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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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This is my first attempt at a trip report, so please forgive me if I stumble along!!
My family is a group of Disney nuts! Additionally we love to take cruises. It seems strange that it took us so long to finally take a Disney cruise but I'm so glad we finally did. Of course, exactly what I expected to happen did-Disney ruined us for all our other favorite cruise lines! But, I'm getting ahead of myself.....
The Basics
The WHO of this trip:
Myself: Tara, 36
My DH: Jeff, 39
Our DD: Remy, 6
Our DD: Gelsey, 2 1/2
we also took along:
My Mother: Susan
Jeff's Mother: Ann
They'd hurt me if I posted their ages!
Our Son, Mike, 15 opted not to take this cruise becuase of some school schedule changes so we are taking him in April on a trip for his 16th birthday-he stayed home with his Grampa.
The Planning:
I am the planner in the family so the details we left to me...and that's the way I like it! After much thought, I decided that a land and sea package was not for us. When we go to WDW we like to do 7-10 days, so I thought only doing four or so would only be frustrating for us. I decided to make arrangements to go down to Florida a few days prior to the cruise to relax and swim. Onto the cruise choosing I went. We've cruised several times before and the longest our little girls have been out to sea is 5 nights. I felt 7 nights might be too long so I opted for a four nighter. I decided on any date from November 2007 until the end of Jan 2008 just in case I needed to be flexible. Off to my AAA travel agency I went. My TA Linda has been booking our trips for years and knows me well. I gave her the dates and told her I wanted a category 1 preferably the Walt suite as the pictures I'd seen shwed the Roy having such a dark wood- I thought the Walt looked more cheery. She got on the phone with Disney reservations and finally found a cruise with the Walt available-January 13th. This ended up being perfect for my Mom, whose birthday was Jan 14th and my DH whose b-day was Jan25th. Checkbook in hand I nearly screamed out loud in my excitement BOOK IT, BOOK IT I cried. I had read so many posts and guide books discussing the difficulty in actually securing one of the category 1 suites that I think I never really believed we would get it. My DH was as excited as I was though the check amount did not amuse him at all. "It's Disney, honey" I reminded him as Disney trips have historically been the trips we splurge the most on. Now that the cruise itself was booked I move onto the hotel arrangements for the days before the cruise. Originally when my Son had still planned to go, we planned to stay at Ron Jon's, (based on the good review in my well worn Disney cruise Passporter!). He was excited about staying there. When it came about that he needed to stay home we opted to find another accomodation and save that for a time when he could accompany us. Back to the Passporter I went...Radisson at the port looked good, and the reviews in the boards were positive so I had my hotel picked out. My Girl's liked the look of the lagoon like pool and they had suites large enough to accomodate the 6 of us so I booked it for January 11th and 12th. Remy, who is 6 was very excited. She loves Disney World and saw this as an extension, but Gelsey focuses mostly on characters. We told her many time that we would be going on Mickey's ship but she never grasped it until we boarded.
About a month prior to the cruise, I booked our air transportation with USAir, which is who we normally fly with. I had been watching the fares for awhile and lo and behold they went down a bit and the arrival and departure times worked so I booked the six of us on nonstop flights both ways. Now, how to get from Orlando airport to Port Canaveral. We had previously used Happy Limo on our WDW trips so a quick call to them and we had a nice strech that would accomodate all of us. My plan was to have the Limo take us to the Radisson and use the hotel shuttle to get to the ship terminal on departure day.
All of a sudden it was Christmas. The Girl's got gifts of swimsuits and new crocs to wear on the trip and stocking stuffers of sunscreen, all of which got us in the spirit...as if we needed more encouragement. The only looming nagging worry for me was the weather. We live in a suburb of Pittsburgh and we can get the snow dumped and the ice falling on us here. I was happy to not have the worry of sailing the same day as flying but I still did not want to encounter delays.
I forgot to mention that I did book Palo reservations at 96 days out. I was able to do at 105 days but just didn't get a chance. I was stil able to get almost what I wanted. I booked one dinner for DH and I and one for our Mom's together. For brunch I wanted to have the four of us together but I was only able to book two together online with one reservation at 10am and one at 10:30am. It was my hope that once we got on board I could have the concierge merge the two into one and we could all be together.
Our documents did not arrive until January 3rd and by the time they did I was a nervous wreck that they were lost, never to be found.
Reservations, documents and new crocs, we were ready to roll!
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