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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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My family and I will be returning from a Disney Cruise on Saturday, February 25, 2012 (yay!), and were thinking we'd like to stay in Florida that day, instead of flying straight home, to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
The problem is, I have read that when the WWofHP gets too crowded, there is either a line to get in, or they start distributing Return Tickets to come back later in the day.
Anyone out there have any information or thoughts or educated guesses on how likely we would be to actually get into WWofHP for at least a few hours on that day??
The other option would be to come a day early and do it on Friday, Feb. 17. Is that likely to be any better, though?
my educated guess is that not only will it be very, very busy--but you won't get there until later in the day which will make the busy-ness worse. assuming you are disembarking at 8:00 in the morning-ish, there'd be no humanly possible way to be at the gates any time sooner than, say, 10:30. by then the park will have been open to regular guests for an hour and a half--and to on site resort guests for two and a half hours. yes, it will be busy. it is a saturday during a school holiday week--and the week of mardi gras, when lots of schools in the nola area are closed...and so people take trips to orlando. thus is the basis for my educated guess.
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My only experience was early August. We arrived at the park an hour after park opening by mistake. They were distributing return tickets to get in the HP section, but they were only 30 minutes away...and stayed like that through the morning. By afternoon they stopped using the machines. The wait for Forbidden Journey was 90 minutes when we got there, but in the afternoon it was less than an hour. The only thing we were not ablest do because we didn't want to wait in the hot sun was Ollivanders shop. We saw the wands in a store near the exit of the park though, so didn't miss them, just the ceremony. Also in the afternoon the Dragon coaster was practically a walk on. I hope this helps.
BTW, I ended up subscribing to Orlando Informer so that I could use their "Ask a Question" feature. Their advice is that although February 25 will be a pretty busy day at IOA ("moderate" on their crowd calendar), they don't believe that it will be crowded enough that day for the time and return ticket system to be put into use.
Also, they note that February 25, 2012 is a Mardi Gras night at Universal Studios. "What typically happens on these nights is that, around 5:00pm or so, Islands of Adventure starts to clear out as many of the park visitors make their way over to Universal Studios for the parade and free concert. This leaves IOA and the Wizarding World pretty empty."
After February 25, I'll come back and let you all know how it went!
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