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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I gave up soda all together. All I drink is water and an occasional unsweet tea. I do feel better. I dont have headaches anymore where as I would have one everyday when I was drinking soda.
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A friend of mine just released the results of research she has done. It appears that diet soda/sweeteners cause obesity in rats - and thus will probably do it for humans. My thoughts? - I've recently decided that my grandmothers (who are both still alive - at over 85) didn't have all the "diet" foods we do - they ate butter, sugar, etc. and they didn't have so many obese people in their generation as we do - must be something to it. Sweeteners in Diet Soda Increase Weight? - Weight Loss and Weight Management Information Including Popular Diet Plans on MedicineNet.com
I gave up soda all together. All I drink is water and an occasional unsweet tea. I do feel better. I dont have headaches anymore where as I would have one everyday when I was drinking soda.
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Back in the early 90s, I used to drink about 12 regular Cokes a day! After gaining a few inches in the waist, I decided to switch to Diet Coke. It took some time to get used to the different taste, but having in the past switched from Pepsi to Coke, I knew my taste buds would eventually get with the program and Diet Coke would taste "right" to them.
That's just what happened, and over time the pounds melted off!
A few years ago, I decided to get healthy and stop drinking Diet Coke. I started drinking only water. After the caffeine withdrawal symptoms stopped, I began feeling better. I was alert for the whole day, instead of just when I had my caffeine "fix."
But as far as weight loss? No, I didn't experience any weight loss after switching to water.
(BTW, it's remarkable how our bodies can get used to something. After all those years of drinking lots and lots of caffeinated beverages every day, I was sluggish without it, and just normal with caffeine! But now that I've been off the stuff for years, when I do have a soda -- for example, at Disney World -- I'll have a hard time sleeping, even if I have a single soda with lunch! So these days, I make drinking a Diet Coke every day part of my routine leading up to going to WDW. It's sort of like walking every day -- just part of the WDW training. )
It's not so much that I've experience weight loss after I quit drinking diet sodas, but more that I experienced less "bloating". I don't know if it's the fizz, the sodium, the chemicals, or what, but my clothes fit better after I quit drinking Diet Coke/Pepsi regularly. I also quit getting the aspartame headache and a horrible stitch in my side. I find that if I drink 8+ cups of water a day, I feel a lot better than when I was drinking diet pop. And my doctor told me that regular pop is actually better for you than diet pop is. Who knows, right? I still drink the occasional Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi, but it's more of a 'once in a blue moon' kind of thing now.
My thoughts? - I've recently decided that my grandmothers (who are both still alive - at over 85) didn't have all the "diet" foods we do - they ate butter, sugar, etc. and they didn't have so many obese people in their generation as we do - must be something to it.
And they "moved" a lot more than we do nowadays, also! (As I sit at my computer typing away on passporter!)
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Tami so excited I can't stop jumping up & down!! It's almost here! I was Jingled by shadowryter...Thank you!!!
I have tried several times, but I still drink one Diet Coke pretty much everyday with lunch. Some days I skip it, but not often. Otherwise I drink lots of water. It doesn't matter for me whether it has caffiene or not, I'm pretty sure I'm addicted to the aspartame.
Years ago when I first when on Weight Watchers, I switched to diet sodas and used artificial sweetners. Those artificial sweetners made me so sick with painful bloating, severe headaches and naseaus. And I craved candy. sweets and sugar all the time while using those sweetners. When I stopped using the sweetners and laid off the diet sodas, I felt better. Today, I just use moderation and enjoy a real Coke here and there. I mostly drink water throughout the day.
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I can't stand diet sodas. When I started at my dietitian two months ago she asked me to cut back on them. So now I have one coke a week. I started dropping weight quickly just taking out the soda and the sugar out of my tea (use splenda cause it HAS to be sweet) now my weight loss is more gradual but still on target.
I do know my skin looked better and I felt less lethargic within three days.
I cut back from 2 or 3 Diet Cokes to one (at the most) a day. I feel better and have lost weight, but this is combined with more exercise and less eating. I've read that carbination in any kind of drinks can make you eat more, as the "fizz" expands your stomach to you feel less full with that help. Who knows if it's true, but water is always better (but no, I still can't kick my Diet Coke habit completely).
I used to drink nothing but diet sodas (my dad worked for Coca-Cola when I was a kid, and I grew up on Tab.) And I firmly believe they helped me keep a trim figure for many years, mainly because I would drink them instead of snacking.
However, during my pregnancy with baby#3, I began an intense study of health and nutrition, and the effects of chemicals and additives in our food and water. I gave up diet soda then and there.
It was like coming off an addiction! I craved diet soda all the time. But after having been off of it for about a year, I decided just once to have just a small taste of a diet drink. Immediate effect was a killer headache that sent me straight to bed for the rest of the day and blurred vision. I tested the theory a few months later and experienced the same effects.
All I can say is that from the research I've read and my own experience, I will never touch anything with aspartame or Splenda in it again! Do I still crave diet sodas? YES! But my health is more important than any craving.
Now I drink the occasional regular soda, but mostly tea sweetened with stevia (a natural herbal sweeetener.)
It's not only the artificial sweetners, but the fizzy. The fizzy contains phosphate, which replaces calcium in your bones, leading to early onset of osteoarthritis. (learned that today at a continuing ed. offering at work)
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so excited I can't stop jumping up & down!! It's almost here! 
I was Jingled by shadowryter...Thank you!!!
I've read that carbination in any kind of drinks can make you eat more, as the "fizz" expands your stomach to you feel less full with that help. Who knows if it's true, but water is always better (but no, I still can't kick my Diet Coke habit completely).
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(learned that today at a continuing ed. offering at work)
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