How To Post Your Trip Report (Tips, Guidelines, and Photos) - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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.
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When we moved to our new message boards in January 2007, we were able to put a cap on the total size of uploads at 5 MB. This was necessary because files take space, and space costs money. The majority of members will not use anywhere near 5 MB, so this is a generous amount. We recognize that members who post trip reports may include many files, and may encounter problems with that 5 MB limit. While it is possible to delete old uploads, and we encourage you to do this for files that are no longer important, we don't want you to have to delete photos from old trip reports. We value your trip reports and want to encourage you to include photos. So to make this happen, we've created a special "member group" called Trip Reporters -- this group has one special privilege: a 10 MB upload limit.
Membership in the Trip Reporters group is for members who have already posted one complete trip report with photos. If you're a new member or a member who hasn't posted trip reports before, you should be fine with the 5 MB limit for the time being, and we encourage you to apply for membership after you've completed your first trip report.
To apply for membership in this group, locate your most recent trip report, copy it's link (URL), then go to My Home > Group Memberships. Here you can make a request to join the Trip Reporters group. When asked to state the reason why you want to join, please include the URL to your most recent report. We will check for join requests every 24-48 hours. If you are approved, you will receive a private message to that effect.
How To Post Your Trip Report (Tips, Guidelines, and Photos)
So you want to share your adventure with the world?
GREAT! We'd all love to read your trip report and glean tips and tricks from it. Here are some helpful tips and guidelines to keep in mind while writing/posting your trip report at PassPorter.com
1. Write Offline. Write your trip report in Microsoft Word, WordPad, SimpleText, or any other text editor. Do not compose it in the message box of this message board. Why? Because if you lose your connection suddenly, or there's a posting problem, you'll lose all your hard work! Write it, save it, then post it.
2. Stick to One Topic. Please keep your trip report to just one topic (thread) -- you can post additional days of your trip as replies to the topic. If you make a new topic for each day, the sequence of days will get scattered throughout the board and it will be hard for people to follow your trip report. Please note that if you create more than one topic for a single trip report, you may be contacted by the Message Board Guide and asked to repost your report into a single topic.
3. Choose a Good Name. Give your trip report a good subject -- include the dates, where you stayed, and (optionally) a distinctive title. Here are some examples:
- October 18-27, 1999 (BoardWalk/Disney Cruise/Wilderness Lodge)
- Jan. 20-23, 2001 (Disney Institute) - Jennifer's Dad & Chad Trip Report
- Our Inaugural W. Caribbean Cruise: 5/10-5/21
4. Provide Introductions. Include an introduction at the start of your trip report with the following information:
- Our Party (who went, ages, experience)
- Our Journey (departure date, return date, method of travel)
- Our Cruise (if you went on a cruise, indicate the number of nights and if it was a special cruise)
- Our Lodging/Stateroom (where you stayed, special requests)
- Our Special Plans (special things you planned to do or that happened during your trip -- the highlights)
5. Picture It! Include photos of your trip, if you have them. It makes the trip report more interesting and informative. Please note that images in the body of a post cannot exceed 400 x 400 pixels EACH. Additionally, you are limited to seven (7) images per post. For example, you can include as many photos from your vacation in your trip report topic (thread) so long as each does not exceed 400 x 400 pixels per image and do not exceed 7 images per post. There is no limit to how many posts can be in a thread. If you need help resizing pictures, please post your need/question in the Garage Forum. There is also a sticky thread at the top of this forum to help guide you along.
6. Keep Days Together. Post new days of your trip report as replies to your introduction post. Type the date and day at the top of the reply to make it easy for folks to follow your report. Your readers will want to know what day you did things on whenever possible.
7. Spotlight the Good Stuff. Highlight your hints and tips throughout your report. You can also include a Trip Highlight section at the end of your report with your best experiences and tips for other vacationers.
8. Update the Title. If you post your trip report over a span of time rather than all at once, let folks know your trip report is updated or completed. You may request that your report's topic (thread) title be modified by requesting help from a forum Guide (see details here).
New to the boards? Never posted a TR with photos before? Want to add a photo to a post to illustrate a point? If you are new to the boards and/or have never uploaded photos before, please take a moment to read through our Member Options Page. There you will find complete instructions for uploading, resizing, and posting photos. We do have photo size limits and you'll need to be familiar with them to test and upload photos even if you're familiar with the process.
If you would like to practice or test your photos, please confine your practice and test posts to the testing forum: The Driveway so as not to clog other forums with test posts.
If you're still stumped, you can ask for help in the technical support forum: The Garage. PassPorter Guides monitor the forum daily and can guide you through the process if you're having trouble.
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