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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Another alternative for some shows -- usually the ones you really like -- is to just buy the DVD box set :-) I wait until the extra special sale times in the year and get prior seasons and sometime the most recent season for really good prices. Then you just binge watch :-)
We have not cut the cord because Blue Jays. Otherwise we seriously considered it.
SW
As an Oriole fan, I must insist that you immediately and permanently cut all Blue Jay cords you may encounter.
Well, here's an update: I have decided not to cut the cord.
I was all set to do it - I had bought an amplified antenna from Monoprice that lets me receive all of the local stations I want; I had signed up for trials of SlingTV, Hulu, and Netflix; and I had spent the last week with my Comcast converter box disconnected to see what life would be like without cable TV.
I made the decision last night, on the last night of my free week of SlingTV. I called Sling and got their promotion - pay for three months in advance at $20 a month, and get a Roku 3 for $50, which is 50% off. It was a good deal and I was looking forward to getting the Roku.
But when I called Comcast this morning to cancel my TV service, they offered me a promotional rate for a year that will save me more money than cancelling TV entirely and paying for Sling, Netflix, and Hulu. Cutting the cord would have saved me about $50-$60 a month, but the promotion will save me about $80 a month while allowing me to keep all of my current channels, my DVR, and adding Showtime (which I didn't have before).
I cancelled the Hulu+ subscription this morning before the free week ended. There is good content there, but a lot of what I'm interested in is available in the free Hulu account, which I've had for years.
I cancelled the SlingTV subscription this morning, too, though it took about 10 minutes on the phone to do it. The Roku promotion made it more complicated than just giving me a refund, but I called before the Roku shipped, so they were able to cancel the shipment and give me the free refund.
The Netflix trial is a whole month, not a week, so I still have that. I may wind up keeping it, though, because of the original series they have - Longmire, a terrific show that should never have been canceled by A&E (I spent last weekend binge-watching Season 4 after I activated my Netflix trial); and all of the Marvel shows. I had been hearing about Daredevil since it premiered, and I've watched about half of Season 1 so far; I understand now why there was so much buzz among comic fans about it! And I've been reading a lot about the upcoming Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and The Defenders. All of those shows will be exclusive to Netflix, so I might just part with the $10 a month for the streaming service.
I cut the cord today! I kind of did the opposite of WillCAD. I didn't order an antennae yet for local channels, so I cut down to a $19 a month package for local only and am keeping my DVR for a few weeks which is $15 a month. I'll cancel that eventually but I have current stuff to watch before I can get rid of it. I have a smart blu-Ray player in my bedroom so I'll be good with Netflix and DVDs and my living room tv is a smart tv so I have Netflix, Amazon, Pandora etc. no sling tv but I can always get a second stick. I did prepay for 3 months so I got a free roku stick for DS's room. He has a tv and PS2 in there so this way I don't have to watch his anime shows on Netflix.
I downloaded the sling app to my iPad and I love it! HP marathon on ABC family and I can just keep moving my iPad to listen/watch when I want to as I do stuff around the house. DS has a kindle and a school owned iPad so I will let him download it to the kindle if it's available.
My cable deal ended tomorrow so by cutting it today I'm not billed $187 for my tv and Internet, I'm only paying $117 for my internet and local channels. I think by the middle-end of November I will cancel my cable altogether and be ok with just sling, Netflix, and Amazon prime. I still buy DVDs and have discovered I can buy the movies on Amazon for as little as a few dollars so instead of telling DS we will go buy the DVD we will probably just purchase it on the app. With saving $70 a month (later way more) we can pay down debt or use that money for our Disney trip!
One more question what do you do if you have different tv's in your house? For us we have a tv in our family room, one in the kitchen (where my hubby watches the news before he leaves for work), one in our bedroom and one large screen tv for sports and movies.
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Kathy - you'd have to buy multiple antennas and devices for streaming for any room in which you want to watch tv.
We can stream on our BluRay player and our XBox360 and our Amazon Firestick, so we could watch in three rooms (you'd need a wireless router or internet in each place). We bought two antennas. We have not cut the cord yet, but we may at some point and have been working on options. Getting a TiVo for one room may be something we'd do too so we could record and watch later.
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I didn't do very thorough research but sling tv has a weird rule. You can only watch on one device at a time even if you have the app on multiple devices. Doesn't matter too much for our family of two but for larger families it's something to consider.
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DH and I considered doing this a few months ago but after pricing out the cost of Internet and each individual service we only saved about $30-40 plus we lost our dvr. Since we both work and go to school we never are home at the right time to watch our shows so a dvr is extremely important. We did land up getting a new deal with att uverse with Internet and every cable channel including premium movie channels for 130. Which is awesome considering Internet alone was going to cost 60-70.
I got an Amazon Fire stick for Christmas. I like it. I watch Netflix and Amazon Prime on it. Although Prime doesn't have a lot to offer. I had Hulu, but it annoyed me to pay for the service and still have commercials. There are more channels on it, but nothing I'm interested in. I have several apps that I use, including a YouTube app, so we can watch YouTube videos on the TV. I personally think it's a great deal. My daughter and her husband don't have cable or dish. They just use the Fire TV stick.
We would cut the cord, but I am a diehard football fan, and I can't go without my football. And I can't wait for the next day to watch it. I have to watch in real time. Maybe after the Superbowl....
As far as recording shows for later viewing, if you have Netflix, Hulu, etc. you can watch whenever you want, so no need to record them.
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Michelle - with my step sisters!
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