What do you wish you would have known before? - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What do you wish you would have known before?
Dh and I are planning on buying into DVC in September 2011, we are planning on getting 170 points to start and adding later if we want. I have been reading everything I can find about DVC and we went through the sales thing at WDW in November. My question to all of you that are DVC members what advice would yu give to someone thats about to buy in and is there anything that you wish you would have known before you purchased? TIA!
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My advice would be "buy in now!!!" I think most members, including myself, wish that they would have bought in earlier We are fairly new members - Oct '09 and absolutely LOVE DVC! We had been playing with the idea for a couple of years and now we kick ourselves for not doing it back then! We have an absolutely amazing DVC rep whom we adore - we couldn't ask for anyone better!
Nothing we would have done different except probably bought earlier. congratultations and welcome home!!!! One of the best decisions we've ever made, and we say that all the time!!!!!
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I just wished we would have purchased it sooner. I think we had about five trips in before we bought our DVC. It will pay for itself if you go often enough.
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I wish we would have purchased more points. Realistically we couldn't have, because we weren't willing to finance and we only had the $$$ for a certain amount. But since it's a wish, I'll say "I wish we'd had more cash at the time."
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I would suggest buying as many points as you possibly can. What seems like more than enough now, probably won't be once you get a taste of DVC vacations. When we bought in 1993 DVC was just getting started with OKW and there wasn't any information out there except for DVC itself, so we didn't have all these resources to help us make a decision. The min. point purchase at that time was 220 or 230. We picked 250 pts, because it seemed like a good round number and we could stay for a week in at least a 1 bedroom in every season, except for premier. Since then we've added on twice . Hope you love DVC as much as we do.
Buy as many as you can afford---the more the better---we have 370 but want more badly.
Of course we wish it was bought in Oct. 1991.........but better late than never.
THE BEST THING WE EVER DID!!!!!
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One thing to keep in mind if you are planning to buy a large number of points is the possible resale value. It is much harder to sell 500 points than it is to sell a contract of 100 to 150 points. If I were to buy a lot of points I would probably try to do more than one contract just in case I wanted to sell them.
I wish I had been more organized with our paperwork but other than that I have no regrets. We couldn't afford to buy sooner but if we could it would have saved us money in the long run.
I agree with everyone else, we really wish we would have bought in sooner. We had played with the idea for several years and finally took the plunge this past summer after a webcast. We bought 400 points and I think the minute we signed, we felt that we wanted more! I am sure we will add on at some point in the future. As far as selling, I can honestly say that we have no intentions of selling so having 400 points is no concern to us. We plan to use our dvc points and hope that our kids will continue to use them when we no longer can! We have an enormous love for Disney and this is truly the best thing we could have done!
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Teresa
Sammy 5 years and Peyton 15 months - September 2013
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We are fairly new members - Oct '09 and absolutely LOVE DVC! We had been playing with the idea for a couple of years and now we kick ourselves for not doing it back then! We have an absolutely amazing DVC rep whom we adore - we couldn't ask for anyone better!
[SIGPIC]
PassPorter Guide Author
. Hope you love DVC as much as we do.
So true!
Teresa
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