Dreams do come true – our Med cruise! **Updated 6/30** THREAD 1 *COMPLETE* - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Pre-trip report part 4: the danger of buying travel guides
Two weeks and counting and it was time to start the packing, the bit I was dreading! No second suitcase per person allowed, as we weren’t flying to America, so everything was going to have to fit into just two cases in total, neither weighing more than 23kgs. For those of you who aren’t sure, that’s not a lot of weight. Even though we have extra light suitcases, they still weigh about 8kgs empty! And heck, we need to take daytime and evening wear. This was certainly going to be a challenge and not one I was necessarily looking forward to…
Now a piece of advice here – do not decide that you need more information about your cruise destinations with just a couple of weeks before you set sail. It’s a bad idea, trust me.
I was happy that I knew enough about most of our destinations and had made the right decision about our shore excursions – I mean, some of them had just sold themselves, as I wanted to see both Florence and Pisa, so there was only one choice there and seeing Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri in one day was too good to turn down. However, I had some nagging doubts about our plans for Sardinia and Sicily. And that’s why I eventually decided to get travel guides to both islands. Bad idea.
They arrived just over a week before we were due to leave and immediately I started to avidly read them and was suddenly less than enchanted with the shore excursion I’d chosen for Sardinia. Costa Smeralda didn’t merit much of a mention in the book, while La Maddalena had quite some space devoted to it and looked like a really nice area to head over to. OK, a bit of debate in my mind, then a bit of playing around on the Disney Cruise Line website (my goodness, what would I do without that? ) and I’d changed our shore excursion to a Panoramic tour of La Maddalena. I was sure that this would be a much better choice for us.
At around this time, I’d also been avidly reading Bruce’s (Zazu) trip report about his 25 days on board the Magic – lucky so and so. Of course, that meant there’d be another PassPorter on board with us, so I contacted him and said we’d have to meet up. Then he made a mention of how his dining companions on the Transatlantic leg of their journey had changed as they sailed. That got me thinking – would they have space at their table? I PM’d him and as luck would have it, although they were meeting friends, there were two spaces left on their table, so we were allocated table 12 with all the other “nutters” (Bruce’s words, not mine!) Now how cool is it to have someone on board who can arrange something like that for the next cruise?
Well, as I write this, it’s now Thursday morning and we drive up to the airport tonight, ready for our flight tomorrow morning. So far, everything appears to be fitting nicely – perhaps too nicely – into the suitcases. That worries me. I have this sneaking suspicion that maybe one or both will weigh too much and then we’ll have to do some mad re-packing tonight. Fingers crossed that doesn’t happen.
So it just remains for me to say goodbye – we’re off for a “Magic” time over the next 11 nights or so!
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I hope that you are having a magical time on your trip.
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I also changed my mind about the Costa Smeralda excursion in Sardinia. It sounded too much like a high-end shopping trip to stores I can visit on Michigan Ave. in Chicago. We are now booked on the "Train to Gallura" excursion for our 7-7-07 sailing. That seems to give us a nice tour of the countryside and a "Sardinian Snack" (sardines?).
Patti
I hope you have (are having!) an absolutely fantastic trip! I tip my hat to you in your packing - the two words "one" and "suitcase" do not go together for me.
Thursday 25 May – part one: is this trip really happening?
There are many emotions that I get before a Disney vacation. Usual ones include excitement, joy and delight. Disbelief isn’t an emotion I usually get the day before we fly out. However, that’s really how I felt today. Never before have I found it so hard to believe that we would be leaving the next day.
Perhaps it was to do with how much work I still had left to do (fortunately all of it was complete by 5.30) or maybe it was that we would be only be travelling a comparatively distance, compared to our usual nine and a half hour flights out to Florida. Or perhaps it was because there were so many things you couldn’t really plan for – like exactly which night you’ll be eating in which restaurant or what activities they’ll put on for the at sea days. Very different to Walt Disney World, where you know what attractions you’ll be heading for and where you’ll be eating on most days – certainly we do! Or maybe it was the fact that we would be visiting so many different places during the next 11 nights and it was just impossible to take it all in. Who knows?
Anyway, either way we were eventually on our way to the airport by 8.00 and half an hour later, we pulled up at the Clarion Hotel Gatwick, where we would be staying the night and leaving the car until we got back. It would then be delivered back to us at the terminal when we landed.
Our room was ready, so we parked up and took our cases straight up there. We had been pleasantly surprised when we fitted everything into the two cases. Surely that would mean that when we came to weigh them, they would be way over the limit? At first, we thought that they were and then we realised that we were looking at the wrong dial on the travel scales and they both came in just under the weight limit!
We thought the bathroom was great!
The view from our window
Our next priority was to get some food, as we had only had a snack when we got in earlier and by now, we were starving. Fortunately, the hotel has a restaurant and it wasn’t bad. As we were seated at 9.00, we only went for a main course each. I had the asparagus, pea and mushroom risotto and Mark got the lamb shank. Mine was lovely, but Mark’s was a bit of a challenge, as he didn’t have a steak knife to cut his. The service was very pleasant and we were in and out of there in about half an hour, which I thought was quite good.
The restaurant – we didn’t get any photos of the food we ate though. I guess that’s a slight reaction to Cornwall and being scared now to photograph food, in case the chefs are precious about it!
We dropped the car keys off at reception and then headed back to our room. The Clarion wasn’t a bad hotel and it’s rated as being a four star, but it was undergoing a massive renovation and I felt that it was therefore struggling with its four star status. It’s got a very nice swimming pool, which is part of a health club and a bar, as well as the restaurant, so there are lots of good facilities here and the staff were very friendly, but somehow, it just didn’t have the style of some of the other hotels that we’ve stayed in before.
The twilight view from our room
It wasn’t long before we were asleep. Tomorrow we would be flying out to Barcelona on the first leg of our magical Mediterranean adventure…
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) and I’d changed our shore excursion to a Panoramic tour of La Maddalena. I was sure that this would be a much better choice for us. 
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