when onboard) and an 8x10 photo is 2 credits (or $20/per when onboard). You can only order the CD onboard, so possibly the album is only available onboard as well. Price may be based on the length of your cruise - the CD price is based on cruise length so it would make sense that a photo album would also be priced accordingly (longer cruise = more photos = bigger album). As a note, you must make your photo purchases while onboard before leaving the ship; unlike WDW Photopass you cannot access cruise photos after you return home.
Disney's PhotoPass has offered pre-payment deals for theme park photos. However, that doesn't apply to the ships - the cruise line photo operations are run by an outside contractor, not PhotoPass. There's no pre-purchase deal on the ships.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
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