Back from the World...major ticket problems! - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Well, we just got back Sunday night from our WDW trip. All in all, with the heat, crowds, and Arlene, it was a good trip. The only real problem was our tickets! Now, on our first 2 trips there we had packages, so our tickets were together with our room keys , so they were hard plastic. This trip we got an AP and had to do the tickets seperately. What a hassle!
Our first day there they demagnetized...though this was our fault. I'd put them in the same pocket as my cell phone! We had 4 of our 5 regular tickets replaced. Within an hour, and I took everything with a magnetic strip out of my fanny pack, the last one was shot as well!
Over the course of our 1 week trip, we had EVERY ticket replaced twice! My oldest daughter's was actually replaced 4 times! We kept them all in the special holder my hubby got with his AP, all facing the same way so the strips didn't touch, and in a stiff pocket so they never got bent...but still, we had problems! It got so that everytime we went to a park at least one ticket had a problem! We never did figure out what was going on with them! Though I will say that all the many cm's who helped us were very friendly! Miss WDW a lot, but glad to be home! Ruth
That stinks! I remember last summer, it had been almost a year since I used my AP, and when I went to get a Fastpass it said that I wasn't using a valid ticket, so I had to get it replaced. They are very nice about it though, I must say!
uggh. I wonder why they don't put the AP on hard cards? It doesn't take much to get a picture onto a hard card, my employee id is a hard card and has a picture on it.
APs are less disposable then "Keys to the World" cards are.
APs are supposed to last a year, whereas most Keys to the World are only good for the length of a stay.
Welcome back! I'm glad you had a great trip overall but I'm sorry that you ran into so many problems with your annual pass tickets. On our December trip, that same sort of thing kept happening to my son's AP but not to mine or my husband's.
Wow... I've never had a magnetic strip card of any kind demagnetize on me, ever.
I carry my park pass, ID, room key, and any FP slips in a plastic pouch on a lanyard and never had a single problem (it also makes them convenient to access). You can get similar lanyards and pouches at WalMart, in the jewelry section on the rack with wallets, wallet windows, etc. for only $0.97.
Sorry you had so much trouble with your AP's. We had trouble with hoppers onced at TL, the CM asked if the ticket had been in contact with lotion(which at the time they hadn't)CM's were nice and replaced them but its just the time it took out of our day, that was aggravating. After all we were after those good chairs!
That is aggravating, you have your plan all mapped out and you just want to go have fun and instead you're standing at a counter getting something done that you should have to worry about-
Other than that your trip sounds well worth the effort, I'm so glad!!
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I wonder why they don't put the AP on hard cards?
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I had a CM explain to me that it's not the hardness of the ticket that's at issue -- it's the magnetic strip at the back of the pass. Both the key cards and the paper APs can get de-magnetized if they come into contact with various things.
I demagged my tickets by stuffing a fridge magnet in my bag -- also my cell phone sometimes causes problems, even though it's in a pocket on the other side of my touring bag.
That is so weird! I kept our AP's in the same bag with my cell phone the entire trip and never had that happen. We never had one problem with our AP's, I guess we were lucky.
I am very disturbed to read this. On my upcoming trip I will be starting the week staying with friends and won't move to a resort until half way thru so I just bought an 8 day pass which is a little paper card with a magnetic strip on it. I hope dd & I don't have problems with it.
I've never had problems with mine, but I never carried a cell phone with me before. I will have one this trip, so I am now warned about keeping it away from my AP!