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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Our upcoming vacation got a bit confusing due to changes in travel dates and we end up with 8 night BCV +1 night AKL+ DCL cruise + 6 nights AKL...
We've everything lined up in the My Disney Experience. Will Memory maker only be available for 1st portion (BC) or the entire vacation?
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The Memory Maker will work for your entire vacation. The magic bands from your first resort stay will also be used throughout. They'll send you magic bands for each resort reservation, but it's easier to just keep using the ones from your first stay. Just make sure you add your tickets and reservations and memory maker to your MDE under the first reservation and you'll be all set. The memory maker and bands are, of course, not used on DCL, but will still be active for your stay at AKL after the cruise.
The Memory Maker will work for your entire vacation. The magic bands from your first resort stay will also be used throughout. They'll send you magic bands for each resort reservation.
Thanks!!! I've just checked MDE and we will have 3 sets of magic bands - I've just had a lot of fun with DD customizing then in all colors LOL, but we'll try to use only the first set .
Here is the Memory Maker FAQ: https://mydisneyphotopass.disney.go....t/memory-maker
"How long can I capture photos with my Memory Maker entitlement?You can begin capturing photos as soon as you purchase Memory Maker. Once you download the first photo, you then have 30 days to capture more photos (“Memory Maker window”). Remember to download your photos before they expire. Please note that if Memory Maker was purchased at the advance purchase price, photos taken within 3 days of the date of purchase will not be included in Memory Maker and must be purchased separately."
As long as the pictures are taken within the 30 day Memory Maker window, which your trip looks like it falls within, then you should be fine.
Both the above documents have other useful information, such as how long the pictures remain in your account until they expire, etc. Useful reading.
Our stay next November is also a split stay with a cruise: 3 nights WL, 7 night Disney Fantasy, 2 nights BC. Just today we were discussing whether or not we want to get Memory maker (we probably will; we have done Photopass each of our last couple trips and been glad we did).
We are also having fun trying to decide what colours to make our two MagicBands each. I mean, do we make (for each person) them the same, make them match the MB we got this past September, totally new colours ? And then, what names to have on them ?! So many decisions ! :-)
Finally, this past September we bought Photopass+ and had a similar split stay (WL-Cruise-BC). The pictures worked out fine for the entire time. On I think it was the last day of the trip, at Epcot, the Photopass photographer told us we could scan our MB for the picture (they literally were just rolling it out, and it still was not working 100%) -- we tried that too, and he scanned the photopass card as a backup.
When we got home, we had the option to access all the pictures through MDE instead of the photopass site -- we did, and it worked fine. That is now how Memory Maker pics are accessed, so I can say it was a pretty decent process.
Now, one thing I will note that was really neat: in MDE, the pics not only had a caption telling us the date and park they were taken in, but WHERE in the park they were taken. I think there was only one that had a park location that was not accurate. What I did is make a PDF of the pages for each day's photos (I have Adobe Acrobat, so can make PDFs, but one could easily print out to paper as well) (note: it took quite some "shrink the page to print" to make it work because of the framing that MDE uses; if it wasn't shrunk so everything fit on one page, the rest got truncated). This way, I had a quick and handy guide to where things were taken when I was organizing the pics on my drive and when I will be (in the future, sometime, writing up my Trip Report, and when sister does her scrapbooking).
Here is the Memory Maker FAQ: https://mydisneyphotopass.disney.go....t/memory-maker
"How long can I capture photos with my Memory Maker entitlement?You can begin capturing photos as soon as you purchase Memory Maker. Once you download the first photo, you then have 30 days to capture more photos (“Memory Maker window”). Remember to download your photos before they expire. Please note that if Memory Maker was purchased at the advance purchase price, photos taken within 3 days of the date of purchase will not be included in Memory Maker and must be purchased separately."
As long as the pictures are taken within the 30 day Memory Maker window, which your trip looks like it falls within, then you should be fine.
Both the above documents have other useful information, such as how long the pictures remain in your account until they expire, etc. Useful reading.
We are also having fun trying to decide what colours to make our two MagicBands each. I mean, do we make (for each person) them the same, make them match the MB we got this past September, totally new colours ? And then, what names to have on them ?! So many decisions ! :-)
-SW
LOL many many decisions kkk
DD was able to get 3 different colors (pink, red and orange). DH kept simple (blue, green and blue again). For me I decided upon red, yellow and orange!!!