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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Vienna is so beautiful lit up at night! The horse show looks like fun, but I think I'd like a lower level for viewing. The Royal Box looked like the perfect view. Lunch at the cafe minus the soup looks I'd love to try what Mark had for dessert.
Just caught up Cheryl, first off I still cannot get over how much you and Mark get done in a day...sometimes I have to backtrack just to make sure I haven't missed a "sleep" in there somewhere. I loved the pcitures of the palace, and I think that the horse drawn carraige ride was a definite great choice. I really am impressed with how beautiful the city is...the architecture is amazing, and the pictures at night were beautiful...everything just looks great being all lit up.
How fasinating that there are remenants of a church in the subway station, like history being built on history. I am amazed and so jealous of the supermarket, even though it looked to good to be called that. I think I would get lost everytime I went shopping (and I am sure I would spend way to much money).
The riding show looked to be very interesting, they all looked so regal. Your lunch sounded really delicious (minus the soup) and the desserts....well there are no words
Sunday 20 March – part five: strolling through Imperial Vienna in the daytime
When we came out of the cafe, we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to do. I knew that I did want to see the rest of the palace complex in the daytime, so off we went. It was certainly very different in the daylight.
Last night, we hadn’t realised that there were loads of souvenir shops inside the complex, and they had lots of very nice stuff and very reasonably priced too. That was a pleasant surprise to see.
We headed through the archway and into the area where last night we’d got our first glimpse of the Rathaus and today it was packed with fiakers. I guess this is one of the prime spots that they have for picking up tourists.
After lots of photos, we wandered through the Burgtor and then turned left, towards the Burggarten, which I had read about in my guidebook and wanted to see. The further we walked, the colder we got. It was interesting weather. We’d come out of places and think that really it wasn’t that cold, then the wind would cut right through us and suddenly we’d be freezing.
We wandered through the Burggarten, taking care not to walk on the grass, as there were various signs telling us not to.
There were some lovely statues in here. The one thing that really struck us was how expressive all the statues were in Vienna. They were unlike anything we’d ever seen anywhere else.
Just caught up Cheryl, first off I still cannot get over how much you and Mark get done in a day...sometimes I have to backtrack just to make sure I haven't missed a "sleep" in there somewhere.
I do the same thing! I keep thinking...wait a minute, this is the same DAY?
Great pictures from today - I love the statues of the children, although do find it a bit funny that they all seem to have such well-defined pectoral muscles!! Maybe Viennese children are more in to body building?!
The expressions on their faces, though, are amazing!
None of your pictures make it seem that there were too many tourists about. Is that true? Perhaps the weather was too cold for more people to be out and about?
Finally all caught up. The horses were beautiful, but too bad it was kind of off putting with the knee twitcher sitting right next to you. Glad your meal got better...your food looked delicious...but maybe it was called "clear" vegetable soup because there was nothing in it.
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Great pictures from today - I love the statues of the children, although do find it a bit funny that they all seem to have such well-defined pectoral muscles!! Maybe Viennese children are more in to body building?!
The expressions on their faces, though, are amazing!
None of your pictures make it seem that there were too many tourists about. Is that true? Perhaps the weather was too cold for more people to be out and about?
Love it!
I think that's probably true about the tourist numbers. It probably helped that we were there out of season and that it was a pretty cold day.
Sunday 20 March – part six: watching the butterflies
As we walked through the gardens, we noticed what looked like a butterfly house and a quick look at my German dictionary told me that’s indeed what it was. It wasn’t cheap at €5.50 ($7.70) each, but despite that, we wanted some warmth and it looked like it was a pretty big place, so we paid up and headed inside.
We had to stand there for about 10 minutes, waiting for both ourselves and our cameras to adjust to the heat and the humidity in there. My glasses didn’t take long to adjust...
... but the cameras were a different matter! I did wonder whether we’d ever be able to take any photos, as they just kept misting up all the time, but finally they adjusted themselves and we were away. Unlike most butterfly houses I’ve visited in the past, where you’re lucky to get a couple of decent shots of the butterflies, there were no such problems here. It helped that they’d left food out to attract the butterflies, but despite that, we were still both able to get some natural shots as well.
We both loved the way that this place had been designed. As well as being able to wander around at ground level, you could also go up to a higher level, with a staircase inside a “tree trunk” leading to a viewing platform above the area. Unfortunately, the only time we went up there, it quickly got crowded and we ended up heading down soon afterwards.
We stayed in there for ages, just sitting in there, taking everything in and getting lots of photographs. It was a lovely place and well worth a visit. We were both very surprised that it didn’t even warrant a mention in my guidebook, which seemed like a shame.
When we came out of there, we weren’t sure what to do, but within a couple of minutes of being outside, we knew one thing – whatever we did, we wanted to be inside and out of the cold. It was colder than ever and, as we walked over to the Natural History Museum, it started to spit with rain or possibly even sleet. That was it – time to head inside again.
Again, it wasn’t exactly cheap here at €10 ($14.10)each, but then again, this is renowned as one of the top museums in Europe. However, it wasn’t just the displays that were seeing here, it was also the building itself. It was designed by the same architects who designed the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of the History of Art) opposite and opened in 1899. The interiors reflect the collections contained in this museum.
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The horse show looks like fun, but I think I'd like a lower level for viewing. The Royal Box looked like the perfect view. Lunch at the cafe minus the soup looks 
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