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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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There has been a lot of discussion about this on other boards, and I actually got some interesting insights from some folks in the restaurant business (which I appreciated, since I've worked in commercial bakeries). There are many reasons the appetizer was omitted rather than the dessert. Appetizers often have more expensive ingredients. Appies are typically more labor intensive -- must be made individually, vs many desserts which are made in one large batch (like sheet cakes or pies) and then just plated individually. When people first get to a restaurant and are hungry, everything looks good -- and folks are more likely to pay OOP for an appetizer course when they are hungry at the beginning of the meal, than to pay OOP for a dessert course at the end of the meal when they are already full and satisfied. Even some people on the DDP who have desserts included may skip ordering dessert if they aren't hungry enough to eat it.
It would be really nice -- and a better deal for the guests -- for Disney to give us a choice between appetizer and dessert. Especially since the DDP only went down in price $1, and the value went down a LOT with the elimination of both the appetizer course (value of $6-$12 per person) and the tip (average value $7-$10 per person). So that's a loss in value of $13-$22 per day per person. But as nice as it would be, Disney may be testing the waters to see if folks still like the DDP enough to still buy it. It used to be an AMAZING deal...now it's more of a good deal, if you use it wisely, and you really do intend to eat an average of one TS per day. No matter what spin they put on it, Disney didn't eliminate the included tip and the appetizers because the guests wanted these changes If that was their motive, then they would have lowered the price of the plan significantly! They wanted to bring the cost of the plan a little more -- ok, a LOT more -- down to reality, and that's the goal of any successful company, really, so you can't blame them for managing their business wisely.
I really debated whether or not to purchase the DDP again this year, and ultimately decided we could eat more economically if we just paid OOP -- wouldn't be as much fun, and we wouldn't splurge as much at TS restaurants, but it would have been ok. But then free dining came up...and it was value season for the hotel, and we didn't have any other hotel discounts anyway...so we went for it And I know it will be a blast, we really liked the DDP last year.
__________________
Katiebell
Citizen of Disneyland,
and I looooooove pirates!
Last edited by Katiebell; 04-19-2008 at 01:15 AM..
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I'm not sure about the cost-effectiveness/speed aspect of appetizers produced in the kitchen, but it definitely increases the amount of time diners spend at a table -- thereby, reducing the amount of through-put the restaurant can handle. (Speed up the time each table is 'taken,' and you can seat more diners over the evening and earn more money.)
I use the menus from AllEarsNet.com to give me an idea of what I'd order and what our meals would cost if we bought the equivalent amount of food to the DDP. (Entree, dessert and drink.) The spreadsheet will calculate out everything else.
Eileen
All I know is I am glad the guaranteed tip is gone. When the plan included it service was horrible-because the attitude was "I get a tip no matter what-so why bother?".
I could definitely tell a difference in service in January when we were there. Service is definitely improving and I hope the tip isn't included any more because of this.
Would definitely like a choice between appetizer & dessert for those who like the appy more than dessert.
I emailed Disney a couple of months ago after the new changes took place and I got a call back from a nice lady by the name of Alexis. She took the time to listen to me and was very nice. She understood my concerns, etc, and wants me to call her back with my experiences this year but she did say near the end of the phone call that the DDP was set for this year and would not be changing. I guess there's hope for next year, but like someone else said, as long as enough people are paying for the plan the way it is, I doubt it's going to change.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
I'm not sure about the cost-effectiveness/speed aspect of appetizers produced in the kitchen, but it definitely increases the amount of time diners spend at a table -- thereby, reducing the amount of through-put the restaurant can handle. (Speed up the time each table is 'taken,' and you can seat more diners over the evening and earn more money.)
For those wanting to know if the DDP is better than paying out of pocket (OOP) for your meals, you might find this Microsoft Excel spreadsheet I use helpful:
I didn't know much about the restaurant aspect, but that is another factor that was brought up -- table turnover. Cut out one course (possibly two, if the guests are full and choose not to linger over dessert, or ask for dessert to go), and you can turn over the table faster. I am familiar with the dessert preparation, however, and many desserts are made in a huge batch -- like a sheet cake that can serve 64-96 -- pipe on a little whipped cream, a drizzle of raspberry puree, shave a little dark chocolate, and voila! Send it out to the table...for $7.95. Pretty fast to plate and serve.
Thanks for the spread sheet -- looks very informative!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jookiba
All I know is I am glad the guaranteed tip is gone. When the plan included it service was horrible-because the attitude was "I get a tip no matter what-so why bother?".
I could definitely tell a difference in service in January when we were there. Service is definitely improving and I hope the tip isn't included any more because of this.
Wow...I feel very fortunate! We went to WDW for our first trip last May and purchased the DDP...and the servers were exactly what we've come to expect from Disney servers from our experience at DL -- courteous, friendly, prompt. The only less than great service we received was at Raglan Road, but the waiter was so busy and harried, and covering too many tables (I think they were short that night) and having problems with the computer. He was still friendly, just spread too thin, and I don't feel at all that we were slighted because he knew his tip was guaranteed.
But it is what it is, and we will now have to budget separately for the tips -- we are figuring that's going to run us about $70-$100 extra OOP for tips (we don't have any super expensive TS). It was a huge drop in value, to lose both the appie and the tip...would have been nice to have seen a noticeable drop in price, too, but looks like many of us are still buying the plan anyway
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Katiebell
Citizen of Disneyland,
and I looooooove pirates!
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If that was their motive, then they would have lowered the price of the plan significantly! 
They wanted to bring the cost of the plan a little more -- ok, a LOT more -- down to reality, and that's the goal of any successful company, really, so you can't blame them for managing their business wisely.
And I know it will be a blast, we really liked the DDP last year.
Katiebell
pirates! 
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