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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Oh, honey! I *so* know what you mean about the doors slamming against the security bar! (I've yelled at my fair share of guests who do this at 6AM while their kids go running up and down the passageways, screaming!)
Will, do you have a second life that you are not telling us about?
Seriously, Will's advice was excellent. If you are taking a lap top, purchase a lock for it and wrap it around the self in the bathroom or even closet. A thief will not take the time to try to figure it out because he or she knows that time is critical.
As for the housekeeping cart across the doorway, Disney isn't the only ones who are doing this now. We are Marriot Vacation Club members so if we aren't staying at Disney, we use a Marriot. They have been doing this for the past four years or so.
True, and I understand the concept of this person being seen with the suitcase outside of the room wouldn't be cause for alarm to anyone else, but I'm just picturing someone trying to act all calm and collected with my gigantic piece of luggage when you know they're all nervous (or at least should be!) since it's not easy to do with something that probably requires The Hulk to carry in the first place! Trust me!
So aside from visualizing a big green dude attempting to steal my bag, I'm still going to air on the side of precaution when choosing to lock my larger valuables in my bag instead of just leaving out in plain site -- which many people do while at Disney -- since my point is that trying to be proactive is better than not doing anything at all.
However, smaller items like wallets, extra cash (is there such a thing in Disney?!), credit cards, Passports, etc. really should be kept in the safe, if at all possible.
I've seen this too and I have to say that I -- 1000%! -- prefer this method over some other housekeeping's habit of leaving the cart in the hallway while they flip out the security latch so that while they head in and out of the room 32 times, they proceed to then let the door bang and reverberate shut the entire time!
But I digress (). . .I too agree that the cart across the doorway seemingly aids in keeping guest belongings out-of-reach, as well as providing some additional safety for housekeeping who are in the rooms alone while cleaning. And it definitely provides more "soundproofing" for guests in the vicinity, who are on vacation!
Well, you're assuming that a hotel thief will naturally be all nervous. But if they're a professional criminal who makes their living stealing stuff, they're not going to be nervous. What's to be nervous about? Once they're out of your room, they're just a person walking through a hotel with a big suitcase.
But I think you misunderstood my point, which was not that you should leave anything valuable out in your hotel room. My point, in fact, was exactly the opposite - you should NEVER leave anything valuable unsecured in your hotel room. I simply don't consider locking something in a wheeled, cloth, easily-transportable container to be "securing" it. At all. I don't consider locking something in a suitcase to be any better than leaving out on the table in plain sight.
I'd rather err on the side of caution and lock my $1,000 laptop to something that you can't pick up and walk away with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Caldercup
Oh, honey! I *so* know what you mean about the doors slamming against the security bar! (I've yelled at my fair share of guests who do this at 6AM while their kids go running up and down the passageways, screaming!)
I'm right there with you guys on this issue. But I've never had the nerve to yell at anyone who is rude enough to slam doors and let their kids run screaming up and down the halls. I wish I did.
Come to think of it, many times it's not the screaming that gets me, it's the running, because kids' sneakers make a unique reverberating FWAP-FWAP-FWAP when they go running up and down the walkways at the Disney Value resorts, and it travels through the windows into every Guest room along the way. Then, of course, the parents have to YELL at the top of their lungs, "Slow down! Come back here! Watch where you're going!"
Must be something acoustic about the paint they use on the concrete walkways. It focuses those sounds like a megaphone, right into every Guest room.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fortissimo
Will, do you have a second life that you are not telling us about?
Seriously, Will's advice was excellent. If you are taking a lap top, purchase a lock for it and wrap it around the self in the bathroom or even closet. A thief will not take the time to try to figure it out because he or she knows that time is critical.
As for the housekeeping cart across the doorway, Disney isn't the only ones who are doing this now. We are Marriot Vacation Club members so if we aren't staying at Disney, we use a Marriot. They have been doing this for the past four years or so.
I'm not a cop - nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night - but my Dad is a cop of nearly 40 years experience, and my Mom was one of those people who was addicted to watching Cops and other law enforcement shows, so I've picked up quite a bit about how the worse half lives and operates.
I'm not going on vacation where you go! () All those professional thieves, maids with evil banging carts, and screaming children with squeaky shoes! Wait maybe we can put those carts to good use. . .
But in any event, I actually do understand your point, as it's the same as mine when it comes to definitely needing to secure one's valuables while away from your room when you're on vacation; we just have differing opinions on whether or not luggage is a suitable storage device. (How about we just use them for tackling the criminals? You throw, I'll hog tie them? Oh. . .but I'm not wearing the tights. . .y'know for the superhero suits! )
Anywho, regarding the housekeeping carts and the potential to cause incessant "banging," I had this happen at the Hilton in DTD one year -- to the point that I wrote a very "descriptive" letter to the manager pointing out that this practice of letting the doors bang all morning long (especially when housekeeping shifts start at like 7am! ) is ridiculous -- as I'm there on vacation and I am, therefore, not on their schedule. Yeah, I got a free week's stay out of it! Not too shabby.
And the best part was when we returned the next year to use that week, amazingly this practice had stopped! (LOL)
I highly recommend using the safe in your room! All of the safes at WDW are large enough to fit a lap top computer! Don't leave your valuables lying around anywhere!
I highly recommend using the safe in your room! All of the safes at WDW are large enough to fit a lap top computer! Don't leave your valuables lying around anywhere!
Not the Values. Those safes are large enough to fit a small laptop, maybe a netbook, but my 15" laptop won't fit in them, and you could never fit a 17" laptop in them. That's why I use a locking cable to lock my laptop to the wire shelf above the safe.
Great tip about laptop. We normally leave everything at home. But after having fixed up our door and windows this time for halloween I plan on doing it every time we visit.
I'm right there with you guys on this issue. But I've never had the nerve to yell at anyone who is rude enough to slam doors and let their kids run screaming up and down the halls. I wish I did.
With enough sleep deprivation and a driving need for caffeine first thing in the morning, I'm capable of a great deal of grumbly-ness if I'm "slammed" out of my bed at Disney. Usually, all it takes is for me to open my door, give the stink eye (and a peek at my "bride of Frankentsein" first-thing-in-the-morning hair) and the kids go running. If a parent is nearby, I just say -- politely -- "the noise just comes straight through the closed door."
Lawdy. Now DH came home last night with new Curve Blackberry that work has provided with him. Yet another stupid electronic thing to worry about whilst on vacation. hahah!!
I should have mentioned I am one of those anal people who clean up after themselves in hotels and also when we are out to eat. I guess I am weird lol. I was concerned about the housekeepers propping the doors open while they cleaned. Meaning anyone could pop into our room and take things if they wanted. Not that we would have anything worth taking except laptop.
I usually lock a bag with personal belongs and keep passpoter, documents and cards in the safe. The notebook I usually leave in the room but it is both password and biometric protected so....I do this in every hotel room we stay.
On our one and only Poly stay someone tried to steal my laptop. This was 5 years ago. It had a security cable lock and someone spent a good long time one day trying to break it. Only a few threads were left holding it in place when I got back to the room, but it held. I called the front desk who said security would come but no one ever showed up. Since then we always keep the DND sign on the door and never use housekeeping.
Some of the disney resorts have big safes. AKV Kidani has great big safes that will hold a laptop or two. Others like the BC would maybe hold an ipad but thats about it.
We just left the BC and now that you all mention it I never once saw inside an occupied room being cleaned. The housekeeper left a card in the key card slot and worked in the room with the door closed.
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-- since my point is that trying to be proactive is better than not doing anything at all. 
). . .I too agree that the cart across the doorway seemingly aids in keeping guest belongings out-of-reach, as well as providing some additional safety for housekeeping who are in the rooms alone while cleaning. And it definitely provides more "soundproofing" for guests in the vicinity, who are on vacation! 
) All those professional thieves, maids with evil banging carts, and screaming children with squeaky shoes! Wait maybe we can put those carts to good use. . .
)
) is ridiculous -- as I'm there on vacation and I am, therefore, not on their schedule. 
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