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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 also cook dinners at home. Mike takes his lunch to work everyday so that saves a bunch. We only go out to eat maybe 3 times a month because we can cook the same meals here for a fraction of the cost.
From what DH says I am a good cook.
It's cool to see coin jars are a big hit with everyone. It's surprising how much we get out of the coin jars I bring mine to the market where they have the coin machine so I don't have to roll them..
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I use the coinstar machine but I use it towards an amazon gift card so it's also free. If you want the money they charge 9%. I have changed a few habits myself to save up. I now order my daughter's diapers, wipes, food through amazon mom subscribe & save. The same box of diapers that I used to pay $41.99 for at BJ's wholesale club only costs me $28 with the subscribe and save program. That's a $14 savings on every box of diapers... believe me that adds up! Not sure if you have little ones but I wanted to mention it just incase.
Like others have said already, we buy APs every other year and group our trips. For example, we went to WDW last October 10-18 and bought our APs that trip. We used them for 8 days that trip. We just went back last week and used them 6 days that trip. Our next trip will be October 1 - 8 so we will use them another 7 days so we get a total of 21 days from those APs. Then we wait about 14 or 15 months to go again and buy our APs again that trip. So we are only paying for those APs about every 2 to 2.5 years. Hope that makes sense.
We do enjoy table service meals on vacation so we also bought our Tables in Wonderland membership but with DD approaching her terrible twos now we plan to eat more counter service on our next trip. I feel less obligated to order my own meal with counter service so sharing meals will save a lot of money too.
Things we do that help make our DVC trips affordable:
-Drive to WDW instead of fly. Instead of buying 4 airplane tickets and renting a car, we spend a day in the car driving down the Eastern Seaboard and enjoying each other's company. It takes us about 15 hours drive-time to get from Philadelphia to Orlando. Amount Saved: $1500.
-Purchase Annual Passes, and get two trips minimum out of them. At the DVC member rate of about $400 each, Our park time costs us $200 each trip.
-Disney VISA - we have the Disney VISA credit card, and use it exclusively. We then request a Disney VISA Rewards gift card that we apply towards our WDW purchases.
-Grocery Shopping - I can't implore enough the importance of stocking your DVC kitchen each trip - the money saved by eating a meal or two a day in your room instead of at the parks is significant.
Those are money-saving ideas to use to make your vacation more affordable and still very enjoyable.
Excellent! I really need to look into ap they def seem worth it. We drove down just once and it was many years ago and the kids were small and it was small torture! We left at 11pm and stopped several times to rest and once to sleep but since they are older it may be time to revisit driving from long island especially since my dd will soon have a drivers license!!!
Here's what we are doing to save. At home - eat out less, entertainment consists of movie marathons of dvd's we already have ( ex - Pirates of the Carribean all 3) and community theater. We have 2 piggy banks (one a pig and one a cow) The pig gets "fed" every payday with $100-200. Then DH and I both get $100 allowance for the 2 weeks. Whatever we don't use of the allowance goes into the cow. (ex - $20 for gas, $20 to eat out, $15 on makeup then $45 goes to the cow at the end of the pay period and we start over) Travel - we drive. We take 2 extra days and drive from Michigan. My car gets 35 mpg and even using premium gas, it only costs us $160 in gas and the cost of a hotel and food. Can't get 2 airline tickets for that! At the parks - We are planning on buying an AP in Nov. Then we will use it for our Nov trip and planning a trip the following spring and then October again before the pass expires - 3 trips on one pass! And finally - DDP! Love it. We always eat well when we go down to Disney. This year I am planning to use some of our income tax refund for the DDP and AP - so really just saving $ for travel and misc spending. It's painless. If you really look at where your $ goes - it's not hard to make a few easy changes to find the cash.
We drive from Wisconsin every year and the savings are huge. Cost is about $450 for gas round trip when prices were at their highest. We usually leave around 3 am (beat Chicago traffic) and drive until we hit the Florida border then rest for a few hours. We get to Disney early in the AM and most of the time we can check in already. We take extra food, water and snacks and rarely need to purchase food. It is also nice to be able to pick up groceries or any other necessities you may need instead of purchasing at the hotel. We take at least 1 day and go to the outlet malls in Orlando. If you have a daughter, she will love it. We purchase almost all of our Disney souvenirs there for a fraction of the price at the parks. ( I got a pink hooded sweatshirt for $17 that was at Hollywood Studios for $50.) AP's have a lot of perks with them. (Savings on meals and DTD). We also ask for Disney gift cards from friends and family for birthdays and holidays.
i started my jar of cash and would like to buy disney gift cards so I am not tempted to "borrow" the money. What can I use them for in the parks besides the stores ?? I usually buy the park tix through undercover tourist? can I use them for dining? but not the dining plan right?
We put all of our change in a Planters Peanut jar. We just emptied it and it had $191 worth of change in there. It took us about a year to fill it with out loose change.
awesome!!! thats almost $200 disney dollars!!!!!!!
My husband and I have a family "jar" which when filled we can get about $1000! I have started my "secret" stash of cash and I have one of those change things that count your change I figure each time one of them reaches $25 i will buy a gift card.
We are thinking of driving in the near future...this April we are flying (paying more for tickets than I like) since our son is only just 3 but I figure in the next couple of years he should be fine to do the drive especially as our daughter has done it a few times and she is almost 11 now. So.....4 & 12 or 5 & 13 should be do able even from Rhode Island...right?
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When ever I get money for birthdays or holidays I add it to my "cash stash"
Yesterday I put in a few dollars I had in my wallet & saw I now have $100.00 saved already! Coin jar is filling up too..
We still have 8 months to go & save ..
I also cook dinners at home. Mike takes his lunch to work everyday so that saves a bunch. We only go out to eat maybe 3 times a month because we can cook the same meals here for a fraction of the cost.
From what DH says I am a good cook.
It's cool to see coin jars are a big hit with everyone. It's surprising how much we get out of the coin jars I bring mine to the market where they have the coin machine so I don't have to roll them..
The coin machine at my grocery store charges 9 cents on the dollar! Too much! My bank has one that can be used for free by account holders. I dump the coins at the bank and deposit the full amount in our vacation fund
I grocery shop at Shop Rite (north Jersey) and utilize a Price Plus card for in store savings. At the bottom of the receipt is printed the "Amount Saved." I write a check to our vacation fund for this amount. We make a game out of it with my daughter. We like to see how high we can get it! Sometimes it's a small amount - $4-$6, but when I really shop the circular it can be well over $20. The amounts are usually small enough that you don't really feel the pinch in your check book, but they can really add up in the vacation fund. I can usually hit $50 to $80 a month. I've been doing this for a little over a year and I have saved $1,800.
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