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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm planning a cruise/disneyworld vacation next year. I'm not going to do the land/sea package because we want more time at WDW. Thinking of doing a 4 night Bahama cruise and then 7 nights at WDW. How does the ground transportation work? The DCL website gave no information that I could find. I'm assuming MCO is considered the debarkation airport. Does it only run to and from MCO? Will we have to catch DME from there to my hotel? Is it better to start with the cruise? Thanks!
You can take the DCL transfers after the cruise to a WDW resort. They charge you an extra $1 per person for the service. However the cruise line buses only go to the resorts on the land/sea packages so depending on the resort you want to stay at you may have to take a taxi from the resort you are dropped off at to your resort. You can then take Disney's Magical Express back to the airport after your WDW stay.
We did 5 days land before 3 days at sea. We added a day to our land package. You can book land/sea seperate but we liked the hotels that were offered with our cat. 6. We couldn't afford another night at the Poly, so we stayed at the POP then transfered to the Poly. Unfortunatley our added day was used as a travel day due to flight delays and lost luggage on Disney's part.
Anyway, we took DME to the POP from MCO then planned to transfer via taxi, but POP transfered us due to our luggage situation. They found it a day and a half later. When it was time for the cruise, we took private transfers instead of Disney. We could schedule a pick up when WE wanted to leave and they also picked us up from port to MCO. Then we did a stady by 11am non stop flight, from our 1 stop 1pm flight and got on it. We had a day room at the Hyatt, but cancelled due to flight change with no penalty.
I would do Disney first then the cruise. Disney can be hectic with kids, this way you can relax on the cruise after.
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We just got back from our land / sea package vacation with 4 nights land and 3 nights sea. I wish we had done one or the other for 7 days! But this was the first time we had gone in years and also we did not know if one of us would be seasick...
We didn't have to plan any transfers as we had planned to have our own transportation anyway. We had planned in extra time on the travel part, which was VERY helpful.
We just did the 3 night cruise and then 7 days in December. We had no problem with transportation - we took DCL trans from MCO to port and then port to AKL. I don't recall an additional fee, but we just looked at the total (which was less than originally quoted). If they can't drop off at your resort, I don't think you'd need to take a taxi - just take one of the busses (unless luggage prevents that). We then did Magical Express from AKL to MCO (free service, we just only used it one-way). Doing the ressies separately, you'll arrange DCL trans with DCL and Magical Express with the resort. Both will show up on your ressies on the website (when you log into My Vacation) on their respective sites. I know that you can do transportation on your own, too, but with air, hotel and cruise all separate ressies to begin with, I didn't want to add any more to keep track of.
I greatly recommend doing the cruise 2nd. I had thought that with the cruise being an unknown element and WDW to look forward to, we should do the cruise first. But the cruise is SO relaxing that we all agreed it would have been great to have that after the "go go go" of WDW.
I would do Disney first then the cruise. Disney can be hectic with kids, this way you can relax on the cruise after.
i agree with this quote.....and this is what we're doing this coming December - we are doing 3 days at WDW and then a 7 day Magic cruise. The cruise is soooooo relaxing that we wanted the rush to be beforehand! ;-) so we'd have time to recover! :-)
we are taking the DME from the airport to our resort (the POP) and then hired a car service to take us from the POP to Port Canaveral (it was less expensive for us - a family of 4). This same car service is also taking us from the Port to the airport after our cruise is over with.
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Oh, I agree with everyone else. When we go to The World, we are pretty short of breath by the end. When we were in our 20s and 30s, we used to open the park that opened first and close the park that closed last. Now we kind of take it easy, although we try to take in all of the fireworks shows. I might suggest looking at car rentals for the Orlando to Port Canaveral and back. You may find it less expensive.
Cool thanks for the suggestions. I think I will move the cruise to the end of the trip. I didn't think about it being a wind down from WDW. Good advice. Planning on staying at Poly, which I saw as one of the choices for land/sea package. So that should make things easier transportation-wise. Going with just DGF. Maybe DFiancee by then. Or may save that for the trip. She hasn't been in 20 years so I'm trying to do it up right!
Maybe DFiancee by then. Or may save that for the trip. She hasn't been in 20 years so I'm trying to do it up right!
Oh, you have to wait for the trip!!! Either propose at WDW, so the cruise can be a celebration of that, or secretly line up the "Romance Package" and use that as an entre' into the proposal. Or you could propose at Palo's (if you are dining there). Oh, there's so much you can do to make it memorable!
And yes, I did just completely poke my nose into your private business.
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You can take the DCL transfers after the cruise to a WDW resort. They charge you an extra $1 per person for the service. However the cruise line buses only go to the resorts on the land/sea packages so depending on the resort you want to stay at you may have to take a taxi from the resort you are dropped off at to your resort. You can then take Disney's Magical Express back to the airport after your WDW stay.
That's not correct. The DCL buses only pick up from certain resorts, but they will drop you off at your resort. I'm taking DCL transfers from the port to Pop Century.
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That's not correct. The DCL buses only pick up from certain resorts, but they will drop you off at your resort. I'm taking DCL transfers from the port to Pop Century.
Thank you for clarifying this - we're first timers that booked our land separately as well. I was hyperventilating into my monitor just thinking about the logistics of squaring away a taxi transfer to our proper resort with all that luggage!
Even though they only pick up at certain resorts, if you talk to guest services at your resort the day before, they can arrange to transport you and your luggage to one of the participating resorts on the day of your leaving WDW to go to a cruise.
(At least that is what DCL told me when I emailed them the question)
"If you are not staying at any of these resorts, you may still use the transportation service provided. At your resort's Guest Services desk, please speak with a Cast member who will be happy to assist in making arrangements (via a private taxi service) to transfer you/your family and luggage to one of the participating Walt Disney World Resorts."
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That answer does not explicitly say it is free, however and the text I quoted makes me think that there would be a fee for the taxi (since they mention "private" meaning "not Disney").
That answer does not explicitly say it is free, however and the text I quoted makes me think that there would be a fee for the taxi (since they mention "private" meaning "not Disney").
They did not answer that part in their e-mail to me.
Oh, you have to wait for the trip!!! Either propose at WDW, so the cruise can be a celebration of that, or secretly line up the "Romance Package" and use that as an entre' into the proposal. Or you could propose at Palo's (if you are dining there). Oh, there's so much you can do to make it memorable!
And yes, I did just completely poke my nose into your private business.
I don't mind. Luckily she doesn't frequent this site so I'll appreciate all the ideas y'all can give me. If I did propose on the trip I would have to do it near the beginning. Don't think I could enjoy it otherwise.
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Planning on staying at Poly, which I saw as one of the choices for land/sea package. So that should make things easier transportation-wise. Going with just DGF. Maybe DFiancee by then. Or may save that for the trip. 
Oh, you have to wait for the trip!!! Either propose at WDW, so the cruise can be a celebration of that, or secretly line up the "Romance Package" and use that as an entre' into the proposal. Or you could propose at Palo's (if you are dining there). Oh, there's so much you can do to make it memorable!
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