We've done WONDERful, now let's go for MAGICal! **Updated 8/24** - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Hi Heather,
We are cruising the same week as your family, DH 47, DD 9, DD 6 , my parents and my aunt & uncle. This is our 1st cruise and are very excited, I have been reading the posts for months and just decided to join in after reading your pre- trip report. My DD is turning 10 on CC also. The girls know we are going on a cruise but think it is next year, we will wake them up the morning of, for the BIG surprise! I too have been planning everything out. I think I have read every book realted to DCL including the 2009 Passporter! Thanks for sharing.
Marie
Hi Heather,
We are cruising the same week as your family, DH 47, DD 9, DD 6 , my parents and my aunt & uncle. This is our 1st cruise and are very excited, I have been reading the posts for months and just decided to join in after reading your pre- trip report. My DD is turning 10 on CC also. The girls know we are going on a cruise but think it is next year, we will wake them up the morning of, for the BIG surprise! I too have been planning everything out. I think I have read every book realted to DCL including the 2009 Passporter! Thanks for sharing.
Marie
Yay! What fun you will have! We need to see about meeting up at some point (are you early or late seating?). Our kids are close in age, so we'll have to see about getting our daughters together (and see if they can get along) and possibly to 2 younger ones (though mine's a DS...) - they'll be in the same clubs.
Even if you don't do a Pre-TR, you'll have to do a regular one, so we can compare notes. Or, you can always "highjack" this one with additions of your own as I go...
Yay! What fun you will have! We need to see about meeting up at some point (are you early or late seating?). Our kids are close in age, so we'll have to see about getting our daughters together (and see if they can get along) and possibly to 2 younger ones (though mine's a DS...) - they'll be in the same clubs.
Even if you don't do a Pre-TR, you'll have to do a regular one, so we can compare notes. Or, you can always "highjack" this one with additions of your own as I go...
That sounds like a plan. I am new at this whole posting thing, so bear with me! We are late seating, so we didn't have to rush back from the ports. I am sure the kids would get along, they have been watching the dvd from dcl and are very excited about the clubs. My oldest has already told me that she can come & go as she pleases. I am not so sure I am ready for that. I will have to check it out once we are on the ship. I will keep in touch.
Marie
On Saturday, we got our planning packet from DCL! It was interesting to see the difference between this substantial packet and the thin whisp of a "packet" we got for our 3 night cruise! Before we had checked our own mail, we were at my in-laws' house (where DD was helping MIL make food for Mother's Day the next day). So, we really read THEIR Disney Mail.
Things I like from it:
Reminders of both when we can make ressies and when money is due
Packing tips, including what to bring in your carry on
Listing of all excursions for our trip (though they don't list prices)
Just the fact that it means the trip is that much closer!
So, now, I've really ramped up the planning! Before we go in October, we have one other trip to Newport Beach in June. But, that's a "veg by the ocean and do nothing" trip, so all I have to do is pack for the beachfront condo! Cool thing is I've convinced my parents to join us for the beginning of the trip, which is over my dad's b-day. We don't get to travel with them as often as we do my in-laws, so I like that! But I digress....
Anyway, we've reached an agreement about Kennedy Space Center. Originally, we started considering it as something to do when we got off the ship on Saturday, then we'd fly home on Sunday. But, that means that we (well, everyone else BUT me, that is ) all go back to work/school the next day. So, I next suggested that we take a red-eye out on Thursday night, go to the KSC on Friday and stay Friday night down there. Since we orginally planned to fly out on Friday and stay the night, this option wouldn't cost any additional money, nor would we have to take the kids out of school for a 7th day. AND, I'm a big fan of red-eyes, especially going east. We could nap on the plane and while we'd be tired on Friday, it would make it that much easier to adjust to EST before boarding the ship.
Unfortunately, Southwest Airlines (our carrier of choice, where we have a free ticket) doesn't have any red-eyes from LAS to MCO! So, we discussed it this weekend and decided to just take the extra day. We were fine with paying for a 2nd night had we stayed over on Saturday, so we're really just moving it to Thursday night.
So, the plan is:
- fly into MCO on Thursday (landing as early as possible)
- rent a car or get a van service (with 6 of us, we can't do towncar)
- drive to the Cocoa Beach area, staying in a hotel that shuttles to the port
- visit KSC on Friday
- board the ship on Saturday and have the time of our lives!
I can't believe we won't be taking the Disney bus to the port, but I have PassPorter to thank for this! I never would have thought about doing any of this, had I not found you guys! Knowing we have all these options is just great. Now, of course, I have been put in charge of research, having to compare pricing of hotels in the area and car service vs. one-way rentals (or week long, though it would actually be about 9 or 10 days, so I think that's out). But I'm game....gives me something to do!
I've also started working on one of my PassPorter worksheets. When I first saw it, I scoffed (very derisively, I might add) at it, thinking, "who in the world would want to plan out a cruise schedule for each person that lists every activity for the day?"
Hmmmm. Well, once I started looking through my pilfered Navigators (thanks, CastawayClub.com!), I realized I need someplace to jot down the different things people might want to do and line them up in a way that I could see if anything conflicted, etc. Where would I find something like that? Gee, imagine finding it in the worksheet at which I had previous scoffed! So my next task is to start going through the Navigators and getting a loose idea of our days (I don't want to plan everything, but want to keep "must do" items in mind). I can record if there are specific "classes" the kids want to attend and I can put in the different Adult classes any of us might want (martini for me and MIL, beer for FIL, tequila for MIL (and me, if she gets her way), wine for MIL and FIL, galley tour, food prep, etc).
So, for fun, I just asked DS(5) what he was most looking forward to on the cruise. He first said, "I don't know" and then said, "Oh! The PJ party!" I think we're not going to see as much of them as we think we are....they'll be spending quite a bit of time in the clubs!
Next installment: Excursions? What's "too much"? And what do the kids want to do?
Hmmmmm!! I guess we will be getting Disney Mail soon, too!
I wondered about planning for a cruise, too, but their are a lot of possibilities to consider and it would be a shame to miss something fun just because you didn't know about it!
So, I posted that we've decided to go to Kennedy Space Center, right? We all agree that before the trip is best and I have resigned to the fact that the kids will just have to miss another day of school. Yeah, they're gonna be real broken up about that. So, now, our transfer needs have changed. DCL's transfers only go MCO or resort/port or port/MCO or resort and that wouldn't do.
Thanks to all my PP peeps, I've read about people renting cars or taking car services, etc. So, yesterday I decided it was time to research prices. I pulled up MS Excel (the better to make a cohesive comparison of prices and styles) and got to work logging on round trip costs. By the way, even though Mears provides the trnasfers for Disney, did you know you can't price out a quote through Mears? They only list resorts in the Orlando area and such (at least, that's all I could find...could've been user error).
Anyway, I ended up on the DCL site, since I wanted to compare the regular transfer fees. And what did I discover? We'd already added them on! While that is not a big deal (we aren't PIF until end of June), that changes the price a bit, now, doesn't it? So, I called Castaway Club and asked Clint to remove the transfers from our reservation. No problem! The price of our cruise dropped $276!
I updated the family (DH and MIL) about the reduction in price, pointing out that DCL transfers cost $69/person, which totals $414 for the 6 of us. Most of the Van services I priced out were around $210-$230, so that's almost $200 savings!!! But, why is it "sort of" a savings? Well, the whole point of having to redo the transfers is because we are extending our stay and going to KSC. That means another night at a hotel (we're leaning toward a King King Whirlpool room at Radisson, since we could all fit in one) and tickets into KSC for 6 people. I'm pretty sure that will cost us more than $200.
But hey, this is Disney math, right? It's like when people question my choice to eat chocolate cake and a Diet Coke. I reason with them that it's less calories than eating chocolate cake and a regular Coke, huh? So, this is cheaper than if we did all of it at the DCL transfer prices. (But, honey, look at what I saved on this clothes! No, no! Don't look at what I spent....look at what I saved....)
At least, that's my reasoning and I'm sticking to it!
We're getting so close! We get to make ressies on July 5. Between now and then, we have:
My birthday (June 1, feel free to shower me with presents)
Last day of school (June 4)
My sis/father's bday (June 13)
Trip to the beach for a week
Father's Day
DD's bday party
FIL's bday (June 29)
(Yeah, June is a busy month for us)
DD's bday/4th of July (yep, she's our firecracker!)
About This Page: 
I too have been planning everything out. I think I have read every book realted to DCL including the 2009 Passporter! Thanks for sharing.
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Pixie Dust
, so bear with me! We are late seating, so we didn't have to rush back from the ports. I am sure the kids would get along, they have been watching the dvd from dcl and are very excited about the clubs. My oldest has already told me that she can come & go as she pleases. I am not so sure I am ready for that
. I will have to check it out once we are on the ship. I will keep in touch.
Before we had checked our own mail, we were at my in-laws' house (where DD was helping MIL make food for Mother's Day the next day). So, we really read THEIR Disney Mail.
We don't get to travel with them as often as we do my in-laws, so I like that! But I digress....
) all go back to work/school the next day. So, I next suggested that we take a red-eye out on Thursday night, go to the KSC on Friday and stay Friday night down there. Since we orginally planned to fly out on Friday and stay the night, this option wouldn't cost any additional money, nor would we have to take the kids out of school for a 7th day. AND, I'm a big fan of red-eyes, especially going east. We could nap on the plane and while we'd be tired on Friday, it would make it that much easier to adjust to EST before boarding the ship.
I never would have thought about doing any of this, had I not found you guys! Knowing we have all these options is just great. Now, of course, I have been put in charge of research, having to compare pricing of hotels in the area and car service vs. one-way rentals (or week long, though it would actually be about 9 or 10 days, so I think that's out). But I'm game....gives me something to do!
"who in the world would want to plan out a cruise schedule for each person that lists every activity for the day?"
Hmmmm. Well, once I started looking through my pilfered Navigators (thanks, CastawayClub.com!), I realized I need someplace to jot down the different things people might want to do and line them up in a way that I could see if anything conflicted, etc. Where would I find something like that? 
Gee, imagine finding it in the worksheet at which I had previous scoffed! 
So my next task is to start going through the Navigators and getting a loose idea of our days (I don't want to plan everything, but want to keep "must do" items in mind). I can record if there are specific "classes" the kids want to attend and I can put in the different Adult classes any of us might want (martini for me and MIL, beer for FIL, tequila for MIL (and me, if she gets her way), wine for MIL and FIL, galley tour, food prep, etc).
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