2017 WDW Passporter Guide [multiple updates with info on LIVE! Guides!] - Page 4 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Okay, well, I feel a little better about this now that I know pages will print to fit my Deluxe binder. Thanks for that clarification, Ginger.
Could something be done to dull the glaring white pages? I find them really hard to tolerate visually just glancing at the sample. A light shade such as surrounds the post composing window would be much easier on the eyes, IMO.
Dot, you might consider buying a ream of lightly colored paper to print on. Perhaps that would help your eyes tolerate the glare better. I know you can get all sorts of colors, some of them very unobtrusive.
I too will miss the print version. It is easy to take along with you everywhere I understand, I truly do, just am sad as well. We do not have Internet at home ( I am on my phone now ��) so I would be unable to use it to print. Sigh... Passporter has been my only guide for over 11 years! Thank you Jennifer and Dave.. Hoping it will be more feasible to print in the future.
I too prefer the print version and love to give copies as gifts. I realize you've spent a lot of time and effort on the digital version, but please try to do another run on the hard copy. A price increase would be expected and it seems many here on the boards agree. How about it?
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Originally Posted by Mickey9999
I too prefer the print version and love to give copies as gifts. I realize you've spent a lot of time and effort on the digital version, but please try to do another run on the hard copy. A price increase would be expected and it seems many here on the boards agree. How about it?
I understand everyone's concerns; I would prefer a book edition, too. However, as I understand Jennifer's position, ordering a new print run would require a substantial cash outlay uprfront, which they do not have.
She did mention that if enough people subscribe to the LIVE! Guides, they may be able to print books in the future. So I would urge PassPorter fans to go ahead and subscribe, check out all the cool features the Guides have, and perhaps learn to love them. Then, if we're all very lucky, we may also get the books. Please don't abandon Jennifer & Dave at this point, after the 20 years of wonderful books they've given us!
I, for one, have no intention of abandoning them. I get so much out of everything they do, the newsletter, the forums, the website. The podcasts get me through the day at work, even without a trip coming up! They work so hard and really love Disney and it shows. I'm sure this new system will have a lot of great features that we just don't see yet. It already looks better than any other online system I've read about. I'm looking forward to the release of the WDW version. I'm still really really hopeful that they are not getting rid of the stand alone pockets. I'll gladly buy up a whole bunch of them.
My complaint with the live guide, and maybe someone here can help me with this, I don't like the PDF format that loaded to my kindle. It there a way to make it read like a book on the kindle platform?
This is what I would like, an actual eBook version (eg epub or similar format). Much easier to use and markup and remember pages (depending on the app) than the PDF.
I did create a PDF version and right now have it loaded on my phone and tablet. It works, but an ebook would work better.
The LIVE version I find challenging to use. On the tablet, for example, when you move to the next page it briefly loads the left side menu then makes that go away and loads the new page. Lots of loading and not an easy book-like navigation by any means.
To be honest, I prefer navigating the PDF to the Live guide as it is more like navigating a book, but you lose some of the content (mostly pictures) and there are some formating problems, most of which are more annoying than anything, but some of which mean some content is not accessible.
There is also the problem of data. The LIVE Guide assumes one has an unlimited or generous data plan. Perhaps many or even most people do, but not everyone does. Here in Canada, data is limited/capped and expensive, whether home internet or cellular data. When traveling in the US, data is even more $$$$$ and for some just wont be an option.
A final issue, though this probably only applies to a small number of people: my workplace does not allow personal use of work computers; and we are not allowed to bring in any electronic devices, so no smartphones or tablets. If I want to do WDW/DCL planning by reading the Passporter book, with no paper version that cannot be done at work during lunch/breaks. :-(
Okay, well, I feel a little better about this now that I know pages will print to fit my Deluxe binder. Thanks for that clarification, Ginger.
One thing to note:
I have the Disney Cruise live guide, and I have created the PDf of it.
The guide itself is 573 numbered pages + 1 copyright release for printing page. The PDF is 753 pages. As you can see, many pages that are "one" page in the guide print out as two or (rarely) more in the PDF, sometimes with only a single or couples lines of material on the second page.
I would expect the WDW guide will be similar in that it will probably have more PDF pages than "actual" pages.
I HIGHLY suggest that if one is going to print from the PDF that one check what you are about to print first - there may be material you don't need to print or you only need the first page of the 2 pages the PDF uses for that one paper page.
I know for myself we will print certain specific pages - like the maps - but will live with an electronic version of the book (PDF, but would prefer eBook format) as that is a lot of dead trees and a lot of WEIGHT and VOLUME to print the whole thing.
Will this work for double-sided? I noticed you didn't have that marked.... Could you try and let us know?
Instead of using custom, use the "Booklet" option.
You can tell it to print both sides ("booklet subset"), specify how many sheets, etc. If you dont want to print the whole thing, be sure to select what pages to print.
And make sure the printer itself is set to print on both sides of the page.
I just used the Cruise Guide live guide PDF as a test.
I chose pages 1-4
Booklet
booklet subset: both sides
sheets: from 1 to 1 (it autofills this when you select the pages you want to print)
binding: left
Orientation: portrait
printer set to print both sides of page
It printed fine, with the correct pages on the back of each other.
In the preview on the print window you can see how it is going to print out and do the mental flipping to make sure it is correct.
Personally, I would print in chunks anyway and keep it manageable in multiples of 4 pages; that way if you or it messes up it is a small number of pages to redo.
There is no marking guide for where to cut the pages to separate them, so you're on your own for that. And hopefully you have a papercutter...
I just came online to see if I could order my 2017 refill pages yet and am really disappointed to read that there is only a LIVE version now. I will certainly give it a shot, but I HATE reference books that are electronic. I want to be able to grab a real book and flip to what I need. I can see that this is the way things are going, but it is terribly disappointing and frustrating for ppl that lovce books. I do not enjoy reading reference material from a screen.
Off to learn about LIVE....sounds like it was a lot of work (which I appreciate) and that it is a very good version of what it is. I just don't want that type of version of what it is...
I got an Amazon gift card for Christmas and just went online to order my passporter. It took my order and my gift card. Now I'm afraid I've wasted my gift card! I'm about to go back online and see if I can cancel the order....I've got a passporter for every long trip we've taken over the last 20 years. So sad I won't have one next year....
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I understand, I truly do, just am sad as well. We do not have Internet at home ( I am on my phone now ��) so I would be unable to use it to print. Sigh... Passporter has been my only guide for over 11 years! Thank you Jennifer and Dave.. Hoping it will be more feasible to print in the future.
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