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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So.... we just got back from 7 days and 8 niths at Disney/Universal.
The trip was GREAT!!!!!!!
Fastpass was not a problem at all. Of course we never really used it before anyway, but we did take advantage of it this time. I will say it would have been nice if the 4th rotating pass was there AND if we were able to park hop with them, but all in all we were able to ride almost everything we wanted to ridae at lest once (two exceptions were ROcking Roller coaster and Big Thunder).
Things that were great..........
1st: Be our Guest - hands down best resturaunt there. We had a great waitress.. Michelle the ambiance is great... The food is phenomenal at it was one of the BEST character interactions in the whole park.
2nd: Pepper Market - By FAR the best quick service place I have eaten. The selection and service were EXCELLENT and the food was so good and not your typical burgers and fries.
3rd: The resort.. I have stayed off property or at the Old Key West in the past. We statyed at Coronado springs. This resort was a...ma..zing. The grounds were beautiful, the pools were great. They don't have the water activities, but they have other stuff going on. We checked out the gym and stuff and that was cool. There was 1 draw back in that it was sort of a maze to find your way around but after the 1st day or two we had it down and we used bell services to check out so that helped.
4th: Parking and transportation - While I found the DRIVERS didn't always know the right answers, they were all very good and very helpful and I liked them all.
5th: Animal Kingdom -I wanted to be a Zoo Vet growing up so this was the park I was going to judge the hardest. I was astounded. It is GREAT! I didn't want to pay the price for the Lodge but I might have to rethink that. Wow... adn they had the best staff there too.
6th: Fantasyland. We LOVED it. I feel there should be a section for each princess as they proposed, like why isn't Rapunzel by her tower and there has always been a lack of representation for Sleeping Beauty... (as we jokingly say why they always be hatin') but I think they could expand this even more and it would be excellent.... do a whole VIllians section...
7th: Wishes/Celebrate the Magic/Electrical Light parade: Wow.. that is all.
8th: My Disney Experience: after the 1st 2 days we worked out the kinks and this was a blessing! I think once Fastpass+ is straightened out this will be excellent.
9th: Magic bands - I ahve only been gone for 3 days and I want my magic band back. NOt having to carry a bazillion things was great!
10th: Disney dining plan.... again GREAT money saver. We would have been eating quick service every meal without this. We even had 9 snack credits left when we checked out so we got snacks for the road from Cafe Rix.
I did notice some things that were very annoying.... and disappointing from the past.
1st: When I last went, the characters walked around as well as being in stationary spots. If you saw them you could ask for autographs etc. Not anymore. We saw Pocahantas and the Evil Queen at Studios and while they were willing to take a quick photo, their handlers weren't willing to let that happen. They were walking from Fantasmic to the back and were not on "break" the handler basically said, "Sorry they aren't in a signature spot so you will have to find them later" The variety in these spots is LIMITED. Same people everyday. They need to mix this up as well.. so characters mostly great but needs to be a shake up. Also, not all of the princesses are represented... meaning there would be 3 or 4 in a show or parade but not all of them. I am not talking female characters lik eMulan, I mean the legitimate princesses... I am also a villans fan so I feel they need to have these represented more often too.. but that's me
2nd: The line for meeting the Frozen princesses was 3 and half hours long with NO Fastpass... ridiculous. Tuesday when we were there it was raining and cold and so for it to be long on a day like that was absurd. I can't imagine what it is like on a nice day. Also there was limited merchandise there. We tried and tried to find something with both Anna and Elsa for a 3 year old. THere were books and Candy that was it. So new movies need more exposure and organization to that exposure.
3rd: Also was HUGELY disappointed wih all of the fireworks EXCEPT Magic Kingdom. Fantasmic.. was great but not what it was hyped up to be and certainly not worth the aweful food at the applinted package resturaunts or the risk of not having seats a full hour before the show. Illuminations was another great disappointment.. I remember that show, I remember it was lights and lazers and music and fireworks and ohhhhs and ahhhs and then we saw it and it was blah.. I thought maybe it was the vanatge point or the weather.... nope saw it 2 nights while we were there and 2nd night was clearer, but still not what I remember.
4th: Memory Maker.... over all it was a good investment, but.. there were not as many photographers as you are lead to believe. Also, unlike the promotion not every character has a photopass person. The sataionary ones do, but there are not photographers with every character either. For example, Mary Poppins was at the little spot between the twon hall and that other building in the front of main street... no photographer. There are SOOOO many spots that need photographers. EVERY country in Epcot should have one and then anywhere that says NIkon photo spot. I even found the photographers to be the WORST employees there too. On one occasion I spoke to the photographer and let her know my family was coming and when they got there she said she had forgotten that we were to take the picture and that she now had 4 people in line.. there was no one there. I also found the photographers to be the ones that complained the MOST.. Disney people that actually complained about being tired or hungry or hot or cold without prompting.
5th: Was VERY disappointed with the Rose and Crown.. used to be excellent now it was CRAP. Every other food was very good, (except see #6) but Rose and Crown was just not what it used to be.... and the view of illuminations was horrible.. and the staff.. the seating/reservations staff was downright rude. Also, knowing everyone was going to be asking for seats outside we had to ask for heaters 4 times on a cold windy night and we had on pants and jackets.
6th: Do NOT get anything with icing.... well unless you like confectioners sugar.. everything I got with icing tasted like I opened a box of confectioners sugar and poured it down my throat.
7th: Staff either flat out lied if they didn't know or just said I don't know. This became an issue where my 13 year old almost got lost and it caused an argument between my sister and I. We didn't want to stand in the line for Cinderella meet and greet. Was supposed to be a 10 min wait. They began to close the area down for wishes. We were waiting in front of the carosel. We asked the girl at the exit for the Rapunzel side were the line for Cinderells would be exiting. She said there at that exit. 10 min later, still no Cheyenne.. Our meeting spot was in front of the carosel. Finally guy said, are they really coming here, they came out the other side before by the castle. No no she said they will all come here... the lines are just longer. Half an hour later 5 very upset crying children were reunited with their parents on the other side fo the carousel because they at that point couldn't just come over to us where we were standing. Also, on the buses the drivers would never kknow the hours, but if we asked the cast at the parks, they knew.
8th: Downtown Disney.... there are select locations at Downtown Disney that do not accept the magic bands for payment and others who will discourage you from using them. Notably.. Smokehouse in front of Disney Quest did not accept it and The Hole in the Wall pub expressed that they would take it but that they would prefer not too because it takes them DAYS to get paid.
9th: Disney quest was... OK... but not something I would repeat again.
10th: Not to say it was the least annoying, in fact it was the worst thing about the whole vacation....People.... They were complaining.. about everything.. from Fastpass + to wait times to remodleing to they paid x for their vacation... blah blah blah... Look, we are all frustrated with stuff, none of us want to wait in line and they HAVE to fix stuff sometimes.... yes Disney is it's own "Fantasy realm" and there is "Magic" but it is not the court of miracles people.. if you don't want lines go in the off season... 1 guy got OFF the Ellen Energy ride mid ride and it shut the whole thing down... People are becommnig ridiculous! We took the spirit of the magic around with us. I even found my anti social sister conversing happily with strangers. If you go to Disney go with a good attitude and keep it!
Honorable Mention: The ducks and birds (and squirrels). I do not EVER remember being harrassed by the wildlife in the World the way we were. There were ducks under our table at Rose and Crown the quacked and squacked through the whole meal. Birds and squirrels that literally touched you if they wanted food. I know that is really the tourists fault but still my goodness...
Another honorable mention: I know there is a contract with Universal, but they really need some MARVEL representation because there isn't enough of them in Universal.. Star Wars and the Muppets could use a littel love too.
Universal was as disappoining as assumed. I didn't think buying the meal pass or Express passes were a neccesity when we booked, but yes they are. Had we not spent $180 we wouldn't have ridden a single ride there AND if you buy the park to park express passes, the two buggest rides.. Harry Potter and The pterodactyls.,. not included. Food was TWICE what it was at Disney and most of the rides needed updates. We are going back for Halloween horror nights, and the Harry potter Expansion, but if those do not impress, we will only visit Harry Potter and Marvel sections in the future. I have never been to Sea WOrld and would rather blow my money there.
Overall though... GREAT vaction... Dream vacation, nothing mentioned (except the lost child) ruined a single day there. I am still a Disneyphile, it is still my laughing place an it is still magic to me!
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Thanks for sharing your highs and lows with us! I agree with the photographers... not ideal. But I still purchase memory maker because I hate inconveniencing strangers to take a pic of me with my travel mates!
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