From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! LIVE UPDATE 3/10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! LIVE UPDATE 3/10
From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days!
Pre-trip report – part one: cruising at Christmas is not cheap
Dates: Friday 24 February – Friday 10 March Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (44) and DH Mark (51) Destinations: Walt Disney World, along with SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Discovery Cove, LEGOLAND and a few other attractions, oh and a Disney cruise Resorts: Old Key West, BoardWalk Villas, Boulder Ridge Villas at Wilderness Lodge, Disney Wonder and Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas Meets: A few along the way… Celebration: 20 years since we first met!
As the title of this trip report suggests, this is a very different trip to the ones we usually plan. Let me just start off by saying I am an uber-planner. I probably need to attend some sort of support group. That’s how bad I am.
When we bought into the Disney Vacation Club back in 2002, we talked about our home resorts. For those who aren’t DVC Members, why not and heck, you need to learn all about it now in my book – PassPorter’s Disney Vacation Club Guide for Members and Non-Members (sorry couldn’t resist the plug… ) Anyway, a very quick summary. You buy points at one specific resort and that’s known as your home resort. The bonus of home resort points is that you can book 11 months ahead. i.e. say it’s January, you can book as far ahead as December. You can book at the other DVC resorts, but only at seven months out. Even then, you can usually get availability at the other resorts. I remember when we bought in being told “you’ll only have problems if you book a few weeks ahead” and me confidently sitting there and saying “we won’t be doing that”. Ok….
This trip was booked starting from 24 November, yes Black Friday, literally three months ahead. So why was it so late? Well, are you ready for a bit of a long story? Sit down and make yourself comfortable…
I said I was an uber planner, right? Well, having not been to Walt Disney World for my birthday and Christmas for a number of years (2012 for my 40th was the last time ), in my long range plans that had stood since about 2014, I was adamant I was going back for 2017 for my 45th birthday. It wasn’t going to be easy, as my work has strict guidelines in place for peak period leave. Only 40% of people can be off over Christmas, but that’s alright, as I was planning on working the whole Christmas period in 2016 and had worked most of it in 2015, so that should count in my favour…
The other problem was we wouldn’t know whether we’d been successful in our applications until mid-July. Ugh. This was a real issue, as I’d have to hope that flights were still a reasonable price by then. This is how much of a planner I am. I even checked prices in mid-July 2016, and they didn’t seem too bad. Ok then, looks like this could be a goer.
We were going to take a total of three weeks off outside of Christmas/New Year mandatory holidays. Over here, we get Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day off. If they fall on a weekend, you get a day off in lieu, so it can lead to quite long weekends, if it falls right, which it would’ve done in 2017. What could I do with three weeks? What couldn’t I do, more like?
Anyone who’s read my previous trip reports will know that’s usually the case with me. I tend to cram as much into a vacation as I can, generally on the grounds of “I never know whether we’ll get back to a place, so I’d rather see it all or as much as we can anyway.” This was the girl who in 2008 took a 16 day trip to the States that took in 24 hours in New York City, a week in Walt Disney World, followed by time in Chicago, Disneyland and Las Vegas, before heading home, and in 2016, our eight day road trip from Boston to Buffalo took in Acadia National Park, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Niagara Falls.
So the original plans for our Christmas 2017/New Year 2018 was basically to fly to Hawaii, spend a week in Aulani, then fly back to LA and spend a couple of days in Disneyland, fly to Orlando, spend a week in Disney World, then take a short cruise to finish up. It would’ve all worked out nicely, except for one thing… the cruise would’ve been over Christmas. I figured the Disney parks are crazy over Christmas, but a ship can only fill up so much, right? Probably right, but I reckoned without how much Disney can charge for a cruise over Christmas…
When we were on the Dream in September 2016, we went to go and talk through our next cruise, and just about had heart failure at the price of Christmas or New Year cruises. There is no way I can afford to pay for those!
We decided there and then to change things around a bit. We figured we’d still aim to take three weeks, but would leave later in December or even at Christmas time, and would take a seven night cruise on the Fantasy, as hopefully they’d have Star Wars at Sea Days on them. Ok, that would work. I was gutted that we’d probably have to lose Hawai’i off the itinerary, as we absolutely adored our first visit there in 2013. We weren’t expecting to, but trust me, Aulani is a complete delight. We fell in love with the place immediately and really can’t wait to get back, but I guess we will have to wait after all.
At this point, I just have to share a few photos we took around the resort with the tripod. They always remind me of how wonderful this place is. Sniff. Oh well, we will get back there…
So where was I? Ah yes, cruising at Christmas is not cheap. Our Christmas plans were in a bit of disarray, but they were sort of repairable, and so that remained the state of play until…. Disney announced their early 2018 cruise itinerary. I’ve always fancied the idea of a Southern Caribbean cruise, as so many of the places sound wonderful, and guess what popped up in January 2018, just when we were thinking of taking a cruise. Ok, now this sounded good…
The day the cruises went on sale, I got our evil travel agent Sara (evil, because she has a way of getting us to take cruises we weren’t necessarily planning on! ) to price up a Fantasy cruise with the Star Wars Day at Sea, and the Southern Caribbean cruise on the Wonder to see which was cheaper. The Southern Caribbean won, and we decided to go with that, except its sailing dates are from 14-21 January. This meant that, if we took a three week vacation, we’d literally be flying out on something like 29 December.
Why does this matter? Well, it doesn’t for me, as I have a fair amount of vacation time, and we also operate a flexi-time working system, i.e. you get back whatever you work extra in a month (to a reasonable level) as time in lieu. However, Mark gets a set amount of vacation time and his is fixed on the calendar year. In 2016, he actually ended up taking a week extra due to an administrative error, shall we say? However, what it suddenly meant was Mark wouldn’t be taking two weeks leave in early December, which meant he had two weeks of vacation left to use… Ok, time to plan then…
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and heck, you need to learn all about it now in my book – 
) Anyway, a very quick summary. You buy points at one specific resort and that’s known as your home resort. The bonus of home resort points is that you can book 11 months ahead. i.e. say it’s January, you can book as far ahead as December. You can book at the other DVC resorts, but only at seven months out. Even then, you can usually get availability at the other resorts. I remember when we bought in being told “you’ll only have problems if you book a few weeks ahead” and me confidently sitting there and saying “we won’t be doing that”. Ok…. 
), in my long range plans that had stood since about 2014, I was adamant I was going back for 2017 for my 45th birthday. It wasn’t going to be easy, as my work has strict guidelines in place for peak period leave. Only 40% of people can be off over Christmas, but that’s alright, as I was planning on working the whole Christmas period in 2016 and had worked most of it in 2015, so that should count in my favour… 
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