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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Around 2pm my mother met us back in the cabin. We decided to go check out the Oceanears Club for my daughter. Everything was so soft in the club. I was surprised. All edges were cushioned and things that looked like hard wood were actually more like foam. My daughter really enjoyed the computers and spent quite a bit of time there. We then went down the slide and played on the stage with the hula hoops. My mother became bored and decided to explore the ship some more. My daughter and I explored the club some more and went upstairs at about 3pm. This was the only time my daughter wanted to go to the club. She said she enjoyed it, she just didn't want to go there alone.
We then went up to Plutos on deck 9 for a hot dog and french fries. We brought these back to the room along with some fresh fruit from Goofy's Galley. My mother was back in the room and we all had some snacks. The fruit was really good and fresh. We revisited Goofy's Galley every day to get more fruit. We then got ready for the lifeboat drill. We put on our life vests and my daughter and I went down very early. We had trouble finding our station, it ended up being inside Animator's Palate where we were to have dinner later that night. My daughter and I were the first people there and they checked our cabin off. My mother was the fifth person there. The whole drill once started took maybe 5-10 minutes. We ran up the stairs, threw off our life vests and headed up to deck 9 for the sailaway party.
We found a table on deck 10 with a perfect view of the party, where my mother could sit but we wouldn't miss out on any of the fun. The sailaway party was great. There was music and dancing. It was nice having seats, but my daughter kept wanting to get up to dance and there were people crowded all around us that I thought we might be annoying when we stood up to dance. The music was great, the dancing was great, it was a great way to start my vacation. The boat actually didn't start to move until the party was over and almost everyone was gone. We stayed and watched the boat sail from shore and then we began to head back to our cabin. It was probably only about 5:15pm and we had plenty of time. We ended up staying on deck 9 and watched them convert the stage for the party back into Goofy pool. My daughter said she was hungry so I got her a piece of pizza from the Pinnochio pizza place. We had managed to eat at all of the eateries on deck 9 on our first day
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.....Jen.....anxiously awaiting the remainder of the trip report!!!
.....to see how it will compare with mine. We (me + wife + 11 yr old daughter) were also on the Wonder 11/4 - 11/8.....Room 7042....and had a great time.
(perhaps I'll post a trip report too and we can compare notes....gosh that'll be a lot of writing?)
BTW....did you think that the boat was really rocking badly on the last night? For 12'-16' foot seas....it wasn't bad at all in my opinion.
(of course that's MY opinion...not that of all those sitting at breakfast with me in Animator's Palete the next morning!)
__________________ April '04 - POP Nov._"Jersey Week"_'04 - All Star Music Nov._"Jersey Week"_'05 - POP Nov._"Jersey Week"_'06 - POP Nov._"Jersey Week"_'07 - DCL & POP
Hi. Jerseydad,
It was a little rough that last night but we were already sleeping by the time the rough seas started and I found the rocking comforting. I woke up briefly when the rocking started, but my daughter slept right through it . Hope you had a great trip.
We headed back to the cabin and rested for a bit. At 6pm we headed to the Walt Disney Theater. I bought my daughter a strawberry smoothie. She had maybe 2 sips and no more. That was the last smoothie she got on the ship. I tried some and it was very good, but most of it was wasted. The show was a juggler. He was very good, but my daughter became bored and we ended up going through the shops outside the theater. Then we walked out on the promenade deck. By 7pm we were back at the cabin and met my mother back there. My daughter fell asleep by 7:30pm, it had been a long day. I really wanted to see Animator's Palate, so I carried her to dinner. She slept through the entire dinner. The wait staff were very attentive and kept asking if they could make her a bed on the chairs. I thought it would be better if I kept holding her, I didn't want her to wake up and get cranky because we would then miss the show.
Animators Palate was beautiful. I enjoyed seeing the pictures. The food was good. This was the only meal that I wrote down what I ordered. Garlic mushroom pastry and tomato salad for appetizers, filet mignon with seafood pastry for entree and chocolate peanut butter pie for dessert. It was all good. We didn't stay to see the finale of the "show". We were all tired and left at 9:15pm. The wait staff were very good at hurrying up dinner if you wanted to leave. We seemed to be the first people to leave every evening from dinner. We were unable to get early seating for dinner, unfortunately and we really are early dinner people. I would probably say that that was the worst part of our vacation. We went back to the cabin and went straight to bed. It was a great first day on the boat.
Day 2 - Nassau
We were up early, of course, and were dressed and up to deck 9 by 6:45am. There was already some drama by the beverage station. There were quite a few people standing around the coffee dispenser. We soon heard that there was no milk or cream and the caffeine deprived cruisers were getting restless. Soon someone was there to bring the milk and cream and we got in line as well. The coffee tasted good to me. There was no food available until 7am when Goofy's Galley opened with fruit and pastries. We got a plate of fruit to start and waited for BBB to open. Luckily it opened a little early at 7:20am. I ran through the line and got breakfast for my daughter and me. Then my mother went through for her breakfast. The lines weren't long at all and the food tasted great. My main complaint about breakfast is that it starts so late. I found this same problem on the last cruise I went on as well. I am used to eating my breakfast closer to 6am, so it is hard to wait an extra hour and a half.
We were back to the room by 8am and prepared for the day. My daughter and I were going to take the Atlantis Beach Day excursion while my mother stayed on board. We packed the Disney Cruise Line bag with 4 bottled waters, snacks, sunscreen and beach toys. My daughter carried her sand bucket. We wandered around the ship a bit, went up to deck 9 and watched The Disney Channel on the screen by the Goofy Pool. That was pretty neat. We then met our excursion group at 9am in Studio Sea. We exchanged our tickets for wristbands and lunch coupons. Then we were told that we wouldn't be able to swim in the ocean because of high waves. They would be putting us at some little inland beach. This was a little disappointing.
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Great update! to hear that breakfast started later than what you are used to and that the waves were too high to swim! Sounds like you had a wonderful couple of days! Can't wait to hear more
"BTW....did you think that the boat was really rocking badly on the last night? For 12'-16' foot seas....it wasn't bad at all in my opinion. of course that's MY opinion...not that of all those sitting at breakfast with me in Animator's Palete the next morning!)"
I was great on the last night, but my best friend couldn't believe how badly the boat was rocking. It helped me sleep. I too had breakfast at Animator's Palate the next morning. Once again, I was fine, but the other people at out table were a little green.
__________________
Erin
"Don't let your heart be filled with sorrow, for all you know tomorrow, the dream that you wish will come true."
Great report! I do remember the day in Nassau being a little windy. It was such a beautiful day though. We did the Discover Atlantis Tour. Can't wait to read more!!!! Keep them coming!
__________________
Erin
"Don't let your heart be filled with sorrow, for all you know tomorrow, the dream that you wish will come true."
When I was deciding which excursion to take I kept changing my mind. I had originally booked the dolphin excursion but my daughter said she didn't want to touch the dolphins. I then thought it would be nice to swim at the beach. We live in Indiana and don't get to swim in the ocean much. I thought it would be less stressful to go on an excursion to the beach so I booked the Atlantis Beach Day. Most of the reviews of this excursion were only so-so , but I booked it anyway thinking the good aspects of the reviews talked about the nice beach and that is what we wanted. The bad aspects of the reviews mentioned long walks with nothing to see. I didn't think that it was as bad as the reviewers made it out to be.
We were led off the ship in the group and led to buses away from the docks and on a street in Nassau, it was perhaps a 5 minute walk and we got to walk past another cruise ship and could see the Atlantis resort while we were walking. We boarded the buses and were probably only on the bus for 5 minutes as well. I think that the long walk that was described was after we got off of the bus. We were not dropped off in front of the hotel. We were dropped off in front of a parking garage that was a couple blocks from the hotel. We were walked throught a shopping center, up some stairs and into the Atlantis resort. I assume we were led this way so that on our way back we would shop at the stores and help the economy. I didn't mind walking past the shops and did not find them boring, but I also didn't shop there on the way back . After we entered the hotel, we walked through the lobby and some more shops and through the casino. I took this as an opportunity to educate my daughter about casinos , a place where silly people throw away their money ( no offense ). After we walked through the casino we were outside again and there was water everywhere. I do believe there was a little waterfall on the left. We walked over bridges and saw stingrays and many fish. I found it interesting. We then walked past several restaurants and were led to our beach.
Our beach was small but our group were the only people at it. There were some chairs that you could put a shield over to protect yourself from the sun. Several other beaches were across the small lake from our beach. We settled our things into two of the chairs and went into the water. There were little jellyfish everywhere. I had never seen jellyfish so small. There were other little fish swimming around as well. The water was clear enough to see the fish well. My daughter loves to swim and soon had her head underwater. It was then that I remembered that I didn't tell her about salt water . Oops. We were out of the water almost as soon as we were in and she informed me that she did not like salt water. We spent the next 30-40 minutes playing in the sand. We had brought all of her beach toys and tried to make a castle and a moat. Some of the other kids on the excursion came to help us. There was one very nice girl, maybe 10 years old, from New Jersey who helped us. She popped up at other times on the cruise as well. After a bit my daughter tired of the beach, so we sat on our chairs. She ate some of the snacks I brought along while I read a few pages of a book.
We were never given any information about anything else we could do at the resort, but in the description of the tour it said it included the aquarium so we set out to find it. It actually was only a few steps from our beach. The aquarium was nice. It had some of the biggest stingrays I have ever seen. There were quite a few jelly fish and many eels and all kinds of different fish. Also, of course, there was a gift store. We spent maybe 15 minutes in the aquarium and then set out to find where we could redeem our lunch vouchers. I headed in the direction I thought that the restaurants were and then saw a resort employee, from whom I asked directions. I'm glad I did, because we were heading in completely wrong direction. The lines were very long for the food. We probably stood in line for 20 minutes. The choices were mostly fast food. We don't drink cola and were disappointed that there was no sprite, we ended up getting the orange drink and it was flat . We sat at a table and we were attacked by the birds . The seagulls were so aggressive that they actually landed on our table in a swarm and walked straight up to our plates and were grabbing the french fries. It was a little scary, but also funny. We spent more time shooing the birds than we did eating. There were also some cats in the bushes next to our table. I didn't know if they were there to catch the birds, or if they like the seagulls were waiting for hand outs. We ate as quickly as we could and started to head back to the bus stop.
We were told that we could catch a bus every half hour between 1:30pm and 5:30pm. It was 1:30pm when we started our walk and we got onto the bus by 1:50pm. We were back on the boat by 2:30pm.
Sounds like a nice day on the beach. to hear that your DD didn't like the salt water. (I'm not a big fan of salt water myself) The seagulls seemed just a tad bit scary! Can't wait to hear what awaits you on the ship!
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. Hope you had a great trip.
to hear that breakfast started later than what you are used to and that the waves were too high to swim! 
Sounds like you had a wonderful couple of days! Can't wait to hear more
More please 
, but I booked it anyway thinking the good aspects of the reviews talked about the nice beach and that is what we wanted. The bad aspects of the reviews mentioned long walks with nothing to see. I didn't think that it was as bad as the reviewers made it out to be. 
, a place where silly people throw away their money ( no offense 
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