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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
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I am shaking my head in disbelief. You know of course that some people don't go to WDW because they still think MK is all there is to it and they saw that years ago?
We have come to understand the benefits of doing some planning and getting to understand how things like Fastpass work, using EMH to get popular attractions in so you can pace yourself and take a break mid-afternoon--at your Disney resort, etc.
A fine example of this was several years ago when Bob's nephew's band performed at WDW. Bob's sister and another chaperone toured around with us, and when Marti would see Michael at night (or the next morning), she'd ask him what he and his friends saw and did. She would then report back to us that we had seen about 2-3x as much as Michael and his friends had seen--and we had stopped for lunch at places like 50's Prime Time!
In 2002 when my nephews' band visited WDW, Bob & I were headed from the Epcot International Gateway with my sister, BIL, and another Mom to Test Track. We kept running into other parents and kids heading the opposite way saying "Don't bother--the wait is too long and you'll never get in". [They had had sense enough to have checked the Fastpass time (which was very late at that point or had all been given out)]. As we kept going we could see doubt rear it's ugly head in the others' eyes. We kept telling them, "Hey! Trust us! We're pros at this!" When we got there, we put everyone in the Single Riders Line, so they rode TT where many others on the trip did not. [There was a mechanical problem that slowed things a bit, but it was still way faster than stand-by.] We managed to get them on or in every attraction they wanted except for Space Mountain, and the only reason we failed there is that the CMs had to reboot the ride while we were in the final queue inside the mountain, and the parents had to go help the band members prepare to march that night.
We all had to start somewhere and I hope these folks can find a fine planning guide like PassPorter and this site where everyone is so friendly and shares so much information!
woweee, $11,000 in 6 days Jeez, we stay for 2 weeks whenever we go and we don't spend anywhere near that - I think even if we stayed for a whole month we wouldn't spend that amount! As soon as we booked for our first trip together in 2003, the first thing we did was buy a guide book and start learning what we could. I'm shocked that people could spend that kind of money and still not know what they were doing!
It never ceases to amaze me that you can spend tons of your hard earned money on ANY vacation (not just WDW) and be so clueless about it. After all, we are living in the new millenium, and there are tons of ways to get information out there. (Can we say, "Google"? ) We live in a vacation area (more of a weekend type getaway area) and I have met tourists who say things like "What's there to do around here?" Well, why did you come here if you didn't know what there was to do?
When I was planning DFiance and I's 2002 trip my DM kept asking me how we were going to afford it all. Well, I finally started telling ehr about all the ways I'd found to save money. She was shocked- it turns out that she'd spent considerably more on our 4 day family trip in 1990 than I was going to spend on our 7 day trip. We stayed off-site both times, but I got a great deal on a nice hotel on Hotwire and she paid rack-rate during Spring Break for a Motel 6 level place. We bought the Florida Resident Seasonal Annual Passes, DM bought us all single-park single-day tickets in 1990.. and the list goes on.
Really, though, she had no clue there was any other way to do it. Thank goodness for the internet!
Didn't the mom notice that Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck were nowhere to be found at Sea World and IofA? Always amazes me that some people equate Orlando with Walt Disney World.
After reading this post and all of the replies I am a little worried that I spent to much for our disney trip. This is our first time going, and I booked through a travel agent. 3 adults, 3 children, 2 rooms at pop century for 7 nights with ultimate park hopper passes, including air around $4500? I am farely new here and just got my passporter last week. I wish I had found it sooner now that I am finding so many ways to save money. Too late now but it will definetly be helpful for our next trip. I am already addicted and we haven't even gone yet.
Unbelievable. Surely if they could afford 11G for a vacation they own a computer?! Heavy sigh. Of course my entire family, even my DFiance (and he's almost as addicted as I) make fun of my planning. What can I say it gets me through the Long Lonely Disneyless months between trips.
I make and change plans constantly. Long before the PS due date approaches I've changed where we're going to eat about a hundred times. We love! love! love! the food. I'm always accused (and rightly so) of planning my trips around where I want to eat. . How can other people not. Especially taking children. I'm shocked and amazed.
[ QUOTE ]
Unbelievable. Surely if they could afford 11G for a vacation they own a computer?! Heavy sigh. Of course my entire family, even my DFiance (and he's almost as addicted as I) make fun of my planning. What can I say it gets me through the Long Lonely Disneyless months between trips.
I make and change plans constantly. How can other people not. Especially taking children. I'm shocked and amazed.
[/ QUOTE ] Well I knew I wasn't alone. Good News..a little
boy in my class whispered to me "Mrs. S I don't think she
was at Disney World...she went to Sea World & UStudios."
Bless his little heart.
Some parents do their homework after all...like US.
I was JUST having this whole conversation with the girls at work on Friday. It amazes me that they don't get the concept that the whole of Orlando isn't WDW! Even showing them on a map, they are asking me if SeaWorld is part of WDW. Some people just don't get it!!
I'm always amazed at work when people pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for their vacation packages and they have no idea what is included. I don't think I could pay that much money for something without knowing what I'm paying for.
I've also had guests at guest services that complain that they spent so much money for tickets and "four days at Disney is too much." I ask them if they went to all four theme parks...usually the answer is, "what do you mean?" They have no idea that there is more than the Magic Kingdom. Sad.
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woweee, $11,000 in 6 days 
Well I knew I wasn't alone. Good News..a little
Some people just don't get it!!
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