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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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On a different Disney board, there is a hullaballoo about the lack of merchandise in the parks now. I've learned that the other board tends to..umm...exaggerate things a bit so I wanted to check in with my level-headed Passporters on this issue.
The hullaballoo is that the only thing you can buy at the parks now is all princess, Hannah Montana, Jack Sparrow and Jack Skellington and nothing else.
In general I would ignore that but several people have said that you can no longer find any ride specific shirts/merchandise. I'm wearing my favorite RnRC shirt as I type this. I really want to get my DH a new Mission:Space polo this trip as his old one looks kinda ragged. I am going to be very heartbroken and will save a lot of money if they have stopped selling that merchandise.
But, I'm really questioning that since wouldn't that defeat the entire purpose of the rides dumping you into gift shops? But it would certainly explain why the park merchandise numbers are in the toilet.
Anyway, set me straight and tell me that the other boards are just exaggerating as expected and that I will still be able to get my DH his polo shirts and me my T's from our favorite rides and characters.
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Yeah, I saw that thread you're talking about. I haven't been to WDW since '07, but like you said, many rides have gift shops right at the exits, so I don't know how they could claim lack of ride-specific merchandise. However, some did also mention wanting to see merchandise for shows like Wishes, Illuminations and Fantasmic which I agree would be a great idea.
There were also complaints about not being able to find much (if anything) in the way of villian merchandise, even in the villian-themed gift shop in DHS other than Jack Sparrow and Jack Skellington (neither of which I would consider a villian), but since I'm not into villians, I don't know if that's the case. But I'm sure you'll always be able to find plenty of merchandise with the Fab Five, Stitch, Tink, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, which seem to me to be the most popular characters.
The complaint that I thought was strange though, had to do with the quality of the merchandise, especially the T-shirts. I've always thought the quality of the T-shirts was good, so I'm not sure where that one was coming from.
Exactly. The complaints about the ride merchandise just didn't add up unless the Disney marketing/merchandising department has truly lost their collective minds. I'm hoping to hear from some people that were there recently on what they saw in the shops.
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I'm heading down to the World for a week this coming Sunday. I can report back what I see when I get back. I know there was a lot of princess, hannah montana, HSM stuff there in Dec but there was also a lot of other things as well. I think if you want ride specific merch you need to hit the ride stores. I know for Figment stuff the best place for me to find it is at the Imagination store. I'll post my findings when I get back.
While I'd tend to agree that the "mass marketing of Disney Channel products" is a trend I've been watching happening at the parks (they can sell these same items at the big box chains, department stores, toy stores, etc. and thereby make more money with the same development costs), I'd personally say that Disney's marketing at the parks is still okay, if somewhat homogenized.
What I mean by that is, each individual merchandise location (in the past) had one or two unique items that you could only find there. For the past several years, it seems that they have the same WDW Park-related items in all of the merchandise locations and the individualized stuff is harder to come by. The ride-specific t-shirts and souvenirs are still there (I'm thinking TOT, RnRC, Splash Mountain, etc.) and I can't see them totally going away. Ever. But that's not to say that they don't have less of these items than before -- or that they remain unchanged for far longer than they used to.
It may just be a factor of my many trips over the past few years, but I find less things to tempt me into purchasing them anymore. There are far fewer "must have" items and I often come home with no purchases at all.
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I didn't have trouble finding ride specific merchandise at the end of each ride...and I was pretty pleased with the selection honestly. But that was Sept. 2008.
I was really impressed with the merchandise I saw a couple of weeks ago and felt it was improving again, after a period where you saw the same thing every time you went. Although I'm not into ride specific merchandise, I'm sure I saw some on our travels....
I'm feeling encouraged and hopeful again that I will find my ride shirts! Thank you everyone! Mystic, I'll be excited to see what you find when you come back.
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.
I just looked through the thread again, and what one person was interested in with regard to ride-themed merchandise was for the "lesser" attractions like TTA, Spaceship Earth, Jungle Cruise, etc. Although one person did complain that there wasn't much in the way of Splash Mountain merchandise, which confused me because I seem to recall several T-shirt designs (she claimed there was just a beach towel and a picture frame.)
A common complaint was with regard to sizes of merchandise that's available, like for instance for Pooh-sized people, tall men, etc. as well as merchandise for girls other than Minnie and princesses, which I feel are valid issues.
Ah, I see what you mean on the ride specific complaints. I am concerned about the size issue. I ordered a large shirt from the Disneystore and I'm not exactly svelt but I'm also normally able to wear a large with plenty of comfort and room. This shirt was like a little girls shirt - a woman's large and it was TIGHT.
I'm just planning on trying the shirts on while I'm there. I normally don't worry about that since if I get a large it will more likely be too big than too small but I think that rule doesn't seem to apply to Disney.
There's definitely not a lot for Pooh-sized women -- I think the largest size I've seen is a 2x. (This is a market Disney needs to tap as many of the ladies I've seen walking around the parks would probably snap up these larger sizes!)
I can't think of many t-shirts for the "lesser" rides -- pins, yes... t-shirts, no.
Eileen
In January there was ride specific stuff - for the big rides anyway. I did find that most of it was only in the area where the ride was, but they were there.
I also found (almost by accident) a 3X ladies sweatshirt which I bought. I was so happy to find a women's style that fit me rather than having to buy a man's shirt.
I can't really tell you about how WDW is these days. But I was in a Disney store in California this weekend. They had a wide range of merchandise for sale. I don't recall anything for any specific ride, but all the princess stuff. And Pixar and all that. I was happy with the selection.
Ah, I see what you mean on the ride specific complaints. I am concerned about the size issue. I ordered a large shirt from the Disneystore and I'm not exactly svelt but I'm also normally able to wear a large with plenty of comfort and room. This shirt was like a little girls shirt - a woman's large and it was TIGHT.
I'm just planning on trying the shirts on while I'm there. I normally don't worry about that since if I get a large it will more likely be too big than too small but I think that rule doesn't seem to apply to Disney.
I noticed this at the store at AKL, they had allot of really form fitting shirts, more geared to Junior sizes rather than ladies sizing.
I have to say, I just love your pic of your dog & cat!! There's no way my dog or either cats will cuddle up like that! So cute!
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Merchandise in the parks
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Although I'm not into ride specific merchandise, I'm sure I saw some on our travels....
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