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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I heard about this but nothing specific. I'm very interested to see if Universal will soon become part of WDW??????
I have heard nothing else since the acquisition announcement either. :
As far as the effect on Universal's parks . . . from the way I understand it . . . Marvel still has a contract with Universal for the characters that are used in rides at IOA. The Marvel company is now owned under the Disney umbrella but it isn't going to affect the Universal parks, or at least it isn't expected that it should.
you know,it's so stupid to me- why would Disney acquire Marvel, if they weren't going to do anything with it?? You'd think part of the deal would be to make Universal take the names/characters out of their park, especially if Disney plans to now make movies with Marvel!
My DS8 was so ecstatic about this, thought maybe it meant there'd be some Marvel presence at Disney eventually, maybe at DTD and DHS somehow- but I told him at this point it's doubtful. I'm just as confused about this as he is!
Universal has the rights to most of the Marvel characters until like 2014 at the earliest. Paramount will still be distributing the Marvel movies that they own the rights to as well. The only thing that Disney truly owns right now are the 100s of characters that haven't been made into movies yet.
The only way to block the attractions at Universal Studios or the movies that are being produced would be to buy those rights from the other movie studios that own them, and considering it's now Disney that owns them, the price tag is going to be incredibly high.
It's a long-term investment. The opportunity to acquire a property like Marvel comes along only so often, and the purchase price is lower because there are limitations on what Disney can do in the short term.
Disney can afford to wait patiently before it goes full-tilt into exploitation of the biggest properties. Meantime, they make licensing money from Universal, etc., and the success of those films, attractions, etc. helps maintain or boost the value of Disney's investment. Disney still has the rights to all sorts of characters suitable for animated TV series, and they have more than a few cable channels on which to play them. Then there's merchandising rights that I'm sure haven't been exploited to nearly the extent Disney knows how... I'm not worried about Disney. They'll do fine.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
actually, Disney owns the characters, what they don't own is rights to do certain things with them. They own Spider-Man for example, but Sony has the rights to produce Spider-Man movies. That doesn't mean Disney can't do other things with Spider-Man (Sony actually gave up tv rights for him too).
In fact, I've been reporting on exactly what Disney's been doing with Marvel and their first public actions actually revolve around Iron Man.
but as for the theme parks, just like I said before the move, I doubt you'll be seeing any movement there any time soon. just because you can, doesn't necessarily mean you should.
I believe they just made the deal official by having the shareholders sign off on it fairly recently. There is alot more to it then just the theme park aspect though. Comic books, movies, merchandise, etc.
Like Dave said its probably a long term investment. They have so many other properties to work with that they can take their time to have a proper Disney-Marvel introduction. Not to sure what their planning though as of now the only significant difference is that will see Marvel related merchandise for the first time at a Disney owned store. At this point like all projects that are in the far or distant future Disney keeps many of them top secret until the last minute when they finish it off with over blown publicity.
As we speak they might be finding a way to introduce Marvel to the Disney parks. I just hope that they don't force Universal to shut down any Marvel related facilities.
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A famous Passporter once said "couldn't we just sleep through every day that does not include visiting Florida?"
Personally, I wouldn't really want to see Walt Disney World being "invaded" by Marvel characters.
It may be just because I wouldn't want to see my "Happy Place" change too much from what it is now, but I still feel that characters like the Power Rangers don't "fit" in with my idea of what Disney should be. The prospect of seeing Spider-Man lining up next to "classic" Disney characters doesn't really "float my boat".
Maybe, IF Disney want to use Marvel as a theme park vehicle, that just might be the time to start thinking about "Marvel Kingdom" as a separate park within WDW.
I think it more likely, however, that Disney will keep Marvel as a relatively separate part of the business, making money from the "products" currently available, but adding Disney's marketing and business "might" behind them.
No better way to gain strength than to diversify your product base! Look at the washing powder brands, most of them are "owned" by the same big companies, but seem to lead quite separate existances, making money all the while!!!
Personally, I wouldn't really want to see Walt Disney World being "invaded" by Marvel characters.
It may be just because I wouldn't want to see my "Happy Place" change too much from what it is now, but I still feel that characters like the Power Rangers don't "fit" in with my idea of what Disney should be. The prospect of seeing Spider-Man lining up next to "classic" Disney characters doesn't really "float my boat".
Maybe, IF Disney want to use Marvel as a theme park vehicle, that just might be the time to start thinking about "Marvel Kingdom" as a separate park within WDW.
I think it more likely, however, that Disney will keep Marvel as a relatively separate part of the business, making money from the "products" currently available, but adding Disney's marketing and business "might" behind them.
No better way to gain strength than to diversify your product base! Look at the washing powder brands, most of them are "owned" by the same big companies, but seem to lead quite separate existances, making money all the while!!!
Any theme park related project involving Marvel is probably a long way off though I'm guessing that they are throwing around the idea knowing Disney they discuss ideas years before they take shape. As of now I think that they are looking for profiting off of the merchandising aspect of it any theme park development to come much later.
I believe that if Disney uses any park for their newly owned Marvel characters the most logical move would be Epcot because of the science fiction aspect. They could incorporate it there and save money instead of making a costly Marvel Kingdom. Yes some places in Disney World like the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom would alienate me if they were flooded with Marvel characters but Disney has Hollywood Studios and Epcot to work with those parks can much more effectively incorporate a super hero theme without any trouble. Though Disney never really had much of a foray in the superhero business up until this acquisition. Before this purchase no one could really associate classic comic book heroes with Disney.
The first movie company that came to peoples minds when discussing comic books before this purchase was Warner Brothers because of their relationship with DC.
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A famous Passporter once said "couldn't we just sleep through every day that does not include visiting Florida?"
Reportedly, the first Disney park to receive Marvel attractions will be the new Shanghai Disneyland. I doubt that you will see them use Marvel properties at WDW anytime soon due to the Universal contract. However, the California parks can still use them. Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke believes that Disney will eventually buy out the Universal contract, possibly sooner than later. There are also anti-trust concerns since Disney gets to look over Universal's books due to the contract.
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