Update from Disney Investor Conference on future projects/Reserving ride times - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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.
They mention something about working on a new Fastpass system that would actually be for your whole vacation. I wonder if it is something like what Universal does? And alot of other ressie type features, for shows, character meets, etc. Wow, I can't wait to see if/when this comes about and how it works
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.
Sorry but I see this as a giant can of worms. I can hear the complaints now I couldn't get the time, day, ride I wanted. I don't know 6 months in advance what day/time I want to ride a ride see a show etc.
Then what happens no more fastpasses in the park for those who either, don't have a computer, didn't know about the feature, or the online bookings were full forcing people into the standby lines. That leads to the complaints of it not being fair or ruining the vacation because the lines were so long.
Will this mean they will start charging for them, or have different "ride packages" like the dining plans? If your at the values you can book "1 ride, 1 show" per person ahead of time per day. Moderates ...."2 rides 2 shows" per person ahead of time? and so on?
Or if its just as the dining reservations are will people try and scam the system like they are doing now by booking 1 reservation in their name, 1 in their cats name, 1 in their dead aunt's name. In case they decide to change plans last minute they can hold multiple times?
While I hope it runs smoothly and that none of these things happen I can't help but be skeptic of everything and take a wait for the can of worms to be opened and see what happens approach.
__________________
Faith, Trust, and Pixie Dust! Studying Hard to Make a Difference!
Yes - read through it yesterday that Disney is trying to work on a system that you can book your rides before leaving home - like Ride ADRs? not sure I like it
I don't think I'm a fan of it either! While I would love to get my KTTW cards before I leave home and bypass the desk, trying to decide what rides I want to ride and in what order seems a bit much to me! But I'm not an uber planner so that's probably why.
yeah I don't like it either because what if you can't make the time you have set. I mean that takes away from just going and enjoying yourself. We are already constrained by the hands of time with your ADRS now if you add that in the mix it's like having everything on a schedule.
I see it as a chance to be completely customizable or personalized to each family. But I could see how people don't like it as well. Maybe it is one of those things they give people the option to do or not do. And not just force it on everyone?
Sounds complicated to me. For us, as AP holders who typically visit multiple times each year, we don't plan our trips to the second and our ADR schedule is typically restrictive enough. I wouldn't want to have to figure out which rides on which days in advance of my trip. How many times do you change your mind, such as when you get to MK and it's a mobscene, and hop to a different park? Or if it rains? Too many variables in that for me.
I like the FP system at Disney the way it is right now. I hope they don't mess with it too much!
__________________
15 total family trips with stays at the Poly, AKL, Wilderness Lodge, Beach Club, Swan, Dolphin, POFQ, Pop Century, All Star Music, Movies & Sports, and Coronado Springs.
I've got a LOT of concerns about this. I'm a planner, but I'm not THAT big of a planner. I prefer to show up at MK (or any park, for that matter) and just sort of go where the flow takes me. I don't want to feel like I have to show up at 10:45am for Peter Pan and 2:10pm for Dumbo. I know it wouldn't be forced upon us, of course, and this is going to be awesome for some people, but then what happens if others show up with no "ride" or "character" reservations, and end up facing a 60 minute line because other people made reservations and they didn't?
I don't know... I'm just not sure about this at all. I'm all about personalizing your vacation but I feel like this is a bit much. I guess we'll see.
I do love the Pooh interactive queue and I would love to see that on every ride with a wait longer than 5 minutes. It's awesome, and ingenious.
I'll wait and see, of course, before I get all huffy (lol) but I'm not at all on board with this as described just yet. I'm sure Disney will do it right... but I need to see more first.
The "vacation-long" FASTPASS sounds like a good idea...in theory. But is probably a bad idea in practice.
It's going to turn planning your vacation into too much work. Create too much of a schedule. Not let people do anything spontenous. The chances for, "hey, look, there's Mexican Donald Duck, let's get his autograph...oh wait, we can't we're scheduled to go on Mission Space in 15 minutes," will be reduced. A vacation should be, "do want you want, when you want." Not a schedule where you robotically move from place to place.
The "vacation-long" FASTPASS sounds like a good idea...in theory. But is probably a bad idea in practice.
It's going to turn planning your vacation into too much work. Create too much of a schedule. Not let people do anything spontenous. The chances for, "hey, look, there's Mexican Donald Duck, let's get his autograph...oh wait, we can't we're scheduled to go on Mission Space in 15 minutes," will be reduced. A vacation should be, "do want you want, when you want." Not a schedule where you robotically move from place to place.
I agree.
And you can't really say it's okay because "you only have to do it if you want." That's true of dining ADR's too -- in practice. But once a critical mass of people does the ADR thing, everyone has to or risk getting shut out. We know what happens to people who try to use their dining credits on a walk-up basis.
The "vacation-long" FASTPASS sounds like a good idea...in theory. But is probably a bad idea in practice.
It's going to turn planning your vacation into too much work. Create too much of a schedule. Not let people do anything spontenous. The chances for, "hey, look, there's Mexican Donald Duck, let's get his autograph...oh wait, we can't we're scheduled to go on Mission Space in 15 minutes," will be reduced. A vacation should be, "do want you want, when you want." Not a schedule where you robotically move from place to place.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carousel96
I agree.
And you can't really say it's okay because "you only have to do it if you want." That's true of dining ADR's too -- in practice. But once a critical mass of people does the ADR thing, everyone has to or risk getting shut out. We know what happens to people who try to use their dining credits on a walk-up basis.
Okay, this has to be a bad idea. A Wolverine and a Buckeye agree on something.
All I can think about is the young family that are on their very first Disney trip and wasn't like our population that does obsessive online research. At least if you don't know about reserving ADR's there are ways to still get your meals in if not at the exact restaurants/times you want.
But how sad would it be to not be able to see the shows/ride the attractions because they didn't plan THAT in advance. Granted, I think that is an extreme example that is unlikely but I guess my point is that I can see this negatively impacting those families on their first magical vacations.
I'm a planner but depending on how deep they make this, it could be a real vacation killer.
__________________
Last edited by RoonieRooToo; 02-18-2011 at 11:10 AM..
Reason: grammar stupidity
I really do not like the idea of the new FP system. I like to plan my vacations to a certain degree, but to plan ahead of time which ride and at what time I'm going to is a bit too much for me. Vacations are supposed to be fun, full of spontaneity, not some kind of robotic plan in which each and every minute is planned before you get to a park. Imagine telling your kid, "Sorry, but we can't go on Dumbo right now because our next reservation is for Jungle Cruise". I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way...
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Andrea
I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way...
Linear Mode
