I LOVE Comedians with Guitars......You didn't tell me that part...COMPLETE 2/28/13 - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm sure the Atrium did look small after being on the new ships! I'm afraid I won't like the bigger sized ships because I'm so used to the Magic and Wonder. It's kind of like comparing the castles at DL and WDW. Once you get past the size, it's all wonderful! What difference did that idiot cutting in line think it would make to be boarding ahead of one other group??? I hope you don't run into her again on the ship!
That is my fear about DL...if I ever go. But I think I can get past it. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the Magic.
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Originally Posted by pamcarey
How cool that your friends got interviewed for the news and that you were able to find the broadcast online!
I know. I happened to be reading a post on Dis and they had the link and I was like "hey...there they are!"
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Originally Posted by chezp
Yay you're on board and how neat about the interview! Hopefully that made up for tha nasty woman - good grief!
That lady was something....and I never saw her again...thank goodness.
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Originally Posted by MayraLR
Yay you were finally able to board!
It was exciting.
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Originally Posted by patclairesmom
What a horrid lady. Did you run into her again during your trip? I just love the Mickey statue. Can't wait to see what your room looks like.
I never saw her again, thank goodness. She had kids and we mostly hung out at the adult pool, so we had less of a chance to see her.
I'm just about to post my room pictures too!
We found our room easily and I took a couple of quick pictures.
That was my gift for being a silver Castaway Club member. It had some pretzels, Disney shaped goldfish crackers and a keychain inside I believe. (I think I took a picture of it later on)
This room was 5130. I looked for reviews online and one person made mention that it did NOT have a split bathroom. I figured this person must’ve been off their rocker, because there aren’t any veranda rooms on the Magic in this category without a split bathroom. Sure enough I was right, it did have 2 bathrooms. I do plan to go in and make a review myself and correct the info.
We then headed back towards the atrium to meet up with the gals. As we walked I really liked what I saw. My friend and co-worker Jeanne has sailed the Magic many times…..I think she has sailed with Disney something like 40 times!!!!! She had told me the Magic was still her favorite, but it did look a little worn. I was expecting it to look much more worn than it was. Most things were still bright and clean and we saw them daily doing maintenance on painting and floor boards, etc. Only a few spots did I find it look less than Disney standards.
We decided to take the stairs down from deck 5 to 3.
Look! Oil Rigs right outside the porthole….and nasty green water.
And the girls were just coming in the Atrium at the same time.
And we didn’t mingle too long, we were starving!
There was practically no one in the restaurant too.
We were seated and I went and took a few pictures before I ate. I guess the desserts were calling my name first…..actually they were still full and not picked over, so I wanted to get shots like that.
The ultimate, best dessert EVER! I just love their chocolate chip cookies. I don’t know what it is, but they are to die for. I will push you down and step on you if you get between me and those cookies!
My only complaint was the salad dressing. I am a French dressing kid of girl….and I never saw it offered….though I never asked if they had it either.
A view up from our table.
After sitting and chatting and eating a bit, we saw Mary walk in. We said hellos and she said her friends were already seated and we glanced back at their table and gave a wave.
I was not done yet. I went back up for a 2nd round…and then desserts too!
My 2nd plate.
And dessert. This was really good, but I can’t remember what it was. I think some sort of mousse type thing.
After stuffing myself silly, I took a few pictures of the tables.
We chatted a little longer….Can you believe that Susan isn’t a dessert fan. I almost had to leave the room! LOL. Actually I wish I wasn’t a big dessert lover…I would probably lose weight a lot easier then.
We decided it was time to tour the ship a bit. We still had lots of time till we had to attend the muster drill. We had finished eating about 12:45.
Off we went. The plan was to go sign up for the drawing at the Vista Spa. We headed to the midship elevators.
I stopped and took this picture of this boat, but got a lot of my own reflection in it.
And we all tried to crowd into a very full elevator. Guess what…the elevator will have a light that says overloaded when you exceed its weight. LOL…..Yep we found that out the hard way. Lisa and I stepped back out and said we would meet up later. We got on the next one and Lisa was now paranoid that every time she stepped into one the light would alert.
I was going to skip lunch today, but not after looking at those buffet pics! I love the Magic, and it's great to see it again! I also love the tropical decor of Parrot Cay.
Those oil rigs are just being built there and then taken out to the gulf. The water in Galveston is very ugly. Having grown up here that is all I knew. The first time I saw Caribbean water I was screaming. I couldn't believe it was a beautiful as the photos I had seen on calendars! Also, the reporter that interviewed your friends has been with channel 13 for most of my life - she is a little rough looking now and doesn't do alot of online work. I figure she just cannot completely retire.
I was going to skip lunch today, but not after looking at those buffet pics! I love the Magic, and it's great to see it again! I also love the tropical decor of Parrot Cay.
Sorry! I could go for a meal like that...right now!
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Originally Posted by pamcarey
The buffet looks so yummy, especially the desserts!
It sure was.
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Originally Posted by rhinohunter
beautiful. Gotta Gotta Gotta add DCL to my must do list!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes... you really do!
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Originally Posted by chezp
Great photos of the desserts!
Thanks
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Originally Posted by mcneal
Those oil rigs are just being built there and then taken out to the gulf. The water in Galveston is very ugly. Having grown up here that is all I knew. The first time I saw Caribbean water I was screaming. I couldn't believe it was a beautiful as the photos I had seen on calendars! Also, the reporter that interviewed your friends has been with channel 13 for most of my life - she is a little rough looking now and doesn't do alot of online work. I figure she just cannot completely retire.
Interesting to know about the rigs. I wondered why they wer there and we did see guys working on them.
I have heard that about that newdcaster too from a few others. They weren't sure why she was the one sent to cover that story.
Today was an extremely long day of running errnads, and work too. I am just too tired to work on another installment and I wil lbe gone all day tomorrow as well, so I hope to get one up on Sunday. I'm sorry.
After the fiasco with the overloaded elevator, Lisa and I cautiously got on the next one that came. All was fine. We didn’t set off any alarms this time.
We headed up to deck 9 and got our first glimpse of the outdoor area. I have to admit….I only took a few pictures for now…but have many more later.
And we headed into the Vista Spa and found the rest of our gang there too.
It is really a beautiful spa. I was impressed. It wasn’t as beautiful as the Dreams, but darn close.
We all signed up for the drawing that was gonna take place at 3 PM. They were going to give away several different things and though I am not really a spa kind of gal….I would take anything for free. LOL
We proceeded to walk down the hallway to take a look and get some pictures.
The rooms all looked so nice.
Another complaint. …. This hot tub was not very pretty. This is Disney and they need to put some kind of nice covering around the sides of it. This looked kind of disgusting and falling apart. I surely didn’t expect to see that.