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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Such a wonderful parade! After it ended, we dashed out into the street for a spot to watch the Disneyland Forever fireworks. We were so focused on getting a spot that Karen had left her purse on the sidewalk! Luckily, Mark spotted it and snagged it for her.
It was easy after the poor results from the night before to just take it all in and not take photographs. I think of all the spots we watched it, this was probably my favorite – it was a very immersive experience. I truly felt surrounded by magic!
We called it a night (not that we had a choice – the park was now closed ) and walked out with the rest of the crowd. Cheryl and Mark had dinner at Steakhouse 55, so we all walked back to the DLH together. Karen and I said goodnight to them and then headed up.
Up Next: Enjoying a mostly empty park
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
I so knew you'd taken more shots - I seemed to remember you snapping away. Mind you, I don't think I could ever watch that parade and not take any photos.
I am so glad I found your updates. I love your TRs and think you are one of the best photographers. I also thought it was interesting that you do not like Dasani water. My DD also doesn't but I have attributed that to her fussiness, not a bad taste. Maybe she has a point.
Glad you had a wonderful time. I need to get back to DL. I actually like it more than WDW but don't like the cross country flight to get there.
Wonderful update and more great photos of Paint the Night. Also love the group shots of all of you together. The ones of you & Karen with Olaf were so cute!
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Such amazing photos from the PTN Parade, which you captured so well! Glad RSR was up and running again and got to do it with Cheryl and Mark! Some more great times in the various parts of DL the next day!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Amazing shots of the parade! Seeing all those amazing pictures of DL and DCA is making me of my oldest son. He'll be going on a student trip next summer to California and will be visiting the parks.
I so knew you'd taken more shots - I seemed to remember you snapping away. Mind you, I don't think I could ever watch that parade and not take any photos.
Yup, I couldn't help myself.
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Originally Posted by Huntermom
I am so glad I found your updates. I love your TRs and think you are one of the best photographers. I also thought it was interesting that you do not like Dasani water. My DD also doesn't but I have attributed that to her fussiness, not a bad taste. Maybe she has a point.
Glad you had a wonderful time. I need to get back to DL. I actually like it more than WDW but don't like the cross country flight to get there.
Thanks! I think I've passed my distaste for Dasani onto my DM. So once three people agree on anything, that makes it completely true!
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Originally Posted by SharonK0527
Wonderful update and more great photos of Paint the Night. Also love the group shots of all of you together. The ones of you & Karen with Olaf were so cute!
Thanks! It was really cool to meet Olaf (no pun intended )
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Originally Posted by mommapants
Ugh! the heat. Hope it isn't that bad we I go in November.
Still loving the PTN photos and all those special shots are great too.
You should have better weather in November! And those special Photopass spots were so much fun. We managed to get them all!
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Originally Posted by Cam22
Thanks for all the great photos of Paint the Night, my new favorite nighttime parade! The music totally had me bouncing.
PTN is so much fun! I think it's my favorite nighttime parade, too!
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Originally Posted by SuperDave
Such amazing photos from the PTN Parade, which you captured so well! Glad RSR was up and running again and got to do it with Cheryl and Mark! Some more great times in the various parts of DL the next day!
It seems that RSR still has issues getting opened up in the mornings. But once we got on, it was just as much fun as ever.
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Originally Posted by benchley
Really amazing photos of the parade. Thank you
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Originally Posted by MayraLR
Amazing shots of the parade! Seeing all those amazing pictures of DL and DCA is making me of my oldest son. He'll be going on a student trip next summer to California and will be visiting the parks.
Umm, you need to volunteer as a chaperone!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
My apologies for the delay in posting a new update. Photobucket did not want to play nicely with my laptop. After about an hour of frustration, I gave up! Hopefully there won't be any more delays. Now, on with the TR!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
Day Nine – Thursday, September 10 Enjoying a mostly empty park
Karen and I were up early and got ready for a fun day. I was going to have more fun than Karen today, because Karen needed to be on a work call (and if I remember, she actually didn’t need to be on it after all ), so I’d have a bit of solo time while she was doing that. But we had time to play first.
We started off with our regular routine – a quick breakfast in the lounge before heading out into the park. I have to say how much I loved being able to look at both parks (and Downtown Disney) while having breakfast. It really helped build up excitement for visiting the park.
We went to Disneyland and headed straight for Peter Pan’s Flight. This is the one attraction that we hadn’t managed to do before because of lines. And what do you know, there were lines again today. It looked to be about a 30 minute wait, so I convinced Karen to just do it – I figured it wouldn’t be any shorter as the day wore on.
While we were in line, I happened to hear the people in front of us discussing Action Park, an extreme ride amusement park which used to be open in New Jersey somewhere. More to the point, this guy was telling his friend how Action Park was so dangerous and so many people got hurt on their rides that it had to be shut down. I’ve been there once when I was maybe 10 years old, and my dad was one of the people who actually got hurt on one of the rides (he got a pretty bad scrape riding one of their slides). I told the guy this story and we laughed about it (Dad wasn’t hurt seriously, after all). The guy told me he heard that Action Park is opening up again (or it may have already, by this point). I could look it up, but I don’t really care. I wouldn’t go there if you paid me.
After our flight over Neverland, we took a spin with Mr. Toad. Say what you want about Toad's driving, it’s still much safer than Action Park!
Next we did the Matterhorn in the single rider line. I wanted another look at the amazing new Yeti. The Matterhorn is crazy bumpy but so much fun!
Then we did the Matterhorn Photopass spot. This one was a ton of fun (actually, all of them were pretty fun ).
And our bonus shot…
Next we went on it’s a small world. I love it at Disneyland – from being able to be outside while riding to the Disney characters worked in, it’s just a better experience to me (though I’ll admit I still like the one at Disneyland Paris best). I was able to get some pretty good photos to add to my vast collection.
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