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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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My current camera's both use AA batteries, I bought good rechargeable ones, I can work with keeping an extra set charged and ready to go on 'most' vacations. WDW is not a problem at all. I start each day with fully charged batteries in the camera and a back up set with me.
My question is concerning a new camera that I am considering....the finalist's in my early selection all use the dedicated battery pack thing that is about 50.00 for a second battery. Just how long do these 'work' meaning, if you are at WDW and you take a jillion pictures, alot of the photo's will use flash. Does one of these battery packs last an entire day...(a long day)?? I do not want to have to buy one of these battery packs any where but someplace ON SALE!!
What information do I need to look for when purchasing one of these type of battery packs? Getting a decent point and shoot camera with a viewfinder and uses AA batteries is not as easy as I thought it would be. Any and all info is appreciated.
I have a Canon XT, the type of dedicated battery it has says it will last up to 1 hour. I can milk that to about 2.5/3 hours... without a lot of flash work...
I now have an add on to my camera that allows me to run two batteries at once, tha tbattery pack lets them run for 3 hours regular and I've milked it to five or so.
Really, that all depends on a lot of variables - the camera itself, the battery itself, your habits when touring (do you leave the camera on 24/7? Are you constantly turning it on and off?), frequency of flash use ... and even, yes temperature: hot days can result in a (small) loss of battery life/endurance.
I've heard that you can go to Guest Services and recharge your camera and/or batteries, but only if you bring the proper charger yourself. IOW, they'll let you use their outlet. If your camera can charge QUICKLY from "dead" to "full charge", that might be all you need ... a brief air-conditioned break to recharge the camera AND yourself.
However, if it were me? I'd buy a spare battery. Or maybe two.
My new camcorder uses properietary batteries; it comes with a smaller battery, Even though it's rated for 7.55 hours of use (and my limited experience so far bears that out) ... I still plan to buy one or two of the EXTENDED-life batteries ... specifically, this.
And let me tell you, that's a NINETY dollar battery!
But, you know? There is absolutely nothing that sucks worse than beign all set to take some great pictures or video of something at Disney - especially "Event" stuff like parades, shows, and fireworks - and having your battery die on you. That happened to me one night at Illuminations ... and I'd forgotten to bring my spare set. RIGHT as all the braziers lit up, after I'd spent a goodly amount of time scouting out a spot to plane my tripod, mounting the camera, and so on ... I get "WARNING: battery 1%", and the camera shuts off.
Well, never again. I'll use the big ninety-dollar battery most of the day, and keep the small 8-hour battery as my "uh oh" backup, in the camera case. Because I do not ever in my life wish to experience that kind of disappointment, most especially not at Disney ...!!
Yup, that is exactly what I do NOT want to have happen.....been there- I just keep getting the feeling that I should stay with a point and shoot camera that uses AA's, I have that system down to a science. However, the small 'back-up p/s camera' that I want to buy for more around the house, and for the times I won't be trying to capture something from a distance etc etc....and I know I will be taking it to WDW only uses the designated battery pack. I don't think I will be doing much video-but who knows!
You didn't say which camera or battery pack you're looking at. However, you can research the battery life on the camera/battery combination on-line, see what others have to say about it.
Jan and I have Olympus point and shoot cameras, they use the LI-50B batteries. The batteries are small, but give us a reasonable amount of pictures before they need changing out. We each have at least 2 batteries per camera. While I hate spending what they want for the "factory/original" battery, the cheaper ones that we have bought that are the "same as" the originals don't work anywhere near as well, we usually only get about half the pictures out of them.
To prolong battery life, you can turn off the flash, set the sleep time to a shorter time to shut off the monitor, and if the camera has a viewfinder, turn off the monitor completely.
If your camera battery can be charged in the camera, usually from a USB cable, you can buy a small external battery that can be plugged into the camera to recharge your battery, and some cameras can be run like this. I carry a couple of these and tend to plug them into the camera to top off the battery before shooting special events, parades or fireworks, especially when I've been out all day and haven't had time to recharge any batteries...
Well, never again. I'll use the big ninety-dollar battery most of the day, and keep the small 8-hour battery as my "uh oh" backup, in the camera case. Because I do not ever in my life wish to experience that kind of disappointment, most especially not at Disney ...!!
... and it's due to worries like this, that I like making "practise runs" with new gadgets. We went to the Boston Museum of Science today, with some friends - in large part, because there's a Harry Potter related exhibit currently there. Lots of props and costumes from the movies to ogle at, and appreciate the attention-to-detail given to them.
Well, my battery was at 100% when I left home at 2pm. And it was "I'm going to shut myself off, now" dead, at 8:30 ........... and hadn't been "on" the entire time (no video or photography in the Harry Potter exhibit, for one thing).
So now I know ... I'll need either 2 of those, or one of the big ones, in addition to the current battery, before I'm "Disney Ready". And that means, a 1- or 2-position charger, as well.
For those with DSLRs and camcorders, StirlingTek is my preferred source for excellent quality, less-expensive alternatives to the brand-name batteries.
I have two Canon BP-511 batteries and a charger from Stirling; not only were they about 1/3 the price of the Canon brand batts, but they are higher-capacity and last longer in the camera. (BP-511, for those unfamiliar, is the standard battery used in the Canon Digital Rebel series and most of the higher-end Canon DSLRs).
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check them out.
EDIT: aaaand ... looks like what I actually need are NB-2LH, BP-2L14, or BP-2L24H batteries; the camera comes with the NB-2LH size.
From Canon, the BP-2L24H carries a ninety dollar pricetag. From StirlingTek ... I'm looking at $40. And even better: Canon's version is 1800mAh, Stirlings is 2700mAh. 150% the battery, for 50% the price?
...
Thank you VERY much for turning me on to these folks, Will.
Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check them out.
EDIT: aaaand ... looks like what I actually need are NB-2LH, BP-2L14, or BP-2L24H batteries; the camera comes with the NB-2LH size.
From Canon, the BP-2L24H carries a ninety dollar pricetag. From StirlingTek ... I'm looking at $40. And even better: Canon's version is 1800mAh, Stirlings is 2700mAh. 150% the battery, for 50% the price?
...
Thank you VERY much for turning me on to these folks, Will.
Just paying it forward. I learned about Stirling Tek from a photography forum; I think it was TheMagicInPixels.com, but it might have been another one.
I've always thought that replacement camera and camcorder batteries were outrageously overpriced, anyway. I've had excellent luck in the past with off-brand batteries, and these Stirling Tek batts I have are no exception.
I love it when I can find something just as good for less money. Makes me feel all frugal, and alleviates the guilt I feel when I consider how much money I've spent in my lifetime on my WDW trips, my computers, and my camera gear.
What's funny is, it turns out I HAD looked at some things from StirlingTek on Amazon, but ... the prices were SO much lower, my "too good to be true" alarm started ringing, so I passed them by.
With an endorsement from someone with no reason to mislead me, however ... that changes it into, at worst, "a gamble I'm willing to roll the dice on".
Thanks for the info, I will take a look. I still have to settle on a camera. My choices are getting fewer, but still not convinced on a couple of features. However, a great price on replacement batteries does help alot.
Thanks,
Sara
If you end up with something that takes AAs, by the by, Sony's rechargable alkalines are pretty darned good, reasonably affordable (~$20 for a 4-pack of 2400mAh's), and Sony has a decent charger for them as well.
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