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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Personally, my plan is to take my new digital camera with a couple of extra memory cards AND a few disposable 35 mm cameras. (The disposable cameras will be developed when we get home so we can extend the magic a little longer.)
DD will be getting a new laptop from her grandparents when she graduates 5th grade this May and this MIGHT be going with us. If it does then we can download our pics to the laptop or to a memory stick or CD.
I am bringing my digital for the first time this time as well, and we will have a laptop with us also. I am excited to download them right away.
However, if you do use regular film, and you have a car while you are there- you can always do 1 hour developing while you are there at Walgreens or Wal-Mart. We did this and had all our pictures to look at right away on the way home. We stayed off site at a condo with my parents. There was a wal-greens right across from the entrance to the resort and we dropped of the film on our way back each night and went back for them 1 hour later. It was great!
Before I switched to digital, I used to get my film developed at the Walgreens stores outside of WDW all the time. They do great work, and fast, too. I can recommend any of the 3 Walgreens stores for developing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PamelaK
Personally, my plan is to take my new digital camera with a couple of extra memory cards AND a few disposable 35 mm cameras. (The disposable cameras will be developed when we get home so we can extend the magic a little longer.)
DD will be getting a new laptop from her grandparents when she graduates 5th grade this May and this MIGHT be going with us. If it does then we can download our pics to the laptop or to a memory stick or CD.
If you're going to take the disposables on a plane with you, I highly recommend that you read over my page on Flying With Film.
I also recommend Fuji brand disposables. Fuji film makes the colors of a WDW vacation pop so much more vivid than Kodak, which washes everything out. And Fuji tends to be about 20%-30% cheaper than Kodak, too.
Thanks for the information. I hadn't hought about how the x-rays would affect the film. I am also thinking of taking a prepaid flat rate USPS box to ship souvenirs home and save luggage space. (Dad works for Post Office, so I do a lot with snail mail>) I suppose I could just send he disposable cameras home in the flat rate box and avoid the airport x-rays altogether.
I agree, memory is so cheap right now you're better off going with more memory cards. At $12.99 per CD, downloading on Disney property just isn't worth it (I'm guessing they're talking about 750MB CDs?).
By comparison, you can easily find $20-$25 deals on 2GB SD cards.
I agree with WillCAD about multiple cards. I do that for the sake of organization, I had never thought of losing or destroying the pics (oh the horror!). I think they are easier to work with when I have 3 or 4 mid size cards, rather than trying to download and sort from one huge card. Since I am now terrified of losing my pics (reading that made the hair stand up on the back of my neck) I think I will make the CDs for back up!
If you ever do get a corrupted card (either from an interupted download or for any other reason for that matter) no need to panic. The pics are still recoverable. Same thing if you accidently delete a bunch of pictures, or format a card by mistake. Those pics are recoverable too. Just DON'T use that card again until you get home. Mark that card, and put it away the rest of the trip.
When you get home, just download some photo recovery software. There're lots of programs like -- http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/v3 -- Some free, some not, but all work incredibly well (generally recovering like over 95% or better of the pics on a card).
The other thing is, in terms of durability, flash memory is unbelievable. You more or less can't destroy these things. Safest place for your pics -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3939333.stm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LizardCop
In the current I-Pod craze, if you own one of those that has a larger hard drive, you could get an adapter and download those photos you want to keep to it when the card gets full.
I have the iPod camera connector and it works great...with a catch though of course It absolutely sucks up battery power (both the camera and the iPod). The key is to have the iPod fully charged when you start. If you can plug the camera into a power adapter while you're downloading that solves half the problem right there. If you can't, just be sure the camera battery is juiced up too (or that you have a fresh set in there). If either the camera or the iPod run out of power mid download it can corrupt the card (and put that card out of commission til you get home). To be on the safe side I don't try and download more than 1GB worth of pics to the iPod in any one shot.
If you're going to take the disposables on a plane with you, I highly recommend that you read over my page on Flying With Film.
Thanks so much for posting the great advice, I'm so glad I clicked into this post! I just had to go switch some of my packing around. I bought disposable water proof camera's for Typhoon Lagoon, and of course they were packed in the luggage I would be checking. Opps I've now moved them to carry on. Can I ask to have these checked manually the same as film? I opened one just to see what it looked like, and then put it back in the foil bag, so they aren't in the orginial packaging.
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Thanks so much for posting the great advice, I'm so glad I clicked into this post! I just had to go switch some of my packing around. I bought disposable water proof camera's for Typhoon Lagoon, and of course they were packed in the luggage I would be checking. Opps I've now moved them to carry on. Can I ask to have these checked manually the same as film? I opened one just to see what it looked like, and then put it back in the foil bag, so they aren't in the orginial packaging.
Absolutely, and in fact it is better that they are not in the original packaging.
Take all the disposables out of their foil and put them directly into a Ziploc bag, so that they can be checked with the explosives detectors at the security checkpoint.