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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So I have a question about picking up a car. We're going to rent a car after our stay at WDW, and I'm trying to figure out how the most convenient way to do that. We're staying at the Contemporary Resort; should I try to pick up a car from somewhere in the World, or just take the ME back the airport and get the car there?
Thanks!
-B
You can rent from the Car Care Center (CCC)near the Transportation and Ticket Center (TTC). To get there, you can schedule a shuttle with Alamo or take a cab. The cab will cost about $5 as it is very close. I will be at the MK the day I need to pick up my rental. I will take the monorail to one of the resorts, then I will ask for them to call me a cab at the bell service desk. The cab will take me to the CCC. When I return the cab, I will return it at the Alamo desk in the Dolphin, which is the resort I will be finishing my stay at.
You will not be able to use DME to get back to the airport unless you have a flight scheduled that day.
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Hertz is offsite at MCO but the shuttle ride is not bad. You may be able to get cheaper rates from other rental agencies but if you book with your AAA discount at Hertz you get a free car/booster seat and they do not charge you for additional driver. Other places charge around $50 for the car seat for a week and $10 a day for an additional driver. Many people don't know that you have to pay for someone other than the primary driver to drive a rental car. If you go on the Hertz website there are a few coupon codes in addition to the Hertz ID. You can actually go on the AAA website and book there with coupon codes and they will also list Alamo, Thirfty, etc. but like I said add in the car seat and additional driver and you are way over the Hertz price. I've been spending hours on the web experimenting with rental cars and coupon codes, etc. and I finally booked Hertz.
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.
Renting a car while on on my Orland trip is driving me insane.
I'm going March 11th-18th. My 25th birthday is March 25th! Does anyone know how I could find a way to get the "Under 25" fee waived or significantly reduced?
It's really killing me. I can get a car for 180 dollars for the week if I was 25. They want to charge 25 dollars per day because my mom couldn't have me 2 weeks earlier. It's almost double the cost.
i know how that is. When i went last may with my boyfriend my mom made the car reservation and they did not tell her that the driver had to be over 25. So i'm glad my boyfriend is 7 yrs older than me cause i was 21 and he was 28. So we put him as the primary driver on the account and since i knew where almost everything was i just gave him directions. I dont how to get the fee waived but they may work with ya!!
good luck!
Does anyone have any suggestions on a car for a family of 4?gonna have 5 suitcases and a wheelchair. I'm thinking a van or SUV but what does everyone think? I mean could a mid size be big enough?
Does anyone have any suggestions on a car for a family of 4?gonna have 5 suitcases and a wheelchair. I'm thinking a van or SUV but what does everyone think? I mean could a mid size be big enough?
we (me & hubby) are thinking about getting a rental car for the last 2 days of our trip, we are planning breakfast at concourse steakhouse, then over to Islands of Adventure, and maybe after DD, and then the next day we wanted to go to animal kingdom OR Magic kingdom, depending on how much we got to see, and then to DD for more shopping! Then we have to fly home.
I know it will be easier than going to contemporary, catching a mears bus, going back on a mears bus, then catching a bus to DD, and back to the resort, and so on.
I looked up Alamo, and I can pick up at CCC and drop off at airport, but my question is, how to I get to the CCC? I will be at contemporary for breakfast already at 7:20. But ISlands opens at 9am and I want to be there ASAP.
Should I get a cab or something from POP, and then drive the rental, or do you think I should do it from a different resort? Or is there disney transportation to CCC?
and does anyone know a better way to do this?! HELP!!
__________________
trying and hoping and saving to go to WDW Feb 2012 with our friends and their kids, 10 people total!
I went on Hertz's website to find about the additional driver fee. There are some exceptions that you don't have to pay for the additional driver:
"Additional Authorized Operators Fees
USD 10.00 per day, maximum USD 50.00 per rental, for each Additional Authorized Operator.
Exceptions -
California - no fee for Additional Authorized Operators
NY State - USD 3.00 per Additional Authorized Operator per day with a maximum charge of USD 35.00 per rental. This fee applies to all locations in New York State. Authorized and Additional Authorized Operators must be a minimum of 25 years of age.
AAA - Spouse/Domestic Partner of AAA members are not required to have a separate AAA membership in order to receive the free AAO privileges. For other rentals, the AAO fee is also waived when both the renter and the AAO are AAA members.
USAA - No charge for qualified Additional Authorized Operators who are USAA members when signing on to a qualified USAA rental.
AARP - No charge for qualified Additional Authorized Operators who are AARP members or member's spouse when signing on to a
qualified AARP rental."
Yeay! That's less money for us as we have AAA cards!
We rented a car through Alamo at the CCC. It was so easy! We ordered it online before we left. Then on the day of pickup we called ahead and ordered the free shuttle to come and get us. They were early and did stop at 1 or 2 hotels before arriving at Alamo. Checkin was fast and easy. It was easy to get to a grocery store from there and back to Old Key West. On the day of checkout, a lady met us at the door, took the keys, checked the car and gave us a receipt in under 5 mins. Then she made sure we got on a shuttle asap back to the resort.
We rented a car through National (Alamo) at the CCC. I called from my resort that morning and asked if they can pick us up at a Park or only at a resort hotel -- I was pleased to learn that they can indeed pick one up at the Parks, too.
Since we would me at MK at the time I needed to be picked up, I arranged for the Alamo shuttle to pick me up -- the pickup point was the Kennels at the MK TTC.
I just took the ferry from the MK to the TTC and walked to the Kennel and got the shuttle. Once I got the car, I drove it to park at my resort, and then took (the boat) back to MK. Since I was the only one who needed to be there for the car rental, the rest of my group just explored MK (and did a bunch of rides in the process!), and we met City Hall at a pre-designated time. Worked out great.
Hi all,
I am wondering if anyone knows about renting passenger or conversion vans.
Parameters: Could be 2 adults and 5 kids (1 with a permit so iffy about letting her drive in a car with the whole family). Driving from Michigan (30 miles east of Flint, 2 hours north of Detroit) to WDW. If one more adult came we could just take two cars, but if it's just the two of us, we'd like to split the driving responsibilities (and would need 1 vehicle to fit all of us) Biggest car we have seats 5 (and not all that comfortably). I'm wondering what the easiest way to do this is. We would be staying onsite for the week (with no outside excursions) so we would only need the van to drive there and back.
Been looking online for a bit, and can't seem to find anything easy/affordable
Any tips or suggestions???
Thanks in advance!
Sarah
Renting a car while on on my Orland trip is driving me insane.
I'm going March 11th-18th. My 25th birthday is March 25th! Does anyone know how I could find a way to get the "Under 25" fee waived or significantly reduced?
It's really killing me. I can get a car for 180 dollars for the week if I was 25. They want to charge 25 dollars per day because my mom couldn't have me 2 weeks earlier. It's almost double the cost.
Any ideas or suggestions??
I saw something from AVIS that might work. It's a code for underage discount rate. It's K250544. I do not know if it works or not or if this is what you are looking for.