Boomers of the Caribbean TR - COMPLETE!! 5/10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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Don't you love Southwest Airlines? They are the best. Here's the view of the Everglades from the air.
Our flight arrived in Fort Lauderdale around 10:30 a.m. and we picked up our one-day rental car at Enterprise. (Rick loves to book and rebook rental cars in the weeks prior to a vacation -- he ended up getting this one for $38!) It was too early to check in, so we went to a locally-famous 24-hour restaurant for lunch (the Floridian) and started getting acquainted with the streets and beach area.
Spotted our first lizard of the trip on the way into the Floridian.
Rick started wondering how much $$$ it would take to buy a little yacht. Of course, if you have to ASK. . . .
Then we checked into our hotel -- I think it was a Hampton Inn, nothing fancy but clean and quiet. Then we drove the car to Miami Beach so I could get my "Art Deco fix." It was a nice way to spend the afternoon, walking the streets of Miami Beach.
Approaching and then getting on board the Celebrity Solstice was pretty even for Rick. He last cruised with a bunch of pals when they were young and broke -- I think they slept 3-4 to each interior cabin. The entire cruise industry has changed loads in the 25 years or so since then. And of course, this was my very first cruise, so the sheer enormity of the ship was pretty darn impressive to me. Rick and I starting snapping photos like mad.
It was impossible to get a shot of the entire exterior that day -- I think we took this photo in Grand Cayman two days later:
You can see that the ship has a LOT of exterior balconies. We loved having a balcony.
The logistics of everything are pretty fascinating -- the ship docks on Sunday morning, and the previous guests have to be off by 10:00 a.m. and the new guests can get on board at 11:30 -- with your cabin ready for occupancy by 1:00 p.m.
Many beautiful spaces all around the ship. Here's the stairway up to the spa area -- and the doorway to this area was just a few steps from our cabin.
Within the spa, there's a special quiet room exclusively for the use of "Aqua Class" guests -- which, thanks to Rick's company, we were. We went into this room which overlooks the front of the ship, has soft music piped into it, and special teas and ice water with floating oranges or limes in it. "Blue" is definitely the color for the Aqua Class areas.
I started posing for pics to make everybody back home jealous. Is it working?
The Aqua Class cabins and suites are on deck 11, so we could easily take stairs if we didn't want to wait for an elevator to get to the pool and buffet area on deck 14. Arrival day is the best time for photos -- it was the only time the pools weren't inhabited.
Some cute little "private" areas, so I couldn't resist posing again -- still enjoying my ice water with orange slices. Boy, did that smell good!
Then we walked up the exterior stairs to deck 15, which has a little putting green on it. That's downtown Fort Lauderdale in the distance.
Corning Glass does a hot glass show a couple times a day and once a night during the cruise. Some beautiful pieces on display. Unfortunately, you can't buy them on board. We asked one of the Corning guys why, and he said they'd have to start mass producing whatever people most wanted to buy rather than create the colors and shapes they wanted to. So at each show, they either have a drawing or give the glass object to a child. Very cool.
I was very enamored of this bowl (below) and would have probably paid a hefty price for it -- I'm kind of glad they WEREN'T selling!
The Corning Glass Company has an area where they WANT you to pose -- otherwise, you know my innate shyness would have prevented me from doing so.
Back outside, I was about to take Rick's picture when another guest offered to take one of the two of us.
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