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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I see a number of differences in the "GAC" at Universal here. I can tell you that I was there June 2011 and our experience was not so good. I went to guest services with letter in hand from DS doctor about his autism spectrum condition. I explained about how it's difficult for him to wait extended periods of time over and over throughout the day.
What they gave us was a card that we could present to attendants at attractions. The attendant then had to mark the card with a return time. That time depended on the wait for the attraction. For instance, WWOHP is insanely busy, and the wait was 90 minutes. They wanted us to come back in an hour and then get in the express line. However, if we wanted to do something else in the meantime, we couldn't use the card. We had to cross off the first time before they would put another one on the card.
So if we went to another attraction while waiting, our only option was to wait in the regular line...and at Universal in June, there are no short waits, so the odds of us missing our penciled-in time for the first attraction were pretty high.
Well, I tried my best to use their system for about two hours, and after that I stopped trying. Using that card was tedious and cumbersome and actually began to make our day worse! We went about our day and did the attractions that were most important to DS, and that was that.
We were at Universal only that one day, and I was glad. It was definitely my experience that their accommodations were not at all accommodating.
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I see a number of differences in the "GAC" at Universal here. I can tell you that I was there June 2011 and our experience was not so good. I went to guest services with letter in hand from DS doctor about his autism spectrum condition. I explained about how it's difficult for him to wait extended periods of time over and over throughout the day.
What they gave us was a card that we could present to attendants at attractions. The attendant then had to mark the card with a return time. That time depended on the wait for the attraction. For instance, WWOHP is insanely busy, and the wait was 90 minutes. They wanted us to come back in an hour and then get in the express line. However, if we wanted to do something else in the meantime, we couldn't use the card. We had to cross off the first time before they would put another one on the card.
So if we went to another attraction while waiting, our only option was to wait in the regular line...and at Universal in June, there are no short waits, so the odds of us missing our penciled-in time for the first attraction were pretty high.
Well, I tried my best to use their system for about two hours, and after that I stopped trying. Using that card was tedious and cumbersome and actually began to make our day worse! We went about our day and did the attractions that were most important to DS, and that was that.
We were at Universal only that one day, and I was glad. It was definitely my experience that their accommodations were not at all accommodating.
I hope you have a better experience than we did.
WOW! I'm so sorry that your experience wasn't as magical as you'd like. I have parents in my office in tears all the time with stories like this.
More and more people simply refuse to go to theme parks because a 90 minute line for a 3 minute attraction is just not something they find reasonable. I like the way Disney is looking into theming to make the wait better, but the main issue is that long waits are unacceptable to alot of people, so more and more people swear they'll never go back to a theme park after one visit. Add melt-downs to this, and you need a good plan if you aren't going to avoid theme parks forever.
I don't know your DS or his age, but is there a way to use this as a learning tool? With the freedom to roam, can the time somehow be managed while waiting? I know this is a REAL stretch, but turning a bad situation into a teaching moment is something I've learned as a behavioral occupational therapist coaching parents. I work in a school that is mostly attended by kids on The Spectrum who have melt-downs in district due to behaviors, so I really feel your pain. The main thing we try and do, though, is give them the skills to get right back into district without the melt-downs.
I've also taught college students with an IEP or a 504 plans. Believe it or not, the measure of success in work or school doesn't seem to be intellect. It seems to be the ability to regulate attention, control behavior, adapt for social demands, and manage emotions like boredom, anger, or impatience when they'd rather e doing something else. Even the seriously involved young-adults in sheltered workshops seem to succeed based on how they can manage their melt-downs. Eventually, all the young adults who have frequent melt-downs end up pretty much together. It breaks my heart when all the attention seems to go toward behaviors while the other young adults are working on job and life skills that will make them independent and successful. I actually try to create those situations that are the most difficult to work on those skills when the consequences are less permanant.
I know your on vacation, and no one wants to manage behaviors on vacation, but that seems to be one of the biggest issues I'm asked about when summer approaches. Most of my families go places where there is no GAC available, so they really do need strategies and a plan.
Kid skills for learning to delay gratification, wait, and adapt to the annoyances of society is at the top of my "what do you want your kid to accomplish in OT" list. Parents beam when a plan helped them enjoy a family wedding, a vacation, And, boy, I'm NOT saying it is easy to do. It's one of the toughest interventions I do, and it is heartbreaking to see what parents go through until something clicks.
These are a few of the things that have worked (and failed) while we go through trial and error. Maybe using a timing system, like setting an alarm to ring every fifteen minutes and telling him there will be so many alarm rings to cross off before you are ready to go into the attraction could help him pace his time.
Maybe having activities to pass the time, like a scavenger hunt as you walk around the parks while waiting could help. Something to to mark the passage of time, like a time checklist ccould help with pacing. The old standard fidget bag or sensory strategy tool-kit helps also.
The skills really pay off! I keep in touch with alot of my special needs families through adulthood. I'm finding that children who have the skills for self-calming, self- entertaining, waiting, working a bit past when they really want to stop are the happiest. At ALL levels, behavior management makes or breaks a college, job, or group home placement and helps the kids to have friends. I've even been adding OT goals in school to address this.
I posted some links to some very old articles on vacation behavior management in thee parks. I hope something in there might help if you decide to brave a theme park again.
I really understand what you are saying, but I don't see the GAC going back to the way it was interpreted years agao, so strategies seem to be all I have to offer.
Well, fortunately my DS is high functioning and we did okay. I really did use it as a "well this is what happens in an imperfect world" moment, and DS was a trooper. I am a real no-nonsense person, and I think that's been beneficial to my son (now almost 16).
The reason for my post was to help anyone who might need to plan for the Universal experience. DS actually loves Universal, but not as much as Disney.
I really hope Universal is improving their system.
Well, fortunately my DS is high functioning and we did okay. I really did use it as a "well this is what happens in an imperfect world" moment, and DS was a trooper. I am a real no-nonsense person, and I think that's been beneficial to my son (now almost 16).
The reason for my post was to help anyone who might need to plan for the Universal experience. DS actually loves Universal, but not as much as Disney.
I really hope Universal is improving their system.
I'm so glad to hear that your son was able to manage the situation. So many of my parents can't say the same. (My favorite story is the kid who bit the man standing in front of him on the bottom in the queue.) I wonder if they gave him a never-expiring GAC.
Is there anything else you can tell us about the differences were between Disney and Universal?
Yes people can pay for the Express Pass and anyone who is staying at a Universal onsite hotel gets and Express Pass to - The Express Pass is the same as the Special Needs lines. We had gone back in 09 and stayed onsite so we didnt ask for a Special Needs pass because we had it from the hotel. We went in August and I dont remember ever having to wait too long for any ride. I enjoyed Universal but prefer WDW anyday!! MY older 2 boys however love thrill rides so they prefer Universal.
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