Day 1 of 12 REAL TIME - Views on Why WDW Wins... - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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I don't know if I will sustain real time reporting, but tonight I have some internal juice left in the battery to do so! We flew in yesterday which is 2 nights earlier than our WDW ressie. I used some Hilton points and am staying at a Homewood Suites on I-Drive which is very nice.
Today, we did Sea World for the first time in about 8 years.
With AAA discount, for the five of us, (DS 11, DD 15 and friend of DD 15), it was $372.00 plus the $10 for parking.
I want to just say we had a great time. The dolphin show is magical with the acrobats and Macaws in flight. Shamu is always great and the new Shamu Rock nighttime show was outstanding but more than a little bit too loud. Pet's ahoy was terrific as were the general exhibits.
Now the ouches.... I refuse to pay for a fastpass! Other rides such as the Space Tower cost extra. Even the new Manta (which the kids and wife raved about) was a bummer for me as it is not welcoming to us pooh sized. I have no issues in RNR Coaster, ToT or EE but the sample seat for Manta was not close. Plus, the seat is right out in the open and just as humiliating as if I would have tried to get on the ride in my opinion. We did get the equivalent of a GAC which gave us some handicapped seating and use of the fastpass line at Manta. That was good.
When the kids went to Kraken, DS 11 did not want to go which meant no GAC card use! The line was 45 minutes and they only had one train running. Why? Even when MK is dead, they run 2 trains on BTMMR!
Food - there just is not much of it around there. It is expensive and made us really realize how the free dining really makes it so we can do long trips. The dining is SUCH a blessing. We practically starved today!!
If not for WDW, Sea World would not exist. Thank goodness for WDW and what we have there for us! We'll return to Sea World some day but not every year like we do WDW.
I like to find businesses in ANY line of work that find how to be different. Businesses within a theme can do 99% of the work the same way. The goal is to find the 1% difference. WDW has it. Sea World has not figured that out yet.
Hopefully I will be able to post tomorrow....AK day 1 and dinner at Tusker House.
Lyle
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'78-'88 - 4 stays w/ parents! '89 - w/ HS Band & Choir '90 - 3rd date w/ my wife! Super Q on I-Drive '91 - w/ College Choir '94 - Comfort Suites on 192- '97 - Orange Lake Country Club '03 - Rented home! '04 - Pop Century! 60's Building - Partied w/ Hurr. Charley! '06 - 9 nights free dining at ASMu! '08 - May-MS Marching Band- '08 - September - 7 nights free dining! Aug '09 9 nights - free dining. Nov '11 7 nts free dining @ Cabins!. Jan '15 8 nites DD 21st b-day ASSp, DDP.
wow, thanks for the seaworld review. we are going in nov and plan on taking the vip tour, total cost $470 for 3 of us (35, 32, 7) this also includes dining with shamu and feeding several mammals. hopefully we will have a lil better time.
thanks again
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For all the good things in life and happiest moments dreamt Heather B
Like I said - we had a great time. We were able to get to all but one of the shows and enjoyed them immensely! I just think they miss the boat on a few items and dislike the upcharging for the fastpass equivalent and some attractions.
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'78-'88 - 4 stays w/ parents! '89 - w/ HS Band & Choir '90 - 3rd date w/ my wife! Super Q on I-Drive '91 - w/ College Choir '94 - Comfort Suites on 192- '97 - Orange Lake Country Club '03 - Rented home! '04 - Pop Century! 60's Building - Partied w/ Hurr. Charley! '06 - 9 nights free dining at ASMu! '08 - May-MS Marching Band- '08 - September - 7 nights free dining! Aug '09 9 nights - free dining. Nov '11 7 nts free dining @ Cabins!. Jan '15 8 nites DD 21st b-day ASSp, DDP.
I didn't realise they did a paid-for Fastpass system now - I knew Universal did, but not SeaWorld... my goodness, they're all getting on the band wagon.
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
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I had a wonderful time at SeaWorld five years ago. It totally was a blast. The shows were wonderful. I did not have a hard time finding food. The food issue really wasn't a problem. My biggest issue with SeaWorld was its layout. I found it challenging to get from one attraction to the other even with a map. All those meandering paths! I didn't stay for the evening. They have quite a bit going on at night and I would like to experience that next time.
Thank you for your report and looking forward to hearing more
We went to Sea World 2 years ago and enjoyed the shows very much. We only ate once, at the beer garden place, and it was good, but we went in Feb. so it wasn't too crowded. I was the only one in the family that wanted to ride the coasters, so I rode Kraken by myself. It was awesome! I would love to try Manta, it looks wild!
I'm sure WDW will be much more to your liking! There is a big difference in the feel of the place, everything else is just a theme park!
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Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
Thanks for starting the live update. I haven't been to Sea World for about 25 years. We may go someday but I'd rather spend my vacation time at WDW and I usually have to give up time to US/IOA as it is for dh and dd.
We took our first visit to SeaWorld last month and I fell in love with it! It is an absolutely beautiful park with great exhibits and shows. I will agree though, we refused to pay extra for the Space Tower.....this should be included with admission! We also refused to pay anything extra for a "fastpass system" on our visit to both SeaWorld and the Universal Parks. Another let down was that Busch Gardens is no longer giving away free beer
Another reason why for me Walt Disney World will always stand alone when it comes to being the #1 vacation destination in the country!
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Offsite May 2005, POR September 2006, POR August 2007, POFQ December 2008, POR February 2010,
Pop Century April 2011,
Last edited by carters_mom; 08-17-2009 at 12:11 PM..
Thanks for the review of SeaWorld. I'd like to get back some day, but will wait until the kid(s) are old enough to appreciate it more.
Can't wait to hear about the WDW portion of your trip!
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