Anyone else get this notification from Photobucket? - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Anyone else get this notification from Photobucket?
I don't know if this is the right place, but since many of us use Photobucket for posting photos in TRs I thought it was appropriate...
I got an email from Photobucket yesterday which said some features of Photobucket would be disabled. It went on to say that they noticed I was using Photobucket for 3rd party hosting and this feature was no longer available to me unless I upgraded to the PLUS 500 plan. And since that plan costs $39.99 per month, : I will not be upgrading.
I am also assuming that all the photos from those who are using the free version of Photobucket are not able to be viewed at this point.
I'm not sure where this is coming from, unless maybe they just haven't got around to sending the email to me, but I've seen nothing. I pay an annual subscription (about $40 if I remember right) and I copy the addresses from Photobucket and then paste them into my trip report. I don't know if that counts as third party hosting or not?
I haven't gotten the notice yet, but I just checked their website and am sure I will get it soon. Cheryl, I found this quote which may explain why you, and some others, haven't heard anything yet.
"If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,
you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd
Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your
subscription."
I'm not sure where this is coming from, unless maybe they just haven't got around to sending the email to me, but I've seen nothing. I pay an annual subscription (about $40 if I remember right) and I copy the addresses from Photobucket and then paste them into my trip report. I don't know if that counts as third party hosting or not?
Yes, that is what they consider third party hosting.
I was really surprised that it will no longer allowed.
I haven't gotten the notice yet, but I just checked their website and am sure I will get it soon. Cheryl, I found this quote which may explain why you, and some others, haven't heard anything yet.
"If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,
you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd
Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your
subscription."
I don't know if this is the right place, but since many of us use Photobucket for posting photos in TRs I thought it was appropriate...
I got an email from Photobucket yesterday which said some features of Photobucket would be disabled. It went on to say that they noticed I was using Photobucket for 3rd party hosting and this feature was no longer available to me unless I upgraded to the PLUS 500 plan. And since that plan costs $39.99 per month, : I will not be upgrading.
Yes, I got that too.
As a result, my days of recommending Photobucket to others are at an end.
... now, I just have to figure out how to host the images on the domain I already own (mostly for email purposes), and the hosting service I chose to handle the hardware side of things costs only a little more per _year_ than Photobucket want to charge per _month_. (Including the domain registration fees, a full year costs about 2 months worth of Photobucket's "500 Plus".)
Quote:
I am also assuming that all the photos from those who are using the free version of Photobucket are not able to be viewed at this point.
You assume correctly. They serve up an image that chastises me for not paying their ludicrous fee. What's worse, they started doing so before sending me that email; I discovered the change because I saw that chastisement before the email even arrived in my inbox. >_<
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMA
Yes, that is what they consider third party hosting.
I was really surprised that it will no longer allowed.
... especially as that was what the entire point of PhotoBucket WAS, in their own words, when they first started it up. Well, that and buying prints from their shop, of course.
I'm guessing they didn't earn enough from their (horribly overpriced) print products to pay their bills and generate enough profit to line their pockets with. >_<
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
I too got the email not once but twice - yesterday and today - and I started a thread about it as well after I got the first one. I too am not happy about it. I'm hoping it's a total fail on Photobuckets end to get people to pay that absurd amount of money and they reconsider how much they are going to charge for this type of account.
I haven't gotten the notice yet, but I just checked their website and am sure I will get it soon. Cheryl, I found this quote which may explain why you, and some others, haven't heard anything yet.
"If you were a Plus Account subscriber in good standing as of June 1, 2017,
you will continue to have all the privileges you have enjoyed including 3rd
Party Hosting until December 31, 2018 as long as you maintain your
subscription."
Well, that would explain it, but even so - they're basically saying it's only good until the end of next year. Not very impressive.
As a result, my days of recommending Photobucket to others are at an end.
... now, I just have to figure out how to host the images on the domain I already own (mostly for email purposes), and the hosting service I chose to handle the hardware side of things costs only a little more per _year_ than Photobucket want to charge per _month_. (Including the domain registration fees, a full year costs about 2 months worth of Photobucket's "500 Plus".)
You assume correctly. They serve up an image that chastises me for not paying their ludicrous fee. What's worse, they started doing so before sending me that email; I discovered the change because I saw that chastisement before the email even arrived in my inbox. >_<
... especially as that was what the entire point of PhotoBucket WAS, in their own words, when they first started it up. Well, that and buying prints from their shop, of course.
I'm guessing they didn't earn enough from their (horribly overpriced) print products to pay their bills and generate enough profit to line their pockets with. >_<
Nice that you have a plan B in mind, but unfortunate that you have to resort to that!
Interesting that I just checked an old TR of mine and still see my photos. So...maybe they haven't gotten to disabling everyone's account yet? I'm sure it will happen eventually.
Like Cheryl, I haven't gotten the email yet, but I very, very disappointed in Photobucket for doing this. When my current subscription expires, I will be leaving Photobucket as paying nearly $500 in order to add photos to my trip reports is way too expensive for me.
Just thinking out loud here, but I would figure this means once the new policy goes into effect, all photos in old trip reports will have boxes but no photos. THe more I think about this the more it angers me. I've been checking on other possibilities. Shutterfly and Snapfish provided sharing links but those must be clicked on to see the photo on their websites. No ideal!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Like Cheryl, I haven't gotten the email yet, but I very, very disappointed in Photobucket for doing this. When my current subscription expires, I will be leaving Photobucket as paying nearly $500 in order to add photos to my trip reports is way too expensive for me.
It's pretty ridiculous to think anyone would pay that much!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
What a bummer!. I guess we will all have to just be super descriptive from now on.. I refuse to pay that much as well.
I was thinking the same thing, but photos make it so much more interesting!
I may just end up deciding not to write any more TRs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Just thinking out loud here, but I would figure this means once the new policy goes into effect, all photos in old trip reports will have boxes but no photos. THe more I think about this the more it angers me. I've been checking on other possibilities. Shutterfly and Snapfish provided sharing links but those must be clicked on to see the photo on their websites. No ideal!
Yes, it angers me as well. I can't see anyone paying that much for the privilege of 3rd party hosting, so I'm hoping this whole thing backfires on Photobucket.
What PB is asking for is beyond ridiculous and who in their right mind is gonna go from paying nothing to $500 per year? What are they thinking and hope they change their minds on this. I don't want to lose all the photos I have in my TRs and for some here it will be much worse than I do. I would have to find another site to do this and repost all of these photos which will be a lot of work. I know you can post directly from this board but there are limits for the most part.
I got the email a few weeks ago and I lost my signature photo probably because of this but everything else is still there. I pay $14.99 a year on PB for ad free but that's it. To me that's definitely worth it and makes the photo posting much easier and haven't had a PB problem since going this route.
This really irks me!
__________________
October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Last edited by SuperDave; 07-14-2017 at 06:54 PM..
About This Page: 
: I will not be upgrading. 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
What are they thinking and hope they change their minds on this. I don't want to lose all the photos I have in my TRs and for some here it will be much worse than I do. I would have to find another site to do this and repost all of these photos which will be a lot of work. I know you can post directly from this board but there are limits for the most part. 
Linear Mode
