FIRSTS, BIRTHS, and GIRTHS…A September 2013 PTR - Page 29 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Am I supposed to take this as a compliment? I can't quite decide... Glad you got your mail! It's always more real once you get that little packet from Disney. DD still none the wiser?
Am I supposed to take this as a compliment? I can't quite decide... Glad you got your mail! It's always more real once you get that little packet from Disney. DD still none the wiser?
Most definitely a compliment! It definitely feels VERY real now...and DD still thinks I'm just talking about Dairy Queen!
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
DH and I were discussing, earlier in the week, the possibility of taking DD to the carnival tonight. Last night, we told her, "guess where we might go tomorrow?!" She responded, "Disney World!" It actually broke my heart to tell her, "Sorry...just the carnival!" But at least now I know that if that type of question comes up again, she's rearing to go! The surprise is looking more and more like it will be a success!
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
I hope she had fun at the carnival. I agree it's not quite the same as Disney, but it's still fun We took Sean to our local one last weekend and I was telling Chris about how great Reese carnival used to be. Is it still popular? I remember it was huge (compared to our town's dinky little one) and I loved it. I'm thinking next July we'll come up and go if it's still worth attending.
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It definitely caught me off guard and I was pleasantly surprised she actually went that route!
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Originally Posted by PhilsEagles08
Congrats on the Disney mail!!!!!
Thank you! Not much longer now!!
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Originally Posted by Hugmonster
Not much longer now. Congrats on the Disney Mail
As of today, 24 more days!!!
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Originally Posted by num1DVCfan
I hope she had fun at the carnival. I agree it's not quite the same as Disney, but it's still fun We took Sean to our local one last weekend and I was telling Chris about how great Reese carnival used to be. Is it still popular? I remember it was huge (compared to our town's dinky little one) and I loved it. I'm thinking next July we'll come up and go if it's still worth attending.
Unfortunately, we ended up not going because we had thunderstorms that night. Instead, she found some movies on TV that she wanted to watch and the rest of the weekend was busy with several birthday parties. Reese still seems to have a pretty good carnival. We haven't been in several years but when I pass by on my way home from work, it seems to still be pretty popular.
So, with all of the hub bub surrounding the MagicBands/FastPass+ testing, I had been logging onto the disneyworld.com site and checking My Disney Experience to see if we were selected for testing. Usually, I would select FastPass+ from the My Disney Experience drop down menu and get the generic "coming soon" message. Today, I logged in and it changed to a faded calendar in the background with a pop up message that said we were outside the FastPass+ selection window. This is all very interesting to me and I'm curious if others who were selected received this same experience first. If so...I AM REALLY EXCITED TO TEST THE NEW TOYS!!!
Exciting! Although after testing out a lot of the MDE website I have not been impressed. Just doing simple tasks of planning my vacation have given me a headache. I'm so disappointed in the system already and I haven't even used it in the parks. I think I would LOVE it if it worked, but so far not so much with the working as advertised. If you are selected to test I'll be interested to see how you think it works in the world. I have a feeling if you like it that I will. We seem to plan a like (re: plan to insane levels ). I did just log into the DME site and when I click on Fastpass+ I still get the same message I've been getting for weeks. So nothing has changed for me at all. I'm fully expecting the system to be live for my trip in 2014 though!