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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We booked our trip a year ago. We've always been able to apply discounts to our exsisting reservations in the past so we anticipated this years offers. We are booked in at the Contemporary in our dream room (Atrium with theme park views)!
So, I called the day free dining offer went live this year and was told they were all gone! I've never had that happen and certainly not as soon as the offer went live! They did say there was a huge run to book those offers that morning but still--it was the day of! I've never even thought about the day it goes out, I've always just called, applied the discount and been a happy camper. Maybe I'm spoiled but what the heck happened?? They just tell me that I can get the dining offer if I change my room type or hotel.
Has anyone ever experienced this? If so, do you think if they make another offer for this fall that it'll even be available to apply it to our reservation at all? It's like our room type is blocked out of discounts or something.
Thanks!
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Previous Trips
May/June '96 - WDW Off Site, May '07 - AKL, May '08 - Pop Century, September '09 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, May '10 - POFQ, December '10 - WL, July '11 - DL - Offsite, November-December 2012 - Contemporary, May '13 - DCL Fantasy & WDW Art of Animation (Nemo Suite), September '14 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, April '15 - Beach Club (Club Level), May '16 - AKL (Arusha View) / Universal - LRPR...
Some room types and hotels get a VERY few number of discounts, some none at all. I booked POR-FQ 500 days out and told the CM I was hoping for free dining, and she warned me that there are very few of those offers for that resort (if any at all) since it's the smallest, so I better be one of the first to call if I want it. Since it sounds like you have a very specific room, that might be the case. Disney is using the offer to fill certain rooms and resorts, it's not really open to everyone though they make it sound like it is.
I waited till the Free Dining Offer was announced to book POFQ and couldn't. (Could only do the other three moderates) waited a day thinking it over and tried to do CS and couldn't - only POR or CB were left. Called a TA got POFQ w/free dining and leave in 11 days. I bet there are rooms available. I would call till you got the right person. Good Luck.
Yes, it's especially hard to get POFQ rooms during free dining because the resort is so small. That's why we had to stay at POR in 2010. And don't forget, they always do the free dining promo for Disney Visa members first. Not sure how much of a difference this makes, but I used to have one and was able to get a room each time with no problem.
Thanks for all the input and information, everyone! The various cast members I spoke to during my 5 calls on this subject offered to change our room type or resort in order to take advantage of the offer.... now however, there is very little left to choose from. What it comes down to is that we chose that room, that resort over the discount. :/ Oh well. Next time we have a trip on a tight budget we will be more flexible and let the discounts take us where they may. Who knows, maybe we'll have an "excuse to upgrade" then too.
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Previous Trips
May/June '96 - WDW Off Site, May '07 - AKL, May '08 - Pop Century, September '09 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, May '10 - POFQ, December '10 - WL, July '11 - DL - Offsite, November-December 2012 - Contemporary, May '13 - DCL Fantasy & WDW Art of Animation (Nemo Suite), September '14 - Ft. Wilderness Cabins, April '15 - Beach Club (Club Level), May '16 - AKL (Arusha View) / Universal - LRPR...
It's like our room type is blocked out of discounts or something
It very well may be. I'm pretty sure that in the fine print, it does say not all rooms and all locations available. And as others have said, free dining is to fill empty rooms. Maybe the CR doesn't have enough empty rooms to warrant Disney steering people there over another location, KWIM? You could always try a TA like Jen did but if it were me, I wouldn't want to give control of my vacation over to someone who may not get me exactly what I want (there's a TR on here and that's exactly what happened to the PPer - her AAA TA pretty much made a mess of things)
I called a TA early in the day the promotion went live trying to get PO-FQ and couldnt. Don't know if not available or sold out, but I ended up upgrading to WL. In the past I have booked CBR well after release date and had no problems. No clue how it works but it did give me an excuse to upgrade.
In the past we needed to move our reservation from one resort to another in order to take advantage of a promotion. When they were available to our dates we call Disney and have options already discussed if our room/dates were not available. We've moved our ressie from Cont to Poly (2009), BW to BC (2010) and AKL to WL (2011) in order to have a better deal.
LOL about the "excuse to upgrade" love that! Yeah it's based on availability and it's not always there. Keep trying back though you never know when people may cancel or change resorts, etc. I would advise talking to more than one cast member as well, even though it very well may be gone some cm's are mis-informed or just starting out and don't know all the magic buttons to push! Good luck!
Yes, one year we couldn't get the room we wanted with free dining because that category was full (within a couple of days of opening the free dining offer), so we had to take a substitute room to get free dining. We were still happy to be at WDW though!
The "deals" that have been offered lately aren't as good as a few years back. Never before have I heard of a measly 5% discount at WL or POFQ, yet that is what has happened this last year. Since POFQ is one of my favorite resorts, I ended up booking it at an AAA discount for now (20%), and will see if I can do any better. Lately I haven't always been able to get into FQ with a discount, they just aren't being offered. Definitely changes my game plan for resorts, when I could almost always get an AP discount eventually. Now APs come out late, and they aren't always as good as a GP or even an AAA discount.
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We are booked in at the Contemporary in our dream room (Atrium with theme park views)! 
I've never had that happen and certainly not as soon as the offer went live! They did say there was a huge run to book those offers that morning but still--it was the day of! I've never even thought about the day it goes out, I've always just called, applied the discount and been a happy camper. 
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MGM Studios October 2007
offered to change our room type or resort in order to take advantage of the offer.... now however, there is very little left to choose from. What it comes down to is that we chose that room, that resort over the discount. :/ Oh well. Next time we have a trip on a tight budget we will be more flexible and let the discounts take us where they may. 
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