Battered, bruised, and a little bit intoxicated - a Transatlantic Crossing updated 02/13/18 - Page 11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Yikes, good thing you got your elbow taken care of when you did! Just think if it got worse and the ship's doctor couldn't help you! It would have been awful if you'd had to be taken off the ship!
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Ah, Mickey Magic takes over. I didn't know you could get Dole Whips on the cruise ship. Do they all have it? I'm so glad Mike won over and you got your elbow taken care of. Hopefully, your insurance will cover the costs nicely.
Yes, all 4 ships now have Dole Whip, with or without rum. Either way, it’s an extra charge. At least on the Magic, you get it at the bar next to the self-serve ice cream machines.
Yikes, good thing you got your elbow taken care of when you did! Just think if it got worse and the ship's doctor couldn't help you! It would have been awful if you'd had to be taken off the ship!
Yes, that would have been awful! So, it was good I finally listened to Mike. I just hated to admit he was right. We’ve been together 33 years now, and our relationship was based on the fact that I’m ALWAYS right!
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Yes, all 4 ships now have Dole Whip, with or without rum. Either way, it’s an extra charge. At least on the Magic, you get it at the bar next to the self-serve ice cream machines.
I'll definitely have to check that out on our Panama Canal cruise in April.
Thanks, Pam. Excited as tomorrow we’re meeting up with a friend we made on this cruise! And then Cam, Luke & Tara on Sunday (and more Tara on Monday - unless she thinks we’re all too weird on Sunday !
Thanks, Pam. Excited as tomorrow we’re meeting up with a friend we made on this cruise! And then Cam, Luke & Tara on Sunday (and more Tara on Monday - unless she thinks we’re all too weird on Sunday !
I’m baaaaccckkk. Sorry for the ridiculously long delay on this TR. Life just has a tendency to get in the way, ya know?
So, where were we? We’d finished getting my stitches, and it was now time to get ready for our first dinner onboard. We had taken advantage of the new Palo policy - you can reserve dinner on embarkation day AND get another dinner at some other point in the cruise. That guaranteed us 2 dinners - even though we’ve often been able to add a second one on other cruises, it really depends on demand. So this seemed like a good option to us. We made our reservation late enough to allow going to the main dining room to meet our table mates and serving team.
Our first night we were in Lumiere’s. We had a 6 top table, but tonight there were only 4 of us - so we were glad we’d decided to go, otherwise the other couple would have been on their own. The couple we met tonight were from England - living near the border with Wales. They were a little younger than us, and also have 2 kids, very near to the same ages as our kids. Nice job with the table match, DCL! We enjoyed meeting them (and spoiler alert, we hit it off with them, and the other couple we’d meet tomorrow, and spent a lot of time together on the cruise, and will be meeting up with them again in the future!). Our server was Genesis, and our assistant server was Marco.
We just ordered appetizers, as we were saving ourselves for Palo. Mike had the salmon appetizer and I had the calamari. And it seems I took NO pictures from the first dinner of the night. Sorry!
Before our dinner, though, we had to pop in to O’Gills to see part of a football/soccer match, as Mike’s team was playing (Tottenham). DSC02325 by Colleen McLain, on Flickr
Sadly, the game was a 0-0 draw. Then, we were off to the DVC reception. This was the first cruise we’d been on where the reception was on the first night, and right in the middle of dinner. I didn’t like that much, but of course, couldn’t pass on the chance for free drinks! . We stayed there until just before 8:30, as that was the time of our Palo reservation.
I thought I recognized our server, Mehmet, and it turns out he was our server when we sailed the Baltic in 2010! How awesome is that?! He remembered us as well. Palo was a great experience, as always. Following our antipasti, Mike had Tuscan bean soup and I had the Caprese salad. DSC02326 by Colleen McLain, on Flickr
Mike actually had to send his meat back, though, as it was over cooked (he always asks for medium rare). Then he could see the chef arguing a little about it in the kitchen, so two big surprises for Palo - food not cooked to perfection, and then the arguing where they could be seen by guests. It didn’t diminish our meal, though. For dessert Mike stuck with the chocolate soufflé, but I decided to try the newest soufflé offering - the amaretto one. (I only did this as I knew we had another dinner where I would be able to get the chocolate). The amaretto soufflé is served with an espresso gelato, which I thought overpowered the almond taste at times. It was good, but not as good as the chocolate.
After dinner we took a look at the shops. We’d been in earlier, and they were already out of the Transatlantic crossing shirts in Mike’s size but they had them now, so we grabbed one, plus a Transatlantic ornament, and a cool 3D type print with all 4 ships (since we’ve sailed all 4). I had picked up the commemorative sweatshirt/jacket earlier in the day.
We wandered in to Fathoms then for the late show. It was a violinist and was way too overmixed for my liking. It was hard to tell what was him, and what was taped. We didn’t stay for more than a song or two.
Sometime in the evening, we met DJ Wendell. He’s the DJ (hence the name!), and is from Trinidad. A super nice guy! We’ll end up talking to him many times throughout the cruise. He normally cruises in the Caribbean, so he’s close to home, but got called just a few days prior to this cruise and was asked to come over to make the crossing. So it would be his first crossing, too.
We called it a night around midnight. Oh, we’d also spent a lot of time this evening trying to track down the distilled water for Mike’s CPAP machine. I’d filled out a form prior to sailing, noting we needed this. I was told it would be brought to our room. Every time we saw our stateroom attendant, Ganesh, he asked if we had it yet. I’d tell him no, and he’d call Guest Services, who are responsible for that. They’d tell him it was coming in 10 minutes. This went on all night - starting about 5:30 pm. At 10:30 pm WE went to Guest Services. They said they could give it to us, but it was big so they suggested having it delivered and that it would be there in 10 minutes (really - standard answer, I guess). We thought that was strange, as at home we buy a gallon jug of distilled water. When we got to the room after 11:15 to drop off our purchases, it was there and it is HUGE! It must be a 5 gallon drum, at least. We’ve joked that we need to stay onboard until the water runs out (it takes close to a month for Mike to use 1 gallon).
Tomorrow: first of many sea days (and hopefully I’ll post this within the next few DAYS, rather than months)
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Safe travels Colleen! 
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Jealous of all the great meets you've got planned! 
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