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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 had planned to do one or two days at Universal on our next trip. We have to cut the trip short one day, so Universal is down to one day.
I have started researching rides and prices. We love Harry Potter and that is the main reason for going. I saw lots of other things that I think we will enjoy as well.
When I started figuring prices I was a little surprised. I knew it wouldn't be cheap, but the cost for the three of us for one day is about $325. That is only one park, no express pass, but does include food. I don't know if I want to pay that much for one day, but I almost hate to pass up the chance to do WWoHP.
My Disney touring plan would actually work out better without going, but we had thought that spending a day there would give us something new to do and lets us split Disney in two parts.
I need some advice. Is it worth the price?
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We were also going to go to Universal on our next trip and I'd allocated two days, but by the time I priced up tickets, I decided to bail on it, as we needed to save and just couldn't afford it. Having said that, we really enjoyed Universal and I'd definitely recommend a trip. In all honesty though, if you can do two days, rather than one, I think you'll enjoy it much more.
We are actually going to Florida just to see Harry! Then, we tacked on Disney. If you are a Harry nut, I think it's gotta be worth it. At least, that is what my MIL's friends who have been have said!
When we went on our vacation, it was horrible. It was the worst day of the vacation, way too crowded, overpriced (This coming from a Disney nut!), and really small. It would be great if you could go in the early morning (before the parks open) or something like that. But just one day, for that much money is not worth it to me or to my DBF (who loves Harry Potter)
While I actually don't have any interest in Universal or Harry Potter, I know where you're coming from. Last year I priced out going to Sea World for one day for 3 of us and when you compare a couple of hundred for one day versus the extra 10 or 15 it would cost to get into a Disney park for another day, for us we chose Disney. Of course we looked at it really late and wouldn't have been able to save up the money anyway.
For our next trip (2 years away minimum) I'm thinking again of doing Sea World and this time, as much as I still hate to spend that kind of money on one day, we have the time to save so despite the cost, I think we're going to do it. So if you have the time and can save up the money, I say go for it. It'll be an experience and you'll either say you're glad you did it and won't do it again or you'll absolutely love it and go back again.
My DB and DSIL were "moused out" so we met at US/IOA this Thanksgiving. I booked our package but didn't analyze it.
We enjoyed it, but I'm not sure we loved it $325 worth.
How important is it to you to see WWoHP during the first year? If the answer is not very, I'd wait until you can spend two or three days, see everything, and benefit from the price break of a longer ticket.
I'm going through the same dilenma right now for our August trip. My DD wants to go to see the Harry Potter attraction but when I looked at the prices for one day at one park I almost fell off my chair. And hearing the reports of crowds and waits to even get into the land, never mind the waits for the rides themselves, I'm thinking we may not do it. So hard to make a decision, but I think the whole $$ issue will steer us away from the park.
I have gotten very reasonably priced universal tickets and I think it's easier to find them discounted. Have you checked out some of the discount sellers and AAA (which also gives you a break on food and gift shops). I'm not sure how much you eat, but I'm not sure I would do the food option.
I have used Maple Leaf for Disney and they are reputable and were great to work with.
You can also get 2 day tickets for $100, each or so each and I don't think they expire.
We have been tossing around the idea of going to Universal, mainly to see Harry Potter. But for 2 days in both parks plus off-site hotel it was $400 for the 3 of us! That didn't even count food for those 2 days. Knocking it down to 1 day at Islands of Adventure really didn't save us that much more money. I think we are going to skip it, again this year.
I REALLY wanted to take my eight year old son to the Harry Potter attraction next month, but the cost is too high for just one day. I'm afraid we would get there and be miserable due to the large crowds and I'd get upset thinking about the money I'd spent. We did both Universal parks a couple of years ago and enjoyed them, but I think Harry is gonna have to wait another year, when we plan on doing another Florida trip where we will hit up a few different parks across the state.
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We took two days out of our Disney trip in October to do Universal and IoA, though the only thing I really wanted to see was WWoHP. I'll be honest - I LOVED HP, but the rest of IoA was horrible (disclaimer: I was pregnant at the time and didn't want to do any rollercoasters, so that may have colored my opinion). We ended up spending as much time as we could at HP, and then went back to the hotel early, just because it was hot, awfully crowded, and honestly, the people there just weren't as nice as people at Disney (both employees and guests)! We went to US the next day, and ended up spending about three hours total - it was during their Halloween Horror Nights, so they closed the park at 5pm. We'd originally intended to go to HHN, but once I heard about the awful crowds, we decided to ditch. If I had it to do over again, I would've skipped Universal totally and only done HP. However, if you have a kid (or adult) who's really into movies and thrill rides, they might love Universal.
If your group would be willing, I'd recommend waiting on HP until the hubbub has wound down and they've gotten better crowd control methods going (seriously - have you ever had to wait in line to go inside a store to shop??? Crazy! The stores are all tiny and jampacked with people. And for some reason, the employees think nothing of restocking shelves in all that mess). They should've made HP about three times larger than it is - they could've sacrificed some of the other "islands" to really do HP right. Ah, if only it had worked out for HP to be at Disney....it would've been perfect....
We looked into tacking on two days at HP for our upcoming land/sea trip in August but the cost as well as the higher ride height requirements (w/ a 5yo who wouldn't meet most of them) helped in the decision to delay a Universal trip to a future visit.
Thanks for all your input. Now that the park hours are posted for Sept, I have looked over my possible touring plan. The disney plans will work much better if we leave out Universal. Like many of you, I'm afraid I might not enjoy it $325 worth.
Of course, we can always add that last minute if we change our minds. I think we will just see what the vacation budget is doing at the time.
Thanks everyone for your advice.
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Having said that, we really enjoyed Universal and I'd definitely recommend a trip. In all honesty though, if you can do two days, rather than one, I think you'll enjoy it much more.
Michelle - with my step sisters!
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