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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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'm considering becoming a DVC member and trying to decide whether to go the resale route or direct from Disney. My main concern in buying DVC at all is not being able to get in when we want to. I don't want to spend all that money and then not even be able to get in! I can't really get a sense of how much of a problem that is. We're a family of 5 and are limited to going over Christmas, Easter week or in the summer. Our preferred location would be either of the Epcot resorts. I know those 1BR sleep 4 but my understanding is that they will allow 5 in there, they just won't provide a bed. Our youngest is 3 so I think that's ok for now. I'm not sure if I should (a) buy in at one of those 2 resorts, (b) buy at the cheapest resort possible like HH and book at 7 months at whatever resort on Disney property that I can get into, or (c) buy at BLT from Disney. I feel like if I bought from Disney, BLT is probably in high demand, and I could make a reservation there at 11 months and try to switch over to Beach Club because people will be wanting BLT, so maybe that is the best decision from an investment perspective. I'm also considering just buying a small contract first and trying it rather than going all in. We only go to Disney once every couple of years, so if I bought from Disney, I'm thinking we would buy the minimum 160 and plan on banking and doing a Disney vacation every other year. I'd love to hear thoughts from the experts!
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Buy at a resort you would be happy to stay at every time you go. Particularly if you travel over Christmas. I have been on a waitlist and gotten what I requested more often than not but we travel at non peak season and are excited to stay at our home resort so if we get our waitlist it is a treat to try a new place.
If you plan to use your points at a Walt Disney World resort most of the time, I would strongly recommend buying into a WDW property. It doesn't have to be your favorite--just make sure it's a resort you wouldn't mind staying at in the event that you cannot switch at 7 months.
Many people will tell you "buy where you want to stay", but I prefer "DON'T buy where you DON'T want to stay." Given variables like contract end dates, purchase price and annual dues cost, I think there's a lot more to it than just picking your favorite and buying there. Especially if you are making that "favorite" determination based upon photographs and other second-hand info rather than your own personal experiences.
If you are prepared to call and book the Beach Club or BoardWalk on 7 months notice during the summer or holiday periods, I think you will be successful more times than not.
Every time? No. If you want that (virtual) guarantee, you'll have to ignore finances and ending dates and just buy into one of those properties.
As for putting 5 in the One Bedroom, just make sure you take into account how long you'll be able to do that. Not knowing how old the other two are makes it difficult to comment.
My kids are 6 and 8 and they've begun to reach the age where sharing a bed is less-than-ideal. Too much giggling, horsing around, "he's on my side of the bed" type stuff. At BWV and BCV you'll have two sharing the sofabed AND one on the floor. Give some serious thought to how long that arrangement will truly work so that you're prepared to add more points when necessary.
BCV and BWV only have one bathroom in a 1B villa. By the time the kids are hitting their teen years, that's a lot of extra traffic in-and-out of the master bedroom area. Plus you've got 4-5 people needing to shower, fix their hair, etc. on a daily basis.
As for the number of points, nothing wrong with starting small and adding-on as necessary. Just make sure you do a reasonable job of predicting when you will need more points and whether you'll be in a position to do it.
If you know that there's a particular resort you always want to stay at, then I'd buy points there. We love the Beach Club Villas and I love the fact that we have points there. Having said that, we've only ever been waitlisted for it once and not had the waitlist come through for us and that was during the Food and Wine Festival, when both the Beach Club Villas and BoardWalk Villas are very popular.
Both BLT and Kidani Village have the extra chair sleeper, & additional bathroom in 1 br units, making it more "do-able" for a family of 5. Also, speak to your agent. Contracts are available at mostly all DVC properties, not only the ones they may be promoting at a particular time. We bought into Old Key West, with the 2057 end date; only AkV & SSR were being promoted at the time. I would not buy into a property I had no intention of using regularly, because waitlists are never a sure thing.
The OKW 1 BR rooms are being redone to replace that solo chair in the LR for a twin sleeper chair like AKL and BLT so they will soon sleep 5 as well.
That being said, we have always gotten our 7 month window even over Christmas and every waitlist has come through as well (even with less then 2 months for Spring Break) and we always travel the high seasons. But we could be just lucky.
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Thanks for the advice. I particularly like the "don't buy where you don't want to stay". I think that's a good way to look at it, and I hadn't heard that OKW was changing their rooms to sleep 5. That's good info! Now I just have to convince my husband....
Thanks for the advice. I particularly like the "don't buy where you don't want to stay". I think that's a good way to look at it, and I hadn't heard that OKW was changing their rooms to sleep 5. That's good info! Now I just have to convince my husband....
We are new owners (our first trip Home will be this August), so I don't have specific advice, but I just wanted to say . I was in the "I just have to convince hubby" boat as well. I think it helped showing him the break even charts that are available and showing him exactly what we would be getting for our money and how much we would be saving in the end. Again, good luck!
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Like others have said, if you think you will be wanting to stay at a particular resort most of the time, then if possible, buy points at that resort.
About the waitlist, I have been waitlisted twice, and within a week of being put on a waitlist, the reservation came through for what I wanted.
The busy seasons, such as Christmas, Easter, it is certainly to your advantage to stay in your home resort because of the 11 month window. with your dh!
I talked to my dh for over 2 years before he took me serious. And then I had lots of info, spread sheets and tried to have all of my answers ready for all of his questions!
Now he tells me that it was a great decision and he thinks we should have done it sooner!
We are new owners (our first trip Home will be this August), so I don't have specific advice, but I just wanted to say . I was in the "I just have to convince hubby" boat as well. I think it helped showing him the break even charts that are available and showing him exactly what we would be getting for our money and how much we would be saving in the end. Again, good luck!
I would love for someone to tell me where to find those "break even" charts...Thanks!
The passporter DVC e-book is a great resource and it has a great break even chart in it that you can enter your own information. We purchased this book prior to making an offer on a resale a couple of weeks ago. We found it very helpful.
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. I was in the "I just have to convince hubby" boat as well. I think it helped showing him the break even charts that are available and showing him exactly what we would be getting for our money and how much we would be saving in the end. Again, good luck!
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