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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 am an avid WDW person, but have never done a cruise (on any line). I keep hearing about great deals, but when I asked for a quote it was WAY WAY WAY more than the deals I've heard about. Questions: Are Disney Cruises a fixed price - everyone in the same type state room pays the same thing or are there deals out there but you have to know about them? How do you know if you've paid too much?
Hoepfully Dave will pipe in here as he can answer this in better detail, but I think cost can be fairly complicated, or at least fluid. The prices do change from early booking to last-minute based on demand. There are seasonal fluctuations as well. The Passporter book has good information on this, too.
If your schedule allows it, and you aren't terribly concerned about specific cabin location, you can get a good deal booking a last-minute cruise. I booked one once 3 weeks out for a great rate. Those are usually advertised on DCL's site under Special Offers.
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Don't let your heart be filled with sorrow, for all you know, tomorrow, the dream that you wish will come true.
Usually the prices are at their lowest when the itineraries are first released, so if you can plan WAY ahead, you'll get the best deals. Also, remember that the cruise price includes your food (LOTS of food!), transportation from port to port, tons of daily and nightly activities, shows, beautiful cabin, pampering service everywhere you go. And, if you're traveling with kids, it also includes the incredible sunup to late-at-night kids clubs. When I first started researching cruises I would look up the price, then divide it by the number of nights and think-- whoa, how do people do this? But if you look at the price as the cost of a deluxe hotel room plus food plus entertainment plus transportation, it's much more reasonable and can even be cheaper than a land vacation.
Great deals are not easy to come by at all. DCL fares have always been towards the high end of the spectrum - they can be, because the level of service and guest satisfaction Disney delivers still leaves folks feeling like they've gotten their money's worth, or more. For many years, DCL has had the highest guest satisfaction ratings of any unit of Disney Parks and Resorts, and is near the top of the cruise industry as a whole.
Rates on all the major cruise lines are demand-driven. As staterooms on a particular sailing are reserved, the rates on the remaining staterooms rise. The faster they sell, the faster the rates rise. So, the more popular the date, the higher the fare. Even then, rates don't all start at the same price - introductory rates for a holiday week will, naturally, be higher from the start. When reservations sell slowly, the cruise lines offer specials. As they get close to the cruise date, they'll offer nearly any price to fill the remaining vacant rooms - something is better than nothing.
This is a rare thing on DCL. One of their secrets is that, instead of making those discounts available to the public, they offer those last-minute discounted rooms to WDW and DL cast members. If someone is going to get a deep discount, DCL would rather not publicize the fact - regular customers would think they can hold out for a lower rate. If they can't do it all with cast members, they'll make those deals available to Florida residents. Again, it minimizes publicity.
Historically, fares on DCL have gone in no direction but up. It's been rare that a cruise has been so unpopular that they've had to discount or make other offers to spur bookings. When they had just two ships, demand was much higher than the supply. It was rare to see a last-minute special. With the new ships now in service (lots more available staterooms), that supply/demand relationship is not quite as strong - last-minute specials are more likely. Still, you're not going to see deals on reservations made far in advance. What's also likely right now is a good deal on this fall's California coast/Mexican Riviera itineraries - not much interest in cruises to Mexico these days, and not much more interest in sailing from LA to San Francisco, San Diego, Ensenada, and back.
The great deals folks on this particular forum boast about the most are the on-board booking deals. The rates offered for your next cruise if you book it while you're on your current cruise are about as good as they get.
Other great deals have come when folks ask for an upgrade when they check in for their cruise - a better category stateroom for a relatively small additional cost. These aren't all that common - if the quoted price is too high, folks simply don't do it, so there's nothing to boast about. The cruise line does not give out free upgrades at check-in time - if a free upgrade happens, it happens in advance, because they needed to free-up lower-priced staterooms because there's more demand for them. They'll bump folks up from their current category to a higher category that's not selling as well.
How do you know if you've paid too much? All the travel agencies are required to offer the same rate as Disney is currently offering in its reservation system. If you have doubts about the quoted rate, check a different source. What you do find from outside travel agencies is a booking incentive. They can't discount the quoted rate, but they can offer a stateroom gift, money to spend during the cruise ("on-board credit"), and similar incentives. The thing to look out for is, if a rate seems too low to be true, it probably is. DCL's web site quotes the all-inclusive fare - taxes and port fees included. Some other sources deduct those mandatory costs from the quotation. (Many cruise lines do not quote the all-inclusive fare on their sites - they add them in after you select the cruise you desire - in order to provide apples-and-apples quotes, some sites therefore do the same for DCL's fares).
So, all this said, most of the time when you hear about a "great" DCL fare, it's because it was less than the individual expected to pay for a non-discounted reservation. It's not necessarily great when compared to a similar itinerary on another cruise line, but when you expect "expensive" and get "not-quite-as-expensive," you can still be a happy camper.
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Co-Author, PassPorter's Walt Disney World, PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line, and PassPorter's Disneyland and Southern California Attractions
Thanks for all of the great info! The sticker shock is starting to fade as I begin making plans for how I am going to save up for the trip.
Definitely will purchase a Passporter for this trip since I am a complete novice.
Sometimes the amount can seem really high for just a cruise, but if you think about how your activities and all meals/snacks and entertainment are all included in the price, it usually will even out with the cost of visiting the parks.
Regardless of price, I'm sure you will have a wonderful time on your Disney Cruise!
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When we booked last February for a late October/early November cruise, I was able to watch the rate for our level room come up something like $700 over a 3-4 month period.
I'll agree with what everyone else has said here. I had thought the price was a bit high when we went on our first cruise but the service, food, and entertainment that is included was top notch. We had such a good time that my wife booked a second cruise before our first one was over.
To get the best price it's usually best to book soon after sailings are released. We book almost a year out and by the time our cruise arrives the rate has gone up at least $600 or more.
There is one other way to that you might be able to get a better deal and that is to know someone that has or is just about to take a Disney cruise. If a person has booked another cruise while they were on one they might have a family and freinds offer they could share. In our case the offer was for a $200 onboard credit. We used it to book my family for their first cruise next January. If you know someone who is about to take a cruise they MIGHT be able to book one for you at the on board rate. I am not sure this method will work, I'll be giving it a shot on our next cruise for my inlaws.
There is one other way to that you might be able to get a better deal and that is to know someone that has or is just about to take a Disney cruise. If a person has booked another cruise while they were on one they might have a family and freinds offer they could share. In our case the offer was for a $200 onboard credit. We used it to book my family for their first cruise next January. If you know someone who is about to take a cruise they MIGHT be able to book one for you at the on board rate. I am not sure this method will work, I'll be giving it a shot on our next cruise for my inlaws.
I too have thought about this but it gets a little complicated. (All of you experienced cruisers out there correct me if I am wrong.) First, In order to use the onboard booking incentive, the individual who booked the original onboard reservation must also be on the cruise that is actually taken. This seems easily solved by thinking "well I am going on the next cruise with my in-laws so I will also be on the cruise & we can all use the onboard booking discount". So maybe the first problem is solved, but what about trip insurance? If you don't get trip insurance, then you may be in the clear. However, when I easily spend upwards of $4,000. on a cruise, I want trip insurance to be sure I won't lose out if something goes wrong. So... since my in-laws are much older than us, if we put them on our trip & then added trip insurance to the trip, our insurance would be significantly higher because of their age. Then if half of our party were to get sick, we would have to cancel the trip for everyone in order to collect the insurance. Again, we would not be able to book their stateroom separately from ours or they would not be able to use our onboard booking bonus because our names would no longer be on their reservation.
So... that's my .02 cents and if anyone knows of an easy, simple way that I could share my onboard discounts & bonuses, please let us all know about it.
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Planning a trip to WDW is like planning a wedding... If you expect things to be flawless, you will be sadly disappointed. If you know that there will be less than perfect times & decide to just laugh them off, then you will be excited when you find the magic all around you.
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