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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 enjoyed all your pictures at DHS! I haven't been on the Backlot Studios Tour in years but I guess I should go there one last time during my December trip! I agree with you about the My Disney Experience. During my last trip in October I just felt that we spent so much time looking at our phones moving fastpasses or checking the times that I wasn't enjoying the experience of the parks like I used to! I wrote that in a survey that I did for Disney. I miss the old paper fastpasses Glad that Claire enjoyed the drawing class so much. It's fun for the kids and adults!
Ok, so did I miss something about Lights, Motors, Action closing? I hadn't heard anything confirmed about that.
I don't think it's actually official but it has been in the talks for quite some time and most CM's will tell you it's closing (Indy may be as well). They are making star wars land and something pixar...or so the rumors say and that area is going to be used for one and/or the other.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
Glad you got into the drawing class. It is a must do for my youngest DD. She loves to draw! Both of your Tiggers look great!!!
I was very impressed with Claire's. She did such a great job. She took it seriously too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rhinohunter
Your Tiggers look great. I did this in September and drew the fly from Princess and the Frog. (Can't remember his name.)
I can't think of his name either, but I know exactly who you are talking about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by xwewhisper
You two are both so talented! WOW! Glad you got in and were able to get a seat
it was fun and you can be a pretty poor drawer and do well in those classes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Great pictures from Backlot Tours! I think both of your Tigger drawings are excellent.
Thanks
I was so impressed with Claire's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindawdw
I enjoyed all your pictures at DHS! I haven't been on the Backlot Studios Tour in years but I guess I should go there one last time during my December trip! I agree with you about the My Disney Experience. During my last trip in October I just felt that we spent so much time looking at our phones moving fastpasses or checking the times that I wasn't enjoying the experience of the parks like I used to! I wrote that in a survey that I did for Disney. I miss the old paper fastpasses Glad that Claire enjoyed the drawing class so much. It's fun for the kids and adults!
The Backlot tour is now closed. It was kind of short notice when they closed it but it had been rumored for over a year.
I totally agree about the MDE. I felt more mechanical and not as free as i had to keep checking my app and working things around the times. I really liked the paper too where it was more spur of the moment.
We found a photopass photographer and got a few shots.
You may notice I am wearing a jacket. Today was a bit cooler than it had been earlier in our trip, but by the end of the day I had wished I had worn shorts.
I like this one of Claire.
I asked if she could do any magic shots and she took Claire off to the side.
I always love the balloon shot.
I took one of Claire posing.
We looked her for lunch but the line was long and Claire didn’t see anything to her liking.
I keep hearing the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground is going to close for good….but it is still there.
Claire wanted pizza….such a shocker…I know. I have never been to Pizza Planet and I couldn’t even picture where is was in my mind and the map wasn’t helping me and I asked a CM…and I was about 10 steps away from it…of course!
The line was out the door, but it moved pretty fast and we were soon inside.
We decided what we wanted and we planned to share again.
We got the pepperoni pizza and a salad. We looked for a seat but it was packed in there so we headed up the steps. There was a boy waiting on the steps, I assume was waiting for his family who maybe were in line?....and he was sitting smack dab in the middle and didn’t want to move so we basically climbed over him. LOL.
I started with the salad and Claire dug into the pizza.
Claire ended up eating 3 of the pieces of pizza and I got one and she complained about that. She told me the salad should’ve filled me. It didn’t! It used to be that we could easily share meals and be full, but she is getting bigger and I think those days have passed now.
While sitting there I was playing with my phone and looking at the app…..the app that was not working. Our Toy Story FP was to open up very soon. I think started looking through my phone pictures and realized I had made a screen shot a few days earlier of all my FP’s and guess what? My TSM FP was for earlier in the day. I KNEW I had planned it earlier. I was raging mad! I had now missed the FP time….though the app showed it as opening soon.
We headed out and made our way over to TSM. If they denied me my entrance I was going to raise some holy heck. So from what I can figure, this FP time changed at least 3 possibly FOUR times on its own on the app today. NOT GOOD Disney!
We headed out and rushed over to see if they would let us in.
Claire's Tigger drawing is quite possibly the best drawing done by a child that I've seen posted on here. Better than most drawings by adults! I hope they let you on TSMM (although hearing about you raising holy heck would be a good story)!
I missed our Star Tours/Muppets (we had the party split) due to the app not working properly when we were there a couple of weeks ago. I could have sworn it was for before noon but it was telling me it was for 1 or 2 and then when that time came it had it on there for my original time I thought of 10:30 so we missed it. I didn't think about going and checking to see if we could still get in due to a glitch. I never did get to ride Star Tours!
Love all the magic shots! I only ended up with one out of all my PP pics. I was going to ask but the parks were so busy and there was always a line of people waiting to have their picture taken that I just never did.
Glad you were able to get into the drawing class! That's one of our favorite things to do at DHS, and your drawings of Tigger came out great. The rest of your afternoon looked like fun, but I really hope that they let you in to TSMM with your FP!
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Claire's Tigger drawing is quite possibly the best drawing done by a child that I've seen posted on here. Better than most drawings by adults! I hope they let you on TSMM (although hearing about you raising holy heck would be a good story)!
Thanks...I was really impressed with what she did too. She isn't really artistic either so I thought she did such a good job.
I know...everyone would probably love a good raising heck story!
Quote:
Originally Posted by disneydreamer33
I missed our Star Tours/Muppets (we had the party split) due to the app not working properly when we were there a couple of weeks ago. I could have sworn it was for before noon but it was telling me it was for 1 or 2 and then when that time came it had it on there for my original time I thought of 10:30 so we missed it. I didn't think about going and checking to see if we could still get in due to a glitch. I never did get to ride Star Tours!
Love all the magic shots! I only ended up with one out of all my PP pics. I was going to ask but the parks were so busy and there was always a line of people waiting to have their picture taken that I just never did.
Ugh. I am still annoyed that this app keeps glitching. Believe me ...I hear about it ALL the time. And the website too. Clients emailing in a panic because everything just disappeared or half their party is no longer connected. I know it's in test phase, but everyone has to use it so it's really not a test.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Hope you make it on TSMM!
Quote:
Originally Posted by xwewhisper
Love the balloon shots too! Glad you were able to find something to eat with not too bad of a line!
Thanks....I like those shots too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JKnott17
Glad you were able to get into the drawing class! That's one of our favorite things to do at DHS, and your drawings of Tigger came out great. The rest of your afternoon looked like fun, but I really hope that they let you in to TSMM with your FP!
We had a nice time and I am so glad we did the class.
Quote:
Originally Posted by auntlatoya
Just caught up. What a great trip so far!! Your pictures are wonderful.
We arrived at Toy Story Mania and I think it was actually a little before the FP was to open on according to the app, but later than my scheduled time. I told the CM that my time had jumped several times today and I am not sure if it is going to let us in. She had no expression at all and told us to scan and see. I suppose she was used to seeing issues with this all day long and tired of people telling her about them. We scanned and it turned green! YAY! We were in!
I think we still had a 15-20 minute wait in the FP line but much faster than standby.
We had a great time as always. Neither of us are very good at it, but I usually beat Claire and then she complains about it.
She would ride this over and over if the line wasn’t so dang long. I really hope when they add the 3rd track, which I have heard will be used exclusively for Fastpasses, that it really makes it much easier to get on in a timely fashion.
We decided we had done all we wanted to at DHS and headed towards the front of the park.
Stopping for a few photopass pictures along the way.
OOPS…I blinked.
I love you baby!!!!
Magic shot time.
We made our way to the parking tram.
Again I really hate driving to the parks. I love how the bus drops me off and picks me up much better.
Good bye Hollywood Studios…..Little did I know at that moment that I would be back there in Aug.
We then headed out to the POC car and programmed Siri to get us to the Magic Kingdom.
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I think both of your Tigger drawings are excellent. 
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I agree with you about the My Disney Experience. During my last trip in October I just felt that we spent so much time looking at our phones moving fastpasses or checking the times that I wasn't enjoying the experience of the parks like I used to! I wrote that in a survey that I did for Disney. I miss the old paper fastpasses
Glad that Claire enjoyed the drawing class so much. It's fun for the kids and adults!
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