Feature Article: Dealing With the Post-Vacation Disney Blues - Keeping the Magic Alive - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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Feature Article: Dealing With the Post-Vacation Disney Blues - Keeping the Magic Alive
Dealing With the Post-Vacation Disney Blues - Keeping the Magic Alive by Cheryl Pendry
Any Disney fan will know the feeling of the post-Disney blues only too well. As for us, it's a well-known condition.
Symptoms usually start to show up just as you arrive home from another wonderful Disney vacation. You start getting back into your normal day-to-day life, but you just can't shake that feeling that this isn't enough. Then you realise what the problem is. You're missing being at the most magical place in the world, and want nothing more than to return there. However, with the current economic climate, your next visit may be many months, or even years away. We certainly know that feeling only too well. We're very fortunate to regularly visit Disney parks around the world, although with Orlando a nine-and-a-half hour flight away from us, we very rarely get to Walt Disney World more than once a year. Our last visit there was back in April 2011, and we won’t make it back until December of this year. In fairness, we did manage two days at Disneyland in California, and the Disney cruise around Alaska in fall 2011, which helped to feed the Disney addiction, and we’ll have a day at Disneyland Paris in October, but that’s still almost a year without our Disney dosage. Because gaps like this are regular for us, I’ve become used to coping with it, and finding ways of managing those post-Disney blues.
The most important thing is to keep your previous visit as alive as you can when you get home. So how do you do that? First, go through any photos you’ve taken and get them printed up. I always find looking back through photos helps remind me of what a wonderful time we had. Perhaps you opted for the Disney PhotoPass CD? In which case, that’s something else you can do when you get home. Perhaps if you fancy being creative, you can put together a photobook or a scrapbook. Again, that takes more time, and it helps to keep the memories alive. I personally love nothing more than compiling a scrapbook from our trip, and it usually takes months to complete, helping to keep the Disney magic alive. Another great way of keeping the trip alive is to write about it. PassPorter's message boards have a whole forum, Sharing the Adventure, dedicated to pre-, during-, and post-trip reports. I always write a trip report, and that helps me to relive our wonderful vacation. If you don’t fancy sharing your own experiences, then why not read about other’s plans and what they did at Disney? I love reading about people’s Disney’s trips, and with separate forums for trip reports on Disneyland California visits, and Disney cruises, there’s plenty to keep you occupied on the message boards.
Listening to music can be another way of keeping the magic alive. You can have Disney music streamed to you online via Live 365, or perhaps you have some Disney CDs? I personally love nothing more than getting out our IllumiNations CD and playing that, even if it does reduce me to tears every time I hear it! It always takes me back to Epcot to some truly wonderful nights watching that show.
If music isn’t your thing, then why not try listening to a podcast? My previous job had a long drive attached to it, and gave me a good chance to listen to Disney podcasts. Of course, my favorite is the PassPorter Moms Podcast, with our very own Jennifer Marx and Sara Varney, and occasional appearances from yours truly! Another one I can thoroughly recommend is the WDW Radio podcast with Lou Mongello. The reason I love it is that it takes you through Disney in amazing detail, giving you some wonderful background stories about what the Imagineers intended for particular areas of the parks, rides, restaurants, and resorts. I’ve certainly learned plenty from listening to it over the last couple of years.
Then there are the Disney TV channels, which offer a wide range of Disney viewing, from TV shows to classic movies. If you don’t have access to a TV channel, you must have a Disney DVD or Blu-Ray somewhere in your collection, and if not, there’s never been a better reason to go out and buy one! Sometimes there’s nothing better than settling down to watch one of the Disney classics, and reliving some great memories.
Don’t forget that you can find some Disney magic in your local shopping mall, provided you’re lucky enough to live near to a Disney Store. I know that, in the States, that’s become increasingly hard in recent years, with a number closing in recent years, but we are fortunate enough to have one just 20 minutes’ drive from our home. It does make a huge difference, particularly if you’re on a "Disney downer," and I'm sure we've all experienced times like that before! There’s something really uplifting about being able to go and browse the shop, and enjoy a touch of Disney, even if you don't actually buy anything! It’s also fascinating to see the new brand of Disney Stores, with added magic touches, which are appearing all over the place now.
Don’t despair if you don’t have a Disney Store nearby. I never cease to be amazed by all the stores over here that have Disney merchandise. Sometimes just catching sight of a Disney character in an unusual place is enough to bring a huge smile to my face, so keep your eyes peeled. You never know where you might find them! My most unusual sighting in recent months was in Belgium, where I found a Winnie the Pooh birthday card in Flemish. Now how neat is that?
By the time you've done all of that, you may find that suddenly you're a lot closer to your next Disney vacation than you'd have thought.
What do you think? Please add your own comments, experiences, or news related to this article in this thread! Reader feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
Great ideas to combat the post-vacation Disney blues, Cheryl! Having your next trip planned is another way to keep the magic alive. I try to add a bit of Disney magic to everyday life by wearing or using Disney items--watch, scarf, gloves, bag, drinking glass, silverware, etc.
We are FINALLY planning our next trip to WDW for June 2013...
SO........excited....My husband and I, Daughter and her 2 kids (18 and 11) manage to go every two years so last time was 2011 and it's time! I scrapbook during off-years and also listen to Disney Music and read my Pass Porter messages as well as Chip and Company daily mail......
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