How The Western Caribbean Was Won! Completed 8/10/2016 - Page 4 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I have absolutely no clue, but I'm intrigued to find out...
It was a day well spent!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
My guess is Mystic!
CORRECT! To be precise....Mystic Aquarium!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
I took a nice trip to Mystic Aquarium yesterday and really enjoyed it. The drive out was quite easy with not much traffic, but on the return there was an accident in Milford on I95 and took me nearly three hours to get home.
I covered nearly everything at the aquarium as I was there from about 10 am to 2:45 pm. The only things I missed out on were sections that were for an extra charge from the general admission fee. These were the Australian Birds area as well as the films. Other than that, I pretty much covered it all.
Beluga Whale in Arctic section
Stingray tank in which you can touch them!
Cool looking jellyfish in Main Gallery of aquarium
Not sure of many of the names of fish as I didn’t write these down
Stingray
Horseshoe Crab
Can’t remember what this one is?
Stingray
Shark. Forget which type
Amazing how difficult it is to photograph moving objects as the fish don’t exactly pose for you!
Electric Eel
Barracuda
Seahorse
So colorful!
Shark
Outside Sea Lion pool and feeding area
Marsh section
Flower blossom in marsh
Bird feasting on a Tadpole
Turtle
Frog
Penguin Cove
More of Sea Lion pool!
Lizards taking it easy!
From small Titanic exhibit. Location of the Baltic, when it gave Titanic iceberg warnings. This was the ship my grandmother was on when she emigrated from Ireland, as she could not get a reservation on the Titanic. Good thing!
Ice warning from the Baltic
Interesting note about the Titanic was they had a replica of one of the bathtubs from the ship. There were only two private baths on the entire ship for a couple of the luxury suites. There were only two bathtubs in steerage for 700 passengers! I guess going on a cruise back then wasn’t known for being hygiene friendly.....even for first class!
Sea Lion during entertaining indoor theatre show
That was basically my day and I enjoyed it very much! A lot to see and do! Well worth the trip. Admission was $30 if you purchased online, which I did. You get a 15% discount for this. Had lunch at the Penguin Café on site. Had an iced tea, cheeseburger (so-so) fries (good) and cup of New England Clam Chowder (very good).
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Last edited by SuperDave; 08-01-2015 at 02:26 PM..
Oh it looks wonderful. I'm sad we won't have time to make it to Mystic Aquarium next month (I can say that now! ) but I'm glad we'll get to Mystic as part of our New England trip.
Looks like a wonderful trip to the aquarium! You got some wonderful photos. Did you touch the rays? I love how they feel-- like velvet. Too bad you had such a long drive home.
Oh it looks wonderful. I'm sad we won't have time to make it to Mystic Aquarium next month (I can say that now! ) but I'm glad we'll get to Mystic as part of our New England trip.
Hope you get to visit there on your trip as it's worth it!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Looks like a wonderful trip to the aquarium! You got some wonderful photos. Did you touch the rays? I love how they feel-- like velvet. Too bad you had such a long drive home.
It was a fun day and I did get to touch the rays which was quite an amazing feeling and like velvet as you said! The bad part of the drive was waiting for the accident to clear, which caused such a bottle neck!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
That does look like a fun outing for the day. I love to watch the animals. As soon as school goes back in session and the weather cools a bit here, I'm heading to the zoo. Haven't been in a couple of years and I need to give my camera a good work out.
That does look like a fun outing for the day. I love to watch the animals. As soon as school goes back in session and the weather cools a bit here, I'm heading to the zoo. Haven't been in a couple of years and I need to give my camera a good work out.
It was quite fun. Sounds like a great plan for you! The one thing better about an aquarium over a zoo is that the stench isn't as bad or not much at all! Other than that, they're both enjoyable!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
What a great mini trip!
Interesting facts about the Titanic.
It was a great day at the aquarium and had a great time! Always been fascinated by the Titanic from the movies as I've seen a few of them. James Cameron's was so well done with the detail that went into it, which astonished me! He used many of the same companies that furnished the original Titanic in many ways!
Just glad my grandmother was very poor as she could only afford a 3rd class seat on the Titanic and that nothing was available and sailed from Ireland to the US on the Baltic.
One other thing is that The Baltic rescued a number of the Titanic's passengers from the lifeboats. Although, we've generally heard that it was mostly from the Carpathia, which was closer as they rescued the bulk of them!
It wasn't until my grandmother's later years, that we heard about this as she tried to put the past behind her and Ireland as well as why she and many from her country emigrated to the US for obvious reasons! It wasn't a good situation there some 100 years ago and most lived in poverty! She met my grandfather in northern New Jersey, whom had emigrated himself, just months prior to this!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Mid-March
Sometime in the middle of the month I received my travel documents from Sara for my cruise. They included my luggage tags for transportation of my bag from the Hyatt Orlando to the Disney Magic and from the ship to LaGuardia Airport on the return. That will be less aggravation and should work as well when I use DME! I also received my cruise documents booklet which contained all the important information regarding my cruise such as cruise schedule, port excursions, dining and spa reservations, flights and other things. It’s a good source of information all in one booklet!
March 15
Today I went through my packing list and see what I needed to add and subtract from my standard Disney packing list. A bit different as I was on a cruise this time. It perhaps took just over an hour to do and was quite satisfied of what I needed for my cruise. Clothes and toiletries are the easiest part of the list. It’s all the various documents and papers that one must bring that is the most tedious thing with the packing list. Glad I got this done!
March 21
One thing I hadn’t done is arrange my transportation to and from the airport. I had used one company several times, but decided to use another one as I had seen a lot of their shuttles in the area over the past few years. I checked out their web site and their rates seemed pretty reasonable, so I called them up and made my reservations. They gave you a 15% discount for a first time customer and waived the $5 door to door fee by pre paying the total. This wasn’t a limousine service but a shared van, so there may be other passengers and some that would have to be picked up after me. I think the total was about $125 round trip, which seemed pretty reasonable. So, we’d see how they would compare to the other company.
I visited my local CVS later in the day and purchased several travel size toiletries for my trip including toothpaste, deodorant, mouthwash and a few other things.
End of March
One day during this period, I received an email from Sara with a couple more documents to print out, sign and bring with me on the cruise. These were medical documents with one being a general health questionnaire and the other regarding Ebola! So, I did this and kept them with my other cruise documents.
March 28
Next weekend was Easter and the following weekend was my cruise. I would have to work next Saturday and Sunday was Easter, so I wouldn’t have much time to pack for my cruise, unless I wanted to do so after work, which I did not! I don’t mind packing up the clothes during the week as this will only take an hour, but it’s all the other stuff. So, now I was wondering, if it’s perhaps a bit early to be doing this? Well, I went with my instincts and began my packing. It took a few hours, but I got everything together that wasn’t clothes together and packed into my suitcase and carry-on bag. So I finished this and left the bags in my living room for me to admire! This signified that my cruise was getting this much closer! I was quite happy I had this done and for the most part, just had my clothing to pack!
Monday, April 6
I received an email from the Orlando Airport Hyatt confirming my one night reservation in the hotel for Saturday, April 11, along with all the details of my reservation.
Thursday, April 9
After I got home from work, I began to pack up some of my clothing for my cruise. I spent about 15-20 minutes doing this before dinner. I had more clothing to pack but I wasn’t departing until Saturday. I had an extra day off Friday before I fly to Orlando and would have time to finish my packing, do things around the house and just get excited for my first cruise!
Friday, April 10
I finished packing the rest of my clothes as well as checking to make sure everything else I was bringing was packed up and ready to go in the morning! There would be a few items I couldn’t pack until the morning, so I’d make sure to give myself extra time in the early a.m. to do this.
At about 7 pm I received a phone call and it was my character call from Goofy, wishing me a Bon Voyage! I thought this was pretty cool and funny at the same time as it was Goofy and just got me more excited for my trip!
I was in bed at about 10:30 pm and set my alarm for 5 am as I had a 6:30 am pick up from the shuttle service company to JFK Airport. In just a few hours I would be on my way to the airport for my first ever cruise.....aboard the Disney Magic!
NEXT: How Long Am I Going To Have To Wait?
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Ah, the night before vacation is always so exciting!
Yes, it most certainly is!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!