From One Club to the Other (Club Level to Disney Vacation Club)--A PTR - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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From One Club to the Other (Club Level to Disney Vacation Club)--A PTR
As a number of you are aware, we've been hugely fond of Club Level stays for going on seven years. While we've tossed around the prospect of buying into DVC every so often, we never before took it any further than my ordering the promo DVD about three years ago.
We talked it over then and concluded, "Nope, not for us. Costs waaaay too much to buy in. And then, everybody says your initial points are never enough, so you'll buy a bunch more. Even worse, no club lounge with all those yummy munchies."
That was that, we thought, and continued happily luxuriating at Club Level.
The most dangerous thing you can do Disneywise, I'm convinced, is to start returning annually as we did from '13-'15. Once we totaled up how much those three decadent CL stays had cost us, we realized we'd spent a DVC buy-in and then some. Which led us to think far more seriously about becoming DVC owners.
Next, Drew watched the DVC dvd and got ALL excited. I'd already seen it but too long ago to recall the particulars. We watched it again and quickly decided to rethink DVC.
A check of the DVC site revealed that only Aulani and the Poly were currently available. Aulani as our home resort was hardly practical. Strange as we are, we weren't the least thrilled by Hawaii when there about six years ago. Kona Cafe and its fabulous coffee are the only reasons we'll set foot in the Poly. Thus, we had a quandary until Drew did a search on one of the resale sites for our much-loved Grand Floridian.
Looked immediately promising as many GF listings as there were. Except, one and another and another were all waaaaay too expensive for too few points or justifiably costly for more points than we could afford. What initially seemed a likely one had only a few points remaining for next year because the current owner had borrowed most of them. A really plummy one had a similar problem--trip coming up soon that would use the 2017 points with a big chunk of 2018's borrowed.
Gawrsh! There was no workable means of buying into this thing without postponing our October trip, it began to appear. We were determined not to do that since it will be Drew's dream celebration of his 50th birthday. We decided to call it a night. Off to DVC dreamland we went.
Things always look better when you've had at least a fairly decent night's sleep. Unfortunately, we'd gotten so excited about maybe being able to do this that neither of us had gotten much sleep or was terribly bright-eyed when Drew began scanning the resales again.
He soon decided to look for ANY potential home resort. Nothing...nothing...and then, the Disney magic lit up our world with a Mary Poppins resale "practically perfect in every way."
Many of you have guessed by now, I expect, that our home resort will be our beloved Grand Floridian. We have enough points to cover our previously planned 1-br GF stay and a dozen left over that we think we'll use for just one night in a Saratoga Springs studio upon arriving. That will give us experience in both a 1-br and a studio at two different resorts.
And, Disney made it all work by rebooking our cash stay on points with the add-ons we had. Does the Disney magic still love us or what?
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“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.” —Winnie-the-Pooh
Last edited by Her Dotness; 12-29-2016 at 09:53 PM..
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.
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We have enough points to cover our previously planned 1-br GF stay and a dozen left over that we think we'll use for just one night in a Saratoga Springs studio upon arriving. That will give us experience in both a 1-br and a studio at two different resorts. 
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