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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This isn't really a trip report, just a few impressions from my recent trip (Nov 4-13).
Well, first of all, it was hot. As in, REALLY hot. I mean, record-breaking heat, the whole 10 days I was there, with temps in the high 80s to low 90s. I think it actually hit 95 degrees one day. I had to take a mid-day break around 12:00 or 1:00 every day to go back to my room for a shower and a nap. Sweated buckets, right through my shirts.
I forgot to pack my sunblock, and on the first day I was feeling the sun pretty strongly on my skin, so I went shopping and the highest SPF I could find was in a spray can. I usually go for the rub-on cream style sunblock, because I assumed that the spray-on didn't cover as well, but I was way wrong! I will be using spray-on sunblock from now on, for three reasons: 1) Sprays on way faster and less messy than the rub-on variety, 2) is much less greasy feeling than the rub on type, 3) lasts just as long and is just as effective as the rub-on type.
Disney Springs is shaping up nicely, though Buena Vista Blvd. is still torn up pretty badly. But the Orange garage is complete, and it's a good place to park for the West Side and Pleasure Island. When the second garage is complete, it will provide plenty of parking for the Marketplace side. The new walkway across the lake cuts walking time from T-Rex to Rainforest Cafe to just a couple of minutes. And most of the new stores and restaurants are pretty good. Once the construction is finished, Disney Springs will be as good as new.
Selfie sticks are banned at WDW, but not yet at Universal. When I spent some time at Uni, I got a good idea of what Disney must have been like over the summer, prior to their banning. Good riddance - they are a menace.
I am SO going to miss the Osborne Lights. They are awesome, and I'll never forgive Disney for discontinuing them.
I don't miss the Sorcerer's Hat at DHS. The magnificent reproduction of Mann's Chinese Theater can finally be seen again, for the first time in years, and the view across the Studios' hub is now what it was designed to be. The hub also feels a lot bigger without the hat taking up so much space. Maybe Disney will consider bringing fireworks back to the Studios again, now that the view is unimpeded. I miss Sorcery in the Sky.
The Epcot International Food and Wine Festival is more awesome than ever. Every dish I tried at the booths was like a mini four-star dinner. I even tried escargot!
Wi-fi coverage in the parks and resorts has improved dramatically since it was first introduced. I left my phone's Wi-fi turned on 24/7 and got such good, strong connections almost everywhere that it didn't even drain the battery.
Another thing that I noticed at Universal was something that frequent WDW visitors have been wanting for years - refillable mugs in the parks. The Uni model is quite impressive; they have deployed fully automated Coke Freestyle machines throughout the parks, which read RFID mugs, much like the soda dispensers at the WDW resorts. But the Freestyle machines have two advantages over Disney's drink stations: 1) they each hold dozens of flavors of drink, and 2) they're fully automated. An added benefit is that they provide free water and ice throughout the park to anyone who needs it. Since Disney has copied a number of things from Uni in recent years, I'd be willing to bet that Disney will notice Uni's mug program and put a similar one into place themselves within a couple of years.
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Isn't it funny that when you plan a vacation in November, you think the Florida summer heat and humidity will have been turned down!
Besides the heat, it sounds like you had a great time!
I will be very glad when the Disney Springs construction calms down!
you're right, it has absolutely been crazy hot here until this weekend. What amazes me, is that even though the temps have been in the high 80's/low 90's, my pool was freezing!
Freestyle coke machines would be an awesome addition to Disney. (I'm a freestyle addict, so it's good that there aren't places too close by that offer them.)
Freestyle Coke machines would be an awesome addition, as would park refillable mugs. With the rfid technology, it shouldn't be too hard to manage. I hope Disney follows Universal's lead in this area.
Thanks for the info! And I agree with you in regards to the weather...we are currently at WDW and it's a lot hotter than I expected! So much for the layering clothes I brought lol! The humidity today is very high as well. I too am glad to see zero selfie sticks [emoji4]
Freestyle coke machines would be an awesome addition to Disney. (I'm a freestyle addict, so it's good that there aren't places too close by that offer them.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by HollyH
Sounds like you had a good trip!
Freestyle Coke machines would be an awesome addition, as would park refillable mugs. With the rfid technology, it shouldn't be too hard to manage. I hope Disney follows Universal's lead in this area.
The Freestyle machines in Universal look like standard Freestyle machines, just like those I've seen in Wegmans, Roy Rogers, Five Guys, and Burger King stores, but they definitely read the RFID chips in the refillable mugs, just like the drink stations at the WDW resorts. I didn't buy a mug, but I used the machines multiple times to fill my water bottle. The convenience of having so many places with both cold water and ice available, self-service with generally no lines, cannot be overstated. It was especially important on this trip because of the extreme heat. I was gulping down three or four bottles of water per day to stave off dehydration.
I can see Disney implementing them in the next two years in a big way. I certainly hope they're talking to Coke right now to get a deal on the machines. Freestyle machines have some advantages over traditional self-serve drink machines - they're small, self-contained, easy to place, work indoors and outdoors, and the seem more robust than the traditional machines. You can also place two or three in a cluster, which Uni has done in many locations, to keep the lines short.
With a self-contained unit like Freestyle, I could even see Disney expanding the mug program to include a mug that works at both parks and resorts. Knowing Disney, I'd bet that a property-wide mug would cost a lot more than the current mugs, though. They might even go with a tiered approach - a "your resort only" mug like they have now, a "parks only" mug for off-site Guests, and an expensive "everywhere" mug.
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I read either yesterday or the day before that DHS will have nightly fireworks starting sometime in January, I think. They're Star Wars themed. I assume they're permanent and not just a temporary thing.
The Freestyle machines in Universal look like standard Freestyle machines, just like those I've seen in Wegmans, Roy Rogers, Five Guys, and Burger King stores, but they definitely read the RFID chips in the refillable mugs, just like the drink stations at the WDW resorts. I didn't buy a mug, but I used the machines multiple times to fill my water bottle. The convenience of having so many places with both cold water and ice available, self-service with generally no lines, cannot be overstated. It was especially important on this trip because of the extreme heat. I was gulping down three or four bottles of water per day to stave off dehydration.
I can see Disney implementing them in the next two years in a big way. I certainly hope they're talking to Coke right now to get a deal on the machines. Freestyle machines have some advantages over traditional self-serve drink machines - they're small, self-contained, easy to place, work indoors and outdoors, and the seem more robust than the traditional machines. You can also place two or three in a cluster, which Uni has done in many locations, to keep the lines short.
With a self-contained unit like Freestyle, I could even see Disney expanding the mug program to include a mug that works at both parks and resorts. Knowing Disney, I'd bet that a property-wide mug would cost a lot more than the current mugs, though. They might even go with a tiered approach - a "your resort only" mug like they have now, a "parks only" mug for off-site Guests, and an expensive "everywhere" mug.
Even with a tiered approach this would be a big win.
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