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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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’m not going to write a full trip report for my recent trip to WDW, because I have several unfinished TR’s hanging over my head already.
But I really wanted to tell you guys about something exciting that happened to us in AK! I told some of my non-Disney friends, but they probably thought I was a little crazy.
As a little background, we were at WDW from April 13-20 for my DD Amy 16 to march down Main Street in the MK with her high school marching band! So she was mostly with her school friends for the first five days of the trip, and I was with my DH Dan and DS Brian 21. Then on the 18th, the school trip ended and my DD joined my family. We were in AK that day, and had checked out what we could see of Pandora. Really, you could only see at little part of the highest mountain behind the wall. We got a slightly better view of this from backstage when we did the Caring for Giants tour, but no photos from backstage.
We had a dinner ADR at Tiffin’s for the Rivers of Light dining package. After we ordered our meals, I took some pictures of the room we were in, with animals on the wall that were like the floats in Rivers of Light. My DS took a walk around the restaurant. When he came back he said that he saw a really cool book in the lobby, with pictures of an Imagineer working on something. Since we were in AK, I asked if the Imagineer had one really large earring. He said he didn’t think so, and I made a mental note to look at the book when we left the restaurant.
A little while later, I noticed that someone at a table near us had a laptop open. I thought that was a little strange in a restaurant, and pointed it out to my family. After a moment, my DD said “that guy at the table with the laptop has a really large earring”. I looked over and almost fell off my seat. It was Joe Rohde!!! I was having a major Disney geek moment! I was so excited! I explained to my family who he was, and that he was the lead Imagineer for AK and Expedition Everest and Pandora and many more Disney projects around the world!! I surreptiously took a photo with Joe in it, hopefully looking like I was just taking pictures of the room. I kept glancing over, and it was obvious that whatever they were looking at on the laptop had to do with Pandora. At one point I saw a large Avatar logo on the screen!
As we finished our meals and were getting up to leave, I had hoped to just quickly say hello to Joe, without disturbing them too much. But he was standing up at the same time, and had his back to us, so I didn’t say anything. We went out into the lobby, and my DH was using the restroom, so my kids and I were looking at a display in the lobby with lots of pictures from the development of AK. We were pointing out pictures of Joe Rohde to each other. Right then Joe walked out into the lobby and came right up to us and said “Am I on there?”. I excitedly babbled something like “Yes you are, Mr. Rohde. We're so happy to see you here. We’re really excited about Pandora and can’t wait for it to open!”. He put his hand on my arm, and proceeded to tell us about how they were going out right then to test the bioluminescence in Pandora. How cool is that!!! It only would have been cooler if they invited us to go along with them, but sadly that didn’t happen Then Joe went into the restroom, and my DH came out, so my family left the restaurant. We hung out on the rock wall across from Tiffin’s for a few minutes, and then Joe and his group came out and went through the door in the wall to Pandora! A security guard stayed behind to guard the door from anyone entering.
This was definitely a highlight of my trip, as I’ve seen Joe in so many videos and tv shows about AK and Pandora. So cool!
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Then Joe went into the restroom, and my DH came out, so my family left the restaurant. We hung out on the rock wall across from Tiffin’s for a few minutes, and then Joe and his group came out and went through the door in the wall to Pandora! A security guard stayed behind to guard the door from anyone entering.
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