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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Well, it's official...InBev, a Belgian company, has acquired Anheiser-Busch. I know it's just corporate politics, but it makes me sad. Busch has always been so proudly American. Here's hoping that the theme parks aren't neglected in the new merger. I love the Busch parks, and I would hate to see them suffer because they're an oddball bit of property.
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DH's family is from the St Louis area, and from their stories, that city is in an uproar about this. Dsis told me about this possibility months ago, and I told her there was no way it would ever happen! So much for my opinion!
The parks will more than likely be spun off to go on their own or sold. While this hasn't been stated publicly, Inbev has said that there will be cost cuts and while they need to maintain a delicate balance here, I can't see them as warm and fuzzy about the parks as A.B. A.B. itself looked at selling them off to help in their own cost cutting efforts but found that the sale wouldn't be all that profitable. It's an unfortunate situation. A.B. has done great job with Busch Entertainment Corp. and has kept the bar high for their parks. Who knows what the future will hold or bring. I hope it takes a while for Inbev to decide and hope that they see the great relationship that exists between A.B. and it's parks.
We're from smalltown Central Missouri, and it's not just St Louis that's in an uproar. The whole state is VERY unhappy about losing this icon to a corporation in another country. Especially when everything has been so top secret and not even our legislators have been able to help negotiate the deal and help save the state's interest in the matter.
AB is building a beautiful breeding farm about 4 miles from my house. We were very honored to have them choose our county to build in. Now it could all be left to who knows what- beautiful empty buildings?? It's very sad. We drove out to look at it Friday night and the famous AB logo is stamped in concrete at the front gate. DH and I had to wonder how long that would stay.
But business is business and hopefully good things will come from all this. Note to InBev- PLEASE do not take away the Here's to the Heroe's program at Sea World. That helps a lot of soldiers & their families afford an awesome vacation!
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DH's family is from the St Louis area, and from their stories, that city is in an uproar about this. Dsis told me about this possibility months ago, and I told her there was no way it would ever happen! So much for my opinion!
This town is in more then an uproar. Everyone here is p***ed. To say the least. Employees have no idea if they will have jobs. Its not suppose to be all said and done until the end of the year. There will be one member of the Busch family on the board.
Inbev doesn't own Molson unless this is an extremely recent development. They may have some distribution rights or something in Canada. Molson did buy Coors turning that into Molson Coors a few years ago. South African Breweries bought Miller turning that into S.A.B. Miller in the late '90s I believe. Those two merged last year. As for the A.B. deal, there will be some job cuts but it's not as widespread as people may think. 1,500 or so. Granted it's a lot but again, it's not widespread when you consider 6,000 people work for A.B in St. Louis. A.B. themselves announced some job cuts and early retirements in order to cut costs right before the inbev deal. What the future holds for future cuts etc., who knows. August Busch IV and one other current borad member will sit on the board of the new company named Anheuser-Busch InBev. There's still a lot of unknowns and we can only hope for the best. Bottom line, it stinks.
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Very likely that the theme park business will be sold off to help finance the deal. Six Flags and a few others were mentioned as potential bidders. Theme parks are profitable but very capital intensive and outside the core business of brewing so it does make some sense to spin them off. Hopefully the new owners, whomever they are, keep up the level of current quality. We live close to BG Tampa Bay and have annual passes there.
Note to InBev- PLEASE do not take away the Here's to the Heroes program at Sea World. That helps a lot of soldiers & their families afford an awesome vacation!
See, that's the kind of thing I'm most worried about. I've always loved the fact that the AB parks were unabashedly American: they play the national anthem at park opening; they do the here's to the heroes program; they honor veterans and enlisted folks at the start of their shows. I've always found that refreshing; they welcome people from all around the world with generosity, but they're not ashamed of being patriotic. I'm afraid that the new ownership will change that attitude, and I hate to see it lost. I love Disney, but I love the AB parks here in Florida too; they have a unique feeling, and they are THEME parks, not amusement parks. I hope that InBev understands that and keeps them that way, or sells them to someone who cherishes them as much as many of their fans do.
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As a military family who has taken advantage of the Here's to the Heroes program many times since it started and as "locals" who have season passes for Busch Gardens Europe (Williamsburg) . . . we are definitely curious as to what the future may hold for the parks.
DH is from St. Louis so we are keeping tabs on the news on the brewery's future as well.
I was on Screamscape earlier and found that there is an article posted about who the "suspects" could be that could buy the interests in the parks . . .
The thing I am worried about is that if Six Flags or Cedar Fair were to somehow buy the parks, Williamsburg would lose the park. There is a Six Flags just 2 hours away near Washington DC and Cedar Fair owns Kings Dominion, which is just 45-50 minutes away from Williamsburg.
St. Louis news is reporting that analysts say inbev will sell some of A.B.'s current "non core" assets to finance this buy out and that includes the theme parks. No time frame though but if that's being reported this soon after the buy out announcement, I'd say it'd be soon.
I have been saddened by this news as well. When I first heard the speculation, I thought, "no way!!". By the time we heard about it, it sounds like it was already a done deal. From what I have read, it sounds like the family was under pressure from the board to make a move to improve the bottom line.........I don't know how true that is.
I enjoy all of the Busch parks and hope that they survive this change in ownership, but I do not feel optimistic about that. The parks are always very clean and inviting and we've always thoroughly enjoyed ourselves there. This is such a shame.
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. I doubt very much the parks will be touched
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See, that's the kind of thing I'm most worried about. I've always loved the fact that the AB parks were unabashedly American: they play the national anthem at park opening; they do the here's to the heroes program; they honor veterans and enlisted folks at the start of their shows. I've always found that refreshing; they welcome people from all around the world with generosity, but they're not ashamed of being patriotic. I'm afraid that the new ownership will change that attitude, and I hate to see it lost. I love Disney, but I love the AB parks here in Florida too; they have a unique feeling, and they are THEME parks, not amusement parks. I hope that InBev understands that and keeps them that way, or sells them to someone who cherishes them as much as many of their fans do.
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