He got Alaska, I get Denmark - EBTA May 2015 - UPDATE 5/10/15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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He got Alaska, I get Denmark - EBTA May 2015 - UPDATE 5/10/15
Hello again!! Been so long since I've had any kind of TR to write about. Its been more than a year since we've been to WDW - and our last cruise was July 2014. Life has been getting in the way around here with work and other stuff... but when I saw Nana Tink had started her report - I said - "Why not!! Get to it". So off we go!!!
What: Terri's 45th birthday trip - early (for reasons to be explained). East Bound TransAtlantic from Port Canaveral to Copenhagen, Denmark on the Disney Magic
Who: DrDolphin (me) 44 on the trip; 10th DCL cruise; DH (Chris) 47, turning 48 right before the cruise - 6th DCL cruise; DM (my mom) and DD (my dad) - 5th DCL cruise for both. Ages not to be posted.
When: May 15 - May 31
A bit o' background.
As some of you may remember, back in 2012 - I surprised DH with a 2 week trip to Alaska for his 45th... and as my 45th birthday quickly approached, DH asked me what I wanted to do. We discussed New Zealand and Australia and we discussed the UK and Ireland to do family tree research. For awhile we even settled on the UK/Ireland trip. So much so that I bought books and posted about it on Facebook. Well - digging back into my emails to remember the history of how we got here almost a year ago, there is one to our fave TA, Sara (Belle* on the boards) asking her what was up with Disney in 2015... I think I had just listened to her and Jennifer on the PPer mom's podcast discussing new itineraries... so she responded back in early March and DH and I talked about it, read about the plans on the DCL website and finally settled on the 12 night which had 3 days in Iceland (Iceland is on my bucket list, and I really want to see the active volcano)....Since it was so pricey - we decided on an inside cabin (pretty much unheard of for us as we love verandahs) and I put down the deposit immediately. Although my birthday is at the end of September, I decided that I wanted to travel in May and leave September open for one of our National Park touring trips.
About a month later, DH came home and told me we had to change the dates of the cruise. The hospital does not allow the full time pharmacists (DH is one) to take more than a week off between June - Aug because the new class of residents has just arrived and many of them have not passed their licensing exams, in addition - they don't know the computer system, etc - so cannot sign off on patient's medications...
Ok - so back to the drawing board. I went back onto DCL's website - and decided to look at the 15-night EB relocation. We could actually save about $2,000 by switching to this plan and getting a verandah. Of course we also had to purchase airfare, but now that would only be one-way back from Copenhagen. We will be back on the Magic. We haven't been on her since our honeymoon in 2010, when we did the EBTA from Port Canaveral to Barcelona - and we will get to see all the refubs and redos!! I think I might even be persuaded to take a ride on the aqua-dunk!
So - on April 4, 2014 we were booked and assigned cabin #7112.
Not long after that - I was telling DM about our cruise plans for my 45th birthday instead of the family tree detective trip (I know enough about 2 families to visit where they were from - but on mom's dad's side - I only know "Ireland" at this point - so still need more digging....) and she mentioned that seeing the fjords of Norway was on my dad's bucket list. She asked if we would mind her and DD joining us on the cruise. We have cruised with my parents before when we were still engaged back in 2009 - and we know that they won't be doing the same types of excursions and our at sea days we will probably not do much with them - which means we all meet up at dinner and chat - and maybe see the some of the shows together. That works for me and DH - so we told her "come on along". They contacted Super TA Sara (they love her like we do) and she booked their cabin as well (they are on deck 8).
Not too long after we booked and I posted about it on Facebook, I PMed Miss Nana Tink to ask her if she and her DH were traveling with family - or just the two of them. If it was just the two (and it was) - which dinner seating had they opted for - she answered back the late seating... and so I asked if they would be interested in joining the 4 of us - she said they would love to - so we linked our reservations. I have no problem with dining with strangers - and we probably would have ended up at a 4 top with just DD, DM, DH and I - but I love the idea of dining with friends and sharing our different perspective on the trip.
Next up - Now that we know we are going to Copenhagen - how do we get home?
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