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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thank you! I can't believe we've been together 2/3 of our life! It seems like it's just sped by!
Oh my goodness, I hear you on that! Next year we'll be celebrating 20 years of marriage (we've already been together more than 20 years) and it really doesn't feel like that long at all!
Oooh...you've got me hooked! Love the intro and congratulations on 40 years!! We'll be celebrating 20 years in November and I thought that went fast. It says something that it feels like the time has flown
Oh my goodness, I hear you on that! Next year we'll be celebrating 20 years of marriage (we've already been together more than 20 years) and it really doesn't feel like that long at all!
They say that's a good thing!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pris
Ah, what an intriguing start.
I hope it lives up to its beginning!
Quote:
Originally Posted by dsteiny23
Oooh...you've got me hooked! Love the intro and congratulations on 40 years!! We'll be celebrating 20 years in November and I thought that went fast. It says something that it feels like the time has flown
Thank you and congratulations to you! It is a great thing, I feel!
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So here I am with a dilemma. Annual passes are so expensive, this is an amazing deal, but we actually don’t have any plans to go to WDW after September 2017 trip, and we have a valid annual pass already for that, but I hate to miss out on this deal! I’d be saving so much money! (I know, it’s Disney math).
We already have our plans for 2018 pretty firmed up, the aforementioned trip in January to Tucson to replace a floor. A Panama Canal cruise in April for our 60th birthdays, and the B2B cruise in December. That uses our time off up for the year. What do we do?
So, I start thinking. (Danger, Danger, Will Robinson) We are doing a two week cruise in April, what if we step back and punt…how about a week in Disney followed by a 1 week cruise instead of a B2B? Hmmm, hard choice…but if we did that, we could activate the new annual pass in time and have a full year in 2019 that we can use it for at least one more trip. (This really was an amazing price on an annual pass!) Sounds like a plan! I call Kenneth and tell him our NEW plan! He’s on board even though he wouldn’t be handling the WDW stay as that would be DVC, he was enthusiastic about our plan!
My next move is to call and order the Platinum Plus Annual Pass for DVC members. Water parks, miniature golf, and Photopass all included!
I’m playing around on the DCL website looking at the itineraries and prices. Still waiting for the itinerary release for Dec 2018. I’m on Facebook looking at the cruising groups and I reading about some cruisers’ talking about their cruises in Concierge. I wonder how much THAT would set us back? I like a good laugh! I check the prices, game it out like we did with the prices for the Cat 5 stateroom…and guess what? It’s cheaper to do a cruise in Concierge for a week than it would be for a B2B…I mean, I’m saving money… Dare I pull the trigger? I talk it over with Dave. I tell him I want to pamper the both of us this cruise, it is our 40th anniversary and we work extremely hard. I showed him my Disney math and point out that the WDW stay wasn’t going to cost much as we would be staying on points and we had also gotten to the point of doing simple meals in the villa rather than eating out every evening. He looks over my spread sheet and all the figures, and said….”YES! I think this is do-able and I think we will enjoy it. I called Kenneth, told him we wanted to do whatever Disney Fantasy cruise sailed from Port Canaveral on the 8th of December. I told him no way could I bear to be getting OFF the ship on our anniversary, I’d rather be getting ON! I asked him to see if he could get Stateroom 12008 as it has an extra-deep veranda! I give him my Disney VISA number and told him to go forth and do great things with it….well, go forth when DCL released the dates and put down a deposit. He did, and we were booked in Stateroom 12008 Concierge on a Western Caribbean cruise commencing 8 December 2018. Wait. WESTERN? Oh how I was hoping it would be an EASTERN…I love the Eastern and we haven’t done one in a while. But truthfully, it’s about being on the ship for us, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company, not the ports, and hey….I’M SAILING CONCIERGE!
The cruise portion taken care of for now, I backtracked to WDW. I looked at staying before the cruise and after the cruise. We both tend to prefer to do the parks BEFORE the cruise because we end up so relaxed, we didn’t want to get into the big park push after such a relaxing time. Our home resort is Saratoga Springs and I love it there. I know many don’t like it because they feel it’s too big, or it’s not themed, it’s not ‘Disney enough’ or it’s the Disney slums. So, we are looking at Saratoga Springs in a one bedroom villa 1-8 December, followed by a Western Caribbean cruise on the Disney Fantasy! That’s celebrating it up right! We can activate the annual passes and they will be good for almost all of 2019! I know I want to look at a Flower and Garden trip, it’s been a while since we’ve done that, so right there is a second trip. Now to wait for that 11 month window…
1st off Congratulations on 40 years! How awesome to be sailing Concierge. We loved our 1 night stay at Saratoga Springs and we loved it. It’s so classy and more resort like than other Disney resorts.
Congrats on concierge level for the cruise! I love your Disney math. We got our Platinum APs last November and managed three trips with them. Wish Disney would offer that deal again for DVC members! So sweet! I think you all are doing quite well planning a 40th anniversary celebrations, but it seems changes are on the way.
1st off Congratulations on 40 years! How awesome to be sailing Concierge. We loved our 1 night stay at Saratoga Springs and we loved it. It’s so classy and more resort like than other Disney resorts.
Thank you!
I'm so happy to see someone who doesn't feel that SSR is a slum. Seriously, I've seen that quite a bit! All because there isn't indoor hallways.
It's theming is after the actual Saratoga Springs resorts in New York...but people don't seem to get it.
Congrats on concierge level for the cruise! I love your Disney math. We got our Platinum APs last November and managed three trips with them. Wish Disney would offer that deal again for DVC members! So sweet! I think you all are doing quite well planning a 40th anniversary celebrations, but it seems changes are on the way.
Maybe a few, but more like 'additions' than true changes. Stay tuned!
Sounds like some great plans and an amazing deal on the AP! So cool that you'll be sailing concierge and should be an great experience and hope you get the most out of it that you can! Congrats on 40 years!
__________________
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!
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Next year we'll be celebrating 20 years of marriage (we've already been together more than 20 years) and it really doesn't feel like that long at all!
Dare I pull the trigger? I talk it over with Dave. I tell him I want to pamper the both of us this cruise, it is our 40th anniversary and we work extremely hard. I showed him my Disney math and point out that the WDW stay wasn’t going to cost much as we would be staying on points and we had also gotten to the point of doing simple meals in the villa rather than eating out every evening. He looks over my spread sheet and all the figures, and said….”YES! I think this is do-able and I think we will enjoy it. I called Kenneth, told him we wanted to do whatever Disney Fantasy cruise sailed from Port Canaveral on the 8th of December. I told him no way could I bear to be getting OFF the ship on our anniversary, I’d rather be getting ON! I asked him to see if he could get Stateroom 12008 as it has an extra-deep veranda! I give him my Disney VISA number and told him to go forth and do great things with it….well, go forth when DCL released the dates and put down a deposit. 
He did, and we were booked in Stateroom 12008 Concierge on a Western Caribbean cruise commencing 8 December 2018. Wait. WESTERN? Oh how I was hoping it would be an EASTERN…I love the Eastern and we haven’t done one in a while. But truthfully, it’s about being on the ship for us, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company, not the ports, and hey….I’M SAILING CONCIERGE! 
So, we are looking at Saratoga Springs in a one bedroom villa 1-8 December, followed by a Western Caribbean cruise on the Disney Fantasy! That’s celebrating it up right! We can activate the annual passes and they will be good for almost all of 2019! I know I want to look at a Flower and Garden trip, it’s been a while since we’ve done that, so right there is a second trip. Now to wait for that 11 month window…
I think you all are doing quite well planning a 40th anniversary celebrations, but it seems changes are on the way. 
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