Cruising for Practically Free…Yep..I said Free! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Hi all! It’s me again! I’ve been away for a while but decided it’s time to write about my summer vacation.
For those that don’t know me, I’m Jen. I am not going to do the long intro as many who are reading probably already know me. If you don’t you can go ahead and find one of my old reports.
This trip was a last minute booking for the most part. I had been wanting to cruise the special 3 night sailing on the Fantasy this summer but I just couldn’t justify the cost. One of my very good friends, “J”, was sailing that sailing as she would be turning 50 on Castaway Cay day. Who wouldn’t want to spend their 50th there? Right?
I watched for special rates, which are sometimes released through my job and nothing was showing up…so I pretty much had given up hope, despite J constantly telling me I needed to be there.
Late June I just happened to be working on something and needed to call DCL. While I was on the phone I asked if they knew of any special rates….BINGO! That cruise was now on the list of ones I could book! I put it on hold immediately.
I asked Skip (my husband) if he would like to cruise this summer and that I had enough funds to pay for it all and enough airline points to fly us all. His response was a big fat no! I did ask if it was ok for us gals to go (Claire and I) and he said he didn’t care. I then said I would ask my mom as well as she had been hinting for quite some time she wanted to do a cruise.
Mom said she had to wait till she cleared it from work, so Claire and I booked. (Of course if you know my husband, he then later said he would rather we didn’t go and didn’t understand that we had paid in full already and it was nonrefundable).
A few days later, Mom said yes and she was added to the reservation.
And good news!!! Another friend of mine, “P”, was also coming now with her 2 daughters. Her birthday was after the cruise, but she too would be celebrating 50! J was also sailing with 3 of her daughters, one who was on our cruise last summer…so it was going to be a TON of fun!!!
Now if you read my title, I mentioned that I cruised for practically free. That is true, but don’t expect to be able to use all the cost saving ways I used. To start with, I did get a discounted rate, though not cheap, it was cheaper than full rate.
Over the past year I had done everything I could to save up money and get gift cards for Disney. I actually do this all the time. My main way is by doing something called Swagbucks and I also dabble with My Points. With these sites I do “offers”, watch videos, answer surveys, etc to earn points. Those points can be cashed in for gift cards. I then take those gift cards and turn them in for Disney gift cards. This is not a quick and easy way to make money, but if you know some of the tricks you can earn free money. I do it pretty much daily and can earn from $25-$150 per month. I would say I average $75 a month. Again, I work at this and I have been doing it for years so I know what credits best for me and how to run videos without me having to monitor them too much.
I also ask for gift cards for my birthday or other holidays, so I save those up as well.
When I have some extra cash, or get a rebate from something…I turn those into gift cards as well.
What it all comes down to is I had enough in gift cards to pay for Claire and I to cruise this cruise. Mom had a Disney Rewards card and that paid half her fare, so she didn’t have much out of pocket there either.
On to flights. We knew we would come in at least 1 day early and probably would stay 1 day after since the flights were pretty expensive to fly home the day the cruise disembarked. It was cheaper to get a hotel than for the 3 of us to fly home that Sat. In the end, J talked me into staying an extra day as well so that we could spend Sunday at Magic Kingdom together. The flight for Monday wasn’t really much of a difference from the Sunday flight and still the hotel cost was cheaper for 2 nights than flying home Sat. (Yeah those Sat flights were HIGH).
I booked Claire and I to fly with Southwest on points…coming in on July 10 and flying home July 16….early! For Claire and I, the only cost was tax and then I did purchase early bird check in for both ways. I believe the cost total for the 2 of us was around $80….so if you are keeping track…so far I have only spent $80 out of pocket. Of course we booked Mom on the same flights and she did pay for her flights.
Hotel….we needed to pay for a prenight hotel. J and I discussed it and we decided we wanted to stay at the port. We did some quick looking and then decided on Radisson as it was pretty cheap and we really didn’t want to pay too much. I believe it was just under $130 for a 2 queen room at a prepaid rate. P also decided to stay there as well. This was also an out of pocket expense…but right now I am at about $210 in expenses…not bad for a 6 night vacation!
Ok….things are coming together! Now we need to decide how to get to and from the port!
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Threaded Mode
