Christmas Day Crowd Control at Magic Kingdom - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Living in Florida now it is really easy to visit WDW anytime we want. I thought it would be wonderful to visit over Christmas but our time at Magic Kingdom was a horror. We arrived on the 22nd and figured we would do one park a day. We had no problem at Animal Kingdom on the 22nd, HS on the 23rd and Epcot on the 24th. We went to the Candlelight Processional which was wonderful and ate Christmas Eve dinner at Tutta Italia. I was lucky enough to get a reservation for Be Our Guest Christmas evening. As soon as we entered Magic Kingdom around 2:00 pm I could see they let too many people in. We worked our way down Main Street through Tomorrowland and into New Fantasyland. First unless you were willing to wait 90 minutes for an attraction, there was no way to see anything. We kept ourselves busy though working our way through the Park. At 7:30 we arrived back at Be Our Guest for our 8:00 reservation. We got in at 8:15 which wasn't too bad. But when we got out and tried to leave, the horror began. First Disney cast members were closing off ways to get out. We went through Tomorrowland and got to where the Starlight Cafe is and the crowd was out of control. It was complete chaos. The Electric Light Parade had ended and people were trying to get to the castle while others were trying to get out. People were actually screaming and kids were crying with the pushing and shoving. You could not move an inch and were trapped. It must have been at least a half hour of this chaos and we hadn't moved an inch. Finally a Cast Member somehow got through and was waving a laser light in the air telling people to calm down. Finally they opened a fence which was an alley behind the Plaza Restaurant and all the stores on that side of the street. People were running to get out. It took you all the way down to Tony's Town Square where you could get out of the park. I saw an article online from a Florida newspaper that the same type of situation happened earlier in the day around the time of the parade. I am not exaggerating that it was complete pandamonium and Disney should have handled crowd control better. I have been to WDW at least 40 times in my lifetime and never experienced anything remotely like this. I will never ever go during Christmas break again. If there had been an emergency, i shudder to think what would have happened. I thought people were going to get trampled especially kids who couldn't see above the crowd. Thank goodness that was the last day of our trip because I wouldn't have gone to another park.
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Luke has been showing me pictures of the huge crowds at all the parks during the holidays. I don't think I want ever want be there during that high of a crowd level.
We were there over Christmas too...to say it was less than magical on Chrsitmas day is a HUGE understatement! We were soooooooo disappointed in Disney for letting that many people in, we had a breakfast ADR at the MK then got the heck out of there. There was no way we could stay and enjoy ourselves with that many people. Not sure if we will be returning for Christmas anytie soon We ended up changing our ADRs for the rest of our trip to resort restaurants only to avoid the parks because it did not get any better the rest of our trip.
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Paige-Blessed Mom of two wonderful, amazing little boys through the miracle of adoption.
We love WDW!!! I know what is not to love? So glad to find there are more Disney crazy people out there like me!
We've been over Christmas many times, and I've been to the Magic Kingdom when it was full to capacity, and it really was unpleasant. Sorry you had such a nightmare time.
I'm so sorry about that terrible experience! I kept getting Facebook updates about different phases of closing of Magic Kingdom during Christmas. Your story puts it in perspective. They were also listing the crazy wait times throughout the parks. They should've really been on top of that mess.
We went during Thanksgiving and got to experience Christmas in the parks that way
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We ended up changing our ADRs for the rest of our trip to resort restaurants only to avoid the parks because it did not get any better the rest of our trip.
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