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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Finally Disney has heard us. The My Disney Experience App will now show bus times on it. When you are at your resort, you tap Next Bus and it will give you the time a bus will arrive at your bus stop and when you will get to your destination. It even will give you alternate modes of transportation if a bus isn't available. It
says it will be updated in real time.
This is great! I wonder if it will work when you are at the park and waiting for a bus to return to your resort. That's when I really feel the need to know, since the resort bus stops seem to now have the boards with times posted. Of course, I suppose they might remove those.
This is great! I wonder if it will work when you are at the park and waiting for a bus to return to your resort. That's when I really feel the need to know, since the resort bus stops seem to now have the boards with times posted. Of course, I suppose they might remove those.
Yes! I was thinking the same! It would be very helpful at the parks.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
This is great! I wonder if it will work when you are at the park and waiting for a bus to return to your resort. That's when I really feel the need to know, since the resort bus stops seem to now have the boards with times posted. Of course, I suppose they might remove those.
That would be more useful as that's when I'm more concerned about when the next bus is coming.
I wonder if it will work when you are at the park and waiting for a bus to return to your resort.
No, ‘fraid not, not yet. I can think of more times I really wanted to know when the next bus TO our resort was coming than when the ones FROM it were.
I suspect it’ll only show when the next bus will arrive at the resort where you’re staying since that’s all that’ll be linked to your MDE app. Also, Disney Parks Blog said you can’t see bus arrival times until after you’ve physically checked in. Which is why I’m thinking you wouldn’t see arrival times for every resort of your split, just for your current one.
Not so helpful either when you’ve gone to an ADR at another resort and want to know when the next bus will arrive before you’ve left the restaurant.
Btw, I doubt they’ll remove the bus-arriving boards. Not everyone has smartphones even though those of us who do can hardly imagine not having one.
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“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
This went in to effect while we were at Disney last week. It only works for buses leaving from your resort, not from the parks to the resorts. It seems to just pull the information from the same source as the display boards at the bus stops at the resort. Unfortunately, a lot of times it simply listed "Buses arriving every 20 minutes" as the arrival time. And we also found that even when a time was listed, it wasn't unusual for the bus to arrive several minutes early.
I was so excited that this feature was being offered but sadly, we didn't really find it to be useful since it wasn't very accurate or informative. And on several occasions, the times changed -- sometimes earlier, sometimes later -- so we really didn't gain anything by using this feature. After about 3 days we didn't even bother to look at it. Fortunately, we had great bus service all week (we were at AoA) and only waited more than 5 minutes for a bus on 2 occasions and those were both at park closing so we expected to have a bit of a wait (and those 2 waits were only 15 and 20 minutes). I seriously lost count of how many times we walked right on to a bus both at the resort and at the parks.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.