DREAMing of a Disney spring break COMPLETED - Page 6 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thursday 14 April – part six: this is so much better than the Magic and the Wonder!
We headed back down to deck 12, getting our first glimpse of the Aquaduck and the line for it!
Once in there, I said immediately that I wanted to sign up for the Rainforest and was given a guided tour. My goodness, I thought it couldn’t get any better than the Wonder and the Magic, but once again, how wrong you can be! This is absolutely beautiful.
I especially loved the hot tubs out on deck with the views. Wow!
I was asked if it was just me or a couples’ pass and I went to get Mark, who was talking outside to one of the staff, who was another Brit (I did tell you that there were a lot of them! ) and he was very impressed with the facilities as well, so we both signed up for it. They then showed us around the rest of the spa:
We were given raffle tickets to win massages and beauty treatments and were told that they would be drawing it in about 20 minutes’ time, so we went and sat by the adults’ pool. This is a very relaxing area and I’m very glad that they are just as strict about children here, as they are on the other boats. A couple of adults were a bit annoyed by that, but I’m sorry, I come here to escape children and I’m sure everyone else here does as well.
While we were there, we both ordered drinks. I went for the mango margarita, while Mark had the mint mojito. My goodness, both of us knew that we’d had those, as they were exceptionally strong!
Soon it was time to go back inside for the raffle, and although we didn’t win anything, it was a bit of fun. At the end, they described the bliss treatment, which is 75 minutes long and includes a body brush, body milk, facial, neck and shoulder massage, scalp massage and feet massage. It’s usually $229, but they were offering it at $129 if you booked it and had it done today. Well, that sounds good to me, so I booked it for 8.15pm.
From there, it was time to head back to our room in readiness for the safety drill, getting a photo of the carpet on the way. Now if that’s not an indication that, long term, one of the four Disney ships will be based in Europe, I don’t know what is...
Thank goodness you no longer need to wear your lifejackets to your muster station. That is a huge improvement. They really have changed it. On previous cruises, everyone has been told to wait in their rooms and that’s it, until you hear the alarm. This time, we did that and when we walked into our muster station, we were one of the last in there. That really surprised me, as I thought the idea was for everyone to get an idea of how to get from their room to their muster station.
Once that was done, we headed back to the room to get our cameras, as it was sailaway party time. We headed up to deck 11, passing through Cabanas:
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Your arrival at the port was a lot prettier than the grey, rainy day we had!! I was very excited to see your photos of your inside room as that is what I have on my October cruise.