Dreams do come true **Updated 7/24** THREAD 2 *COMPLETE* - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Friday 1 June – part one: an island jamboree for breakfast
With no wake up call, we were awake of our own accord at about 7.30. I got up and headed to the Tropical Rainforest as soon as it opened at 8.00. Although there were a lot of people working out, there was no-one else in the Tropical Rainforest, which makes it so much easier to relax in there. One tip I can now give you is that if you walk in and see towels on the hot stone chairs, in particularly one rolled up and one on the back of the chair, with a fold in it, don’t think that people have already occupied it, because they haven’t. It’s how Disney gets the hot stone chairs ready for use for the rest of the day.
After half an hour or so, it was back to the room with cups of tea in hand. I love being able to pick up all your food and soft drinks or hot drinks, such as tea, whenever you want without having to pay for it. That’s one of the great things about a cruise!
This morning, we had Mickey’s Island Jamboree Breakfast at Parrot Cay. Just as we walked into the dining room, we saw one of the islands that we would be passing today. We had seen on the Navigator that we would be passing a couple during our day at sea and the first was Monte Cristo:
We were the first ones there on our table, which allowed us to talk to our server Vlado and assistant server Sara properly for the first time. Vlado was very careful to make sure that everything was alright with the food and really did make an effort. He seemed much less hassled than at dinner, probably because I guess he had less to do this morning.
Vlado and Sara
It was standard breakfast fare and Mark had a full cooked breakfast, while I went for the cereal, fruit and cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel. This is the life!
The real treat here were the characters. They came out for three sessions during breakfast, where they danced and played games with the kids – and the odd adult too! I was content just getting photos of them. It was cute and I’m glad we saw it.
Our server Vlado is in the background of this shot and is really getting into the spirit of things!
Caught up again. The breakfast looks like lots of fun. Also, it was great to hear how the crew takes care of the ship when the cruisers are absent! Keep it coming.
Friday 1 June – part two: speaking to top Disney executives
When we came out of there, we headed to the Buena Vista Theatre to hear all about Disneyland Resort Paris from its CEO Karl Holz. We saw a couple of videos about the resort and it did make us think about going back, especially now we’ve got 55 points that we need to use in the next year, thanks to our latest DVC purchase!
He talked very frankly about working in France, the fact that Disneyland Paris is the top short break destination in Europe, but that it’s also still hugely in debt. There are a couple of new attractions opening this year and he’s been on one of them, Crush’s Coaster, but he wouldn’t say much about it. he did say that there would be some big expansions at the Walt Disney Studios over the next couple of years with the Tower of Terror and Toon Studios and it’s badly needed, as it was very small when we last went in 2003.
At the end of the presentation, he took questions and they covered all sorts of things, from French politics (he did say that he would answer questions on that in fairness!) to how he had progressed in Disney, the problems of strikes in France and more specific questions about the meal plan for DVC Members in Disneyland Paris, which interested me. I went up afterwards to ask for that information as well, as that might work for us. (I’m sad to report that, despite taking our details down and promising to get the information to us before the cruise was over, we never heard another word on the subject – very disappointing. )
During the presentation, it was also pointed out that Tom McAlpine, President of the Disney Cruise Line (again, forgive me if I got his title wrong!) was sitting there. As he said, so much for travelling incognito in flip flops! We were able to have a chat with him at the end, which was pretty cool. We both told him that we were disappointed not to see more marketing in Europe for the Med cruises (with Mark going as far as telling him he made a mistake in not marketing in Europe! ) but he told us it wasn’t needed, as they were pretty much sold out, but we made the point that there are lots of people certainly in the UK who don’t even know that Disney have cruise ships and he promised that he knew this and they would tap into this. He made a comment that it would have been good to have sailed out of Southampton, but it didn’t work out for this trip. Interesting. When we asked if Disney would be returning to the Med, he neatly avoided the question and didn’t answer us. I sure hope they do come back.
Tom McAlpine answering some of the questions at the end of the presentation
About 1.00, we passed the island of Elbe, which was pretty neat.
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Great updates and pictures as usual. Love the outdoor pictures of you and Mark. Sorry that you and Mark didn't have anything planned for a few evenings after dinner. A quiet evening with an after dinner drink, a lovely view, and my DH sounds wonderful to me. The couples massage sounds interesting. I've had a deep muscle massage and so has DH just not together. Maybe a relaxing massage together is something that I need to look in to.
Keep 'em coming!
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šOš ~*~
Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
How that you got to talk to Karl Holz & Tom McAlpine. to hear Karl Holz didn't get back to you with the information he promised. Your photos of Elbe are beautiful! More please
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And had a great breakfast!! More please 
the breakfast photos with the characters! More please
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) but he told us it wasn’t needed, as they were pretty much sold out, but we made the point that there are lots of people certainly in the UK who don’t even know that Disney have cruise ships and he promised that he knew this and they would tap into this. He made a comment that it would have been good to have sailed out of Southampton, but it didn’t work out for this trip. Interesting. When we asked if Disney would be returning to the Med, he neatly avoided the question and didn’t answer us. I sure hope they do come back. 
šOš ~*~ 
to hear Karl Holz didn't get back to you with the information he promised. Your photos of Elbe are beautiful! More please
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