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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Dates: Friday 29 April – Monday 2 May Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (43) and DH Mark (50) Destinations: Disneyland Paris Resorts: Relais Spa Val d’Europe and Disneyland Hotel and the Hotel New York will also be making a guest appearance in this trip report Meets: Mark’s parents Dave and Barbara, and his sister Sara, her husband Tom and their two daughters Evie (12) and Daisy (7, turning 8 while we’re there) will be joining us Celebration: enjoying a Bank Holiday weekend away with family
Before I start, I think I should explain the title of this trip report. For those familiar with TV game shows in the UK in years gone by, you may realise it’s a play on a familiar phrase, which would be “what do points make?” at which point the audience would yell “prizes”. For the rest of you, I felt I had to explain the slightly odd title, as there was some British humour in there.
Points are the start to this trip, and in this case they’re of the Disney Vacation Club variety. We normally don’t have this problem, but we ended up with 101 points that had to be used by the end of July 2016. Knowing that we wouldn’t be returning to Walt Disney World until later in the year (September as it turned out), I started to look for options closer to home.
I’ll be honest here, Disneyland Paris isn’t our favourite Disney park by a long shot. In fact, it’s probably one of our least favourite, although in fairness, every time we go we always say firstly, it’s not as bad as we remember it, and secondly we enjoy it more than we expected, which is a good sign. However, what it is is pretty much on our doorstep.
We live about 40 minutes’ drive from Folkestone, home to the British terminal of the Eurotunnel, and from there, you can take drive on to a train that then takes you through the Channel Tunnel over to France in just 35 minutes. Once you get there, it’s about a three hour drive over to Disneyland Paris. You can also take the passenger train from Ebbsfleet or Ashford (each about half an hour’s drive away from us) and there are some services that run directly to Disneyland Paris. However, as I’m sure you can imagine, those are not cheap, and with only one service a day, you’re tied to an arrival and a departure time. We’ve done this a couple of times before, and while it’s certainly convenient once you’re on board, we found it was a pain to be arriving at the same time as a whole train load of people, and the boarding facilities at the Disneyland Paris weren’t exactly great, shall we say?
Anyway, that’s how close we are to Disneyland Paris. If we need to, we can do a day trip there – been there, done that a couple of times, but we prefer a slightly more relaxed approach these days.
In early May, we have a Bank Holiday weekend, which means the Monday is a day off. It’s also the only Bank Holiday weekend of the year that doesn’t fall during a school holiday, which is why we like to go away for it. Prices remain low for short breaks, whereas with all other Bank Holiday weekends, they go through the roof, because they’re part of at least a week long break from school. By then, it’s also usually good weather.
So that’s the where, and the when. At first, we were planning on staying at Disney’s Hotel New York, which is the second most expensive on-site hotel. We haven’t stayed there, but we had heard good things about it. However, around the start of 2016, I realised I’d made a minor error with the budgeting of our DVC points. Not only did I have 101 points to use up (and a two night stay at the Hotel New York would cost 107, so perfect…) but I also worked out I had another 600 points that needed to be used by July 2017. Now usually that wouldn’t be a problem, but this year, it was. We had our September 2016 trip all planned out, and our next big trip back to Walt Disney World wouldn’t be until December 2017. For some reason, I thought I could hold all 600 points for that trip, but Points have an expiry date, and for these, they wouldn’t last until Christmas 2017. Now what?
Well, for starters, it meant we could stay at our favourite on-site hotel, the Disneyland Hotel, which is literally right at the entrance to the Disneyland Park. We’ve stayed there a couple of times before, and absolutely love it there. If we had our way, it would be the only place we’d stay on our Disneyland Paris stay, so of course we changed our minds, and figured we’d go for there, rather than the Hotel New York.
That still left us with quite a few more points to use up. Well, in late 2015, one of Mark’s sisters, Sara, started to talk about going to Disneyland Paris with her husband and two daughters. I told her about our plans for the early May Bank Holiday, and given it would be the eighth birthday of one of her daughters, Daisy, I suggested it would be wonderful if they could join us. We started to look at packages, and they were pricey, as they tend to be at Disneyland Paris. This is one of my gripes with the place, as it costs a heck of a lot more to stay there than at Walt Disney World. We’ve never forgotten on our first stay at the Disneyland Hotel (for which we also used our points), where we got talking to a father who was there with his daughter, and when he told us how much he’d paid for a week there, we told him he could’ve got a couple of weeks in Florida for that price.
Sara wasn’t sure whether to go with a package, and said she’d wait until after Christmas to see how their finances were, which was fair enough. We went round to see her a couple of weeks into the new year, and she was still talking about going to Disneyland Paris, which allowed us to have a conversation with her. It went something like this:
“Well, if you really want to go to Disneyland Paris, then we’re prepared to use some of our DVC points to put you up in a hotel there. It’s not the top priced one, but it’s the second best one, and from what we’ve heard it’s really good. We could pay for two nights for you there, so you can have a long weekend away. All you’d have to pay for would be park passes, getting there and back, and spending money while you’re there.”
“What seriously?!”
“Yes seriously”
“Oh my goodness, I can’t believe it!”
Her reaction was priceless, but I knew she would be a push over. It was Tom I was concerned about. Tom has never been to a Disney park in his life (I know, right? ) and therefore, through no fault of his own, he has no idea what they’re all about. We spent the next hour or so answering his questions, showing him photos of the Hotel New York (I think that might’ve been a clincher ) and reminding him that it would be Daisy’s birthday, and she’d have an absolute ball. They’ve also had some challenges to deal with over the last couple of years, which I won’t go into here, as that’s their personal business, but that’s why we wanted to make the offer, as they seriously deserve some luck and a lovely holiday.
Not long before we were due to leave, I said as a parting shot that I’d need to know fairly soon whether they were up for this or not, as I’d need to get it booked with the DVC. Having made the offer, I didn’t want to leave it too long, and then discover that there was no availability, which was a possibility. Because the DVC exchanges points with Disneyland Paris (don’t ask me for the ins and outs, but I’m sure Disneyland Paris gets some form of payment along the line for letting DVC Members use their points there), I figured there’s a limit to how many times they’ll do that, and I didn’t want to reach that limit.
The next words I heard were music to both our ears. Sara said they were pretty much there, and really wanted to go for it, and then Tom just said “yes, we’ll do it”. I was so pleased that we’d managed to talk him into it, as I know once he gets there, he’ll love it.
Next: “oh, then there’s that awful ride that Barb likes….”
Sounds like a great weekend and I'd love to have your points problem. We have used 2016 and 2017 already so that's us. Til 2018
That's usually how we are. We had some points left over from 2014 when we were supposed to have a big family trip to WDW and that didn't happen, so we've had spare since then.
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Yay! What a treat for the family. So glad you could help them out! It's already starting to sound like a wonderful trip.
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How great that you're able to help Mark's sister and family join you! But I don't know that I understand what extra points mean? I do know what borrow points means... We even joke that our contracts are 49 year ones, not 50!
How great that you're able to help Mark's sister and family join you! But I don't know that I understand what extra points mean? I do know what borrow points means... We even joke that our contracts are 49 year ones, not 50!
Me too I live in browsing mode and I tell myself it's best to do that so we never end up with stranded points as we can borrow exactly how much we need.
Of course not going back until August 2018 is hard to wait for
Me too I live in browsing mode and I tell myself it's best to do that so we never end up with stranded points as we can borrow exactly how much we need.
Of course not going back until August 2018 is hard to wait for
Not sure when we'll get back to WDW. We have HHI for Thanksgiving, then DL in February. Watching our points as 2018 will be Aulani.
Me too I live in browsing mode and I tell myself it's best to do that so we never end up with stranded points as we can borrow exactly how much we need.
Of course not going back until August 2018 is hard to wait for
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
Not sure when we'll get back to WDW. We have HHI for Thanksgiving, then DL in February. Watching our points as 2018 will be Aulani.
Isn't it great though that everyone is planning ahead to 2018? I always read the posts on the boards, asking when the packages will go on sale for the following year - I think it's usually in the summer and I think how lucky we are to be DVC Members in that we can book at 11 months out if we're going for our home resort and seven months out for all other resorts.
At the moment, our plan for our points is WDW in September, then Aulani, Disneyland and WDW for Christmas 2017. After that, who knows?
Isn't it great though that everyone is planning ahead to 2018? I always read the posts on the boards, asking when the packages will go on sale for the following year - I think it's usually in the summer and I think how lucky we are to be DVC Members in that we can book at 11 months out if we're going for our home resort and seven months out for all other resorts.
At the moment, our plan for our points is WDW in September, then Aulani, Disneyland and WDW for Christmas 2017. After that, who knows?
Well in fairness the only reason we are planning 2018 as we won't be going anywhere in 2017 except maybe hopefully moving home
How great that you're able to help Mark's sister and family join you! But I don't know that I understand what extra points mean? I do know what borrow points means... We even joke that our contracts are 49 year ones, not 50!
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In fact, it’s probably one of our least favourite, although in fairness, every time we go we always say firstly, it’s not as bad as we remember it, and secondly we enjoy it more than we expected, which is a good sign. 
Not only did I have 101 points to use up (and a two night stay at the Hotel New York would cost 107, so perfect…) but I also worked out I had another 600 points that needed to be used by July 2017. Now usually that wouldn’t be a problem, but this year, it was. 
We had our September 2016 trip all planned out, and our next big trip back to Walt Disney World wouldn’t be until December 2017. For some reason, I thought I could hold all 600 points for that trip, but 
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Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. 
Jenn
We even joke that our contracts are 49 year ones, not 50!
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