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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We will be in the World three weeks from today. I have a card attached to my room reservation and used it again when I prechecked in. How does this work? Will the card be charged each day? At the end of our trip? I am working to have a cash only trip - nothing on the charge card when we leave. I attached the card to the ressie so that we didn't have to carry cash with us.
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When you attach a credit card to your room reservation, you can then charge things to your room up to a maximum which is determined by whether you're staying at a deluxe, moderate or economy resort. Nothing is actually charged to your credit card until you either reach your maximum or check out, whichever comes first.
You can also stop in at the front desk to pay cash for any charges made to the room. I would stop at the desk when we returned from the parks each time when I'd charged something and simply pay it off.
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The Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Vacation, 3.0 http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ml#post4472933
Ch-Ch-Changes July 2015
[URL="http://www.passporterboards.com/forums/sharing-adventure-disney-world-trip-reports/288847-ch-ch-changes-ptr-july-16-24-a.html"]
You can also attach a debit card to the room charges. That way you can carry less actual cash and room charges will come out of your checking account as a total.
If you are bringing cash with you for expenses, but don't want to carry it all around with you, you have another option.
When yuo arrive at your resort, go to the front desk and tell them you want to enable room charging on your KTTW cards (Key To The World is the fancy Disney name for the room key cards). When you enable room charging, you do not have to use a credit card - you can use cash.
You can make a deposit in cash, which will enable room charging on your KTTW cards, but anything you charge to the room will be paid for by your cash deposit.
When you check out, any unspent remainder will be refunded to you.
This gives you the best of both worlds - no charges on your credit card, but you can still pay for things on Disney property with your room key.
NOTE: Carry at least SOME cash with you at all times. There are a number of places on WDW property that don't accept KTTW cards, mainly the non-Disney stores at Downtown Disney, and of course any shops and restaurants inside the Swan and Dolphin.
If you are bringing cash with you for expenses, but don't want to carry it all around with you, you have another option.
When yuo arrive at your resort, go to the front desk and tell them you want to enable room charging on your KTTW cards (Key To The World is the fancy Disney name for the room key cards). When you enable room charging, you do not have to use a credit card - you can use cash.
You can make a deposit in cash, which will enable room charging on your KTTW cards, but anything you charge to the room will be paid for by your cash deposit.
When you check out, any unspent remainder will be refunded to you.
This gives you the best of both worlds - no charges on your credit card, but you can still pay for things on Disney property with your room key.
NOTE: Carry at least SOME cash with you at all times. There are a number of places on WDW property that don't accept KTTW cards, mainly the non-Disney stores at Downtown Disney, and of course any shops and restaurants inside the Swan and Dolphin.
Not to hi-jack the tread, but any ideas how to do something like this when we are staying at Shades of Green? Love the idea of a cash only vacation...
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Not to hi-jack the tread, but any ideas how to do something like this when we are staying at Shades of Green? Love the idea of a cash only vacation...
As I understand it, since SOG is not a Disney resort, you don't get a KTTW card when you check in, so you can't participare in room charging or the Disney Dining Plan or a few other perks.
However, there is another technique which is used a lot by off-site Guests (I've done it myself) - use a Disney Gift Card.
Disney Gift Cards can be bought prior to your trip at Disney Stores around the US, and online at DisneyGiftCard.com. They are similar to a WalMart gift card - no fees, no expirations, and you can re-load them and add money to them (but only at a Disney Store or park, not online or by phone). You can also wait and simply buy Disney Gift Cards when you arrive at WDW. They are available in almost all of the stores and shops in the WDW parks, resorts, and DTD, as well as at the Disney EarPort stores in MCO and the Disney outlet stores at Orlando Premiuim Outlets and Pr1me Outlets.
A simple strategy is to take each person's spending money, load it onto a Disney Gift Card, and write their name on it. Each time you use a DGC, your reciept tells you how much is left on the card. They're accepted any place a KTTW card is accepted, throughout Disney property, and at Disney Store throughout the US, and even at DisneyShopping.com for online purchases.
When you buy a DGC, keep the orginal purchase reciept and store it separately from the cards. Mark them so you know which reciept goes to which card. If the cards are lost or stolen, you can use the reciept to have the missing card invalidated, and a new card will be issued with the remaining balance on it - just like your bank does when you lose a credit or debit card.
It's one extra card to carry, but one card isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, and it can be a lot easier than dealing with the heavy, jingling pocket full of coins you always wind up with after a long day of spending money, er, having fun in the parks.
We used the Disney Gift Card idea for our sons. Each was given a card with an amount. A CM gave us a great idea - put a piece of tape on the back of the card so you can note the amount left. Each time they spent money, we'd replace the tape, noting the new total. Any Disney register (store, Disney Hotel etc) can help you add more money/reload the card. At the end of the trip, when they'd zeroed their cards, we kept them to put in their scrap books. Patrick calls it his first official credit card.
Note: a few places do not accept Disney cards and some, like the T-Rex and Lego store have limited machines to run the cards. When we ate at T-Rex, if we'd wanted to use the Disney Gift Card to pay for the meal, our server warned us it would be a 20 minute wait as they had only one machine and she'd have to wait in line. We were able to charge the meal to our resort and then pay for it at the front desk.
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The Fun, Old-Fashioned Family Vacation, 3.0 http://www.passporterboards.com/foru...ml#post4472933
Ch-Ch-Changes July 2015
[URL="http://www.passporterboards.com/forums/sharing-adventure-disney-world-trip-reports/288847-ch-ch-changes-ptr-july-16-24-a.html"]
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