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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were for pricing in the coming year. Since the economy has taken a dump and the cruise lines are suffering, do you think that the discounting will continue into next year with Disney? I know being a Florida resident, we have seen pricing at unseen lows.
I think pricing will firm-up as the year goes by, but I tend to be an optimist about the economy.
DCL has been running fewer special deals than the other lines, and has offered fewer incentives than Disney's land-based destinations. If there are further major shocks to the economy, then we'll probably see more incentives. If the worst news is already behind us, then I suspect we we'll be seeing a return to DCL business-as-usual in pretty short order. They still have just the two ships and a huge base of happy repeat cruisers.
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Just a thought, but with the economy the way it is and the two new ships due out very soon, Disney just might start offering some incentives to get the first time cruiser and repeat customer seeing as their fleet will be bigger shortly. And it wouldn't be good for business if they couldn't fill those two new ships which were probably conceived in better economic times.
Ah..always an optimist in the group! I ask because we have seen some sharp discounts recently and I debate signing up for a cruise with current pricing or hedge my bets. I agree about the limited supply versus the always present demand though.
As a brit we`ve taken a bit of a double whammy with the exchange rate and our poor economy ( my business was 40% down last month)
I emailed DCL suggesting they might like to offer us poor brits some nice incentives similar to those offered to Florida residents. I got the usual cut and paste response.
DCL will suffer in this economy but maybe not quite as badly as other companies. I don`t expect big discounts.
Just a thought, but with the economy the way it is and the two new ships due out very soon, Disney just might start offering some incentives to get the first time cruiser and repeat customer seeing as their fleet will be bigger shortly. And it wouldn't be good for business if they couldn't fill those two new ships which were probably conceived in better economic times.
With DCL's plan - new ship arrives in early 2011, and the Wonder is sent to California soon thereafter, and with the fourth ship arriving in 2012...
If the economy is still in a deep funk by early/mid-2010 when they start selling cruises for the first new ship and the new West Coast itineraries, then it will be a serious problem for DCL. However, even that could be mitigated by two circumstances... the large number of DCL fans who will want to sail on the new ship (which will probably be assigned to the 3- and 4- night itineraries), and the opening of a new market on the west coast. While some DCL fans may be diverted to the West Coast itineraries, there is still a very large population in California that hasn't sailed with DCL, and will be able to drive to the port (saving the money most of us spend on airfare).
One of the lesser-known facts about DCL is that its marketing budget (both for reaching the public and for reaching travel agents) is about the lowest per-guest in the large ship cruise business. They could simply increase their efforts in West Coast media markets to something resembling "normal" in the cruise industry, and probably succeed in keeping the Wonder nice and full. And I'm quite confident DCL will be getting huge amounts of free publicity surrounding the arrival of the new ships (for selling itineraries on the new ship).
Finally, something to consider is that they waited until this March to announce exactly when the new ships would arrive, and what would happen with the west coast. In other words, they knew about the economy when they announced their decision. If they were seriously concerned that they'd be in trouble by expanding capacity, they had another option - to take either the Magic or Wonder (temporarily) out of service when the new ship arrives, rather than move one of the ships to the west coast. While they haven't explicitly said what's going to be happening with the Caribbean itineraries, I can't imagine DCL having just one big new ship in the Caribbean and one ship on the west coast - they're already doing more business in the Caribbean than one of the new ships can handle, and it would be tough to offer 3-, 4- and 7-night itineraries with one ship (well, it's easy to make up a calendar like that, but having 3- and 4- night itineraries one week, then 7-night the next is harder to sell than having the same selection of itineraries every week).
Yes, the new ships could be arriving in better economic times. I'm just not willing to buy into the idea that Disney will issue major incentives. Anything but that! It's like believing an elephant can fly.
Oh, what's that, Dumbo?
Sorry folks, never mind!
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
One of the lesser-known facts about DCL is that its marketing budget (both for reaching the public and for reaching travel agents) is about the lowest per-guest in the large ship cruise business.
Now that I think about it, I see commercials all the time for Carnival, Royal Carribean and Norwegian cruise lines in addition to lots of Disneyland commercials. But no DCL commercials. I figure it's a regional thing (the other lines have ports in CA and DLR is closer to us than WDW), but it's still something I didn't think about before now....
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Yes, the new ships could be arriving in better economic times. I'm just not willing to buy into the idea that Disney will issue major incentives.
Major incentives? Whatever. But if they expanded the "kids sail free" promo a few months - say, into October? Well, I wouldn't mind that one little bit!
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Dave:
Thank you so much for your more than adequate opinion of the DCL market. I appreciate the time you took to thoroughly give a lay of the land. I tend to agree with everything you said...I just had hopes
I'm still hoping for discounting on the European cruises, as those are exceptionally highly priced, compared to the same itinerary on other lines, but I'm not aware of anything so far...
When we were on the seven night Eastern Caribbean over spring break they were offering 20% off plus a $400 shipboard credit if you booked onboard. However, that is the only discount I have seen. They are exceptionally expensive, as you mention.
I don't know anyone else's experience, but we signed up for our Magic cruise (sailing May 30 2009) last fall and paid in full in early March. Because there are 6 in our family, it required two cabins.
We got an email in mid-March saying we'd be getting a credit back of over $3,000 due to lower rates. We were shocked, elated, happy, amazed!
I can only imagine this is due to the economic times.
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Just a thought, but with the economy the way it is and the two new ships due out very soon, Disney just might start offering some incentives to get the first time cruiser and repeat customer seeing as their fleet will be bigger shortly. And it wouldn't be good for business if they couldn't fill those two new ships which were probably conceived in better economic times.
Angie
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