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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 am regretting not getting the dining plan. I didn't on the last trip because we went on the $500 gift card deal and just used it. My reasoning this time was I thought it was a waste of food and thought we might be able to eat cheaper. My son is not a big eater and we could have shared meals SO many times on previous trips. Also, since it is just the two of us, sit down meals can kinda drag us down, we are hard core tourers, lol. I thought that we could do two or three sit downs and the rest quick service or in the room (I use Garden Grocer). What do you guys think? Can you come out ahead by NOT using the dining plan? And also I'm 11 days away, I think it is too late to add it, correct me if I'm wrong. :P
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Good luck however you end up! My family's made up of light eaters, so we never have even considered the dining plan, never wished we had it. "Foodies" do swear by it, though, so if the meals are a big part of the Disney magic to you, it might be worth it. It's hard for me to see how you'd come out ahead if you had to buy the plan (I believe it's sometimes included free in packages), unless you do table-service restaurants every day. Again, that's a non-DDPer talking, your mileage will probably vary.
Either way, have a great time with your son...wish I were going, too!
Ginger
The DP is not for everyone... We only use it when it's free.... If you and your ds share meals some, then it sounds like it would be cheaper for you to go w/out it... We also only do a couple TS meals on a week long trip.... as we like to focus on the parks...... I think you will be fine w/out it!
We typically need a sit down meal every day so the regular DP works best for us. We opted for the QS plan in June for a short trip and regretted not upgrading.
The best thing to do is to look at menus and price both options out and see which puts you ahead.
I have always felt as long as your child can get the dining plan for 11.99 or what ever the price, you always save money. I priced doing and not doing the BDP this last time. No matter which way I ran the #'s I spending the same amount to even more. Plus I want the ease of prepaid.
I'll be the anti-dining plan voice We did the dining plan when gratuity was covered and you got both appetizers and desert for the regular. THEN I think it was worth it.
I really don't think it is worth it anymore specifically for us. The reason is we normally split an appetizer and dessert. Many meals I would rather have an appetizer than dessert or vice versa. But with the plan, depending on the plan, you don't get the flexibility.
Now, here is the part were it is personal on whether or not you come out on the upside in the end. You have to look at what you would normally order/eat with no consideration to cost if you are not doing the plan.
It is that cost that you need to compare to the dining plan cost. Then add gratuity accordingly. I think that for most people, they actually come out better without the dining plan. If you feel like you wasted a lot of food last time, my guess is that you normally would eat cheaper than the cost of the plan.
We didn't get the dining plan on this last trip but there were a few times when I really was wishing I had. The price on kids' meals seems to have gone up alot since we were there last. TS was $8.99 in general and some CS were $6.99 (I thought they were under $5 last time but I could be wrong). And entrees in general (adult) just seemed more expensive than I remember.
That said, we haven't done the dining plan for the last three trips and at least once we did come out ahead. We like to share (especially CS and desserts) and we usually end up cancelling a TS meal or two by the end of the trip. I didn't do the math on the other two trips.
The dining plan is worth it for us....because we like a sit down meal every day. It's not as great a bargain as it used to be, but we still save some decent money, especially when it comes to the kids. And even if we only came out even, we would still be happy. The meals are all paid for ahead of time and that makes it easy.
But, if you only want a few sit down meals, and want to share meals and eat mainly counter meals, no it's not worth it. We did the counter service plan once and did the math ahead...we really didn't save any money, but the plan allowed us to get desserts with every meal, where if we'd paid OOp, we wouldn't have gotten the desserts.
When DD turns 10 and is considered an adult, I can't see us getting the plan...she will not eat enough to justify paying the adult plan.
But if it's free...well, of course!
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If you plan on doing mostly CS, have you considered the QS plan? Then you could just pay OOP if you decide to do any TS meals. You could still split meals if you wanted to, but when you figure in 2 CS meals and 2 snacks/person/day and the refillable mugs, you might come out ahead with it (especially if your son is still considered a "child") . And, no, I don't think it's too late to add dining. Unless it has changed, the policy used to be 3 days prior.
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Originally Posted by nutterbutter
I am regretting not getting the dining plan. I didn't on the last trip because we went on the $500 gift card deal and just used it. My reasoning this time was I thought it was a waste of food and thought we might be able to eat cheaper. My son is not a big eater and we could have shared meals SO many times on previous trips. Also, since it is just the two of us, sit down meals can kinda drag us down, we are hard core tourers, lol. I thought that we could do two or three sit downs and the rest quick service or in the room (I use Garden Grocer). What do you guys think? Can you come out ahead by NOT using the dining plan? And also I'm 11 days away, I think it is too late to add it, correct me if I'm wrong. :P
I think you have a good plan without ddp. We do find that doing only a few sit-down meals and sharing really works and has saved us a lot in the past, especially when it's just two of us. Don' t worry.
I have done the math and have found that we save on the DDP. In the past I have gone when it was free. This trip I have gone back and forth with the numbers but will be saving close to 500.00. However, part of the savings is the discount that I got with my AAA savings. The package cost is slightly less than the regular cost of the DDP.
I did the math and for our TS choices each day plus an average cost of CS (used values in passporter) it is saving me close to $500. I think you just need to decide what TS you are interested in eating at and begin to price it out. We also enjoy the sitdown meal as a way to relax and calm down from a day of touring but it really depends on each person.
We're not foodies, and share meals. The kids aren't big eaters, and we don't like to be confined to TS meals every day. We did it once and discovered it wasn't for us and our style of touring.
Haven't used the DDP yet, but there were at least a few times in the past I wished I did have the DDP's flexibility to eat the odd TS meal (especially at the California Grill... yum!) or character breakfast. Not planning another trip as of right now (unfortunately ), so I'm not really going to do the math unless a trip is in the cards.
We like the buffets at WDW. The kids' favorite is Biergarten and its a must do every trip. If you plan to do 1 sit down or buffet every day then you save money with the dining plan. Like others have said the quick service plan is really nice too if you are sticking to cs.
Thanks guys! Since we aren't going to do our usual once a day TS meal, I think I am just going to pay OOP. From what I calculated we could save quite a bit. We are going to do Chef Mickey for breakfast one day, T-Rex (which would have been OOP anyway), and lunch at San Angel Inn. Everything else will be CS or in room. As usual, thanks for all the help! I'll be sure and report back whether or not I actually ended up regretting it! lol :P
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We did the dining plan when gratuity was covered and you got both appetizers and desert for the regular. THEN I think it was worth it.
), so I'm not really going to do the math unless a trip is in the cards.
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