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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
We're in the process of creating a spiffy Concierge Desk system, where YOU become your own best travel concierge! This will be an interactive tool that you can use to design, build, and fine-tune your vacation details -- planning your vacation before you leave and showing it off when you return. It began as a perk for PassPorter's Club passholders, but I've decided that our members who are not passholders will be able to use basic features of it as well. So there'll be a Pro version (passholders) and Lite version (anyone). Right now we use it for simple things like book registration and podcast subscription.
As we bring various parts of the system online, we'll need folks to test out the features and let us know what seems wrong, weird, or just plain buggy. The next feature to come online is called "My Tips," where members can discover and save juicy tips from all over PassPorter and sort, search, mark, and add notes to their personal tip collection. This feature will be available to everyone, and Club passholders will be able to take it a step further and make personalized e-books from their tips and do other fancy stuff like that.
If you're interested in testing My Tips -- and, most importantly, willing to put up with stuff that doesn't always work right and able to tell us about it so we can fix it -- here's what you do:
2. Click on My Tips in the desk drawer on the left. Follow the directions you see there to begin discovering and saving tips to your personal tip collection.
3. Report back to this thread (or send me a PM, if you prefer), to tell me what you think of these important points:
- Design and ease of use
- Finding and saving tips
- The "Ting" and "Concierge Level" system
- The "Perks" you receive for leveling up
- Any odd or unexpected behavior
- Suggestions for features you'd like to see
Note: If you are currently a PassPorter's Club passholder, you will not get all the level 1-5 perks right away. For testing purposes, I want you to try leveling up like everyone else. Once I take this feature live, Club passholders will automatically get all the perks associated with levels 1-5.
Questions? Ask 'em here!
Thank you in advance for helping me make My Tips the best it can be!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
From the News and Updates Desk, I clicked the links for "One Man's Dream Reopens With New Exhibits" and "Disney Announces 2011 Military Offer." Clicking the bell icon from the first page resulted in a tip about better bags, and the other page spit out a tip about Disney Quest, neither of which I see mentioned on the respective pages.
When you click a "ting" icon, it gives you a random tip from the tip archives, it doesn't save the item on which the ting icon was found. The tip is the "treasure" you get for finding the ting.
__________________
Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
Yeah, I kinda figured that out after clicking more. I misread/misunderstood and thought I was essentially bookmarking info. Guess I'll have to keep clicking so I can mark my favorite tips!
When completing the register your Passported section I recieved
"Unknown column 'email' in 'field list'" and a did not know what was wrong or what needed to be fixed.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
In the section for saving your Name and address the postal code is broken into 2 lines a bit confusing
City: * State/Province: * Zip/Postal Code: * Country: *
I have been 'tinging' all morning and so far haven't found one bug or glitch! As an aside, I am also reading some fascinating articles that I hadn't read before - so, thanks for that!
__________________
Silvercat
(Enjoy reading trip reports? Why not try my books, "Tiggerific Travels Parts 1, 2, 3 & the new volume 4" - available now as e-books)
Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning and so don't quite get it correctly at first, but I see the bells, I ring them, I get the random tip, but don't see the article I was reading mentioned on my desk. I see from this tread that this is how it should be.
So the point of the feature is NOT to allow you to mark tips you see in an article (for example, reading the Tom Sawyer Island article made me realize that we have skipped it in the past, and perhaps I need to make a note to visit it) but simply to get random tips?
It's cool, and once again shows that Jennifer and Dave have created, and are still improving on, the best, most inclusive, and simply fun resource on all things Disney Parks. Not sucking up...just my real opinion.
So far it is ok, makes me hunt out bells on pages like an easter egg on a dvd or a geocache in a park. As an avid Passporter reader, so far, no tips that I didn't already know (blame that on me spending so much of the past few months here). But I do think a good additional perk in the future would be to have the ability to save article links in the "tips" Or even tailoring the tips that come up by your favorite/perferred destination...we aren't going on a cruise for another 7 years (DD 16th B-day) but WDW is days away...the a couple years away afterwards, so getting tips on the area of most interest would be a better value to readers...though I bet that is easy for a nonwebsite building person to say, not so easy to develop.
The perks at the levels seem good, though maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem to be adding to my count towards leveling up...I've "tapped" 7 bells, and it still shows:
Concierge Level: 0
Next Level: 0/10
When completing the register your Passported section I recieved
"Unknown column 'email' in 'field list'" and a did not know what was wrong or what needed to be fixed.
In the section for saving your Name and address the postal code is broken into 2 lines a bit confusing
City: * State/Province: * Zip/Postal Code: * Country: *
I forced the Country to be on the second line, and I think that will avoid it breaking in a confusing spot. Thanks!
Maybe I just haven't had enough coffee this morning and so don't quite get it correctly at first, but I see the bells, I ring them, I get the random tip, but don't see the article I was reading mentioned on my desk. I see from this tread that this is how it should be.
So the point of the feature is NOT to allow you to mark tips you see in an article (for example, reading the Tom Sawyer Island article made me realize that we have skipped it in the past, and perhaps I need to make a note to visit it) but simply to get random tips?
Correct. But I'm intrigued by what you wrote ... can you go into more detail on how you THOUGHT it should be? When you say "mark tips," do you mean write your own about what you read? Or do you mean that there should be tips -- lifted from or related to the article -- that you can save. For example, on the Tom Sawyer Island article, the tip on that page would specifically be about Tom Sawyer Island?
Quote:
It's cool, and once again shows that Jennifer and Dave have created, and are still improving on, the best, most inclusive, and simply fun resource on all things Disney Parks. Not sucking up...just my real opinion.
Thank you.
Quote:
So far it is ok, makes me hunt out bells on pages like an easter egg on a dvd or a geocache in a park. As an avid Passporter reader, so far, no tips that I didn't already know (blame that on me spending so much of the past few months here). But I do think a good additional perk in the future would be to have the ability to save article links in the "tips" Or even tailoring the tips that come up by your favorite/perferred destination...we aren't going on a cruise for another 7 years (DD 16th B-day) but WDW is days away...the a couple years away afterwards, so getting tips on the area of most interest would be a better value to readers...though I bet that is easy for a nonwebsite building person to say, not so easy to develop.
Saving the article links is easy. Tailoring the tips is less easy, but doable. I will work on those.
Quote:
The perks at the levels seem good, though maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem to be adding to my count towards leveling up...I've "tapped" 7 bells, and it still shows:
Concierge Level: 0
Next Level: 0/10
Ut oh ... you're right. I see the system recorded each of your tings, but it didn't create a master record that counted them up so it could display them to you. Hmm. I made a small change, tested it, and it SEEMS to be okay now. Can you go find a few more tings and see if it starts to update your ting count? I can go in and modify it to give you credit for all the tings you found earlier after you do that. Thanks!
Note: I modified the number of tings it takes to level up a bit this morning, so if you see that your level has changed from last night, that is the explanation. Expect changes like this as I figure out what seems best.
I'd also like to hear from those of you who tried it, but didn't find more than one or two tips, so I know if there are problems or it just seems silly or anything. I know this won't appeal to everyone, but I can at least work to have it appeal to many.
On Concierge Level 5 how do you create your own tips?
You create them after I put in the ability to do so! Ha ha! Never expected anyone would get to level 5 so fast. Congrats!! Anyway, I'll work on that today and report back here when it is done.
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Yeah, I kinda figured that out after clicking more. I misread/misunderstood and thought I was essentially bookmarking info. Guess I'll have to keep clicking so I can mark my favorite tips! 
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