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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We have never purchased the memory maker for our trip. This year my husband mentioned he's interested in doing this for our August trip.
I can't help to think we will spend a lot of time just stopping for photo's and the line's we will wait in as we are going in August. I know our character/ride photo's will also be included but I can't imagine there's enough of those for the cost of the memory maker to make it worth it . If we purchase it I would be sure to stop at almost every photo opportunity to make it worth the cost, I think it would take a lot of our time.
can anyone give me information of the experience of line time's and help convince me if it's truly worth the time and cost? I'm so torn
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We split the cost of the MM with my DB & DSisIL on our last trip, so it was pretty affordable for both couples.
I found it kind of fun to look for photographers and come up with different poses. I'm also one who will stop for almost any character who has a fairly short line.
I don't recall spending lots of time with this--I avoid huge lines like the plague. What it does do for a family is to get the family photographer in the pictures! We have lots of photos from vacations where you'd be hard-pressed to find me in any of them.
You can get the same effect by handing your camera to the Disney photographer; you just won't have the magic shots and ride photos. Those may or may not be important to you.
We don't do character M&G's, yes I know blasphemy. DD was afraid when she was little so we never got in the habit. Some ride shots are fun to have and it is nice to get a nice picture with everyone in the picture. We usually skip getting MM but for all our trips I have ordered a calendar (about $30). I don't like to spend too much time on it, but we hit one photographer a park and have them grab a shot on a phone or camera too.
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For us it's worth it. I love having photos with everyone included. We don't like to wait for long lines either, so if they have one or two people we'll wait. It usually only takes a minute per group. If someone has too many people in line, or seems to be taking too long, we skip it.
We get it so we can all be in the photos. We don't ever stop at any Photographer who's got more than 2 families in front of us - and if one of those families is large, we'll keep moving. Disney is really good with the ones in front of the main icons because they've always had several photographers out so if the first one you see has a line, the next one might not have anyone waiting. Last year it didn't seem like we stopped at that many spots but we still ended up with something like 200 photos for the week before I did edits so if you put that into a cost, the digital copies were less than a penny each.
As for you personally, do you do scrap booking or have photo albums you would fill with the photos? If there is nothing you'll do with the photos once you get home then for the cost, maybe you should convince your hubby just to have CM's use your camera for the photos. I get prints and make an album for my father in law typically. Last year I made that plus a photo book for him. I think it all comes down to what you'll do with them in the end as to whether it's worth the cost or not.
We get it so we can all be in the photos. We don't ever stop at any Photographer who's got more than 2 families in front of us - and if one of those families is large, we'll keep moving. Disney is really good with the ones in front of the main icons because they've always had several photographers out so if the first one you see has a line, the next one might not have anyone waiting. Last year it didn't seem like we stopped at that many spots but we still ended up with something like 200 photos for the week before I did edits so if you put that into a cost, the digital copies were less than a penny each.
As for you personally, do you do scrap booking or have photo albums you would fill with the photos? If there is nothing you'll do with the photos once you get home then for the cost, maybe you should convince your hubby just to have CM's use your camera for the photos. I get prints and make an album for my father in law typically. Last year I made that plus a photo book for him. I think it all comes down to what you'll do with them in the end as to whether it's worth the cost or not.
I do a lot of photo albums from our trips. I always take my own picture's. This year we are meeting friend's from Michigan and my DH think's memory maker would be a good thing to include for many reason's. I was more concerned about stopping and waiting. I always see many photographer's at the park's icon's too . I think I can link the purchase with all family member's seeing my boy's are 19 and 16 they may be off on their own at some points (?)
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For us it's worth it. I love having photos with everyone included. We don't like to wait for long lines either, so if they have one or two people we'll wait. It usually only takes a minute per group. If someone has too many people in line, or seems to be taking too long, we skip it.
Great, thank you. Do you find yourself going back to where you skipped the first time? I wouldn't want to take time doing that. Just curious if guests' do this
We don't do character M&G's, yes I know blasphemy. DD was afraid when she was little so we never got in the habit. Some ride shots are fun to have and it is nice to get a nice picture with everyone in the picture. We usually skip getting MM but for all our trips I have ordered a calendar (about $30). I don't like to spend too much time on it, but we hit one photographer a park and have them grab a shot on a phone or camera too.
Like the Calendar idea, where do you do this? Disney?
Great, thank you. Do you find yourself going back to where you skipped the first time? I wouldn't want to take time doing that. Just curious if guests' do this
No, we don't make a point to go back to one we've skipped. But if, on our way out it's less crowded, we'll stop.
One of my favorite photo spots is in WS, as you approach the bridge from UK to France. We try to stop there once or twice each trip. Especially in the early evening.
It's fun to add borders and stickers once you're home...
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Originally Posted by renbugs
I do a lot of photo albums from our trips. I always take my own picture's. This year we are meeting friend's from Michigan and my DH think's memory maker would be a good thing to include for many reason's. I was more concerned about stopping and waiting. I always see many photographer's at the park's icon's too . I think I can link the purchase with all family member's seeing my boy's are 19 and 16 they may be off on their own at some points (?)
If you're going with friends, both families could pay half the price, so you get the whole thing for about $75 each family.
You're right, as long as you link everyone through My Disney Experience, everyone's pictures will be on your MM account when they use the Magic Bands.
We do MM and think it's well worth the price. It's the only way everyone is in the photos. We do some of the meals that include photos and we get lots of ride photos as well. We have a 4 year old so meet n greets are a must. MM lets me not worry about taking pictures while meeting Mickey and just enjoy the moment.
We don't wait if a line is really long for a photographer either. Usually we'll end up passing by later anyway and the line will be shorter at some point. I've also learned not to be shy asking random photopass photographers to take our picture. We ran into one by RNRC one year and they were more than happy to take our pictures there. At DL we ran into a photographer while waiting for the raft back from Tom Sawyer Island. We got some fantastic pics with DL in the background across the river just by asking if she would mind taking our picture while we were all waiting.
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.
Like the Calendar idea, where do you do this? Disney?
You can order the calendar on the photo pass website. After you get home you go online and view your pictures, and create the calendar. I just checked it's $24.95 and over the 12 months you can do a mix of pages with from 1 to 4 or 5 shots each. If you are going to want to get a lot of prints, them MM is the way to go. If you just love the look on someone's face as the go down EE, then this is a great way to keep that memory inexpensively.
I highly recommend MM. To me it's so worth the cost. Like others have said, I don't stop at photographers that have more than 2 or 3 families. But there are so many stops around the park that you are sure to get some awesome family shots. Plus the ride photos and dining photos (where they are included) is just the cherry on top.
You can order the calendar on the photo pass website. After you get home you go online and view your pictures, and create the calendar. I just checked it's $24.95 and over the 12 months you can do a mix of pages with from 1 to 4 or 5 shots each. If you are going to want to get a lot of prints, them MM is the way to go. If you just love the look on someone's face as the go down EE, then this is a great way to keep that memory inexpensively.
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. What it does do for a family is to get the family photographer in the pictures! We have lots of photos from vacations where you'd be hard-pressed to find me in any of them.
Ms Lydia
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