Feature Article: Pros and Cons of the Magic Your Way Premium Plan - A Disney Feature - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Feature Article: Pros and Cons of the Magic Your Way Premium Plan - A Disney Feature
Pros and Cons of the Magic Your Way Premium Plan - A Disney Feature by Dawn Erickson
There are so many decisions that are made when planning a Walt Disney World vacation. How you are going to get there? Where you are going to stay? Where you are going to eat? When planning my most recent trip with my husband to "the World," we decided to go all out and chose the Magic Your Way Premium Plan. The Premium Plan includes your resort accommodations, Magic Your Way park passes with Park hopping and the Water Parks and Fun Option for the length of your stay, and breakfast, lunch and dinner at over 100 Walt Disney World restaurants. The recreation options available on the Premium plan are spectacular. You could play 18 holes on one of the many championship golf courses or participate in water sports, including parasailing and water-skiing. Some of the other options include a round of golf at one of the two miniature golf courses, watercraft rentals, bike rentals, horseback trail rides, guided fishing excursions, and tickets to Cirque de Soleil's La Nouba. For those with children, there is unlimited use of the Children's Activity Centers. Reservations are required for all recreation activities. Last but not least, you can book as many tours as you want throughout your package stay. Choose from a wide variety of options like the Keys to the Kingdom tour at the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Backstage Safari at the Animal Kingdom, and the Undiscovered Future World tour at Epcot.
The main reason we chose the Premium Plan was for the dining options. We wanted to leave for this trip knowing we did not have to pay for any meals out of pocket. With the plan, we received breakfast, lunch, and dinner at over 100 restaurants on Walt Disney World property. Just like under the regular Dining Plan, alcoholic beverages, souvenir mugs, glow cubes, and in-room mini bars are excluded from the plan. A nice feature is that many of the restaurants that are two (2) dining credits on the Magic Your Way Dining Plan, like Hollywood Brown Derby and Cinderella's Royal Feast, only used one (1) credit on the Premium Plan. We also were able to dine at Fulton's Crab House in Downtown Disney, which is not offered on the Magic Your Way Dining Plan. We were able to dine at restaurants we normally overlooked for one reason or another and took advantage of seven character meals. Since the meals were paid for, we also enjoyed appetizers and desserts at most table service meals.
As far as dining goes, I found two cons with the plan. The first con is that this is a lot of food. Even my husband, who is a big eater, thought the amount of food was too much. There were a couple of days where we cancelled our reservations as we just were not hungry. The second con is in regard to the lack of snack credits that are normally offered on the regular Magic Your Way Dining Plan. The snack credits are a plus for those bottles of water in the park, those Mickey Bar cravings, and during the Food and Wine Festival, those tasty offerings at all the booths throughout the World Showcase. We were unable to exchange any of our credits for what are considered "snacks" under the Magic Your Way Dining Plan, so we did incur some out-of-pocket expenses because we enjoyed the offerings during the Food and Wine Festival.
Of all the extra amenities included on the Premium Plan, we only took advantage of three on our trip. We took the Keys to the Kingdom tour at the Magic Kingdom ($120.00 value for both). This is a spectacular tour and one of the highlights of our trip. We also reserved tickets for a showing of La Nouba in Downtown Disney ($162.00 value for both). We had excellent seats in section 202, row AA, seats 1 and 2. Finally, we played a round of golf at Fantasia Gardens near the Swan/Dolphin resorts. The total value was $21.50 for both of us. We booked our vacation package through AAA and received the AAA discount. The prices I am giving to you are based on that information. It will differ for each individual or family. To give you an idea on the cost of the Premium Plan, we calculated what the cost was per day for each of us and compared it to the total cost of our meals and extras. Based on our cost, it was approximately an extra $161.66 per day for the both of us ($969.96 for 6 nights). On our dining alone, we would have spent $984.14. The extras would have cost us $303.50. Grand total: $1287.64. Difference: $317.68 to our advantage.
Overall, the Magic Your Way Premium Plan worked well for us on this trip. We were unable to experience everything it had to offer but it truly made this trip something to remember. We did not have to worry about out-of-pocket expenses except for snacks and souvenirs. I recommend if you are considering the Premium Plan to do some research and see if you can fully take advantage of everything it offers and weigh the cost.
A full breakdown of all the amenities available on the 2007 Premium Plan, as well as the participating restaurants, can be found on the Walt Disney World web site.
What do you think? Please add your own comments, experiences, or news related to this article in this thread! Reader feedback is welcomed and encouraged.
I almost signed up for that but thought, I knew we wanted to ride all the rides again and had little time to really eat. So I did the Quick Service plan, and it worked out perfect for us. I know that not even thinking or calculating, the snacks were the savor. We had enough to last us the entire trip and when we did eat, we sat long enough to get full and take off for the rides. I have 3 kids ages 16, 14, and 10 at the time, they all have turned a year older since the trip which was only 4 months ago but all their birthdays are in winter right after one another. Anyways, I want to try the Dining plan but I was afraid we would not be hungry for all 3 meals. I know for breakfast we had a bag of breakfast items in our hotel and would grab that and a bottled water I brought and eat it while walking to the bus stop. Our major deal was to sleep as long as we could in the morning, eat breakfast while walking to the bus stop because we are not big breakfast people, and sit down for lunch and supper. Which we did and we had a blast. We actually rode all the rides we wanted to and had time to swim at the hotel pool. It was the most relaxing trip I think we have ever taken to Disney thanks to me making plans ahead of time reading passporters and everyone had a copy of the itinerary.
i had no idea that tours were included in that plan. hmmm. that now sounds kind of tempting. i won't have an AP anymore after my next trip (frown) but i feel as though my husband and i could completely take advantage of the tours and the dining...and la nouba. yes, this is now something i will look into. thanks!
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Linear Mode
