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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Nice start to the trip. I took one of those TGV trains from Paris to Reims this year. It's the way to go. It was only a 45 minute trip. Great ride. I took the Eurostar years back from Paris to London and enjoyed that as well.
Some nice photos from the train even with the light reflection. Can't believe how rude that woman was taking your seats!
That was good thinking on your part to get Metro tickets on board. I always go for a carnet (ten tix) as well as you save a bit and don't expire. I have a couple left from Paris this year. Not sure when I'll be going back, but probably within three years.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Nice start to the trip. I took one of those TGV trains from Paris to Reims this year. It's the way to go. It was only a 45 minute trip. Great ride. I took the Eurostar years back from Paris to London and enjoyed that as well.
I've never been on the TGV, usually because if we're going anywhere other than Paris or Brussels, we tend to take the Eurotunnel, rather than the Eurostar, and then drive. However, when they get the high speed trains running from Paris to Bordeaux, we did say that we might do that...
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Some nice photos from the train even with the light reflection. Can't believe how rude that woman was taking your seats!
That was good thinking on your part to get Metro tickets on board. I always go for a carnet (ten tix) as well as you save a bit and don't expire. I have a couple left from Paris this year. Not sure when I'll be going back, but probably within three years.
We have a fair few left from our day, but hopefully we'll be using those in the next couple of months, if things work out with our plans....
So glad your train was on time (as that wasn't my experience with Eurostar)! Beautiful sunrise photos. How nice for Mark to be able to see the countryside out the windows for a change.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Such a cool train ride, especially coming out of the chunnel and arriving in France. Luke and I would love to ride a high speed train some day. We have ridden trains into quite a few US cities and it seems we are always greeted with graffiti. Good deal saving time by buying the Metro tickets while on board.
Great pictures of the countrysides. When you were coming into Paris, seeing that graffiti reminds me of taking the train from where I live into NYC.
That reminds me. When I took the regular train from CDG Airport in Paris to the main city, it was very noticeable as we approached from the north part of the city to the main, how gritty it is in Paris on the outskirts. There was also quite a bit of graffiti on the buildings as well! You don't see this that much in the center of Paris, but on the outside of the city, especially when traveling by train, you tend to notice this! It's also a little dicey in these parts and good to be safe and know your surroundings!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Such a cool train ride, especially coming out of the chunnel and arriving in France. Luke and I would love to ride a high speed train some day. We have ridden trains into quite a few US cities and it seems we are always greeted with graffiti. Good deal saving time by buying the Metro tickets while on board.
You'll have to head over this side of the pond and take the Eurostar from London to Paris or vice versa....
That reminds me. When I took the regular train from CDG Airport in Paris to the main city, it was very noticeable as we approached from the north part of the city to the main, how gritty it is in Paris on the outskirts. There was also quite a bit of graffiti on the buildings as well! You don't see this that much in the center of Paris, but on the outside of the city, especially when traveling by train, you tend to notice this! It's also a little dicey in these parts and good to be safe and know your surroundings!
I think gritty is a good way to put it. I think Paris is like any big city in this respect, as London's certainly the same - with some very nice outskirts, but also some very gritty outskirts too.
Thursday 5 December – part three: it’s not as good when you sing!
Exactly on time at 11:17am, we were arriving, and we were quickly off the train and bid goodbye to our friends who had kept us company on the way here. They were a very nice and chatty couple.
At first, it didn’t feel too cold out, but as we walked along the platform, we could feel the wind a bit more, so I gave in and put my winter coat on.
We headed into Gare du Nord station and my goodness, I was glad that we had bought our Metro tickets for Paris on the Eurostar, as there were long lines at all ticket machines we saw along the way.
We made our way towards the Metro and only had a couple of minutes to wait before a train arrived at the platform.
I was originally planning to get off and change to another line, but as I was on board the train, I realised that we could stay on the whole way and just get off at the next station along, which made much more sense, so that’s what we did.
As we headed to our destination, we were serenaded by an accordion player (very French! ) who was pretty good, until he decided that he was going to sing along to what he was playing. Suddenly, it wasn’t so good. He was a busker, but how he makes his money, I do not know, as he played for about three stops, and then never even walked up the carriage to try and get more money, which was a bit odd.
We also had a woman walk through the carriage, telling us in French that she had no home, but Mark was instantly suspicious, and probably rightly so. As he said to me, “she looks very good for someone with no home…”
We got to our destination and came out at the Bastille and, for those of you wondering, this is related to the famous prison of the French Revolution and Bastille Day. Nothing now remains of it though. The striking monument in the middle is the Colonne de Juillet, which is topped by the genius of Liberty. It’s a memorial to all those who did in the battles of July 1830, which led to the overthrow of the monarchy. The crypt beneath it contains the remains of more than 500 victims of the fighting, which is a bit of a sobering thought.
We got our bearings and headed off towards Place des Vosges, finding some lovely buildings and this beautiful church on the way…
Those beggars are on the trains every day. Sometimes they carry puppies, sometimes they have a small child who really should be in school with them and I even saw one with a really sick child. I'm not sure they are real beggers either though as they all have the same script. I think they are brought in by gangs who "employ" them to do this. I always wonder if they ar not followed by pickpockets who act while the beggers distrct your attention. In fact it makes me really sad that this is how some poeple and particularly some children "have" to live that I actually hate taking the trains which is why i drive to work.
Sounded like a smooth transition to the Metro at Gare du Nord. Aside from the beggars.
I don't know why, but I loved the Bastille area! When I was there, I didn't find it too touristy, maybe that's why.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Finally joining back in after a couple of days away-- You've made it to Paris! It's a good thing the train was running on schedule and you saved time with the Metro tickets. Wouldn't do to waste much time on a short trip like this one!
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I always go for a carnet (ten tix) as well as you save a bit and don't expire. I have a couple left from Paris this year. Not sure when I'll be going back, but probably within three years. 
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Pixie Dust
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It's also a little dicey in these parts and good to be safe and know your surroundings! 
The amount of times he tells me where the cows are is just unbelievable! 
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