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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We went to MVMCP on December 11th ... didn't know it was a sell-out until we got there. There were so many people in the park that you couldn't move! We have 2 disabled children and moving about is sometimes difficult even when the crowds are moderate, but this was next to impossible. The 2 parades were packed ... you couldn't even find a place to stand even in the handicapped areas. The lines for the shows were terrible and we missed most of them. We spent most of the time standing in line. We finally got to see Santa at midnight ... we were the last people in line, actually before Santa left for the North Pole to check on the elves for the night.
There were swarms of people in the parks without armbands and the cast members did nothing to get them out of the parks. The only time we saw somebody without and armband told they could not enter was trying to get on Peter Pan's flight. We never saw any characters, either as the lines were horrible.
I belive that this party was way overbooked in addition to having people in the parks after it closed that did not have tickets to the party. Also, we saw 6 children (aged 12 or under) in electric scooter vehicles (they are not supposed to be rented to anyone under 18) taking up handicapped spaces for the parades and later driving them around the parks People in the parks were generally rude all around with lots of pushing and shoving.
We met some people in the airport last night while we were waiting for our plane that were at MVMCP the same night. They come every year at the same time and made the same comments I have talked about above. One of them needed and electric scooter and they were none available when they arrived for the party. She was 150th on the list and didn't get one until 8 p.m.! And there were people still waiting behind here. They will never go again. We will probably never go to the party again also unless something is done about the people who are not supposed to be there being allowed to stay in the parks and the electric scooters being used by underaged people who are not disabled.
Overall, we thought the parks were more crowded than we expected during our stay. We had read and researched that the 1st 2 weeks of December were low crowds but this was not the case at any of the parks we visited.
Sorry you had such a bad experience. We were there on Dec 6th, and noticed very high crowd levels also. But they did seem to thin as the night went out. I wonder if 12/11 was an AP or DVC discount night?
We were there on the 11th too. I had seen so many comments on different message boards about people going on the 11th that I already went with the expectation that it was going to sell out and be very, very crowded. I prepared DH and we went in with the expectation that we might get very little done and that we'd try to have a great time doing whatever done that we could get done. That was really hard, but we did manage to do it. It's definately an oversold event!
Seeing Santa was a real headache. Everytime we fought our way to Main Street to see him they were just closing the line until XYZ time. Well, we weren't just going to stand there and wait until the next time....we eventually got in between the 1st and 2nd parades. We tried to spend a lot of time as far from Main Street as possible - watched the 2nd parade from Frontierland (waited about 30 minutes b4). The character lines WERE definately a nightmare - we didn't even try. We didn't encounter any party crashers, but saw tons of CM's out checking for wristbands on the walkways.
Now that we've been there and done it, not sure we'd do it again either...maybe one of the others (MNSSHP, P&P)
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We were there on the 11th, arrived late, had dinner at Tonys Town Square which was wonderful, headed over to Haunted Mansion and Pirates, rode them a few times and set up for the late parade which was fun. We then headed back to Splash Mtn and avoided fantasy land like the plague. It was scary how crowded it was over there! By 11pm things were getting nice and we kept on riding until midnight. We lingered on Main Street having pictures shot by the photopass photographers until the park was almost empty and really enjoyed that.
For us it was fun, but not worth the extra $$.
The night before I did the EMH until midnight by myself and it was great. No crowds, Splash Mtn had empty cars and I rode over and over.
That will be my last MVMCP as the EMH at that time of the year is just as fun for us!
I am wondering if people are now going in nov and dec and skipping summer of course we cant (vaca from work doesnt allow it) but maybe everyone is trying to get the "less crowded time" and it isnt working
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We were there for MVMCP on the 9th... it was a bit crowded but not too bad. We rode TMR & splash while everyone was at the first parade. Wanted to go to the first showing of the night before Christmas but the line was hideous. CM said the first one always is. We went to the Fireworks, then the second parade, which I have always watched fron Frontierland. Noticed on Tuesday that the 11th & another date were blocked out as Sold out. I do agree that they are overselling the ticket amounts for these noght, plus folks tend to gather in one spot too. Is it worth it... I am not sure. I had 3 cups of the cocoa so that made them ? what ? about $13.50 per cup? We did enjoy the parade & we went to the last SHow for TTNBC show in tomorrowland.
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We attended the party on November 27 but I guess that must have been before the crowds hit WDW. It was definitely not sold out. In fact there were no crowds at the party at all. All of the rides were walk-ons. We stayed for the second parade and there were tons of empty spots in Frontierland. We didn't really encounter huge crowds during our whole stay at WDW but then we left for home on December 7.
Joy
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Isnt it common knowledge that Christmas time is EXTREMELY busy?
Thats exactly why we dont venture there during that time. We LOVE the "off season" less crowds=more fun time!
Maybe the bad experience was from not knowing what you were getting into?
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Regards, Shawn
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Actually, this isn't considered high season yet. We went down on the 18th last year and did MVMCP and the crowds were very tollerable. WDW seems to be way more crowded this year. How could you have known that they would oversell the party?
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Actually, this isn't considered high season yet. We went down on the 18th last year and did MVMCP and the crowds were very tollerable. WDW seems to be way more crowded this year. How could you have known that they would oversell the party?
Sorry that you had such a rough time!
Good point
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Regards, Shawn
God Bless America
Life is too good! Be happy!
We were there on the 13th and it was actually pretty nice. We watched the first parade from Frontierland (actually from the first corner) and watched MANY MANY boats go down Splash Mountain empty. It was driving my 11-year-old son nuts, because his mom wanted him to stay with her for the parade! He and I went straight on right after the last float passed by. Fantasyland was by far the most crowded (except for Main Street of course), but even then Peter Pan was 10-15 minutes. We walked on Buzz Lightyear three straight times to the absolute delight of our 7-year-old. All-in-all it was a pretty good night, and we got a fair amount accomplished.
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People in the parks were generally rude all around with lots of pushing and shoving.
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We too went on a sold out night years ago, and I said never again 
We did enjoy the parade & we went to the last SHow for TTNBC show in tomorrowland.
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