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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We went to the Disney Store the other night and David told me to start buying gift cards...I told him we weren't going for 2 years and he said it would be all paid forby then...How long do gift cards last for? Do they expire?
Disney gift cards don't expire & there are no fees. Each gift card can have up to (I believe) $2500 on it & you can add money to it at the Disney stores, at DW & DL, & (I believe) over the phone.
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.
Disney gift cards don't expire & there are no fees. Each gift card can have up to (I believe) $2500 on it & you can add money to it at the Disney stores, at DW & DL, & (I believe) over the phone.
didn't know that you could add $$ to gift cards? the kind that we buy from the grocery store? That's awesome! I might have to do that...thanks!
Oh and by the way, I forgot to mention, I did get the kids $25 Disney gift cards each for Christmas, gave a $50 to my husband, and then he surprised us with personalized ones, $100 for me, and $50 for each of the kids! How nice!!
Thanks for sharing all these wonderful tips with us on how to save money for your vacation. I am new here but wanted to share some of the things I am doing to save for our first WDW trip. There will be 7, possibly 8 of us going in December, 2011. We live on a limited budget, so these are some things that I have been doing to help with our vacation:
1. I do online surveys through sites like Inbox Dollars and Send Earnings as well as Pinecone Research and several others. Each check that I get from them gets deposited into my Vacation Savings Account.
2. I am an Independent Contractor for a Text Messaging Company and I use a lot of the proceeds from that to buy Disney Gift Cards with.
3. I usually have a little funding left over from my Student Loans and I deposit a chunk of that into my Vacation Savings account. Hopefully I will have enough of that this year to pay for our flights.
4. I buy Disney Gift Cards at least twice per month, this helps with the Spending Money allowance.
5.I am earning airline miles, not a lot but hopefully I will at least earn enough to pay for a one way ticket, which is that much I will not have to spend cash for. Every little bit helps.
6. I need a good set of Luggage and I have my eye on a Disney Set, which I am saving my Swagbucks points to get an Amazon dot com gift card which I can apply towards the cost of the luggage. I am hoping to be able to rack up enough points to be able to get the luggage at a reduced price.
7. I have had a shop on Zazzle for a little over a year and once in a while I make profits from that. I am currently waiting on a little over $17 to be deposited into my Paypal account, for which I will put towards the Vacation expense as well.
8. I am contemplating on maybe selling items on ebay occasionally to help add to the fund as well.
These are several of the ways that I am paying for our first Disney Vacation.
We will be going in the Summer of 2012. Right now I am purchasing a Disney Gift Card once a week. I love it I don't even miss the money! We drive down from Northern IL I should look into Gas Cards too! LOL! We also save our change and dollar bills too!
My Disney Storage Container is getting filled up now too! I buy all our toiletries, make-up, First Aid kits....things like that and purchase through out the year so I am not spending hundreds of dollars on the stuff before we go.
I put some of our tax return $$ into the account. I just started a new hobby: extreme couponing. I take the money I saved on coupons for the month and deposit into our vacation fund. Last month I was able to put in $60. By the time we go this Aug., I hoping the whole trip should be paid for.
I put some of our tax return $$ into the account. I just started a new hobby: extreme couponing. I take the money I saved on coupons for the month and deposit into our vacation fund. Last month I was able to put in $60. By the time we go this Aug., I hoping the whole trip should be paid for.
Thats a good start!!! But this is a hint for ya...if your weekly budget is say 150.00 and with coupons you only spend say 25.00 of the budget, then you put the 125.00 away. So far this year I have saved over 5,000.00 useing coupons this year alone. Between coupons and the store cards I save a good amount of money. the other day I spend 8.01 and saved about 60.00! so it can be done. if ya want a good web site to check out send me a PM and i will help ya out with it.
I have found a couple of ways for me to save for our 2012 trip. I typically do 2 or 3 workshops in the Summer to further my professional development, and I always take the PDA points to move up on my pay scale, but this Summer, I signed up for everything I could get and I am taking the stipend($100 a day) for all of them. Also, next Fall I have volunteered to help coach football and going to put back all of that money(somewhere around $900) for the trip as well. That will put me an extra $1,600ish in the bank for the trip.
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"A good teacher is like a candle: it consumes itself to light the way for others." -Anonymous
Another great way to re-direct funds for your trip is by purchasing a Switch2Health(S2H) replay watch and then move! You earn points for every 60 minutes of exercise a day you do, and you accumulate those points for rewards online. I ordered 2 a week and a half ago, and they are so cool. I'd link you to their site, but unfortunately yahoo featured these watches on their main page yesterday and crushed their site. Hopefully it'll be back up and going. There are no rewards that are directly Disney, but you can use the rewards to buy other things and put the savings back. Not to mention anything that motivates people to exercise is alright in my book. Just think, you should have no problem getting your hour a day while you are at WDW, so you'll be earning rewards even on your vacation.
Im giving a site Welcome to Slicethepie a go. Its a music review site, you create an account and rate artists track, based on your reviews you get paid an amount, new scouts are paid $.02 per song, then on a second star being awarded $.05 then $.10 then $.15 then the highest rate is $.20 per song. You only need to listen to 60secs of the song before you review. I have been doing it for a few hours and have earnt $1.83, i know not massive amounts of money, but i do at the moment have quite a bit of spare time on my hands as i have finished at university for the summer. I rekon if i put in a few hours a day it will go towards my holiday in some way...even if it just pays for the amounts i will need to pay out in parking when visiting parks
Thanks for sharing all these wonderful tips with us on how to save money for your vacation. I am new here but wanted to share some of the things I am doing to save for our first WDW trip. There will be 7, possibly 8 of us going in December, 2011. We live on a limited budget, so these are some things that I have been doing to help with our vacation:
1. I do online surveys through sites like Inbox Dollars and Send Earnings as well as Pinecone Research and several others. Each check that I get from them gets deposited into my Vacation Savings Account.
2. I am an Independent Contractor for a Text Messaging Company and I use a lot of the proceeds from that to buy Disney Gift Cards with.
3. I usually have a little funding left over from my Student Loans and I deposit a chunk of that into my Vacation Savings account. Hopefully I will have enough of that this year to pay for our flights.
4. I buy Disney Gift Cards at least twice per month, this helps with the Spending Money allowance.
5.I am earning airline miles, not a lot but hopefully I will at least earn enough to pay for a one way ticket, which is that much I will not have to spend cash for. Every little bit helps.
6. I need a good set of Luggage and I have my eye on a Disney Set, which I am saving my Swagbucks points to get an Amazon dot com gift card which I can apply towards the cost of the luggage. I am hoping to be able to rack up enough points to be able to get the luggage at a reduced price.
7. I have had a shop on Zazzle for a little over a year and once in a while I make profits from that. I am currently waiting on a little over $17 to be deposited into my Paypal account, for which I will put towards the Vacation expense as well.
8. I am contemplating on maybe selling items on ebay occasionally to help add to the fund as well.
These are several of the ways that I am paying for our first Disney Vacation.
I know this is an older thread but keep your eye on tjmaxx and marshalls-I got the hard shelled suitcases with mickey mouse all over it for about 100 bucks -I love it and it's big enough to hold my clothes on one side and the kids on the other.
I'm loving all these ideas for saving up. I'm hoping we can make it to WDW in 2013, so if I start saving now, we just might make it. LOL! I especially like the gift card idea! Thanks!
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Diana in CT Our Last visit to Disneyland: 6/26/13
Disneyland 1996 trip pics HERE
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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