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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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This is my first attempt at a trip report, so please forgive me if I stumble along!!
My family is a group of Disney nuts! Additionally we love to take cruises. It seems strange that it took us so long to finally take a Disney cruise but I'm so glad we finally did. Of course, exactly what I expected to happen did-Disney ruined us for all our other favorite cruise lines! But, I'm getting ahead of myself.....
The Basics
The WHO of this trip:
Myself: Tara, 36
My DH: Jeff, 39
Our DD: Remy, 6
Our DD: Gelsey, 2 1/2
we also took along:
My Mother: Susan
Jeff's Mother: Ann
They'd hurt me if I posted their ages!
Our Son, Mike, 15 opted not to take this cruise becuase of some school schedule changes so we are taking him in April on a trip for his 16th birthday-he stayed home with his Grampa.
The Planning:
I am the planner in the family so the details we left to me...and that's the way I like it! After much thought, I decided that a land and sea package was not for us. When we go to WDW we like to do 7-10 days, so I thought only doing four or so would only be frustrating for us. I decided to make arrangements to go down to Florida a few days prior to the cruise to relax and swim. Onto the cruise choosing I went. We've cruised several times before and the longest our little girls have been out to sea is 5 nights. I felt 7 nights might be too long so I opted for a four nighter. I decided on any date from November 2007 until the end of Jan 2008 just in case I needed to be flexible. Off to my AAA travel agency I went. My TA Linda has been booking our trips for years and knows me well. I gave her the dates and told her I wanted a category 1 preferably the Walt suite as the pictures I'd seen shwed the Roy having such a dark wood- I thought the Walt looked more cheery. She got on the phone with Disney reservations and finally found a cruise with the Walt available-January 13th. This ended up being perfect for my Mom, whose birthday was Jan 14th and my DH whose b-day was Jan25th. Checkbook in hand I nearly screamed out loud in my excitement BOOK IT, BOOK IT I cried. I had read so many posts and guide books discussing the difficulty in actually securing one of the category 1 suites that I think I never really believed we would get it. My DH was as excited as I was though the check amount did not amuse him at all. "It's Disney, honey" I reminded him as Disney trips have historically been the trips we splurge the most on. Now that the cruise itself was booked I move onto the hotel arrangements for the days before the cruise. Originally when my Son had still planned to go, we planned to stay at Ron Jon's, (based on the good review in my well worn Disney cruise Passporter!). He was excited about staying there. When it came about that he needed to stay home we opted to find another accomodation and save that for a time when he could accompany us. Back to the Passporter I went...Radisson at the port looked good, and the reviews in the boards were positive so I had my hotel picked out. My Girl's liked the look of the lagoon like pool and they had suites large enough to accomodate the 6 of us so I booked it for January 11th and 12th. Remy, who is 6 was very excited. She loves Disney World and saw this as an extension, but Gelsey focuses mostly on characters. We told her many time that we would be going on Mickey's ship but she never grasped it until we boarded.
About a month prior to the cruise, I booked our air transportation with USAir, which is who we normally fly with. I had been watching the fares for awhile and lo and behold they went down a bit and the arrival and departure times worked so I booked the six of us on nonstop flights both ways. Now, how to get from Orlando airport to Port Canaveral. We had previously used Happy Limo on our WDW trips so a quick call to them and we had a nice strech that would accomodate all of us. My plan was to have the Limo take us to the Radisson and use the hotel shuttle to get to the ship terminal on departure day.
All of a sudden it was Christmas. The Girl's got gifts of swimsuits and new crocs to wear on the trip and stocking stuffers of sunscreen, all of which got us in the spirit...as if we needed more encouragement. The only looming nagging worry for me was the weather. We live in a suburb of Pittsburgh and we can get the snow dumped and the ice falling on us here. I was happy to not have the worry of sailing the same day as flying but I still did not want to encounter delays.
I forgot to mention that I did book Palo reservations at 96 days out. I was able to do at 105 days but just didn't get a chance. I was stil able to get almost what I wanted. I booked one dinner for DH and I and one for our Mom's together. For brunch I wanted to have the four of us together but I was only able to book two together online with one reservation at 10am and one at 10:30am. It was my hope that once we got on board I could have the concierge merge the two into one and we could all be together.
Our documents did not arrive until January 3rd and by the time they did I was a nervous wreck that they were lost, never to be found.
Reservations, documents and new crocs, we were ready to roll!
The day finaly arrived.
We were flying out Friday January 11th.
Thursday night my Mother in Law arrived from State College, Pa to stay over at our house. The Girls were all excited and could barely sleep....um, ok Jeff and I were just as excited too! I had anticipated this and scheduled our flight down to FL for 12:50pm. That gave us plenty of time to get to the airport without having to deal with morning rush hour traffic. Jeff and I drove our van with the girls and my Dad drove Mom & MIL in his car. That way we only had to park one car at the airport. He would be coming back to carpool when we arrived home too.
Encountering new fees at the curbside with USAir it cost $24 for the check in, this is a flat fee that is in addition to any extra bag charge and it does not include the curbside employees tip. We were not taking any more luggage than what was aloted to us by the airline, we had 8 bags in all. Proceeding to security we waited for 15 minutes tops. Our flight was on time, the gate close by and we had time for a snack from Au Bon Pain. We were able to board early to give us time to strap in Gelsey's car seat. By the time the plane finished boarding our girls were settled in their seats with a drink and each had their portable DVD players ready to roll. Take off was on time and uneventful aside from Gelsey throwing up her hands and saying "Wheeeee!", and 20 minutes later both girls and one Grandma were asleep. Landing on time around 3pm we were one of the last people off the plane, with having to unstrap the car seat on hustle to little ones of who immediately went to the nearest restroom. We headed to baggage claim and after searching a bit found our limo driver. Let me preface by saying that we have always had good service with Happy Limo. In the past. Once we found our driver...since he wasn't near the area that our luggage was and headed over to the carosel, I said "oh good the baggage is already coming out". He said "It's been here, what? were you people the last off the plane?"
Off to a great start. My Mother and I unloaded our luggage of the carosel while he stood and watched us as Jeff held the sleeping baby. "I hurt my wrist bench pressing my body weight" he told us. Nice. We all carried all our luggage ourselves since I didn't see any porters. Out front we passed the Magical express buses and stood on the curb. The driver (I won't use his name) said. " I have to go get the car.
He returned 30 minutes later. I was definately not thrilled. He presented my credit card slip for a total of almost $400 and said, "This doesn't include my tip so you can just give me that in cash now". Obviously not the greatest service. We got on the road and made good time to the Port, about 45 minutes. It's not in me to be rude and not tip appropriately so I tipped the 20% I had planned but the service did NOT warrent it. Note to self: time to find a new limo company for Florida trips. We arrived at The Radisson and checked in. The room was nice. The girls immediately wanting to get into the pool or the large whirlpool tub that was housed in the bedroom of the room. We changed and headed out to the pool. Along the way we passed alot of construction, they must have been remodeling a significant amount of the hotel. We didn't encounter any noise though, in fact at no time did we see anybody actually working. The pool area is very nice at the Radisson. The pool was nicely heated, not too hot but comfortable. The small kiddie pool with fountain was not heated at all though, and that water was absolutely freezing! Didn't stop Gelsey, who went back and forth between the two. Remy loved the hot tub and we lounged in there for a good while. The pool is very large, no slides or anything, but a nice waterfall and plenty of room to swim around.
The main restaurant, Flamingo's had advertised a southwestern buffet on the website but, alas, there wasn't one and when I asked no one knew what I was talking about. They also advertised a seafood buffet for Saturday and that one they did have. We changed and went to dinner at the restaurant for dinner and wasn't too impressed. The food was just mediocore and it was expensive.
Heading back to the room the girls hopped in the tub and then we all hit the sack.
In the morning we returned to Flamingo's for the breakfast buffet. It was pretty good. Your basic simple breakfast buffet: bacon, eggs, sausage, hash browns, breakfast breads-toast, bagels and such. They had a omlet station and fresh made waffles. There was also cereal yogurt and fruit. It was priced resonably and the food was all good.
We spent the day at the pool. I have to say the pool area is really enjoyable, There were ample towels and lounges and a bar that also served food from the restaurant poolside. Now this is off season and I have to wonder what it's like when it's more crowded because while there was plenty for the small crowd there that day the amount of chairs and lounges wasn't much. We had burgers pool side from the bar for lunch.
Later in the afternoon we checked out the hotel gift shop (not much going on in there..cute jewlery though) and then walked down the road a bit to a fun center where they had go carts and a game room with skee ball and miniture golf. They also had bumper boats but those were not open. We played around there for awhile and decided to look for a place to eat other than Flamingo's. On the way back to the hotel we passed a Greek restaurant and decided to eat there. The name escapes me but it's right next to the radisson. I'm so GLAD we went in. It was a nice little family place, the servers were very friendly and the FOOD was WONDERFUL!!! We all shared an appetizer of pita bread and cucumber gyro sauce. I had shrimp, Jeff had a wonderful chicken smothered in a tangy sauce. The Grandma's I can't remember. We all had greek salads too. The girls had pasta, with cheese. We were too stuffed for dessert but they had at least 8 different items to choose from and they all looked wonderful. The girls had to split a piece of the chocolate cake that was on display and we all had a little bite...heavenly. This place is a definate do "go again". Headed back to the room, changed for a quick dip in the pool andinto bed we went as the next day we be walking onto the Wonder for the very first time.
Great start, Tara! That limo driver's behavior was outrageous. I used Happy Limo last year and the service was very good. I hope it was just the one driver and he's too busy body-building to keep his job!
We woke up early and I passed out everyone's paperwork and had them sign their cruise docs. We had a 10:00 pick up for the Radisson's shuttle. At check in they told us just to come to the front of the hotel and look for the staff member with a clip board. He was right where they said he'd be and Wow, there was a crowd. I would say there was about 40 or so people waiting. When we checked in with mr clip board he told us to stand with our luggage and they would call us by family and load our bags and we could board the shuttle. I had made the reservation for the shuttle when I made our room ressie and I was glad I did. After about a 10 minute wait they called us first, took our luggage and we proceeded on board. It took only about 15 minutes for them to load everyone up. I thought it was very well organized. The shuttle started rolling and in less than 10 minutes we were pulling up to the Disney terminal. Our bus was met by one of the Disney people who directed us to leave any luggage that we wanted delivered to the room and keep what we needed in the mean time. It was into the terminal we went after that! A sense of joy fell over me as we walked in as I had dreamed of this for so long. We were directed to walk to the farmost end of the terminal to concierge check in. There was a cute little red carpet where the line would be. We walked down the carpet and right up to the counter as there was no one in line. Jeff took the girls over to the tv where they Disney cartoons on. I took Mom and Ann over with me because they wanted to put their own credit card numbers on their room keys so they could charge away at the gift shop! It was no problem to do that and check in really took only minutes. They explained about using the room key for purchases and that suite cards are gold rather than blue, something that seemed silly to me. After check in they led us over to the "concierge check in lounge". This really WAS silly. It was simply a roped off area with tables and chairs and crayons and pictures. The girls colored for a little while but really wanted to go back to the main waiting area to watch the tv. The cast member at the rope for our lounge advised us to make sure we were in the concierge lounge when it got close to boarding becuse we would be the first to be let on the ship after the Dream Family.
About 11am the characters started arriving. We waited in line to see Pluto and Goofy. Both times we waited a maximum of 20 minutes. I killed some time looking in the snack and gift shop and taking a few pictures. About 11:45, they made an announcement that they had chosen a Dream Family and they would be the first party to board the ship. We saw this family quite often and were on an excursion that they were on as well. They were such an adorable family! Right after they boarded, they dropped the rope at our lounge and we proceeded on board. We had received a card at check in advising us to present the card at the Cadillac lounge for a meet and greet with the concierge team. We headed there right after they welcomed the Stone family...I loved that! In the lounge, one of the two person concierge team introduced himself. Lars was happy to chat with our girls about their favorite characters and tell Jeff and I about all the facilities. He advised us that our kids were registered and pager was available and presented us with our itinerary that listed our Palo ressies and an excursion I had booked online-the dolphin encounter in Nassau. He inquired about any needs we might have and we told him about the Palo brunch and how we'd like to merge our two reservations which he said wouldn't be a problem. We inquired about spa ressies and he said he get a spa CM to come talk to us and to help ourselves to the refreshments. There was a lovely table set up with tea sandwiches, fruit, cheese, veggies, cookies, juices and other beverages to partake of. We helped ourselves and by the time we settled back down in the sofas the spa person was there. She went over the treatments available to us and made resevations for us in her laptop. Mom decided to do the Alone time spa villa with the sugar scrub treatment, and Jeff and I chose the Ultimate couples villas. After our meeting we looked around the ship. My immediate impression was "classy". We have cruised several different cruise lines and one think they have in common is the tendency to be decorated in loud orangy or greenish gawdy colors. Over the top decorating has always made me shake my head. Disney was different, it was rich, but understated the beautiful blue sculpture not overpowering because it wasn't in competition with all kinds of other colors going on around it. Those of you have cruised different lines will understand. I loved looking for the little Disney touches here and there, hidden Mickey's and such. The one thing I didn't like and this is epidemic on ALL cruise lines--Tiny elevators. Why must they all have elevators that only hold 6 people? We checked out Flounders for Gelsey and she really wanted to go in right then and there but it was time for the girls to both have something substantial to eat.
We headed up to the buffet and joined the line. The girls were not too impressed but they are picky eaters. The rest of us grazed a little on salad and the premade sandwiches. We had snacked at the concierge meet so we weren't starving. I figured I'd save my appetite for dinner. By this time we were able to get into our room so we headed off to the eighth floor. I could barely contain my excitement to see the Walt Suite. Passing the rooms....there it is...8020! I took a picture of the front door (what a dork!), just to get the sign that said The Walt Disney Suite. I noticed the doorbell, and I thought that was weird. In we went and I fell in love. Immediately walking in to the small foyer there was a marble table on the right with a purple orchid arrangement and a card welcoming us. On the left side there was a partial bathroom. Further up the hall on the left was the pantry area with a sink and counterspace and cupboards. At the end of the hall was the living room. Spacious and well appointed I laughed as I saw the birthday decorations. My Dad had called Disney and ordered one of the birthday packages for Mom. There was a large couch and two large chairs, coffee table and two end tables. I hade made the request when I booked the room that the piano be removed from the room for our stay, and it was not there, however I had heard that it may have been removed for good. I didn't want the baby banging on the keys. The entertainment center housed the tv and dvd/cd player and there was a bar area where the cooling box was also. About a dozen bottles of water stood at the ready on the bar. To one side of the living room was the dining room. A door to the quadruple balcony is off the dining room. Table for 6 with a buffet table as well. The dining room table was COVERED! I had ordered a basket from Shirley's...www.theperfectgift.cc. I called and spoke to Valarie a week prior to leaving and she set us up with a great basket for the girls. It was a great big pink sand bucket with their names calligraphied on with lots of little goodies: sand toys lip glosses, princess trinkets, tatooes, stuffed Mickeys and Minnies and some other goodies...it was beautiful! There it was on the dining room table. I had also ordered through Disney cruise lines the clear backpack that contained a beach mat and two sets of goggles for the girls, and for Mom and Ann I ordered each of them the Mickey mate photo album set...it was all laid out with cards for everone. But, wait, there's more. When I had been ordering this stuff the week before Jeff heard me muttering that no one else would think to have all this stuff waiting for the girls and i almost weanted to send myself a little something. He, without my knowledge went online and ordered me the Mickey shaped basket full of bath and lotion products. I was quite touched. There was also a massive fruit basket from the concierge. There was a tray of petit fours and a bottle of Asti for mom from My Dad and Son. There was a note from the hotel manager and an invitation to a concierge cocktail party at sail away from Castaway Cay on day 3.
Off from the dining room was a bedroom. Spacious with two twin beds with a good 8 feet between them a large table/desk, closet and bathroom with whirpool tub and shower.
Off the other end of the living room was the media room with two large chairs and a double bed that pulled out of the wall and tv entertainment center. Another door to the balcony is off this room. From the media room you can enter the master bedroom that has a queen size bed, two bedside tables, a dresssing table, two closets.
The master bathroom has marble throughout, double sinks a large shower stall with multiple sprayers, and a large oval whirlpool tub. Nice toiletries throughout as well. The solar relief gel came in handy.
I quickly unpacked as the girls checked out movies on the tv while going through their basket.
It was time to hit the safety drill and it went smoothly, the whole process taking about 30 minutes.
After that we went back to the room to change the baby's diapers. She was exhausted. I told Jeff, "this baby is never going to make it through the sail away party. I told him to take Remy and the Moms with him to sail away and I would get Gelsey down. After they left I put a pillow on the couch for Gels and she laid there watching The Little Mermaid (her fave) and dozed off after about 30 minutes.
Our dinner seating was for 6pm and I knew she was going to need more sleep so I started thinking about room service. Mom and Ann had a late Palo ressie...9pm. We did it like that so they could still go to the dining room with us.
When they all came back I suggested dinner in the room. Everyone thought that was a good idea. Remy was starting to have her need to rest catch up on her too.
Pulling out the room service book we looked over the Parrot Cay menu and ordered up:
Quinoa & Vegetables-pretty tasty
Siced Island chicken wings-these were darn good!
Baked crab Martinique- just ok had a bit of spicy that I wasn't expecting
Parrot Cay salad- good dressing
Mixed greens-well, it was mixed greens, what do you say about that?
cream of sweet onion -not what I was expecting, I love french onion soup but this is different, didn't really care for it
Rib eye beef- pretty good, though I ordered it rare and it was pretty well
mixed grill- same thing with the beef, though Jeff really enjoyed this
BB pork ribs- tasty ribs!
For the girls we ordered macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers and they picked at both. After dinner Remy went to the kids club which she loves...we practically have to haul her out of there each time.Gelsey enjoyed trolling around the ship just getting a feel for it.
When we went to pick up Rem, she was hungry so we went for pizza. The girls sat happily munching their pizza by the pool.
We headed back to the room, Mom and Ann were back from Palo and had good reviews,...Mom is a tough sell, having had eaten in some of the finest restaurants in the US, but she enjoyed it.
Of course all the beds were turned down as well as the Media room bed being pulled down and set up...towel animals waiting, which the girls loved! Earlier in the day our cabin steward had asked how we wanted the bed configurations so he knew the girls would be in the media room right next to us. They watched a little tv and then got tucked into the bed...a little restless but too tired to protest much and then we were all OUT. It had been a long day!
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Great TR so far. You were very generous to the limo driver! It's too bad our world has morphed into the thinking that a "gratuity" is supposed to be part of ones paycheck... but we have all fallen into that mindset and allow poor service to be rewarded.
I'm happy that you detailed the Walt Suite so well, I felt like I was almost there taking the tour with you.
Great report, can't wait for the next installment!
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