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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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My wife and I are discussing which dining plan to choose as we set up our vacation.
We will be traveling with our DS (7), and his grandparents and will be staying 7 nights in a resort.
Generally when we camp and are most active we eat a large breakfast, then nibble for lunch and snack a bit during the day and have a hearty dinner at night. I would think that the dining plan with the one TS, CS and snack option would work well for us.
However..the grandparents like to have sit down meals through out the day, and we are booking the trip all together.
Is it worth while to get the dining plan for the three sit down meals? I expect us to be pretty active most of the trip, and am unsure how dining is going to fall out. Though we do plan on hitting at least on character dining, and some of the themed resturaunts.
We got the DxDDP (3 meals and two snacks per person per day). What we ended up doing was having breakfast (all character meals for us; my first trip ever) and and then booking 2 credit meals for dinner! We used all our credits and just had snacks throughout the day. I know most people will say we didn't "get enough bang for our buck" but we got free dining and only paid for the upgrade to deluxe!
We got to experience nice dining and it didn't cost us much at all.
I am beginning to wonder if it would be worth it just to do the one CD, TS, snack option, and pay for any "extra" sit down meals oop if they occur. Though I can see how that could get expensive, and somewhat take away from the idea of getting a meal plan in the first place.
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The descision would be easier if the free meal plan would pop back up.
Seeing as how we are going to be booking and finalizing plans this weekend I haven't a clue as to what to do if the free dining pops up in the near future. Not sure if I can rearrange my package to accomodate it or not.
The descision would be easier if the free meal plan would pop back up.
Seeing as how we are going to be booking and finalizing plans this weekend I haven't a clue as to what to do if the free dining pops up in the near future. Not sure if I can rearrange my package to accomodate it or not.
If free dining is offered at a later time for your dates, just call and ask to have the discount applied to your reservation. People do it all the time. Keep in mind that you can only use 1 discount per room, so if you are using the 25/30/35% off or gift card promos, you can't do that and free dining.
I also wanted to mention that you DO NOT have to decide on the dining plan when you book. You can add it to your reservation later. If I were you, I would decide where I would like to eat and check out the menus on allears.net to get an idea of what my cost would be and compare that to the cost of the dining plans. Since your trip is in less than 6 months, you can start booking your dining right away. I would also see which ADRs you are able to get before you decide on a dining plan.
As the above poster stated, if free dining comes out later, it can be added to your package- no problem. And you can always add the DP later when you decide. Based on the info you gave, I would not go Deluxe; JMO. You need to do atleast 2 TS meals per day for it to be of good value and most people who use it- do a lot of signature meals and dinner shows. Unless that is your plan, I would go another route. It does sound like the basic plan would be well suited for you. We personally like the QSDP, but we only do 1 or 2 TS meals over a week plus long trip. There are different plans for different dining styles. Hope you can figure out what is best for your family!
We have done the basic dining plan twice now and have been very happy with it - we usually use the CS for breakfast at the POR food court and then the TS based on what park we're at for the day. I have found that usually, it's enough for us. And, I try to plan our TS dinner for as early as possible (@ 5 pm).
I think the Deluxe plan migh be a bit too much food and planning (as much as I enjoy it! ), not to mention out of my budget (not to say I wouldn't like to maybe do it one trip).
We usually end up paying OOP for a meal or two (usually a TS breakfast as it's typcially the least expensive).
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We like the basic DDP with 1CS, 1TS & 1 snack credit daily. I really only want to be tied down to 1 reservation. I feel using the Dx DDP for us takes alot of time away from the parks and too restrictive.
We use our snack credit for breakfast. you can have a side of eggs, a side of sausage, muffin, or milk & cereal on 1 snack credit. I pack a few bags of bagels in our luggage, so we will have a bagel which we toast in the food court with a side of eggs, or something, and use our refillable resort mugs for drinks.
Lunch we use our CS credit. You do sit down in the CS restaurants then for dinner we book our TS.
Last trip we did the Regular Dining Plan with 1 Snack, 1 CS, 1 TS. This was for myself, my mom, and my daughter. We actually spent a decent amount of money extra, and felt that wasn't enough food for us. Also, on the DxDP you get your resort mugs free as well, on the regular dining plan, you don't get these. They are about $15 each, so that adds to the cost. This time we are on the DxDP, at first we thought it was a great deal of food, however, we are doing a TS breakfast every day for 7 days, and 5 2TS restaurants for dinner, and 2 other 1TS restaurants for dinner, and 1 lunch. This totals 15 meals for us, over 8 days, which is using 20/21 credits. If you are worried you won't be able to use all of your snack credits, you can take home krispie treats, lolli pops, and other things as well, which is what we plan on doing. I think if you plan an early breakfast every day, and a few 2TS dinners, you will make use of the DxDP.
. If you are worried you won't be able to use all of your snack credits, you can take home krispie treats, lolli pops, and other things as well, which is what we plan on doing. .
Don't forget. It gets hot in Florida no matter what time of year you travel. Those $2 bottles of water add up if you pay oop. They are a snack on the DDP!
We had the reg DP on our last trip. We paid op for breakfast and used the dp for lunch and dinners. Most of our ts meals were characters. It was a lot of food. If free dining was offered we'd do it again. We used the snack credits for bottled water, frozen lemonaide and stuff like that as it was hot in Sept.
Liz
I would stick with the plan that offers 1 CS, 1 TS, and 1 snack. Pay for the Breakfasts out of pocket. can the sitdown meals with Grandparents be counterservice? There are many nice indoor seating places if that is an option.
Trying to use up all the TS means having to be on time at all the ADRs you will need to have set up.
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We are going to sit down tonight and chart out our days, locations, and dining preferences to make our final descision.
I am leaning on doing the regular dining plan, but my FIL is holding out for deluxe as he doesn't really want to have to worry about paying for any "extra" meals while down there.
Best case is we get the regular dining plan, then the free meal deal pops up and we pay the difference for the Deluxe
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I want to know that the money I have on hand is "Fun Money", not food money!!! In my head, THAT is all ready taken care of!!!
), not to mention out of my budget (not to say I wouldn't like to maybe do it one trip).
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