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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Ok let me say with DVC on the verge of cancealing free valet parking .
I have owned my DVC for just over 10 years and i'm really curious on how many past perks that were really good and they took away??
And at the same time what perks do you like that they have now ???
As for us as for the past ones when we bought i loved the 10% off at the disney store and it got yanked when the chirdrens place bought the stores .
i also herd many moons ago that dvc gave out free passes to the parks but i'm not sure .
as for the present perks i usually do not keep up with them unless i'm at disney sorry my bad .
So how about everyone else .
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I don't keep up with all of the perks unless I'm at Disney, either, with the exception of the AP discount.
There was a time, early in DVC history, that you did get free passes. I'm not sure when they stopped that, it was well before 2001, when we joined.
I don't like the $95 on-property booking fee. Not at all. I think a lower booking fee would be acceptable to me, and save the $95 for exchanges.
We used to get 10% off at the WoD store in DD, but I think that's gone too.
And I LOVED free valet. This aggravates me to no end.
I like the small discounts you get at lunch and dinner. Even 10 or 15% off your bill is nice. And although I haven't been there in a bit, I think you still get 10% off at Ghiradhelli's!
I like the discount on tours and the DVC nights at MNSSHP and MVMCP, etc. And I loved the perks we got on the DVC member cruise. Gratuities included, booking fee waved, tonsd and tons of stateroom gifts and 2 stops at Castaway Cay!
As the perks disappear, I can see us using our DVC points more and more outside of WDW. For instance, we are leaving next week for 6 days in Cape Cod on an RCI exchange. I didn't mind paying the $95 booking fee at all for that, it was well worth it and only 96 points. We loved HHI and are planning on a return trip next year. We have also researched exchanges in Niagra Falls and Las Vegas. And I still haven't gotten to Vero Beach! :
As I posted before, I still think DVC is a good value and was a wise investment for us, I'm just a little sad about the latest lost perk.
I was lambasted on another board for being dissapointed in the perks but I just feel that as a person who has committed to 40 years of vacations at Disney there are things they can do to make us feel a little special. Most of the discounts we get are trumped by discounts Disney Visa Holders or Passholders get. Little things like special seating to a showing of The Nemo Musical or other shows or a weekly ice cream social (How much can some soft serve cost?) at the resorts would not only be PR for how "Membership is Magical" but make members feel appreciated.
Here's the thing, before I became a member I would get a little box of cookies or some little "thank you" for being a repeat visitor. When I joined DVC that stopped.
I LOVE being a member but they put so much emphasis on it being a "club" rather than a timeshare during the sales pitch that I expected it to be different.
I don't think there has been much of a net change in the level of perks over the last 8-10 years.
The free park tickets were a purchase incentive offered only to folks who bought in the first couple of years they were selling DVC. That wasn't really a perk--it was more along the lines of the current cash discounts ($5-10 off per point), one-time free cruise, set of AP vouchers, etc. The exact terms were that buyers would get free tickets for 1/2 the occupancy of the villa up through 1999. If they stayed in a One Bedroom villa with a max occupancy of 4, they would get 2 free passes for the length of stay. Initially the passes weren't valid for the Animal Kingdom (since the incentive was specifically limited to MK, Epcot and MGM), but I believe Disney relaxed this clause after a few months.
The $95 non-DVC booking fee is definitely new for some destinations. Disneyland resorts are exempt, and I believe there has always been a booking fee for DCL. But other destinations had this fee added 2 or 3 years ago.
As for actual perks, the most noteworthy losses are 10% off of the price of a Length of Stay park ticket and now the valet parking.
The most noteworthy gains are the Annual Pass discounts and the free Internet.
Other little perks have come and gone. Restaurant discounts have always fluctuated over time (some added, some removed.) Overall the number of discounted locations is about the same.
Member discounts for MNSSHP and MVMCP are new within the last couple of years. There have been occasional offers for discounted Cirque tickets and Broadway show tickets--those are new in the last 2-3 years. We have fairly new discounts on tennis and golf lessons.
As for other deductions, the only one that comes to mind while flipping through some copies of Portable Perks is that the SSR spa discount went from 20% to the current 10%. Sue mentioned the Disney Store discount which has been gone for a few years now, although we still have a discount at the on-line store.
I don't remember a WoD discount for DVC. Passholders, yes, but not DVC (not to say that my memory is flawless. )
With free Internet being added in the last 18 months and valet now subtracted, I think we're pretty close to zero change over the last decade when viewed as a whole. But that's not to say that individual members don't value one perk (either gained or lost) moreso than another.
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Our neighbors are DVC, and when they purchased many moons ago, they threw in park tickets- basically for life. I almost fell over with jealousy when she told me that! I wish the deals were that sweet now!
I understand that they don’t need to give us perks, but its nice to have them. The only problem I have is that we should get the same perks as AP Holder or Disney Visa Card holders +++++ other perks for investing in their product. As many DVC members more than likely already have a DCC/AP
While in the World a few weeks ago the DW and I were in WoD in DDT and had the gift card from the Disney Visa Card with us for our purchases. Well we had left our AP's in our room and they said we had to put the whole charge on the Visa to get the discount, therefore we could not use the rewards card just because DVC does not get a discount there. WHY NOT!?!?! Why the other 2 but not DVC?!?!
I do like the free Internet that DVC members get but even that is kind of a joke, as it does not cost $9.99/24hrs for Internet service. EVERY hotel, not just Disney should offer this free as it cost nowhere near what they charge. If on one day every room purchased the internet they would get enough cash to pay for the service for the next 10+ years.
Even though we don’t get a car nor have a problem of parking myself if we did have one, loosing the free valet is very crappy. I can see that might of needed to start charging but like DVCMike stated in another thread why go to the full $12/day and not some discounted rate for members.
It just seems that since becoming a member in Nov 08, we have lost more perks than we have gained. We were told the pts never change to having them changing months later. I get the fact that we will save tons of $$ in room fees by owning DVC but the fact is that we will also spend tons more $$ because we will be coming there way more often than the average person. Disney makes Billons each year, I think they can afford to match the perks given to AP/DCC holders and add a few more to those who invested in there company.
I do like the free Internet that DVC members get but even that is kind of a joke, as it does not cost $9.99/24hrs for Internet service. EVERY hotel, not just Disney should offer this free as it cost nowhere near what they charge.
You're right--it is a very inexpensive amenity to offer. But as long as Disney is charging all other guests $10 per day, free service is a legitimate DVC perk. And a beneficial one at that.
As for why perks vary, I assume it's merely an incentive to get you to buy those other programs.
Take the Disney Visa, for example. There are hundreds of other Visa reward programs on the market. I have an Amazon Visa (also from Chase) because it gets me 3x rewards for all purchases at Amazon.com. But I also have a Disney Visa because of perks like the World of Disney discount and cheap stroller rentals at Disneyland. If I received those same perks with my DVC membership, then the Disney Visa is just another card that gives me 1% rewards.
I do agree that perks could be better but I guess Disney disagrees. Aside from the AP discount (which is relatively new compared to the overall age of DVC), I don't see any trend of perks getting worse--they're just as mediocre as ever.
I have said this before but I feel that discounts are great but are usually a way of encouraging you to spend more $. I am very glad for the AP discount but to be honest it encourages us to buy AP's in the first place rather than LOS Hoppers and try to fit in more trips therefore spending more $ at WDW rather than elsewhere. I think that true perks could come in other forms. I look at things like the Merry Member Mixers, Welcome Home Wednesdays, ect that distinguish a DVC Member trip from a Cash Reservation/Rented Point trip to be of value to me.
I'm very new to this, but maybe they are focusing more on the incentives given to get more members to join then on the perks once you become a member? I'm only saying this because we got some amazing incentives to join which totalled $10K (double points and our down payment was matched dollar for dollar - those were the two biggies). I also know that another family buying in at the same time was able to buy in for only 100 points instead of the former 160 point minimum. Just a thought.....
In my humble opinion DVC members should be considered Disney's "Highest Value" guests. We have committed to 50 years of Disney vacations. Sometimes at the rate of two or three times a year. How many other repeat guests do they have in the parks, resorts, and restaurants with that frequency?
It is VERY common right now in the hotel industry to be looking at "heads in beds" instead of catering to the High Value guests--these include Reward Club members (like Marriott Rewards or Hilton Honors) and corporate contract guests who stay frequently. It is extremely frustrating for those of us who work in the industry and value customer service--to see the short term bottom line as being far more important to our owners!
I guess you really have to analyze things in terms of business units. The parks (which would cover the AP holders, etc) make their own money in their own way with resort guests, off property guests, and locals. The resort unit makes money through hotel stays (I think Food and Beverage is completely separate- as is Merchandise). DVC- separate business unit.
So, I guess the perks correspond with what each unit can do, and what jives with their business model. Hate to use the term apples and oranges... but you would hope that each would be as profitable to be sort of equal. In terms of discounts at restaurant/shop discount- Isn't it more of a marketing ploy to get more of your money?
__________________
Been to WDW a million times... was even a Cast Member! Next Trip: March '12
Still thinking of going to the F&W Festival again....
In my humble opinion DVC members should be considered Disney's "Highest Value" guests. We have committed to 50 years of Disney vacations. Sometimes at the rate of two or three times a year. How many other repeat guests do they have in the parks, resorts, and restaurants with that frequency?
It is VERY common right now in the hotel industry to be looking at "heads in beds" instead of catering to the High Value guests--these include Reward Club members (like Marriott Rewards or Hilton Honors) and corporate contract guests who stay frequently. It is extremely frustrating for those of us who work in the industry and value customer service--to see the short term bottom line as being far more important to our owners!
In my humble opinion DVC members should be considered Disney's "Highest Value" guests. We have committed to 50 years of Disney vacations. Sometimes at the rate of two or three times a year. How many other repeat guests do they have in the parks, resorts, and restaurants with that frequency?
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Aside from the AP discount (which is relatively new compared to the overall age of DVC), I don't see any trend of perks getting worse--they're just as mediocre as ever.
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