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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Unleash the Villains DHS
Just got back from the Unleash the Villains event at DHS. I went early in the day and my husband and kids came later. I don't think Disney had a clue that it would have been such a crush. My husband and kids were stuck on a Disney bus from Pop Century for 2 and a half hours. It's only a couple of miles from Hollywood Studios, but the traffic was at a complete stand still.
It almost turned my husband off of Disney completely. He and my oldest son, 16 were standing the whole time. He kept texting me about how angry he was. I felt so bad. They made it to the park by 10:30 pm and we used our last fast pass for the night. They closed the park because it filled to capacity. I never saw it so crowded! The music shows were good. Over a thousand people got the t shirts (waited in line starting at 4:30pm to start selling at 8pm. It was crazy. bought mine on line instead.
We have a whole week planned in October and now I am afraid husband wants to change his mind..Hope he cools off. He did say that the fireworks was the best he has ever seen. Wish me luck.
We were there in May for the special May the 4th Be With You one day event. Your description reminds me of how crowded DHS was that day. You could barely move in the Star Wars area of the park. That being said, you should have a much easier time in Oct. The crowds will be much more dispersed. Good luck!
I was there last night as well and it was crazy crowded. I went to the park for the day, so I was already there when the madness began. There was no way I was standing in that line for a t-shirt. It's great that you were able to get yours online. Disney just did not anticipate the appeal of the event. There was a lot of standing around. I waited over half an hour for a drink. The line for the characters was insane and I didn't even bother. For me, the only highlights were the band and the fireworks. I was so excited waiting for the event and it turned out to be such a letdown.
I hope your husband can look past what happened. It was a one time only event and, unless you are there say Christmas or spring break/Easter, you will probably never encounter something like that ever again.
Wow, it sounds like the event massively exceeded Disney's expectations for it and, as a result, it sounds like a nightmare. Not something I'd have wanted to have gone through.
We were also there for a short bit. We arrived at 4ish and there wasn't much traffic on the way in but the handicap parking was full so we had to unload my mom's scooter and I went and found parking. We had dinner at Brown Derby and then went in search of shirts which were already sold out. I couldn't justify $25 for fancy headbands.
It was already very crowded and we decided we didn't want to hang around and left at 7. When we left the traffic coming in was awful and I was really glad we took off. I was really looking forward to this event, but it was the last night of our trip and I didn't want to spend it standing around.
Wow! I saw the fireworks on YouTube, and it looked like an amazing show! I always think that the Halloween/'bad guys' themed stuff is the some of the best that Disney does...and that is saying something! Hopefully your hubby has some time to cool off, but I agree, the crowds can really be oppressive. The good thing, though, is if anyone can manage crowd control...it's Disney.
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Saturday, October 9, 2014 - Kaitlyn and I before the Happy Haunted 5K at ESPN Wide World of Sports
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I was reading the comments on Twitter and Facebook about the massive crowd and traffic jams. Someone I follow on Twitter posted he parked at AoA and walked over to DHS!
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Was in line for over 45 minutes at the backlot express. The Commissary was out the front door.They closed the smaller snack area and most of the carts. Even fast pass lines were long. Took over thirty minutes in outside line for toy story mania. I just didn't expect it for a limited time event. But the villains were so cool. They should have more events with the bad guys. By the way DH has cooled off a little. yeah!
Was in line for over 45 minutes at the backlot express. The Commissary was out the front door.They closed the smaller snack area and most of the carts. Even fast pass lines were long. Took over thirty minutes in outside line for toy story mania. I just didn't expect it for a limited time event. But the villains were so cool. They should have more events with the bad guys. By the way DH has cooled off a little. yeah!
I really didn't expect it to be as crowded as it was, considering it was a MNSSHP party night and its a low peak time. But since the parking lots got full, there were clearly lots of locals. I totally agree that it would be cool for them to do more villain themed events...especially considering the response this one got!
I'm glad your hubby cooled off- I can't imagine being stuck for that long and standing no less
WOW, for me, leaving would have been my only option. I do not do well with large crowds. Hope your DH can forget about that one time experience. I bet the crowds were mostly locals.
Friday was our "four parks, one day" day, and we closed it off with Unleash the Villains, arriving probably 15 minutes the fireworks.
We saw the traffic back-up as we were on the bus going to MK around 6, so knew it would be busy.
We basically went in, walked about four stores up the main "street", which was literally curb to curb people the entire length, crossed to the other side, walked through the stores to get back to the start, and left. Insanely crowded, and neither of us wanted any part of it. But it did count as being in the park on our tally :-)
As we were boarding the bus back to WL, the fireworks started so we got to see some of them, which was nice.
(as a semi-related aside, Saturday the crowd levels at MK were rated by a site I like as mid-3 of 10. They were much busier than I prefer -- I am more of a 1 or 2 kind of person. So if those crowds are a mid-3, I can't imagine what say a 7 or 8 or higher is; and Unleash the villains must have been pretty much off the charts :-) Hence why we essentially turned around and left.)
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WOW, for me, leaving would have been my only option. I do not do well with large crowds. Hope your DH can forget about that one time experience. I bet the crowds were mostly locals.
This is what we did -- went as far as about 4 stores, came back around and left. You could not pay me enough to have stayed with that people density, TYVM.
We left....too. We make a joke about "paying $55 to go to the bathroom at Hollywood Studios. We arrived around 6 PM. Our bus driver told us it took him 2 hours to complete the loop (HS to CR to Poly to GF and back to HS). We got to HS...used the restrooms....entered the stores on the right side to get through the crowds.....tried to go to the villains store but the line was too long with guests in line to reach the registers to purchases items.......That line for purchases was out of the store down to the food court areas. We turned around entered the stores on the left side....made our way back to the entrance and called our friends to tell them we were leaving and not to make the trip over. It was so difficult being on an ECV in the crowds. The bus lines were full of others deciding that it was just too busy and congested to enjoy. I was really sad not to have stayed...it was our only day at HS....but it was just too much. I do hope those who were there to experience the villains enjoyed it. I think it would have been better if it was an entire day instead of the 5 hour limited time.
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I wonder what the turn out would have been like if this had been a hard ticket event. Clearly, the turn out for the event should clue Disney in on just how popular the villains are!
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My husband and kids were stuck on a Disney bus from Pop Century for 2 and a half hours. It's only a couple of miles from Hollywood Studios, but the traffic was at a complete stand still. 
I felt so bad. They made it to the park by 10:30 pm and we used our last fast pass for the night. They closed the park because it filled to capacity. I never saw it so crowded! The music shows were good. Over a thousand people got the t shirts (waited in line starting at 4:30pm to start selling at 8pm. It was crazy. bought mine on line instead.
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Not something I'd have wanted to have gone through. 
Hopefully your hubby has some time to cool off, but I agree, the crowds can really be oppressive. The good thing, though, is if anyone can manage crowd control...it's Disney. 
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