Survey to WDW...A Savings Challenge and PTR in one! - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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Me (Sparky)- From MA. Age 34 . I am the so called leader of the trip, so I have taken on the actually nitty gritty planning for our trip. The coordinator so to speak. Which is perfect for me, as I am somewhat of a control freak and love planning!
This is me! Sparky...
DisneyDana (Dana from here on out)- From SC. Age?? (I can't tell!) Dana is the lady who makes me laugh till I about pee my pants. She is more a go with the flow, whatever works, type(to put it nicely, and not in her words, ) and therefore while we have discussed every aspect of our trip, she has pretty much let me have at it!
Dana and Pooh Bear
We belonged to a thread about the TV show Big Brother in summer 2010. We had been talking on there and while our opinions on the show and who we wanted to win varied, we seemed to get along well and enjoyed the conversation.
At some point, Dana ended up PM'ing me and we started talking more...about more than just PP too. By the time October of 2010 rolled around, we had already thrown out the idea of meeting up at WDW. At the time it was more of a "Hey wouldn't this be really neat?" thing.
By 2011 that I had ended up finding her on Facebook and she accepted my friend request. Passporter messaging fell by the wayside and we talk probably 100 times a day on FB now! It wasn't so long into 2011 when we started seriously talking about meeting at WDW.
As you will see in my writing I am sure, we have adopted all kinds of lingo. I use them in my writings every once in a while as a shout out to my firnweed, without really saying anything.
You might see FINI2 written or talked about here or there. That is what we call ourselves. It started out as another name, but after some changes...Now It's 2! Therefore we are FINI2. It's okay with us, as sometimes going through things brings people even closer together and we feel our friendship is closer than ever.
We are thrilled with all the new changes in our trip, and we are so excited for this trip. We feel at this point, it is not a trip of a first time meet...it's more of a reunion to us. A reunion 2 years in the making once we set etes on each other (Which also happens to be the moment I am most excited for).
A meeting of the best of friends. What a friendship you can build online! We have been there for each other through good times and bad in the past 2 years, never more than a click away. I know I can always count on her to listen, give advice or just to make me laugh...and laugh...and laugh...like LAMO (or LMAO)!!! I truly love and care about this lady.
What a trip this will be!
It wasn't easy coming up with the time to go. I had a trip planned for 2011, so that year was out. When we started talking about 2012, Dana immediately said she wouldn't go anytime except for Oct-Feb. She hates the heat, and can't deal.
Obviously, Jan and Feb of 2011 were out...too close. That left Oct-Feb of 2012/2013. We decided that the Christmas time decorations would be fun, and I have never been during that time.
We finally made the decision that we would plan for Wednesday Nov. 28- Sunday Dec. 2.
I have no choice but to fly, and Dana has opted to fly too so she can arrive quicker. Dana arrives around 1:00pm, so she will wait for my plane to arrive at 3:15pm, so that we can ride the DME together to our resort. We have decided since I come in so late on Wednesday going to a park won't work that day.
I am taking the last flight out on Sunday at 8:30pm and plan to spend the day at MK (my fave park) with my friends The Tozers (mommyforallkids on PP). Dana is leaving a little earlier at 4:30pm. So we will have our goodbye breakfast together before parting ways.
The Where...
Wanting to save some money, because we are going to be on the go at parks mostly, we decided upon a value resort. I looked up the Fall Discount WDW had available, and our first choice of The POP didn't have availability. After talking about it, we both decided that it wasn't worth the discount to us to have a shared bus system and we just weren't too interested in the other resorts. So I booked us for a room at The POP rack rate. After 10 days of checking the site numerous times a day...a discount for The POP...well, popped up! Saving us $100 or $50 each.
So we are now booked for a preferred pool view room at The POP. Which is my favorite resort and Dana's never stayed there, so we are excited about it. This component of our trip is PIF!
The What...
After discussing all the possibilities of park tickets, we decided that we needed 3 day tickets (4 for me with my last MK day). We also decided to forgo park hoppers this time around and instead we have tickets to MVMCP. The tickets to the parks and the party are bought and paid for.
After much discussion about park days and ADR's, and much much more time and changes on the website...we have a finalized schedule!
In no particular order...as we don't want to share exactly where we will be when...
Day 1/Arrival Day- Park: NONE ADR: Ohana
Park: DHS ADR: Mama Melrose for lunch and 50's PTC for late dinner
Park: AK/MVMCP ADR: Tusker House for breakfast and Yak &Yeti for late lunch
Park: Epcot ADR: Le Cellier for late lunch and Rose & Crown for late dinner (with hopes for a patio table for Illuminations).
Day 5/Departure Day- Early Breakfast at Whispering Canyon Cafe and MK for me with an ADR at Liberty Tree Tavern with the Tozers.
I have contacted Linda (aka Shadowryter) about tee transfer designs and am waiting back to hear on that. I know as of right now she is on a WDW trip herself, and her computer is down for the count. Hoping that it is fixed before our trip, and we get our tee transfers. Fingers crossed and pixie dust for us and Linda both! BIG, heartfelt THANKS to Linda for working with me...I have been a slight P.I.A. with it, but she has been great. Dana and I truly appreciate her time and work, to make our trip that much more fun and special.
We plan to celebrate Christmas a little early and exchange small gifts that we bought for each other. I am most excited about giving Dana hers and I hope she loves it!
I still am working diligently on my to do list...here is where I stand on that....
I still have lots of stuff to do before the trip including...
Finishing off and cashing in survey stuff
Buy tees for myself
Buy thermal shirts and hoodie
Make tees
Check WDW bag and make refills where necessary
Then off course the stuff you do before you leave...
Print packing list
Print ADR confirmations
Online Check In
Check In for Airlines/Print boarding pass
Make reminders to Dana
Pack
Grocery shop for home while I am gone...LOL
Lastly, the latest update on my survey totals....a little over one month left!
1.) Only Cash- $47.05 2.) My Survey- 1220 points 3.) Survey Spot- 500 points 4.) Opinion Outpost- 0 points 5.) E Poll- 17,350 points 6.) Ispos Isay- 700 points 7.) Swag Bucks- 615 Swag 8.) Quick Rewards- $27.30 9.) Panel Polls- 17,750 points 10.) Tin Can Fund- $180.35
I am only writing in the survey sites that I will be using for the next 3 weeks. The survey site totals are for what I haven't cashed in yet. These figures are not yet reflected in my TOTAL. Once I have cashed out AND put the money into my savings account, that is when they will reflect in the total savings. I have decided I will give one final update to this PTR (goal at least) one week before we leave. I will tell you at that point what I have cashed in for and my final total of savings. That leaves 2 more updates before our trip, October Savings and the Final Total.
Thanks for following along in all our planning. Hope to see you on the first!
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I can't see any posts from Dana here In fact, I don't see any posts from Dana anywhere on PP, there are other threads/TRs that I know she commented on, but it seems like they've all disappeared
I hope you guys have a great time! 50 days will fly by.
I can't see any posts from Dana here In fact, I don't see any posts from Dana anywhere on PP, there are other threads/TRs that I know she commented on, but it seems like they've all disappeared
I hope you guys have a great time! 50 days will fly by.
Thanks! It is so weird. We don't know what is going on.
Thanks! It is so weird. We don't know what is going on.
It's really bizarre! I think that's why some threads were acting all wonky, showing more pages that wouldn't load. I had a few threads that did that, and the only thing they all had in common were posts from Dana that I couldn't see anymore
It's really bizarre! I think that's why some threads were acting all wonky, showing more pages that wouldn't load. I had a few threads that did that, and the only thing they all had in common were posts from Dana that I couldn't see anymore
You know, I hadn't even realized that, but now that you say it. You're right! If my other PTR was 14 pages, but Dana's posts are missing...that might have dropped the page count down to 13 with hers gone. Thus the showing that it's 14 pages long, but only 13 load.
We have contacted Admins. over this and hope it gets cleared up, so we can both contribute to this PTR.
Welp, you've totally described our meeting as you and me running across the airport in slow motion, with our arms wide open hollering, "JOHN!....MARSHA!" lamo!
I think you've covered just about everything here. I'll just sit back and let you do the talking and chime in when need be.
Welp? It totally will be like that!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DisneyDana
Man! My little smiley didn't show up to show us running across the airport! here we are!
Yep, that pretty much sums up how I think we will look!
OK - I don't know how I missed the beginning of this. Well, I do - I was in the hospital (just overnight for a stress test) and now back to work. I will get caught up here though. I'm off tomorrow. Signed in now!
OK - I don't know how I missed the beginning of this. Well, I do - I was in the hospital (just overnight for a stress test) and now back to work. I will get caught up here though. I'm off tomorrow. Signed in now!
Coop to the new and improved, better than ever PTR!
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Survey to WDW...A Savings Challenge and PTR in one!
"Sparky"(My first trip.)
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Thank
Pixie Dust
) and therefore while we have discussed every aspect of our trip, she has pretty much let me have at it!
It started out as another name, but after some changes...Now It's 2! Therefore we are FINI2. It's okay with us, as sometimes going through things brings people even closer together and we feel our friendship is closer than ever.
I can't see any posts from Dana here 
In fact, I don't see any posts from Dana anywhere on PP, there are other threads/TRs that I know she commented on, but it seems like they've all disappeared 
Coop to the new and improved, better than ever PTR!
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