Forums Closed
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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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
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10-08-2005, 11:36 AM
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#16
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Community Rank: Trekker 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: New England
Posts: 1,307
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
What an awful story and they should be ashamed of themselves for having that policy. When you are dealing with the public you need to have policies in place for situations like this and ignoring the person that is hurt is totally unacceptable, in my opinion.
Noreen
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10-08-2005, 12:26 PM
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#17
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Community Rank: Legend 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Florida Big Bend
Posts: 17,133
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What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
[ QUOTE ]
I'd like to write a letter but don't know where to send it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Via email: www.guest.communications@disneyworld.com
Via smail: WDW Guest Communications
POB 10040
Lake Buena Vista FL 32830-0049 |
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10-09-2005, 09:18 AM
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#18
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Community Rank: Jetsetter 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 2,493
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
In September we had every kind of bus driver. Starting with the ones that said nothing at all to the one who sang to us on our way back to CBR after EMH. (She was a real hoot-in fact we didn't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for her.  ) We had one guy who had a computer generated speech (at least that's what it sounded like to me) that included a blurb about not talking to the driver while bus was in transit. We concluded that maybe he was new and really needed to concentrate  ? We also had some drivers that gave lots of trivia about the parks or the resorts. I guess it grew to be a little bit of expectation as to what kind of driver we would have on our next bus ride. No matter what the driver was like we made sure to say thank you as we exited the bus.  |
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10-09-2005, 11:27 AM
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#19
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Faith, Trust, Pixie Dust
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Connecticut
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 34,171
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We didn't have any problems at all! Most of them were very funny and talkative.
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10-09-2005, 12:27 PM
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#20
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Community Rank: Trailblazer 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Tennessee
Posts: 5,325
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We have never had many problems with the bus service. We didn't have to ride the buses much last year being at the Polynesian. I do remember one year having a bus driver that really couldn't drive very well. He hit a road sign while turning right about where we were sitting. He just went on and didn't say a word. I was really glad to get off that one! I have had many drivers that didn't say a word but it didn't matter to me. Especially after a long day at the parks, I am not much for chatting on the way back! LOL! Our overall experience has been really good with the drivers.
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10-09-2005, 12:39 PM
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#21
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Kissimmee, FL
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 3,470
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
Almost all of our bus drivers remained quiet when we were there in July. No trivia, no casual conversation, nothing. We did have one that got lost trying to get back to Port Orleans, he missed the turn and we had to go to OKW to turn around and come back. He didn't make any comments about it... just acted like it hadn't happened.
We did have a boat driver that hit the dock at the Wilderness Lodge and the made us sit there for an hour while they called out the big wigs to check out the boat damage and dock damage. Didn't make me feel warm & fuzzy about staying on that boat!
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10-11-2005, 07:28 AM
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#22
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Community Rank: Trekker
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Orlando, Florida
Posts: 1,144
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We were there last week and did not have any problems with the bus drivers themselves, most of them were very friendly, but the service I thought was horrible.
My husband originally didn't want to stay at the Beach Club because they share buses with 4 other resorts but I convinced him it would be ok. It was not. For a deluxe hotel, I would expect more efficient bus service. I've stayed on property many other times and not experienced the waits we did this time. We counted and were only able to sit on a bus 4 times out of the more than 20+ that we took a bus last week.  |
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10-17-2005, 12:00 AM
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#23
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Community Rank: Traveler 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Keystone, Iowa
Posts: 205
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We just got back last Sunday and we did have 2 drivers that were less than magical. One started taking us to the airport instead of ASMovies and did not apologize or say anything when a guest corrected him, after leaving Disney property.
Also, we had one grumpy driver who snapped at guests.
For the most part they were good aside from the night we waited at MK for a bus for over an hour, and it was before the park closed, as well The last time we were there, we had no problems at all. |
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10-17-2005, 02:33 PM
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#24
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Community Rank: Explorer 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 9,547
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
[ QUOTE ]
We just got back last Sunday and we did have 2 drivers that were less than magical. One started taking us to the airport instead of ASMovies and did not apologize or say anything when a guest corrected him, after leaving Disney property.
[/ QUOTE ]
He actually left Disney property and had no idea what he was doing wrong?!!!!  |
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10-18-2005, 08:48 PM
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#25
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Community Rank: Trekker
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: New England
Posts: 1,307
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
[ QUOTE ]
My husband originally didn't want to stay at the Beach Club because they share buses with 4 other resorts but I convinced him it would be ok. It was not. For a deluxe hotel, I would expect more efficient bus service. I've stayed on property many other times and not experienced the waits we did this time. We counted and were only able to sit on a bus 4 times out of the more than 20+ that we took a bus last week.
[/ QUOTE ]
I AGREE!!!!
In General i think the buses should be on a predictable schedule that is posted, so you know when exactly the bus is coming. Whenever we would ask the hotel staff when is the bus coming, they would just say the usual line "the buses run every 15-20 minutes". The buses should come more often or only 2 resorts per bus. DW does need to redo their bus service and hire more friendly drivers who know where they are going. Afterall we spend lots of money there, we should get topnotch bus service as part of the deal.
Noreen |
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10-21-2005, 07:37 PM
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#26
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Community Rank: Navigator 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Peoria IL
Concierge Level: 1
Posts: 6,423
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We have never encountered lost or grumpy bus drivers. We did have one once who played a recorded message with general information and I found it odd that several times the message stated "Please do not talk to the bus driver".
We have had our share of ones who are quiet and ones who are talkitive. We have also seen many who just shake their heads and chuckle when they have to wait for guest running and screaming towards the bus only to tell them that this is not the bus you need!
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10-21-2005, 07:46 PM
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#27
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Community Rank: Trailblazer
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: East Amherst, NY
Concierge Level: 1
Posts: 5,128
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
We had only good experiences. Once we were on the bus and needed to know the zip code of DW (my sister's cell phone battery had died and she wanted a new one fed exed), and the bus driver called around to find it. Another time, the bus driver heard that it was my DH's birthday, and so he gave my DH an honorary DW bus driver license. But my favorite was the last night of our stay. My 2 sisters and I had gone to Downtown Disney - just us girls. We had a really good time and went out around 1:30am to get a bus back to the room. We were quite loud   and in a very good mood. A bus driver going to a different resort said "I better get these girls home!" and took us in his bus and dropped us off at POR. |
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10-22-2005, 08:02 AM
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#28
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Community Rank: Explorer
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 8,784
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Re: What is up with the Disney bus drivers???
Except for one experience (We had a very minor accident on a bus-- not really a grumpy bus driver, just not a very good one lol!!), all of our drivers have been really nice. Some are quiet, and don't say anything, and we've had some that have given us trivia on the way to our destinations. Except for that one little accident (not that big of a deal, except I was holding a 15 mth old, and we flew a little bit-- I bumped my head on the rail, but I was fine, and Danny was ok-- so I didn't really care, and the bus was pretty empty, and everyone else was fine), we've never had a problem-- I would say more are quiet than talkative (sic?). I like the ones that talk!! They're usually funny.
Joe (DH) and I have a retirement plan that involves moving to Orlando, and he's going to be a Disney bus driver at night (he'll golf during the day)-- so I'll make sure he learns some Disney Trivia   |
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