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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Is everyone positive that these do not expire??? I plan on starting my gift card collection this pay day for our November 2014 trip. I know it's a long time away, but I'm eager to get to saving. I just wanted to make sure that they will still be good! Has anyone else started saving this far in advance or am I the only crazy one? Lol!
I start saving early (have been saving for 2 years for our upcoming vacation), but I put my money in a savings account just for Disney. I may not make a lot of interest but it is still "free" money. Besides, I tend to forget about gift cards so I prefer the good old credit card route. I use my Disney visa and get points for everything plus 6 months interest free on my purchases and then I use the money in my savings account to pay it off. And if I go under what I've saved, I don't have to worry about keeping track of a gift card with a balance until a next trip.
1. check on the back side of the gift card. There should be a website where you can get information and check the balance on the gift card. I would visit that website and check to see if you can find any information on expiration. I doubt that they would expire by November 2014, but I don't work for Disney so I can't make any promises.
2. If you are like me, you will book your November 2014 vacation as soon as you can. So... book your vacation when those dates open up & use your gift cards toward your vacation. That way you don't have to wait all the way until November 2014 and you can still change or cancel your vacation within a certain time frame without penalty.
IF you do #2 above... be sure & keep ALL of your gift cards. We paid for our entire 7 day WDW trip & our 7 night cruise on Disney gift cards for 2012. We did this because of the great perks we got for buying the gift cards. It resulted in great money savings for us. After we used each gift card we gave them to our kids to play with. We probably had a stack of over 50 gift cards for the entire trip. Well... when hurricane Sandy came through & our stop in Grand Cayman was cancelled Disney refunded out port fees for that stop. We were not aware of this for months afterward & our travel agent never told us. We figured it out from a group we were traveling with. So.... we called our TA & asked her about it & she said that the port fees were refunded to the gift card that we used to pay for our trip with So we had to round up all of the gift cards in our house & go to the website listed on the back of the card to locate the card with the $50. balance on it. We were lucky enough to find it &have not thrown it out. Anyway... if you pay for your trip using gift cards, be sure to save all of them in case there is a change & you get money back. Disney will probably refund the money to one of your gift cards.
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Planning a trip to WDW is like planning a wedding... If you expect things to be flawless, you will be sadly disappointed. If you know that there will be less than perfect times & decide to just laugh them off, then you will be excited when you find the magic all around you.
Says so right on the web site, and I have personal experience - I have been using them to save for my trips for 4 or 5 years now, and I have had cards with balances on them stay active for as long as 25 months.
I started my DGC for my December 2013 trip back in January 2013. Got a nice chunk of change on it now, and it will have a lot more on it by the time December rolls around. Of course, I have it easy - I have a local Disney Store to which I can make a bi-weekly pilgrimage to add money, so I don't have to bother with a stack of them when vacation time finally arrives.
They definitely don't expire! We buy cards frequently and we've been saving for 2 years now. Just paid off my trip using gift cards. I keep them all though, just in case anything is refunded - they do refund back to your gift card. I don't take them with me, but keep them in a safe spot at home. The ones I take to Disney are the ones that have $$$$ on them!
I am curious... what is the benefit of adding money to a Disney gift card? It seems like there are many potential pitfalls, e.g., losing the card, having money refunded to the card and the owner not being aware, small balances on individual cards that can be forgotten about, etc.
As Darlene explained, it just seems that there are so many more benefits to simply stashing the cash into a savings account that earns a bit of interest.
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"Esprits et fantômes sur vos fičrs destriers, Escortez dans la nuit la belle fiancée." -- Madame Leota in Phantom Manor, DL Paris
I am curious... what is the benefit of adding money to a Disney gift card? It seems like there are many potential pitfalls, e.g., losing the card, having money refunded to the card and the owner not being aware, small balances on individual cards that can be forgotten about, etc.
As Darlene explained, it just seems that there are so many more benefits to simply stashing the cash into a savings account that earns a bit of interest.
I think one of the benefits (at least for me) is knowing that can only be used at Disney-whether it be on your resort, at a Disney store, or the Lego store in DTD. It's easy to dip into your vacation account for things (that you may not need) at any time you like. With a gift card, you are going to leave it & keep adding to it.
I save to a special "Disney" savings account (with minimal interest) but I also buy gift cards as well, I guess for me it's just a way to save extra money. Plus, I can pick them up when I'm grocery shopping at Kroger, which makes it convenient.
I am curious... what is the benefit of adding money to a Disney gift card? It seems like there are many potential pitfalls, e.g., losing the card, having money refunded to the card and the owner not being aware, small balances on individual cards that can be forgotten about, etc.
As Darlene explained, it just seems that there are so many more benefits to simply stashing the cash into a savings account that earns a bit of interest.
Most of those pitfalls are avoided by the way I do it.
I don't buy a bunch of cards, I buy one, and add money to it throughout the year.
If the card is lost, no problem - I have the original receipt, and if my card gets lost or stolen, I can get it zeroed out and the balance transferred to a new card. Nothing lost.
As for refunds, that was a unique situation that has never come up for me. I use my card mostly for my food and souvenir spending. If I'm staying on-site, I put the card down as a deposit for KTTW charging, and when I check out, I get the balance refunded to me either as cash or on a new, fresh Disney Gift Card. If I'm staying off-site, I simply charge everything to the card; the balance is printed on each purchase receipt, so I always know how much is left, and I usually have a little left on it when I go home anyway, so I keep the card and put it away till next year. ANd I tend to check the balance on that old card throughout the year on the DGC web site.
The major benefit for me is that I can't spend that money. I'm not the most disciplined person, so having the money saved in a form that I can't dip into is very helpful. It's also helpful for traveling to have money on a single card - which is replaceable if lost or stolen - rather than carrying a stack of cash, traveler's checks (which are a pain to use), or Disney Dollars.
The amount of money I put on my Disney Gift Card over the course of a year wouldn't earn more than $5 or $10 interest in that time, so I'm not losing much, but I'm gaining security for my savings because I can't dip into it.
I agree....I am not the most disciplined person at saving....not that I am wasteful but if unexpected things come up I'll use that money. If I put it on a Disney gift card it can only be used there. I have to buy multiple gift cards because we don't have a nearby Disney store but that's okay because I keep them all together with the receipts stapled to the individual cards. We saved up $500 in gift cards for our 2012 trip and it was fantastic. My DH was very skeptical at first but I made a believer out of my saving method out of him last November!!! He says that we will do this from now on because we don't miss $25 per pay period and it really does add up. We didn't have to keep up with a lot of cards because we added them all to our KTTW card at check-in. We don't do credit cards so gift cards and spare change are what works for us for our spending money. Recently started adding one roll of quarters a week to our change jar on top of the rest of the change from breaking bills. And I'm trying to save $5 bills since I read that savings tip....not sure how well that one will work for me but I'm willing to try new savings tips!
I am curious... what is the benefit of adding money to a Disney gift card? It seems like there are many potential pitfalls, e.g., losing the card, having money refunded to the card and the owner not being aware, small balances on individual cards that can be forgotten about, etc.
As Darlene explained, it just seems that there are so many more benefits to simply stashing the cash into a savings account that earns a bit of interest.
Now that we are aware about refunds going back on the gift cards it is no big deal. Just something to keep in mind. That being said, the benefits of buying the gift cards for us are HUGE! You do have to be responsible to keep track of your gift cards & any refunds that are put on them. However, if you work the deals right, you can save WAY more money than you could ever hope to make in interest from a savings account. Even in offshore savings accounts the interest rate doesn't even seem to keep up with the inflation rate.
We buy our Disney gift cards at King Soopers grocery store. They in turn give us fuel rewards for buying gift cards there. They often have promotions that allow us to get 4X the number of fuel points on gift cards. We have large vehicles that we put a lot of miles on since we live in a rural area so gas is huge to us.
For example: During the 4X points promotion and when they allow $2.00 off per gallon - for every $500. we spend in gift cards we get $2.00 off per gallon of gas. Last summer for buying $500. in Disney gift cards we saved $81. for our diesel truck in a single trip to Loaf N Jug for gas. That is over a 15% savings. We did this numerous times for our $$$$ that we spent on our 14 night vacation last year. HUGE savings!!! It doesn't stop there... We use our Capitol One card to pay for the Disney gift cards at King Soopers and they give us 2 points for every dollar that we spend which in the long run equals up to 2% of everything that we spend good toward ANY travel expenses & it is super easy to get reimbursed for our travel expenses online. So the total is over a 17% return on our money. We would be nuts not to pay for our trip with Disney Gift Cards. I will not mention some other benefits here on this board because I am afraid that if they become too popular, they will become a problem & then I will not be allowed to take advantage of them anymore.
If you want to further complicate things... (When this was allowed last year), I used to load a special Fry's Gift Card with money using my Capitol One Visa. By doing this my niece got a percentage of whatever I loaded on that Fry's Gift Card toward her gymnastics. Then I would purchase the Disney Gift Cards using the Fry's Gift Card. So.... My niece got a percentage of the money for her gymnastics, I got 2% back for travel from my Capitol One Card and then I got the 15% back in fuel rewards.
Also, you can buy Disney Gift Cards at Target for a 5% discount. Although we have never done this because we would have to use a Target credit card (which we do not have) it is still better than paying out 100% of your trip. 5% off of a $5,000 trip is $250. in savings. So a really nice meal in Disney & then some great souvenirs. Better than a sharp stick in the eye.
If you think that you might need to cancel your trip & need that money back in your bank, then don't buy gift cards because you will only get Disney dollars back on your gift cards. We dedicate our money to our vacation and would not be too injured if we could only be refunded in Disney gift cards.
There are a lot of tricks to shuffling money for travel if you can swing it. We ALWAYS have the money to pay off our credit card/s in full. We NEVER carry a balance on our credit cards. That would be counter productive by the time we paid the interest rates on our credit cards.
I am cheap and I love to coupon. I hate paying full price for things if I don't have to. I guess that is my explanation as to why we pay for our trip using Disney Gift Cards.
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Planning a trip to WDW is like planning a wedding... If you expect things to be flawless, you will be sadly disappointed. If you know that there will be less than perfect times & decide to just laugh them off, then you will be excited when you find the magic all around you.
If you have one or more children who be be allocated spending money during their visit to WDW have a separate card for each with the amount they are allocated.
Mention that this is their money to use as they wish and it must last the whole trip.
If you wish diffrent amounts dpending upon age, etc. you can have that amount uploaded onto their card. Don't forget to use a marker for identification.
Not mentioned above and to the best of my knowledge, you can upload your Disney Gift Card by telphone in amounts of $5.00 or more.
Whom carries the card? Ask mom and dad.
If you have one or more children who be be allocated spending money during their visit to WDW have a separate card for each with the amount they are allocated.
Mention that this is their money to use as they wish and it must last the whole trip.
If you wish diffrent amounts dpending upon age, etc. you can have that amount uploaded onto their card. Don't forget to use a marker for identification.
Not mentioned above and to the best of my knowledge, you can upload your Disney Gift Card by telphone in amounts of $5.00 or more.
Whom carries the card? Ask mom and dad.
Have you actually reloaded or added money to Disney Gift Cards by phone? There is no mention of that on the web site, and I was under the impression that it could only be done in person.
I have heard that you are charged $5 a month for the card. So if you have a $30 gift card and you get it two months before your tip, when you go to use it you only have $20. Has this happened to anyone?
There is no charge for a Disney Gift card. I've had one tucked in my Disney bag for more than a year, and it will have the same amount I left on it, with no fees deducted from it.
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So we had to round up all of the gift cards in our house & go to the website listed on the back of the card to locate the card with the $50. balance on it. We were lucky enough to find it &have not thrown it out. Anyway... if you pay for your trip using gift cards, be sure to save all of them in case there is a change & you get money back. Disney will probably refund the money to one of your gift cards.
It seems like there are many potential pitfalls, e.g., losing the card, having money refunded to the card and the owner not being aware, small balances on individual cards that can be forgotten about, etc.
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