Forums Closed
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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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Best wishes for a wonderful and magical new year!
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Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
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09-27-2001, 01:40 PM
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#1
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Connecticut
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 16,825
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Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
This is not going to be a full-out trip report. Just some high-lights and low points. Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions! [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
The Disney Cruise
Transportation
Happy Limo picked us up at the airport to drive us to Port Canaveral in a beautiful brand new Lincoln Town Car, Cartier Edition. We loved their service and will definitely use them again. There was heightened security around PC, our passports were checked before the car was even allowed in the parking lot. We were not allowed to board until 12:30 and headed straight for Parrot Cay for the buffet. The food was all right which turned out to be the case the entire cruise.
Stateroom
Our Stateroom, 2556, was right next to the elevators on deck 2 below Lumiere’s. I was initially concerned about noise but it was really very quiet relatively speaking. (More on that later! [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] ) We had Category 9 room with a large porthole. The rooms are very big with a split bath. We loved our room steward who left us great towel animals every night.
Restaurants
Because this the 3 night is normally on the Wonder, we did not actually get to eat off the dining rooms actual menus. With the exception of Palo’s all restaurants served the same menu each night. The first night was the Master Chef series, the next Tropicalifragelisticexpealidocius and then It’s a Small World (we skipped this thinking it was our Parrot Cay night and went to Palo’s instead.) I wish I had known about the menu change ahead of time because I would have made different decisions about Palo’s. Palo’s was good but not spectacular. Since we were on the late seating we saw no children anyway so Palo’s was not notable for it’s lack of them. The food was not bad (except for one item, a pasta dish at lunch) but it was also not great. The show at Animators Palette is something to see.
Servers
The service is amazing in the ship! We had great servers, Anja from Germany and Will from S. Africa. Dewa from Indonesia was our room steward and all went out of their way for us. Also, Sarah from the Netherlands served us at Breakfast one morning. When we saw her later she greeted me by my first and middle names!! (We had compared names quickly that morning.)
Shows
I can’t say enough about the shows. We saw C’est Magique, Hercules – the Muse-ical, and Disney Dreams. They were amazing. I laughed, cried and sang along. DO NOT skip these no matter how tired you are.
Ports of Call
We did not even get off the ship in Nassau as the only thing I wanted to see was the Straw Market. (Which burned to the ground 3 weeks ago.) I used this time to have a pedicure at the Vista Spa. Castaway Cay was wonderful!!!! Mushu1 went snorkeling, he brought his own gear. I had the Spa Taster (25 min massage, 25 min facial) in an Open Air cabana. Amazing and worth every expensive penny! [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] We then met up, laid on the beach, swam, had lunch and went back to the ship for a nap. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
Overall Impression of Ship
The ship is magnificent. We decided we would definitely cruise again on this line but next time it will be longer. The 3 night was perfect for our first time out. I did not feel it was too short and we got to do everything we wanted. But I would like to have more days at sea next time.
Coming up next…The Contemporary! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]
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09-27-2001, 01:54 PM
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#2
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Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: Chapel Hill, NC USA
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 36,592
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Re: Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
UhOh----is that a frown next to "the Contemporary"? Thanks for the quick report. Did you meet other people on board, eat meals with other folks, or did you guys stick to yourselves? -HiddenMickey
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09-27-2001, 01:59 PM
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#3
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Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Connecticut
Concierge Level: 6
Posts: 16,825
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Re: Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
The Contemporary
I’m not going into detail here because it gets ugly. All I am going to say is if you are going to stay at this hotel, DO NOT stay in the Garden Wing. Either spring for the Tower or stay somewhere else. The Wing rooms we saw while large were desperately in need of cleaning and/or refurbishing and desperately needed some form of soundproofing. We did spend our last 2 nights in a Tower Room with a Magic Kingdom view (Thank you Manager Ellen) and that was lovely. We loved the convenience of the monorail and because of that our next stay will hopefully be GF.
The Parks
The parks were pretty quiet. The longest line we waited in was maybe 10 minutes. We only used 1 FP on Space Mountain. We skipped the AK this trip and spent little time in MGM. We did play WWTBAM twice and got VERY close to the hot seat but never made it. We made time to see things we had never been on before such as: COP, Peter Pan’s flight, Snow White’s Adventure, American Adventure, Wonders of China and O Canada. We loved all of them, especially PPF and Amer Adv. (Could someone please start humming It’s a small world so I can get Great, Big Beautiful tomorrow out of my head? [img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] )
Meals
We had wonderful meals with good food and great character interactions at : Hollywood & Vine, Liberty Tree Tavern and CRT. I would wholeheartedly recommend these to anyone. We also had lunch at Marrakesh which was very good.
PassPorter Meet!!!
We had the pleasure of meeting up with LilMarcieMouse, her sister and MommaPooh. It was great to meet all of you. Can’t wait to see how the picture came out! Hope the rest of your trips were wonderful and safe.
That’s all for now. Again, let me know if I can be of assistance with any details or answer any questions.
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09-27-2001, 03:15 PM
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#4
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Community Rank: Sightseer 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Souderton, PA
Posts: 53
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Re: Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
Great,Big,Beautiful Tomorrow does tend to stick in your head, doesn't it? I was even singing it in the car two days later on the ride home. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
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09-27-2001, 03:56 PM
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#5
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Community Rank: Jetsetter 
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: Trois-Rivieres,Quebec,Canada
Posts: 2,687
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Re: Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
Great and I feel sorry you don't have the chance to visit Nassau and The Straw Market, I was there in 1993 and loved the market and people was ready to deal some articles at lower price very funny. What I read seam you have fun at WDW and meet some of ours friends [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
Chantal [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
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10-02-2001, 08:11 PM
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#6
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Community Rank: Trekker 
Join Date: May 2001
Location: CT.
Posts: 1,381
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Re: Belle* & Mushu1’s stay on the Disney Magic and at the Contemporary
I'm glad that the two of you decided to go!!! One day maybe DH and I can get to go on a cruise ourselves, the shows sound wonderful. Sorry that the beginning of your time at the Contemporary was not what you had hoped for but I'm glad that Manager Ellen was able to change that for you. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] It's too bad about you not getting to the Straw Market but kinda makes you realize why the smart little pig built his house out of bricks huh? [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Glad your back and looking forward to our postponed meet to hear everything else.
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