A Magical voyage across the pond LIVE UPDATE 9/30 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Pre-trip report – part one: our Disney Cruise Line history….
Dates: Saturday 8 September – Sunday 30 September Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (45) and DH Mark (52 now... 53 by the time of this adventure....) Destinations: Sailing from Dover, England to Quebec City on back-to-back cruises on the Disney Magic, stopping at Portland (England) Cobh (Ireland), Sydney, Halifax, Saint John (Canada), New York (America), Saguenay and Baie-Comeau (Canada), and then on to New England for a whistle stop visit! Resorts: on board the Disney Magic, the Bouchard Inn, Newport and the Inn at Mystic Meets: cruising with our friends Mari and Raleigh and with an extra passenger from New York City to Quebec City… more to come on that in due course… plus hopefully some meets in New England Celebration: Mark’s birthday and spending time with good friends again
Hi and welcome aboard this latest trip report! It’s kind of hard to know where to begin, as I’ve written one or two (ahem!) of these things now over the years.
I guess introductions would be a good place… I’m Cheryl, I love Disney and travelling, and I’m married to Mark, who thankfully also loves Disney and travelling, which is a good start. Put these two loves together, and what do you get? Well, apart from a hobby that’s very enjoyable, but also very expensive, one of the best way to combine the two is via the Disney Cruise Line, as your hotel floats to exciting new ports.
We’ve come to realise over the last couple of years, much as it shocks us, that we think we actually enjoy cruising more than visiting Walt Disney World, something I never thought I’d say. Don’t get me wrong, Walt Disney World changes all the time, with new attractions, restaurants, and even complete lands in parks, and of course the same is true of the rest of Orlando, but despite that, you are always travelling to the same place. Disney Cruise Line is very different. We now have quite a history with them…
We took our first cruise back in May 2004 on the Disney Wonder on a three night cruise, chosen especially so we could get our feet wet, as it were, and see what we thought of cruising. We liked it well enough, although we did have some issues with sea sickness, particularly on the first night. We found out that it can be a bit choppy where the waters collide at the bottom of Florida, and boy, did we feel it…
It took us until the summer of 2007 for us to set sail again, and this was a much more daring itinerary, the inaugural 11-night Mediterranean sailing on the Disney Magic. We weren’t sure how we’d coped with being on board for so long, and my goodness, we certainly encountered some much more serious weather, shall we say?
Our Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii excursion from Naples ended up becoming the Sorrento and Pompeii tour, as the waters were too rough to get to Capri. We could see why when we were on the hydrofoil to Sorrento, as we literally disappeared under waves. I cannot begin to tell you what a bad experience that was. Oh boy! I was so glad I had tried out some new travel sickness medication, as I wasn’t actually sick. At least 60-70% of the boat were physically sick, and yes, I’m sure you can imagine, it was all pretty unpleasant. I felt like the Pope when we got to Sorrento, and I wanted to kiss the ground, that’s how bad it was.
But that was an excursion, not on the ship itself. Well, we still experienced our fair bit of bad weather on board the Disney Magic. Mark felt sick one night, we were going up and down so much, and was told to go up to deck nine, and he promptly watched the young children’s pool empty all over the deck… I remember clinging to one of the railings in the atrium, waiting to get my photo taken with Mickey, which I managed, and marvelling at the mouse, thinking “do they put lead in those shoes of his?”
The second night, when the captain said it was going to be bad, that was it, we just went to bed early… and slept through it.
Despite that, we still enjoyed the trip, and particularly all the various ports of call we visited. In fact, we loved some of them so much, we went back – most notably to Sorrento and Pompeii, from where we were also able to visit Herculaneum, and take the stunning Amalfi coast drive. We also went back to Florence, which we absolutely adored, and I still have very fond memories of some of the other places we visited along the way, such as Monte Carlo, Marseilles, Sardinia, and our first visit to Barcelona, which we made two further stops at over the next few years.
When we heard Disney would be adding two new ships to the fleet, we were very excited, so much so that we made plans to sail on them when they arrived. The Dream came into service in 2011, and that was cruise number three for us, where we had an inside stateroom, complete with virtual porthole – fun, but we decided we were room snobs and definitely needed a veranda from this point onwards!
Thankfully, we had one for our next cruise that was later the same year, our first trip to Alaska. Oh wow, now that’s a destination and a half! We loved it so much, we went back again, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
We still had one ship we hadn’t yet tried out, the Disney Fantasy, so we put that right the following year, when we spent a week on there cruising the Eastern Caribbean for my 40th birthday. We both loved the new facilities on the Dream and the Fantasy, although sadly their itineraries are a little repetitive, shall we say, whereas the older ships had the much more exciting options…
That’s why we ended up back on the Disney Magic for our sixth cruise in 2014, as it had an amazing itinerary, cruising out of Venice, a sight I will never forget for as long as I live, around the Eastern Mediterranean, taking in ports of call in Greece, Turkey and the Greek Islands. Oh my goodness, was that a hot cruise! I seriously don’t think we had any day where the temperature was much less than 100° Fahrenheit – not pleasant, but again it gave us a wonderful chance to see different places in the world. We enjoyed them, but in the nicest possible way, not places we wanted to race back to. It was just a case of been there, done that, if that makes sense?
The next year, we packed in two more cruises, a short one back on the Dream, and our second Alaskan cruise, which brought us much better weather than our first time there, and some truly amazing experiences, including seeing seven bears, including a mother and her cub way too close to us for comfort…
Our ninth and tenth cruises were both on the Dream, one in late 2016 and the other in early 2017. We were trying to get to Platinum Castaway Club status, which I’ll explain more about in due course. By the time of our second Dream cruise, we had done our 10 cruises, and were Platinum Castaway Club members, just in time for our southern Caribbean cruise out of San Juan.
So that brings us right up to date with our cruising with Disney to date…
I was just thinking it’s about time for a PTR from Cheryl and here it is!!
Wow! That is quite a cruise history you and Mark have. I’m not sure I’d have gone for cruise #3 after the rough seas on #1 and #2!
We have not done a cruise, nor are we really interested in cruising, though I do enjoy reading TRs from others about their experiences.
So, yes! I’m looking forward to hearing all about your wonderful back to back cruise and the wonderful places you’ll visit!
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This is going to be an absolutely amazing trip! I’ve been to some of those ports and enjoyed them all. We really loved Halifax! So much interesting history as the final resting place of many who perished on the Titanic. And an interesting tie in that Cobh is the last place where passengers boarded the Titanic. I can’t wait to read all about this one!
That's quite a history with your cruises and can't believe how turbulent the seas were for your first two! Glad you continued these as I know the two of you enjoy them so much! Should be two amazing cruises with so many great destinations involved and looking forward to seeing how the plans unfold!
Good to know you'll be up in my neck of woods in the NYC and New England areas. Interested to see what you'll be doing here and when?
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
This is going to be an absolutely amazing trip! I’ve been to some of those ports and enjoyed them all.
Oh that's so good to hear. I'm sure we'll love all the new places we're seeing, but when you haven't been before, there is that element of "will we love it?"
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We really loved Halifax! So much interesting history as the final resting place of many who perished on the Titanic.
It looks like an interesting place from everything I've seen and read about it.
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And an interesting tie in that Cobh is the last place where passengers boarded the Titanic. I can’t wait to read all about this one!
I noticed the Titanic link - fascinating that we'll be visiting two places so closely linked to the Titanic on this cruise.
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That's quite a history with your cruises and can't believe how turbulent the seas were for your first two! Glad you continued these as I know the two of you enjoy them so much!
We've grown into them, if that makes sense? We left it quite a long time between cruises one and two and then cruises two and three and I think part of it was probably due to the weather and our experience on each one.
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Should be two amazing cruises with so many great destinations involved and looking forward to seeing how the plans unfold!
I hope they will be amazing - weather dependent...
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Good to know you'll be up in my neck of woods in the NYC and New England areas. Interested to see what you'll be doing here and when?
You sure have quite the cruise history, my husband is really interested in a cruise but he just can’t seem to convince me to give it a try.
I hope you're able to, especially if you want to try it. Cruising really is so much fun and opens up so many places to visit in the world. You can sample them for a few hours and then, if you want to, you can always go back, but it gives you an idea of what the place is like.
You are just going to love the TA! It’s our favorite cruise thus far. And you’ve got some different stops to what we did last year (making me wish we were going again this year). Looking forward to hearing all about it!
I can't wait to read all about your back to back cruise. Doing that and the TA are definitely on my bucket list. Oh well, they will have to wait, but at least I have Alaska to look forward to in 16 days.
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Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. Jenn
Yay! Excited to read all about this one! I haven’t cruised in 16 years, so I’m always excited to experience your sailings virtually!
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Tanya
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plus hopefully some meets in New England 
It’s kind of hard to know where to begin, as I’ve written one or two (ahem!) of these things now over the years. 
Put these two loves together, and what do you get? Well, apart from a hobby that’s very enjoyable, but also very expensive, one of the best way to combine the two is via the Disney Cruise Line, as your hotel floats to exciting new ports. 
Don’t get me wrong, Walt Disney World changes all the time, with new attractions, restaurants, and even complete lands in parks, and of course the same is true of the rest of Orlando, but despite that, you are always travelling to the same place. Disney Cruise Line is very different. We now have quite a history with them… 
Oh boy! I was so glad I had tried out some new travel sickness medication, as I wasn’t actually sick. At least 60-70% of the boat were physically sick, and yes, I’m sure you can imagine, it was all pretty unpleasant. I felt like the Pope when we got to Sorrento, and I wanted to kiss the ground, that’s how bad it was. 
I remember clinging to one of the railings in the atrium, waiting to get my photo taken with Mickey, which I managed, and marvelling at the mouse, thinking “do they put lead in those shoes of his?” 
We loved it so much, we went back again, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
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Glad you continued these as I know the two of you enjoy them so much! Should be two amazing cruises with so many great destinations involved and looking forward to seeing how the plans unfold! 
I'm sure we'll love all the new places we're seeing, but when you haven't been before, there is that element of "will we love it?" 
Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. 
Jenn
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