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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Quick question to all of you. Regarding the ages of the clubs. I have 2 daughters, who on our next cruise (thanksgiving 2013) will be 8 1/2 and 11 and 3 months. We are also cruising with people we met on the thanksgiving 2010 cruise, and our oldest has become good friends with their daughter, who is 10. They don't see each other except on video chats, etc. My question is will my oldest be able to be in he same kids club as her, or are the age groupings strict/absolute? I thought from my prior cruises they were guidelines, but I am hearing conflicting reports. Not only will my oldest prefer to be with her friend, she would rather be in the lab as opposed to the 11-14 year old club.
They have really been sticking to the rules lately as far as the ages in the kids clubs, so I wouldn't plan on the kids jumping groups until you get onboard and hear from a kids club cast member that it would be ok. You may get conflicting reports from different cast members if you call and you don't want to tell the kids they'll be able to be together if they won't. This has been really wishy-washy lately. They policies have recently been strongly enforced, at least on the Disney Dream.
Yeah, that is one thing that my son didn't like. He was 9 yrs old and turning 10 in 2 mths and they wouldn't allow him to go up to the next level. He did not enjoy the kids club at all and that was a down fall-too young for him.. We didn't keep our kids in it much.
I love love love the security. They couldn't find my son, so we kept looking at the computer and the GPS and soon we were able to find him, tucked away.
Disney needs to look at this part of it. I heard the same thing from dh cousin who went on the cruise re her kids. Let's face it, we want our kids to be happy so we can have less fussing and if they aren't happy in the kids club, it is difficult on us.
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The Oceaneer Club/Oceaneer Lab covers ages 3-10. A nine-year-old just short of 10 would still have 14 months to go before being qualified to be in Vibe, the tweens program - that's too great an age gap. I don't think there's any practical way for Disney to address that. If they did, everyone would be an "exception," and that's a tough way to run a safe program.
They have the same issues any school district has. Our children are in their care, and if something bad happens, they're at fault. When you have Disney's reputation for family-friendly entertainment, and billions of dollars are at stake, they can't afford to take the same risks we might take with our own children, and they certainly can't appear to take greater risks than we'd take.
So, for example, maybe your 13-year-old daughter would prefer to be in Edge (ages 14-17), rather than hang out with 11-year-olds. However, in general, 13-year-old girls and 17-year-old boys are not a good mix.
Similarly, Disney has to look at things like average height for an age group, and what happens when kids of significantly different sizes play sports together (which are some of the activities offered). Maybe your 9-year-old is as big as a typical 12-year-old, but probably not. If your peewee football league at home is set-up with different divisions for ages 8-10 and 11-12, it's rare to see a 9-year-old playing
with the 11-12 group.
Meantime, back when Oceaneer Club and Oceaneer Lab were totally separate programs, with no mixing at all, there were lots of complaints that siblings were often separated. They removed the 11- and 12-year-olds from the program to narrow the age spread, and allowed all 3- to 10-year-olds to mix, though they still have 5 different age "tracks" within that - kids can choose whatever activities on those tracks they wish, and play independently with anyone they wish within the 3-10 group.
I don't think you'll find another cruise line that does a better job of trying to give the kids something to do so their parents can do their own thing. There are lines where all the teens do at night is hang out in the lobby outside the casino (for some inexplicable reason, they also put the arcade right next to the casino entrance). There are lines that operate their program on limited hours unless a certain number of kids are on board, and it's really rare to see all-day and all-evening programming for all ages between 0 and 17.
Disney's program may not be perfectly tuned to ours (and our kids) personal preferences - how can it be, when we all have different parenting styles and kids who are unique individuals? Too few sports for kids who do nothing but sports, too much sports for kids who'd rather be reading or playing Nintendo. Kids who push to be treated like adults, others who feel intimidated by older kids. About all we, or Disney, can do is hire private tutors and nannies for each kid, so each gets exactly what they want and need.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
Now I'm concerned...my oldest will two boys will be 11 years 1 month and 9 years 1 month when we cruise. They are best friends, and brothers... I know they will not go two separate ways...
And I get the reasoning- I have a masters in education, child psych, taught middle school and have children lol . But, I know my boys will not participate without the other.
All is ok, I guess my 5 will be hanging together with us, just like everyday and every trip
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Happy wife of Chris, with the greatest group of characters, DS1 (10), DS2 (8), DD (5), DS3 (3), DD2 (1)
It doesn't have to be a club vs. no club situation at all. While in your case your boys might not want to spend all their time hanging in the clubs, each may find specific activities that appeal to them. So, maybe they spend an hour or two in the club each day, the rest with the family.
The nice thing about a cruise, regardless of age, is that it's easy for folks to go their own way for an hour or so, then reunite. You do some "together" stuff, some "me" stuff, some "me and you" stuff... and unlike a theme park, nobody's going to get lost in the crowd or be difficult to track down.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
When I called, she asked which ship I'll be on. Then she looked up and said that my 11 year old will be able to go down to the club/lab, but that under no circumstances would the 10 year old be able to go up. Which is perfectly fine, as my 11 yo will want to be in the club/lab.
We got off the Dream earlier this month. It's my understanding that while Disney is keeping fairly strict age limits in the clubs, I have heard that those kids who are "border-age" (i.e., 11 year olds) MAY be given a choice of which area - Club/Lab or the tweens group. However, I wouldn't EXPECT this to happen on any given cruise, but it may; and once the choice is made they cannot change.
Also, there are more "open house" times scheduled at each kids level where anyone may attend. While there may be specific programs (i.e. story time) offered during the open house, parents are responsible for the children not the CMs. Parents must attend the open house with their child(ren), but it is designed to allow younger/older kids a chance to experience the areas where they aren't officially linked.
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. But, I know my boys will not participate without the other. 
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