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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Let me start this by saying that I haven’t been on a Disney Vacation since October 2009. I used to go every year but we decided to scale back and pay off some debts instead. Boy, has this been one of the biggest sacrifices I have ever made in my life. The sacrifice is finally over. My 15th Anniversary is coming up next year and my hubby promised that we will celebrate in style. Of course, I have talked about it for two years already so I probably just wore him down. No matter the reason, we are going and I am ecstatic! I preordered a Passporter deluxe refill which has arrived. I read the electronic version about 20 times before the paper version arrived on my doorstep. Thank you so much, Jennifer, for giving us the electronic version to peruse while we impatiently waited. You are awesome! Since it arrived, I have been through the paper version twice and already filled out some of my pockets.
I am an incessant planner. I ordered the planning DVD from Disney late last year. I viewed Disney.com until I was practically cross-eyed. I bookmarked several pages. I visited several websites including passporter, allearsnet, the unofficial guide, and mousesavers. I even googled for reviews. If you’re wondering how big of a planner I am, let me give you an example. I created a spreadsheet with the tours I want to take, park and Downtown Disney hours, estimated Extra Magic Hours, Restaurants we like and their locations and which ones need reservations. I then made a grid for each day of our vacation to include which park to visit, where to eat breakfast and dinner, if we’ll take a tour that day, a day to go to Cirque, and any special notes. This will later be transferred to the Passporter pockets once I’m sure of the actual itinerary. One of my friends saw this spreadsheet and thought it was funny that I even penciled in breakfast at Chick-fil-a for the morning we leave for Disney. I said, “Well, it’s tradition. I might as well write it down.” I am one of those people who are on the phone at 6am exactly 180 days out to make all of my reservations. I do this even if I am not reserving any of those hard to get places. I know at least a year in advance where I’m going for vacation and when. I usually plan Disney trips two years in advance. Hi! My name is Kristy. I am a Type A Planner. Now that you have that bit of background, on with the show.
My biggest concern this time has been the dates that we will go. I wanted to go the actual week of our anniversary, but this just happens to land on the week leading up to Easter in 2014. Everything I have read gives this as one of the top peak times of the year. I have been during the summer before, but never around a holiday and this one has Spring Break rolled in with it. I picture a giant Easter egg bursting with little chocolate covered people. I love chocolate by the way, just not a lot of people. I can deal with crowds, but not monster crowds. I have moved the dates several times since I noticed this spanning the entire month of April. I finally settled on the week before our anniversary week. I’m hopeful that this will be a good choice. Even if it is crowded, I’ll still be at Disney. So the date is now set. I’m just waiting on the travel agencies to catch up to me so I can book it. I’m ready. I have the dates set, the money in hand, the room I want to stay in, and what kind of tickets I want to purchase. I’m ready! Sign me up!
In the midst of all this planning, it has slowly dawned on me that I have really missed visiting the mouse. There are so many changes that I haven’t seen yet. There are so many experiences that I want to do again. I’m going for a whole week, but it just isn’t enough time. I could be going for two weeks, three weeks, a month and it wouldn’t be enough time for me. I could spend every day at Disney and never get tired of it. One of these days, I’m going to buy into the Disney Vacation Club. I’m still saving up for that one. For now, I need more days! Miracles of miracles, in comes my Tax Refund. We were blessed this year with a good refund that put our finances ahead of what I was planning. It freed up enough cash that I can take an extra trip this year. Woo Hoo! I’m going to Disney early! (queue the ecstatic screams and whoops and jumping) I love Disney around Halloween. It’s one of my favorites time of the year. I can dress up too and go Trick-or-Treating. This will be my third time visiting the Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. This year will be vastly different. Aside from the party itself which we have to buy tickets for in advance, I am not planning anything. I set the dates, picked my favorite Disney resort (Port Orleans-French Quarter), and booked the trip. We’re not making any reservations ahead of time. We’re going to eat Counter Service for this trip. If we happen to be in a park and really want to eat in one of the restaurants, I’ll check reservations and see if any are available. We did this once a long time ago and it worked out well. I’m not making a spreadsheet for each day. In fact, I read a great tip from someone that said to just go down to the resort bus stop and hop on the first one that comes along. I’m going to give that a try and see where it takes me. It might only last me one try, but I’m going to try it. This will be a whole new experience for me. I will let everyone know how it turns out when I return from my trip. In the mean time, let me know if you have any other great spur-of-the-moment tips that I can try out while I’m there. For now, I raise a glass to toast the end of my debt exile and my glorious return to the place I love so much. Salute! Or as we say here in the South, “Yee Haw!”
Okay, I know I said that I wasn’t going to make any plans for the October trip, but I just had to see if I could get in for dinner at the new Be Our Guest restaurant in Magic Kingdom. Today is 180 days until we arrive, so I just had to check. I went online around 9 this morning. Would you believe there was one available? Yep, one. Just one. It’s mine now. It’s for 8:45 PM and I usually don’t eat that late unless I’m on a cruise, but I figure i’ll probably not get to really see it unless I go for dinner and it’s vacation. So, I fudged just a little bit and booked one reservation. I promise this will be the only one. Mouse’s honor.
WDW - August 1997 Off Property
WDW - January 2005 AKL
WDW - May 2006 Pop Century
WDW- november-dec 2007 pop century
WDW- dec/jan 2009/2010 pop century
WDW- oct/nov 2012 art of animation
WDW- sept 2013 port Orleans riverside
WDW- july 2015 beach club
The tickets are now available for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. I was able to print them out instead of waiting for them to come in the mail. That is so cool. I'm one step closer. Now I just have to decide what i'm going to dress up as. I was Tinker Bell one year and a little girl one year complete with Mickey ears and a doll. It was adorable. Any ideas?
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