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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Hi everyone - we just booked our first cruise ever! 4 nights on the Disney Dream. Any "must do" advice regarding dining, off ship excursions, activities for the kids, etc.? We're traveling with my whole family - 12 people including kids ranging from 2-12. Thanks!
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Not knowing all your details, here's some things we did on the Wonder on our last cruise 2 years ago----family of 4, 2 boys aged 10 and 7 at the time.
We did a 3-night cruise to the Bahamas over Spring Break, tied into a 4-night stay on Land where we stayed at the Animal Kingdom lodge (our favorite hotel on-site). The cruise was the last part of the trip.
-- If you're getting the air travel done through Disney, they send luggage tags so you don't have to worry about finding your luggage and getting it on the bus from the airport. However, make sure you pack a backpack with essentials and changes of clothes for the younger ones. There's no guarantee the luggage will get to your room at a reasonable time and you don't want to be without any critical items. Also, make sure you plan your flight(s) to arrive in Orlando as early as you can tolerate. With lineup, documentation check, loading, etc. it takes several hours to actually get to the ship once you land and you never know about flight delays. We deliberately did the pre-stay before the cruise so we could travel direct from the on-site hotel to the port with no hassles.
-- The Nassau stop is short but loads of fun. We took the bus/walking tour around the city that stops at an interesting museum, an old fort, and a walk through canyon area, followed by some shopping at the port market. It's a pretty short tour and gets you back on the ship with enough time to hang out in the pool or walk around and relax before dinner. There are a number of other more adventurous excursions that are also a lot more expensive---Dolphin Encounters, Paradise Island, etc.-- but we kept it low-key after 4 days at WDW and wanted to relax a bit.
-- Castaway Quay is Disney's private island and it's a great stop. There are also a few things to do here that you need to plan extra for--the Stingray encounter was a big hit for us, and my wife and I also did a couple's massage on the far side of the island that's reserved only for 18+ adults. Disney is very well-organized and you can drop your kids off at any time in age-specific groups while on-shore on the island too so you can get some private time with your spouse. During our trip, it poured down rain while we were at the massage and the kid's group was whisked aboard ship in safety in the kid's zones.
-- On board ship, the kid's areas are age-specific, well tended and chaperoned, and our kids had a blast. You can drop the kids off any time during the day, they give you a pager, and send messages to you if anything happens while you're on the ship. I can't speak for the new Dream yet obviously, but it was rather interesting to note that in the evening, families preferred to stay together for activities rather than large numbers of adults going to the various clubs. With young kids, you probably want to get the early seating for dinner each night. This gets you into the shows at a good time right after dinner. Seating breakfast is easy too--you have a choice of the restaurant or the faster a-la-carte line (suggested for the day in Nassau). You have the same team of servers at each of the restaurants you'll rotate through, so they will rapidly learn and adjust to your tastes. By the end of the cruise, they'll be fast friends! As for other food, snack bars are open most of the time...our unanimous favorite was pizza baked to order!
-- Pictures are something to note of too. They have an interesting arrangement where photographers are all over the ship and on-shore at Castaway Quay busily taking pictures. You can go to the photo center daily to search for any photos you may have gotten done of you (the boarding pic, any island pics with characters, dinner photos, etc.) You can then pick and choose which ones you'd like to have printed up as keepsakes. If you know beforehand that you want to get some of these, they sell prepaid photo packs/cards so check those out. I think they're in groups of 10. The photos are very high quality glossy and in various sizes...perfect for a nice album/frame.
That first-time is definitely a little overwhelming so read everything! We got our Passporter and took it with us on the cruise--very valuable so you're in the right place!
Not knowing all your details, here's some things we did on the Wonder on our last cruise 2 years ago----family of 4, 2 boys aged 10 and 7 at the time.
We did a 3-night cruise to the Bahamas over Spring Break, tied into a 4-night stay on Land where we stayed at the Animal Kingdom lodge (our favorite hotel on-site). The cruise was the last part of the trip.
-- If you're getting the air travel done through Disney, they send luggage tags so you don't have to worry about finding your luggage and getting it on the bus from the airport. However, make sure you pack a backpack with essentials and changes of clothes for the younger ones. There's no guarantee the luggage will get to your room at a reasonable time and you don't want to be without any critical items. Also, make sure you plan your flight(s) to arrive in Orlando as early as you can tolerate. With lineup, documentation check, loading, etc. it takes several hours to actually get to the ship once you land and you never know about flight delays. We deliberately did the pre-stay before the cruise so we could travel direct from the on-site hotel to the port with no hassles.
-- The Nassau stop is short but loads of fun. We took the bus/walking tour around the city that stops at an interesting museum, an old fort, and a walk through canyon area, followed by some shopping at the port market. It's a pretty short tour and gets you back on the ship with enough time to hang out in the pool or walk around and relax before dinner. There are a number of other more adventurous excursions that are also a lot more expensive---Dolphin Encounters, Paradise Island, etc.-- but we kept it low-key after 4 days at WDW and wanted to relax a bit.
-- Castaway Quay is Disney's private island and it's a great stop. There are also a few things to do here that you need to plan extra for--the Stingray encounter was a big hit for us, and my wife and I also did a couple's massage on the far side of the island that's reserved only for 18+ adults. Disney is very well-organized and you can drop your kids off at any time in age-specific groups while on-shore on the island too so you can get some private time with your spouse. During our trip, it poured down rain while we were at the massage and the kid's group was whisked aboard ship in safety in the kid's zones.
-- On board ship, the kid's areas are age-specific, well tended and chaperoned, and our kids had a blast. You can drop the kids off any time during the day, they give you a pager, and send messages to you if anything happens while you're on the ship. I can't speak for the new Dream yet obviously, but it was rather interesting to note that in the evening, families preferred to stay together for activities rather than large numbers of adults going to the various clubs. With young kids, you probably want to get the early seating for dinner each night. This gets you into the shows at a good time right after dinner. Seating breakfast is easy too--you have a choice of the restaurant or the faster a-la-carte line (suggested for the day in Nassau). You have the same team of servers at each of the restaurants you'll rotate through, so they will rapidly learn and adjust to your tastes. By the end of the cruise, they'll be fast friends! As for other food, snack bars are open most of the time...our unanimous favorite was pizza baked to order!
-- Pictures are something to note of too. They have an interesting arrangement where photographers are all over the ship and on-shore at Castaway Quay busily taking pictures. You can go to the photo center daily to search for any photos you may have gotten done of you (the boarding pic, any island pics with characters, dinner photos, etc.) You can then pick and choose which ones you'd like to have printed up as keepsakes. If you know beforehand that you want to get some of these, they sell prepaid photo packs/cards so check those out. I think they're in groups of 10. The photos are very high quality glossy and in various sizes...perfect for a nice album/frame.
That first-time is definitely a little overwhelming so read everything! We got our Passporter and took it with us on the cruise--very valuable so you're in the right place!
Thank you SO much for all of the info!!!! It seems like we were casually talking about a cruise a week ago, and suddenly it's booked with a few clicks of a mouse!
In nassau, we did a tour of the island that included a pirate museum, it was very neat! It has a replica pirate ship inside that is just amazing.
Get the passporter guide, they have tons of info.
It's a quick cruise, make time to enjoy the new ship as well as the ports. The straw market in nassau is crowded, unless you have something in particular to buy, avoid it.
Last time we were there, we tried some local konk fritters, they weren't very good, we get better at home.
Always carry your own water bottle with you off the ship for everyone in your party. It gets hot and humid fast down there.
Have loads of fun!
Be ready to re-book on board if you think your family is going to love cruising and you want to do it again. There is usually a discount and an on-board credit offer for your next cruise.
We didn't do this our first time and it is the only thing we regret from our first Disney Cruise. Now, the deposit for our next cruise is included in our budget for our cruise. We re-book early in the cruise, as the person at the future cruise desk is quite busy on the last day or 2. We saw people waiting in line for her as we were enjoying our last hours on board.
Pick up a brochure at the future cruise desk, complete the information and drop it off. You'll receive a quote for an offer in your stateroom. You can then call or visit the desk, make your deposit and you're good to go! We even give the credit for our booking to our travel agent, so she gets credit and we get great service handling the details of our next cruise.
During our last cruise, we walked on board with the on-board credit from our re-book offer and the travel agency's on-board credit!
Be ready to re-book on board if you think your family is going to love cruising and you want to do it again. There is usually a discount and an on-board credit offer for your next cruise.
We didn't do this our first time and it is the only thing we regret from our first Disney Cruise. Now, the deposit for our next cruise is included in our budget for our cruise. We re-book early in the cruise, as the person at the future cruise desk is quite busy on the last day or 2. We saw people waiting in line for her as we were enjoying our last hours on board.
Pick up a brochure at the future cruise desk, complete the information and drop it off. You'll receive a quote for an offer in your stateroom. You can then call or visit the desk, make your deposit and you're good to go! We even give the credit for our booking to our travel agent, so she gets credit and we get great service handling the details of our next cruise.
During our last cruise, we walked on board with the on-board credit from our re-book offer and the travel agency's on-board credit!
Enjoy your first Disney Cruise!
Thanks for the advice! We've seen bounceback offers at WDW, but I never even thought about it for a cruise. I love the parks, so I'm not quite sure how we'll feel. It's good to know, though, in case we fall in love with it. It's Disney, right, so what's not to love?
In nassau, we did a tour of the island that included a pirate museum, it was very neat! It has a replica pirate ship inside that is just amazing.
Get the passporter guide, they have tons of info.
It's a quick cruise, make time to enjoy the new ship as well as the ports. The straw market in nassau is crowded, unless you have something in particular to buy, avoid it.
Last time we were there, we tried some local konk fritters, they weren't very good, we get better at home.
Always carry your own water bottle with you off the ship for everyone in your party. It gets hot and humid fast down there.
Have loads of fun!
Thank you! I'm writing all of this down and keeping it in my new Disney Dream folder!
You will fall in love with DCL. We waited until the next to last day to book our next one and we were sorry, there were always more than 1 hour waits to talk to the gal that books them, but at least we got it done. Personally, on a 4 day you will find that you barely unpack before you have to get off! We did not like Nassau at all and would advise once you've seen it, to spend that day on board the ship taking advantage of all the ship has to offer. Plus, the spa always offers specials on part days for reduced cost because everyone else gets off at the port! Find some time to get away and enjoy the Rainforest Room by yourself, definitely the best spot on the ship for relaxation!! Enjoy your cruise!
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any "must do" advice for a new cruiser?
JulieB 
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