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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I need some information by people who have done what I would like to do. I am staying at Pop Century resort. They are two of us. I have been to SeaWorld and I loved it there. I would like to know since there are just two of us would it be cheaper to get a taxi or call Mears and use there shuttle to Seaworld. If I decide to go to Seaworld for a day should I wait and make the arranngements before I get down to WDW or should I do it from the resort. I look forward in hearing from anybody who has done this.
We've always used the Mears shuttle service. It just seems more convenient, and when we used it last year, we were able to call them an hour before we wanted to be picked up. Before they used to give you certain times to chose from, but I guess they decided to change it.
Renting a car may be cheaper (I've never done it when I'm in Disney), but if you've used the Magical Express to get to your hotel, how would you get to the rental car place to get the car?
Mears is around $25 per person R/T. A cab ride would be around $40 plus tip each way. Mears is pretty good - they pick you up / drop you off right outside the hotel
We are going to stay onsite for the first time (up to now we usually stayed within walking distance to Seaworld) and have one very long day planned for Seaworld. We will have to get the taxi there as we have to be at Seaworld for 6:15 am to do our Marine Mammal Keeper Experience and we will take the Lynx 50 bus back and get off at Downtown Disney.
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.
i was thinking the same thing as i am thinking about giving the kids a surprise trip to sea world one day during the holidays next year since they were told that there would be NO christmas as Disney is the present in itself. So to make this trip would be even greater. How do you contact mears to pick you up?
We used Mears shuttle to go from POP to SW in April/May trip. You can go to mearstransportation.com and get their phone number to call them. They gave us choices on pick-up times (they go to SW, Discovery Cove and Universal) and take you to SW. It was the first stop/drop off. We could have either called 2 hours ahead of our pick-up time, but I just scheduled it for 30 minutes after park closing. You can pre-pay with a credit card or pay cash on the day. It worked soooo good for us and was $16 per person, no discount for children. It saved so much over renting a car. I would recommend it.
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.
We used Mears shuttle to go from POP to SW in April/May trip. You can go to mearstransportation.com and get their phone number to call them. They gave us choices on pick-up times (they go to SW, Discovery Cove and Universal) and take you to SW. It was the first stop/drop off. We could have either called 2 hours ahead of our pick-up time, but I just scheduled it for 30 minutes after park closing. You can pre-pay with a credit card or pay cash on the day. It worked soooo good for us and was $16 per person, no discount for children. It saved so much over renting a car. I would recommend it.
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.
I know this may sound paranoid but how do you know if these tickets are real? I went on to buy them and then checked out Seaworld home page and there is nothing like this. I realize it is just another site selling cheaper but how do you know? I have not called them yet, karlamaria do they mail tickets to you? What questions do you ask to make sure it is legit?
Nevermind, I called the number and it answered my question. It is a time share type thing. This is a great deal if you have the time (90 min breakfast and tour) and you get tickets 2 for $25 but we do not have the time for it. So if anyone else was wondering about these discounted tickets there is your answer!
We also are staying WDW and going to Seaworld. The ways to get there have all been mentioned, and it has taken us FOREVER to make a decision on what to do. We have 7 total (4 adults 3 kids) and the Mears thing is a good deal for a couple people. As stated above it was $16 pp RT that is $112 just to get to Seaworld. They also told me to plan for 30-40 min to get to SW, which is not bad but when I am paying that much money I want it to be faster! Now the renting a car idea was talked about, but we would have to get to the car place and return it. not to mention we have to rent a van or SUV to hold all us which would be pricey also. Overall the time spent doing this was going to be a hassle! SO we decided to do the Lynx bus...why not...it will cost $15.70 RT. They run every half hour and leave from DTD (which can be a ferry ride for us and kind of fun) I have printed the directions and schedule, so we are ready to go. The bus ride is about 20min which is not that bad. Now this would not be an option I would choose if I was by myself but with 7 of us it makes sense.
Good luck on your decision and have a great vacation
when we went to sea world in 2006 we used mears and it was $16 per person. you can go down to the check in decka nd make you arangements for mears the day before you are planning to go to sea world.
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Heather - "I'm Tinkerbell's biggest fan!"
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