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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Which do you think is better package or individual? I know packages can be more expensive, but sometimes you get neat extra things. But is it really worth the money? Also any good airlines to fly? I am coming from CA.
I'm not positive but I've heard from a LOT of people that it's way cheaper buying things seperately, rather then going with a package. Packages usually add on convenience fees, etc. and this can get costly. I'd do thing separately.
Generally speaking you get things a lot cheaper by going separately. Then you have enough extra money to buy those neat extra things and still save money. I always do it separately, but then we don't eat at the restaurants often or do many of the other add on items. I travel with an AP so park admission and hopping it available. Occasionally WDW comes along and offers a really good package, but not usually.
I've done both packages and separately, and only online! With packages, everything is really easy, you just point and click and voila, it shows you everything you need to know. You can add on flights and transfers even! There are codes that sometimes come out and will get the packages cheaper. All you have to do is call WDW and have them applied. These packages include the Ultimate Park Hopper tickets.
Doing it yourself is just easy. Pick your hotel, buy tickets, airfare, and transfers and voila! You've got a vacation!
I like to book room only (before buying into DVC). I then look for codes and call and have them applied. When I do it this way, I buy either a 4-5 day Park Hopper ticket or an Annual Pass.
I too wonder this question when I am set to start planning. Each and everytime I have found that doing everything seperate does save money. Plus doing it seperately allows me to purchase tickets, airfare and etc.. when I have the money not by a due date. Plus if you book your room only you are required to only pay a deposit. Than you can apply payments as you wish and keep a look out for codes because you can always adjust your resort plans to include a discount.
As I come from Canada, it's a little bit harder to do it by myself. I have a travel agent and we looked for package and separate and it ends up that seperate was cheaper. I didn't want the ultimate park hopper so I saved a lot with my 5 days park hopper plus!
I can save a lot of $ by doing everything individually. Plus, when you buy your own tickets, you don't pay for more than what you need and you get to keep the days left over. With packages, you pay for tickets that have all this stuff in there you're not going to use and you are paying for days at the parks that you may not use.
Last year, they had the Fairytale Vacation package which was a seven night package for the price of four nights, which allowed me to stay at AKL for only $200 more than I would normally pay for an All Star. This year they had a 5+2 package that was 7 nights for the price of 5, so I'm able to do POFQ for only $70 more than an All Star. However, I think for my next trip, I'm going to get an AP and hopefully get a good deal for WL, because I would love to stay there but I don't know if they're ever going to offer packages like these again.
karen....it is totally doable. My ap rate for akl is even better than the fairytale package. 7 for the price of 4 we have a sav view and 4 * 275(rack rate) would be 1100...ok so it is only about $90 less expensive but every little bit helps now doesn't it?????
I think its Annual Pass. They say if you are staying more than 8 days I think it is worth just buying and annual pass because you can get discounts also.
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I think its Annual Pass. They say if you are staying more than 8 days I think it is worth just buying and annual pass because you can get discounts also.
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Yes, sorry about that! AP is Annual Pass. You'll get discounts from the moment you activate it. The 8 days is the break even point with an AP versus Single day admission.
We bought an AP last year, spent a total of 17 days in the parks(three trips), so we more than broke even, add our discounts and we came out ahead!!
We’ve used the Dream Maker Gold plan (or what ever it was called many years ago) for our last 8 trips. Whenever we eat or use any of the recreation activities, (Boat rental, fishing, golf ect………) we save the receipt. Each night we add up the cost of what we would have sent if we were paying for it. At the end of our stay we subtract the total amount from each day plus the cost of the most cost effective park hopper pass and see what we ended up paying for the hotel. For our last three trips (all at WL courtyard view) the cost of the room came to less then $40 per night after this process.
One of the things we have learned, is that if we are paying for everything we are doing separately, we don’t do as much as we do by being on a package. We almost make a game out of trying to use the package to get the most value out of it we can. One of the fun things is to watch the CM’s at the restaurants try to talk you into getting everything the package will allow, as their tip is a fixed percentage of what your total meal cost was.
I am not sure the gold plan is right for everyone. However, once you go on a vacation where you don’t need to worry about what your spending, you may never go back to the pay as you go plan again.
Hi! For our upcoming Dec trip, I originally booked through AAA. There were some neat perks, but nothing awe inspiring. Then I bought my Passporter and began reading the boards. When Dec AP rates came out I discovered that it was more advantageous for us to get APs and book a "room only" reservation, so we switched. We saved about $250. That $250 was worth more to me than the few perks I was getting. Also, I think I was a travel agent in a former life, because I LOVE all this planning!
We're coming from So Cal too, but unfortunately I can't recommend our airline, because we're flying USAir!! Our flight is actually a United flight. We have flown JetBlue from Long Beach to Wash DC, and it was a really nice flight. Currently I don't think they go directly from LB to MCO, but they might by the time you're ready to go!
I learned the hard way that it is far more expensive to do a WDW package than it is to book everything separately. Here is what happened to me.
In February/03, I booked a trip for my daughter and I to WDW through a local travel agent. I knew nothing about these boards at that time nor had I read any WDW guide books. All I knew was that I wanted to surprise my daughter with a WDW trip as a present for graduating from university. The package I got was a very simple one. It included our airfare, Mears shuttle from the airport to our resort and back, 7 nights stay at the All Star Music resort, and ultimate park hopper passes for our length of stay. They also threw in a pin lanyard and Disney pin for each of us and our choice of one option of such items as a $25 voucher at Planet Hollywood, 2 free rounds of miniature golf, etc. (We ended up not using the option as we simply never found the time to do so.) I checked with many local travel agents before settling on this package as the most economical one. It cost us about $3000 in Canadian funds.
Fast forward a couple of months: I'd now discovered the Passporter book and these boards and the mousesavers.com website and learned all about the wonderful world of purchasing trip pieces separately. Using this info, I planned a trip for my son and I for August. To my amazement for only about $500 more than what I had paid for my one week trip with my daughter, we were able to fly there, get picked up at the airport and returned there by Tiffany Town Car, stay 7 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge AND seven nights at Wilderness Lodge, AND purchase two annual passes. That was certainly more than enough to hook me on the advantages of booking everything separately. Of course, you then have to do your homework and shop around for the best deals and discounts but I found that this process soon became a ton of fun - sort of like a treasure hunt with a magical WDW vacation as the grand prize.
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