A Little Trans-Atlantic Magic - The (somewhat) LIVE TR! -updated 07/03/13 - Page 33 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What a wonderful last day. So much yummy food, so many characters, so much fun.... really hate to see it all end. But what a way to go!!!
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
And this question may get me kicked off the boards. Who is Anne Marie ????
If you haven't been on a Disney cruise there'd be no reason to know that! She's the main character in one of the shows. She gets visits from many of the various Disney characters.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Wow - now that's what I call an amazing final day!
It really was. We packed a lot into it, but it was all such fun stuff that it didn't feel too crazy, and didn't let us dwell too much on the end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Disneybine
You sure made the most of your last day on board! I always get sad, too.
I'm still sad, lol.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shazza
Loved these last updates. Sad to see the cruise end, but you sure packed in a lot during the last day. I hate to see little girls cry (we have the same with our granddaughters), but it does tell you just how much they loved their time onboard.
It's so true! She tells everyone that asks that the cruise was the best part of the trip.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rlb38
Fantastic last day on board . Sad when it comes to end , no question. And this question may get me kicked off the boards. Who is Anne Marie ????
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
If you haven't been on a Disney cruise there'd be no reason to know that! She's the main character in one of the shows. She gets visits from many of the various Disney characters.
Asking who Mickey is might get you a crazy look, but I didn't know who AnneMarie was until the cruise. Colleen explained it spot on!
Quote:
Originally Posted by disney_duke
What a wonderful last day. So much yummy food, so many characters, so much fun.... really hate to see it all end. But what a way to go!!!
I wish I could have brunch in Palo today. I'm hungry and don't want to cook anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomhazel
Sorry you were sad to leave the magic but I'm glad there are still some fun things to come.
Me too! Including a meet up with you guys!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russi01
wow a fantastic end of a trip. Sorry to see it come to a end!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Our alarm was set for 6:30am, and we got up sadly and got ready for our day. We had to be out of our cabin and to breakfast (with all hand luggage) at 7:00am. We said goodbye to Tina (I'm disappointed that I didn't get a picture of her) and trudged up to Lumiere's. I was glad that we got to have our last breakfast with our tablemates and servers. It really did make it a lot easier to say goodbye, rather than just dealing with a buffet and "strangers" (lol - I'm a sentimental sap and I hate to say goodbye to people).
My last danish. *sigh* I'd kill for one of these now (but since my pants are finally starting to fit again, maybe not)
Mom got eggs, bacon and hashbrowns.
I got a ham and cheese omelet
This was our depressing view during breakfast. A painful reminder that we were about to be booted off of the ship. *big sigh*
The kids had a great time talking and hanging out
Amazingly, those are the only breakfast pictures! I do, however, have more photos from the disposable camera. I just picked them up yesterday evening and they are hilarious! I might not be able to get around to posting them today, but I'll definitely post them Friday. There are some from Castaway from snorkeling, and some from dinner, all taken by Meri, lol. You can only imagine... The quality is incredibly poor, of course, but there are still some cute photos there.
Anyway, after breakfast, we hugged everyone goodbye. Taner, our server, was heading home right after this breakfast seating. Needless to say, he was SUPER excited and energized! Kadek was going to be doing the later seating by himself (probably with an assistant from another dining area).
We wanted to take our time getting off of the ship, since we couldn't get into our apartment until 11:30am... so we sat in the Promenade Lounge for a little over an hour and just relaxed. Funnily enough, who did we run into but the couple that we had lunch with on our first day! We don't see them the entire cruise, and then we bump into them in Gibraltar and in the last minutes of our last day. Funny how that happens.
Finally at 9:00am, we knew we had to shuffle on off. We walked through the atrium one last time, and then turned and waved goodbye to the Disney Magic, and stepped off of the boat. And Meri's face crumpled right up.
So did mine, really. *sigh* I hugged her and we walked off the boat and talked about all the fun we had, and all the fun we would have on our next cruise. Hearing the words "next cruise" perked her up a little, which was nice!
We went into the terminal and found the Daisy section, and our luggage was quite easy to find (as it was very nearly the only luggage there, lol)
We found some seats against a wall, and I parked Meri there while mom headed over with our packages to ship them home.
I snapped a few pix of the terminal (Linny, this is what you'll be looking at on your last day, too, lol)
You can see the character section markers. It makes your stuff easy to find.
Our luggage tag
They have men all lined up to assist with luggage, which is really nice. So be sure to have a few Euro available to tip if you need their help!
After about an hour inside, we could see that they were setting up for the embarkation process for the next cruise. *sigh* Much as we wanted to try to sneak back on, lol, we grabbed our stuff and headed outside to sit on a bench there, since we still had an hour or so to kill before getting a taxi to the apartment.
Directly outside of the building was an area with taxis so we sat across from that. Immediately around the corner is a little cafe that sold sandwiches and ice cream (and it had a bathroom). Needless to say, we utilized that cafe a few times!
Finally it was 11:15am, and we had killed enough time! I walked over and hailed a taxi, and we loaded up and headed off to our new "home" for the next 5 nights - an apartment in Barceloneta!
Our last views of the Magic as we drove away
*sigh* The cruise portion is pretty much wrapped up (though I do promise to return by Friday with the disposable camera photos, plus I will scan our boarding photo for you all)... so the next update will be in the Globetrotting Forum. I'll put up a link here for you to find it!!! Thank you guys so much for reading along! It's been so much fun to relive it!
So sad to see the wonderful cruise end. I'm surprised that your server was allowed to leave so early to head home. It's nice that Disney works with them on flight schedules and such.
So. Very. Sad. I imagine this was much harder to walk away from than... say... magic kingdom or WDW. The luggage area sure looked organized. Can't wait to read about the next part!
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Oh my goodness, Meri's face broke my heart. At least we know there is more to look forward to. I think there's a lot to be said for doing it that way, with more of the vacation after the sadness of ending a cruise.
So sad to see the wonderful cruise end. I'm surprised that your server was allowed to leave so early to head home. It's nice that Disney works with them on flight schedules and such.
We were surprised, too! Apparently Disney chooses the flight and just lets the CM know about it. So that was even more surprising to me!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thomhazel
Meri's face when she left just said it all.
I know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by disney_duke
So. Very. Sad. I imagine this was much harder to walk away from than... say... magic kingdom or WDW. The luggage area sure looked organized. Can't wait to read about the next part!
Oh yes, I always feel a little sad leaving WDW, but none of us have ever cried... this one, I think we were all ready to cry. LOL!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Oh my goodness, Meri's face broke my heart. At least we know there is more to look forward to. I think there's a lot to be said for doing it that way, with more of the vacation after the sadness of ending a cruise.
It's true! The only downside to doing the cruise first is that the rest of it is not very relaxing. With all of the sight-seeing there is a TON of walking and coordinating and planning and arranging that happens. So that's exhausting. I almost think I'd rather do the west-bound TA, and see Europe first, then get on the boat and unwind, and then get home nice and relaxed and calm. But it's true that having more of the vacation takes the sting out of saying goodbye.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Oh, dear, oh, dear. That sad little face. I'm so glad all three of you had such a fantastic experience. It really was a magical cruise.
A question about shipping the box home... there was a place to do that at the cruise terminal?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rlb38
Poor Meri I don't blame her a bit for feeling that way. I'm wondering the same thing as Laurie
Yes right in the terminal they have one, just on the other side of where the luggage was. It is expensive as all get-out... and I DO MEAN expensive! I think it was either 100 or 130 euro for the two boxes. *choke* But at least it was that much less junk to carry...
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I imagine this was much harder to walk away from than... say... magic kingdom or WDW. The luggage area sure looked organized. 
Can't wait to read about the next part!
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At least we know there is more to look forward to. I think there's a lot to be said for doing it that way, with more of the vacation after the sadness of ending a cruise.
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