Privacy & Disclosures

The short version

• Every tool on this site is free and works without an account. We don’t ask you to register for anything.
• The only personal information we ever collect is what you type in yourself: your email if you subscribe, and your details if you use the contact form.
• We don’t sell your information, rent it, or hand it to advertisers. Ever.
• Your saved checklists stay in your own browser. We can’t see them.
• Some links to Amazon earn us a commission. Those never cost you extra, and they never change what we recommend.

The rest of this page is the detail behind those five points.

What we collect

If you subscribe to emails

We store your email address, and nothing else. It goes into our mailing list (held by Wix, see who processes data) and triggers one welcome email. We use it to send occasional updates about Disney, Universal, and cruise news, and to tell you when we’ve built something new.

Every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and most mail apps will show their own unsubscribe button alongside it. Unsubscribing takes effect immediately and needs no explanation from you.

If you use the contact form

We receive the name, email address, subject, and message you send. That arrives as an email to us and is used for one thing: replying to you. The form also records how long the page was open before you hit send, which is a crude but effective way of spotting automated spam. That timing figure isn’t stored.

If you buy something from the shop

Checkout is handled entirely by Wix Stores, and orders are fulfilled by Printful. Your payment details go to them, not to us — we never see or store card numbers. Their privacy terms govern that transaction, and we’d encourage you to read them.

Analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights to see which pages get read and how quickly they load. These are aggregate and privacy-oriented by design: no cookies, no cross-site profile, no attempt to identify you as an individual. We see that a page was viewed, not who viewed it.

We also use Google Analytics, and we want to be straight with you about the difference. Unlike the above, it does set cookies — named _ga and _ga_… — which let Google recognize a returning browser and work out roughly where in the world it is. That data goes to Google and is handled under their terms, not ours. We use it to understand which pages actually help people plan a trip, and we never upload your email address or anything else that would name you.

If you’d rather not be counted, Google publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Google Analytics everywhere, and any browser setting or extension that blocks third-party analytics will stop it here. Blocking it costs you nothing on this site — every tool and page works exactly the same.

What stays on your own device

A few tools remember your progress using your browser’s local storage. This never leaves your device and we have no way to read it:

• adventuristsLog.packingChecklist — which items you’ve ticked on the packing list
• adventuristsLog.hiddenMickeysFound — which Hidden Mickeys you’ve found
• wix-visitor-token-… — an anonymous token that lets the blog and shop load. It identifies a browser session, not a person.

Clearing your browser data removes all of it. Our own code sets no cookies — the only cookies on this site are the Google Analytics ones described above, and clearing your browser data removes those too.

What we never collect

We don’t ask for or store your name, address, phone number, date of birth, or payment details anywhere on this site. The planners don’t save your itinerary to a server — when you share a plan, the choices travel inside the link itself, which is why those links are long. Your child’s height in the “Can My Kid Ride?” tool is used in your browser to do the arithmetic and is never transmitted to us.

Who else is involved

Running a site means relying on other companies. These are the ones that could come into contact with your data, and what each does:

• Vercel — hosts the site and provides the analytics described above. Like any web host, its servers process your IP address to deliver pages.
• Wix — holds the mailing list, the blog posts, and the shop.
• Resend — delivers our email, including the welcome email and contact-form messages.
• Google Analytics — measures which pages get read and how people arrive. This is the one part of the site that sets cookies, as described above.
• Google Fonts — serves the typefaces. Loading a font means your browser contacts Google, which sees your IP address.
• YouTube (Google) — powers the video thumbnails and embeds. Playing an embedded video puts you under Google’s terms.
• Amazon — only when you click one of our affiliate links, at which point you’re on Amazon’s site under their policy.

One deliberate design note: our live wait times come from queue-times.com, but your browser never talks to them. We fetch that data from our own server and pass it along, so no request of yours reaches them.

We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information, and we don’t run third-party advertising networks or tracking pixels on this site. If that ever changes, this page will change first.

How we make money — affiliate disclosure

The Adventurist’s Log is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

In practice: some links on this site — principally on our Merch Watch page — carry a tracking tag. If you buy something after clicking one, we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. The price you pay is identical either way.

What that does not buy is our opinion. Nobody pays us for a recommendation, and we don’t accept payment for coverage. If we ever publish something sponsored or gifted, it will say so plainly at the top, not in a footnote.

Children’s privacy

Plenty of our readers are planning trips for children, but this site is written for the adults doing the planning. It isn’t directed to children under 13 and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us their details, email us and we’ll delete it promptly — no explanation needed.

Worth being clear about the height checker: entering a child’s height is arithmetic done inside your own browser. That figure is never sent to us or stored anywhere.

Your choices and rights

Whatever jurisdiction you’re in, you can ask us to:

• Tell you what we hold. For nearly everyone the honest answer is “an email address, if you subscribed.”
• Delete it. Unsubscribing removes you from mailings; ask and we’ll delete the record itself.
• Correct it. Send us the right version and we’ll update it.
• Stop hearing from us. One click in any email, no questions.

If you’re in California, the CCPA gives you rights to know, delete, and opt out of the sale of personal information. We don’t sell personal information, so there’s nothing to opt out of — but the know-and-delete rights work exactly as described above. If you’re in the UK or EU, the same requests are honoured under the GDPR. We will never charge you for making one or treat you differently for having asked.

To make any of these requests, email ryan@theadventuristslog.com or use the contact form. We aim to reply within a few days.

How long we keep things

Email addresses stay on the list until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. Contact-form messages live in our email like any other correspondence, and get cleared out when they’re no longer useful. Analytics data is aggregate and retained by Vercel and Google under their respective terms.

Security, honestly stated

The site runs over HTTPS, our secrets live in environment variables rather than in code, and the unsubscribe links are cryptographically signed so nobody can unsubscribe someone else by editing a URL. That said, no website can promise perfect security, and we’re not going to pretend otherwise. The best protection we can offer is not collecting much in the first place, which is the approach we’ve taken.

One thing that isn’t about privacy, but matters

The Adventurist’s Log is an independent fan publication. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by The Walt Disney Company, Universal Destinations & Experiences, or any cruise line. All trademarks belong to their respective owners. We can’t help with bookings, tickets, or refunds — only the parks can do that.

Our crowd levels and wait estimates are clearly labelled as projections built from published information and editorial judgement, not guarantees. Always confirm park hours, ride availability, and height requirements in the official apps before you rely on them.

Changes to this policy

If what we collect changes, this page gets updated and the date at the top of it changes with it. We won’t quietly start collecting more than we describe here.

Getting in touch

Questions about any of this, or a request about your own data, go to ryan@theadventuristslog.com or through the contact form. A person reads those.