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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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... to make some extra magic for someone you didn't know?
Obviously, being an FGM counts. And yes, I did that, myself - ten cards. Felt great, too.
But also ... my friends and I spent a bit of time in Pop Century's Arcade, a good chunk of it at the "win tickets" games. I turned out to be pretty good at a couple of them ... DGF got 100 tickets that night, whereas I got 440 of them.
Well, that gave is 540 tickets, except ... 90 of them were in a different pocket, and I had forgotten about them entirely while we were feeding the ticket-counter machine. So, I made my choices for goodies from the shelves of prizes (450 points doesn't buy much), and thought I was done with it for the night.
Then I discovered the other 90 tickets. I didn't want to just get more candy, and 90 tickets won't get anything much EXCEPT candy ... so I resolved to find someone to just GIVE them to. The first person I saw playing one of those ticket-games, in fact. Turned out to be a father and his small son; "Excuse me," says I, "but I have 90 tickets here, that I forgot to turn in. They're yours if you want 'em!" I further explained that I'd gone over the prizes, and there wasn't anything else I wanted that 90 tickets would give me. Well, he seemed quite pleased by the whole affair, and I definitely had an extra spring in my step, having clearly helped make someone else's evening that little bit extra-enjoyable.
...
So. What stories can you, my fellow PPers, share about ways you've spread a bit of extra Magic around to other guests?
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I buy balloons and give them to kids who are behaving nicely.
If I see someone who looks lost, I try to help them out - usually by directing them to where they need to go.
We've invited people to eat with us - there are usually 5 of us, and it's easy to pull up an extra chair or 2 (you'd be surprised how happy CMs are to do this)
My last trip, I don't think there was anything I did for someone I didn't know. I was only there for 3 days with my mom and Dsis and most of that wasn't spent in the parks - we were on tours. And it was mom's b-day, so most of my efforts went into making sure she had a good time.
Give your refillable mugs to some other family and they can do something else with the $$$ saved. We were disappointed last trip because we left at 3.30am and nobody was coming in for us to spread the joy to....
We don't really do anything...Oops! Not on purpose though, I mean we get out of the way of people running to a ride and we always smile and are nice to people if that counts for anything???
We gave out those CM thank you cards to a couple of CM's that just made our time extra special. They were so suprised and that look of happiness was well worth it. They were so nice and helpful, we just wanted them to know how much it was appreciated.
I left behind two of the mister fans in our hotel room for the next guest to use. They don't get used once we get home so I thought someone might as well use them.
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Gave our Toy Story Mania fastpasses away to a family (we have trouble finding a group of three to give them too), when the ride was broken down and we knew we could not come back to it later.
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Last trip was too short, so other than being a FGM, I don't recall doing anything special.
On past trips I've given those neon glow necklaces to random children, handed out Fastpasses we decided we weren't going to be able to use, gave a little girl a light up princess tiara that I couldn't pack in my suitcase, taken pictures for people so the whole group could be in the shot, been a FGM, gave a very polite little girl a pin off my lanyard so she could start trading, and a few other little things like that. It leaves me with a smile on my face to do stuff like that.
We were surprised when a cast member leaving work for the day gave us 25 FastPasses to any ride in MK. We used several but gave most of them away as we happened to run into a fellow PPer and her family and then we were able to surprise a family of six on our last day in the park.
I wa in disney 3 years ago in september and it was very hot abot 85 or 90 and was only morning. At breakfast I bought a cold bottle of water not sure why I had some in the room but I did and after breakfast we were goin back to the room to drop some stuff of and on our wy I saw a cast member working outside doing somthing with the plants and he look so hot so I gave him my bottle of water he was so happy and ir made for a great day all around
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Felt great, too.
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Pixie Dust
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I also like to take pictures of a group of people so that everyone is in the picture. Although now they have Photo Pass people for that.
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My Princesses Sarah and Hannah
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