A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 22 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sort of funny that you drove home again... But it turned out in your favor with the extra things you needed anyway.
Now, in hindsight, it is sort of funny, but at the time, it certainly wasn't.
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Loved those close up owl photos, wow! The otters are cute, but those giant ones are kind of creepy - knowing they're so dangerous! Who knew?!
I certainly didn't!
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Very peaceful lunch and early afternoon, and then followed by a very crazy boarding procedure and such! Wow. That certainly didn't give you a good first impression of Celebrity. Wasn't it delayed due to cleaning? I wonder if that just messed up everyone's schedules and they just couldn't get back on track to make it an easy boarding process (as it should be)?
It was delayed due to the need for a deep clean. We were supposed to be boarding from 11:00am onwards, but under the new timetable, no-one could board until 2:00pm, and each deck was given a specific boarding time. We were given 3:00pm, although in truth I think we could've turned up at any time from 2:00pm onwards.
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Well I'm glad that the dinner sort of made up for that. It looked delicious! And I"m not surprised you slept so well. You were exhausted! Beautiful sunrise photos.
Mark's hash browns actually appear to be corned beef hash. Everyone in my family loves that, except me. I can't get past the appearance (which looks too similar to dog food, in my opinion).
Now you say it, I think he did make that comment. My memory's getting foggy... forgive me, it was a little while ago now.
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No attention to plating going on at breakfast, was there?
Mark's hash browns actually appear to be corned beef hash. Everyone in my family loves that, except me. I can't get past the appearance (which looks too similar to dog food, in my opinion). No attention to plating going on at breakfast, was there? Glad the French toast tasted good.
I feel the same way about corned beef hash looking like dog food! Just can't get past it!
Huh, that one massive restaurant doesn't really look all that appealing to me. Maybe I'm just so used to the rotational dining and the smaller restaurants on the Disney ships that I'm biased but I like being able to dine in different settings without having to pay for a specialty restaurant.
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Huh, that one massive restaurant doesn't really look all that appealing to me. Maybe I'm just so used to the rotational dining and the smaller restaurants on the Disney ships that I'm biased but I like being able to dine in different settings without having to pay for a specialty restaurant.
I much preferred being able to dine in different settings and I was disappointed that they only had the one big restaurant.
Loved your sunrise pics! The ship looked so empty, almost like you had it to yourselves.
We pretty much did. I think quite a few people had already disembarked, as anyone on a tour to Bruges would've left the ship. I reckon maybe only 40-50% of passengers were still on board at that point.
We took the elevator up to deck 14, as we hadn’t even got that far yesterday, and I wanted to explore the ship a bit more today. We walked along the exterior deck, getting some photos of the ship…
… and Zeebrugge port…
We then headed up to deck 16, known as the Solstice deck…
I was particularly taken by these “double beds” as I called them!
We made our way back down to deck 15, which is home to the sports area, and also the kids’ club, although I can’t imagine they’re anywhere near as good as Disney’s.
I wanted to see the Lawn Club, as I was fascinated by the idea of having real lawn at sea, and they were not joking when they said that was the case.
We ended up walking over it, as there were no signs to say you couldn’t, but it was in such good condition, you didn’t feel it was right to do so. It reminded me of growing up, as my dad’s lawn was in better quality than this, and my friends always used to ask if you could walk on it, and of course, being used to it, I was like “sure, no problem!”
This is also where the hot glass show happens, although annoyingly, it’s due to be on tonight, while we’re at the Tuscan Grille for dinner.
We were quite taken by the various bars that they have on the aft top decks, and though we might come back later to enjoy our free drinks package…
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What a beautiful sunrise to experience out of your room though!
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
But it turned out in your favor with the extra things you needed anyway.
Who knew?!
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
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