HOLD THE GANGPLANK!!! WE'RE COMING!! Updated 3/11 - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Oh my goodness! What a story! Kudos to the CMs all the way through the process, and the USAir folks as well! You certainly deserve a restful cruise after that. I was wondering about your luggage too.
I live in Roanoke! I can't believe you flew out in the snow storm! God was really looking out for you that day!
We flew out on Feb 8th to WDW, after the 3rd big snowstorm of the winter. Believe me, there is still snow piled everywhere! Maybe after this week it will be all gone!
__________________
Donning my Wellies to cut Peat in Scotland
Melissa
yeah, I was wondering about the luggage situation, too! It must have been carry-on, right? (Ihave a bet w/my DH about this one, he says it wasn't carryon, I say it was...) Hurry back with more of your exciting adventure!
You were heoroic getting to the ship. Disney is so impressive. I am exhausted and need a nice tropical drink to recover from the day you had! can't wait for next installment.
We had carry on luggage only, thank goodness! Imagine having to stress over getting a checked bag there on time!! I learned that the little swivel wheels work really well when you are flying through an airport, while the standard ones tip over every 3 stepsJ
After the party, AC and Diva went to check out the Children’s program, and Tink and I explored. We discovered the jogging path and walked it…it was quite cool to see the anchors, chains, etc along the path. We also saw 3 runners…I felt we had done enough running to last awhile, so I got a FAB and Tink got a smoothie, we shared a chicken sandwich, and we stood and watched the port slip away. It was blissful. And yummyJ
We meandered around, and saw folks lined up to shop. AC and Diva were in the mob, looking for a Princess dress (Diva only had 3J ). Tink’s motto for this tripJ When you have to pay for things YOURSELFthat you actually don’t need to survive, you tend to not part with your money easily… We made plans to meet later at the Golden Mickey’s, and continued on our way to see the rest of the ship. We ran into Cinderella coming out of the elevator as we were going in. She stopped and chatted with Tink, but they realized that Cinderella does not play much soccer. Tink offered to set up a Princess league, which seemed to concern Cindy, as she said, “But our tiaras would fall off!”so they smiled and separatedJ You do not have to be 3 to have a memorable royal encounter!
We made our way to Deck 10 forward, peeked over and saw the crew pool/activity deck, and the sports courts.. Two little guys were in the basketball area, and they came over and asked her to play soccer with them. Tink is all about coaching the future generation of Beckhams, so she spent about half an hour with them, while I visited with the parentals. They were from Canada, and we ran into each other frequently during the cruise! Actually, we ran into a lot of the same people…It was really a “Small Boat After All”! (There was a Guide dog training on this sailing, and he was trying SO hard not to run and play with EVERYONE! Tink and I had a few interesting discussions about his private moments and how they would be disposed of. Kind of like how everyone wonders about astronauts?)
They had to head to dinner, and it was almost time for the Golden Mickey’s so we parted ways. When we passed the concession area, Tink (who works for a theater on the weekends) commented that the prices onboard were less than at home! She must have said that louder than I thought, since a family behind us immediately stopped and bought A LOT of food because “This is a great deal!” . I’m thinking of the commission possibilities…
As soon as we went in and sat down, we definitely noticed the ship rocking fairly heavily. I knew that ships leaving out of Port Canaveral do bobble a bit as they cross the srtong current stream, but we did not notice much movement on the ship at all during this cruise, and the few times we did, we were always in the Walt Disney Theater. We heard Diva before we saw them, “THERE THEY ARE, NANA!! RIGHT NEXT TO THAT MAN IN THE SILLY SHIRT!” (He was wearing a rather bright Hawaiian shirt, and he laughed along with usJ). AC had a Bahama Mama in her hand, and that thing was STRONG! I could smell it as she stepped around me to sit down. She did not notice the ship’s movement at allJ
The show was so wonderful! It just made my heart smile the entire time. My stress had pretty much disappeared, and I think it was at this point that I finally let it all go, and began to just absorb everything about this trip. We had a little while until dinner, and Diva was “Rather starving”, so up we went to get her a piece of pizza. The evening was breezy, and a little cool, but it felt so good on the deck. We watched a little bit of the Goofy Movie on the large screen, and then headed down to Animator’s Palate for dinner.
When we got there, the line was all the way to the lobby. Diva began to unravel a little. In retrospect, I think the earlier dining time would have worked well for her, as she is a scheduled little soul, but you learn as you go. The line moved very quickly, and we were soon seated , right next to SebastianJ The tables around us remained empty, and we found out later that the rocking was bothering quite a few folks. We did not even notice it as we ate, but there were definitely several tables not full.
Our servers came up, and we chatted. We had Vishal, from India, and Pablo, from a tiny province in Spain. Vishal had a daughter who was close to Tink’s age, and the two of them hit it off immediately. His wife and daughter were waiting for him to save enough to bring them to the US. He was incredible! This seems to be a theme when I talk to folks about their servers. Pablo was on his 2nd DC, having just been hired from Princess lines. He was amazed at all the children in the late seating. They worked beautifully together, and by the end of dinner, Vishal and Emily would say something, and the other would go, “Tell me about it!”. We saw them at breakfast and lunch several times, and Visahl and Emily always got together to discuss something. Pablo had initially been a little quiet, but Emily asked him something in Spanish, and he became very animated. They had discussions each meal after that. They could have been discussing me…hmmmm. At any rate, they totally made every dining time such a treat, and I would love to go on another cruise, and have them serve us again!
UM, photos..yes, Tink took about a million. They are somewhere on her memory stick which is somewhere in her room “in a box”.
While the food was incredible, Diva did not do well at this late seating time. She began her meltdown almost as soon as we were seated, and even the Head server could not charm her out of it. AC was getting tense, so she decided to take Diva back to their stateroom. Vishal had 2 plates loaded with food before AC even got all of Diva’s things together. He had someone carry them down to their room, and AC told me the next day that she and Diva barely finished before they both fell asleep.
TInk and I were some of the last people out of the restaurant. We so enjoyed this late seating, as it gave us time to visit and really get to know Vishal and Pablo. Pablo shared that on Princess, he was encouraged to be friendly, but not too friendly, as they would like diners to exit quickly after they eat. I think I would not enjoy that, as a great deal of our pleasure on this trip came from getting to know these two guys. They were simply awesome! I am probably preaching to the choir, right? J
After we left, Tink and I waddled around for a bit, standing outside of the clubs on Route 66, and taking more photos. We finally decided to head back to our stateroom. Tink had discovered earlier that if she pulled the curtain between the bed and the sofa/bed, she got not only sole ownership of the porthole, but also the TV. Totally not even worth a discussion for meJ We fell asleep really quickly once we actually stopped moving and eatingJ
COMING UP: Nassau, and WHO is driving that lifeboat?
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Pixie Dust
start. So glad you got on board and Disney was so helpful 
God was really looking out for you that day!
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