To Alaska and Beyond! Updated 4/28 x 3 and it's COMPLETE!! - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 can see Fumble is going to be enjoying his trip to Alaska, too!
I can't imagine why you would feel like you were in another country... other than that French/English thing and that Maple Leaf thingy, eh?... and, well, the pretty money, maybe... but other than that - it's like crossing another state line..., eh?
Beauty is the descriptive word I would use for Vancouver, too... in fact, for all of British Columbia!
We arrived at the Pan Pacific- which had a very unassuming entrance.
The majority of the hotel sits above Canada Place, offering some amazing views of the harbour. We had a city view booked. Tired, hungry and ready to rest, we headed inside to check in- which required an elevator ride up from street level.
The front desk agent was very friendly and courteous. She then took me for a loop by telling us she was offering us a complimentary upgrade to a harbour view suite on the 20th floor. Uh, sure! We'll take that!
When Kevan and the kids met up with me on the way to the elevator, I told them about the upgrade, which only truly added to Matt's excitement of the 5 star hotel thing.
I could barely believe my eyes when we opened the door. None of us could.
Front room area
Matt thought this was his room, but his father and I set him straight, I assure you..
One entrance to bathroom
The other entrance, the entire bathroom was bigger than my first apartment!
As tired as we were, we were all famished and desperately had the desire to find food! I also wanted to check out the area around Canada Place so we headed downstairs.
It was very busy on the street and we spotted a food court directly across the street- but we all were shocked- the entire food court was already closed for the evening. We then tried a Tim Horton's but their deli area, also shut down.
Kevan spotted an English pub across the street and we made a beeline for that, only to be told at the door that kids weren't allowed. I had started to resign myself to paying ridiculous hotel restaurant prices when Aaron suggested going down a cross street a bit further than we could see. We passed a metro station and when I glanced in it, I spotted a Subway- to which I promptly hollered and the boys immediately replied Yes! I don't know if that was truly to Kevan's liking, but the pickings were slim and it certainly would be within budget for tonight.
We decided to eat there and it was all very good. I don't remember seeing anything different on their menu than one at home.
We headed back to the Pan Pacific and I got the kids to get showered and in bed, watching tv. Kevan and I brought out our collapseable duffle and repacked some stuff from the broken suitcase fiasco back in Little Rock. I also put on the Royal Caribbean luggage tags on each of the bags. That was oddly exciting- we would soon be onboard our ship!
I took the most delightful hot bath I have had in some time- the Pan Pacific provided a lovely potion of candlewood mint bubble bath and it was the best aromatherapy ever. By the time I was out and ready for bed- the boys- all of them- were out like lights. I looked out the window for a bit to enjoy the wonderful view of the harbour before turning in.
What is it about Subway being the only place open late in port cities. When we went on the Magic back in April, we tried to get food but the restaurants by and in our hotel had closed at 10:00 and it was now 10:30 on a Friday night. Couldn't believe how early things closed on a Friday night. However there was a Subway by the hotel that was open and we went and ate at.
Can't wait to read more.
How great on the room upgrade!! I'm surprised Tim's deli was closed, but glad you could find a Subway! Who'd a thunk you couldn't find a 24 hour restaurant close by in a city the size of Vancouver?!
Just catching up. Sweeeet room upgrade. Sorry it was so hard to find food. Kind of strange how they "roll up the sidewalks" so early - if you know what I mean.
I have an off topic question that I'm curious to know the answer. How did you read Cheryl's TR. Did you print it all out along with comments? Did you copy and paste into word? Did you download it to something gadgety to read? Thanks
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Hey Lorie, With Cheryl and Cam's reports, I cut and pasted their portions into a Word Document. I would have just printed everything, but I was running out of toner. It was a bit time consuming but was well worth it when I had good reading material on the plane!
BREAKING NEWS! I have forgotten to provide the faithful readers of this report your vocabulary and key phrases list. The following will not make sense to you now- but rest assured by the end of the report, you will have inside knowledge of all of these terms and the contexts of their usage. ( And hopefully, provide you a few laughs in the process).
List:
G Fourteeeenn Sausage! (You probably know what it is- but there's something special about it for purposes of this report) Gammy Fluuuuuuke Yummy for your tummy H.F.H.
And now, on to Day 2 of our journey....
I woke up on my own at 5:30 and was shocked to see it looked like 9:00 am. (Although this was nothing compared to what was ahead!). I was kind of curious to see what ships would be in Canada Place but it was so early, none were there. Kevan woke up almost right after me- he stayed up, I went back to bed. At 6:45, he got me up again to show me the Holland America ship that had just pulled in.
HAL Zuierdam
You could see people milling about on the top deck and my only thought was how glad I was that my vacation was starting- and theirs was ending. I figured now was a good time as any to call home and everyone was doing fine. I was able to doze a little more. At about 7:30, I got up and began to get ready. Aaron and Matt were still out. Kevan decided to go to the ATM and pull out more cash for the cab to the pier. About 9:00 Aaron got up and got dressed. We began to mill over breakfast- they decided to go to that food court McDonalds in hopes it would be open. While they were gone, I got my sleepy Matt up and dressed. The sun was really out and the view from our window amazing!
Kevan and Aaron brought back breakfast and we ate at the gorgeous dining table in the front room. We finished last minute backpack packing and decided to head on out to Ballayntne Pier. It was early but I figure it would be more interesting waiting there than here.
It was incredibly busy outside the hotel but the bellman was very quick to get us a cab and off we went, arriving at Ballayntne about 10 minutes later. The taxi lines were an absolute mess- and the pier staff kept our cab back- which irritated me as we were paying for that delay. Eventually, though we got dropped off. As we got out, the porters had flagged our cab for a family- who was coming off the ship. I asked them how it was and they replied "best cruise we ever took!"- .
We got our first view of our ship- and she was a beauty.
We headed in and were ushered into the security line with little wait. As soon as we cleared there, we followed a route that looked like we were heading into a meat warehouse or something. There were a line of kiosks for check in along the wall and we were sent to one immediately. Having checked in online and printed a Sea Pass- it took less than 5 minutes to check in and get our real Sea Passes. I couldn't believe how efficient this set up was- as ugly and unattractive as it was. Visions of the DCL terminal danced in my head...
We headed up a ramp to a waiting area for boarding. Royal Caribbean had cookies and lemonade - which I thought was kind of nice. We got a yellow boarding ticket that said 2. By this point, I was absoultely giddy. We all were- there is something in that anticipation right before you board a cruise. Addicting, I tell you this cruisng thing is.
Aaron took a pic of the rest of us with our SeaPasses:
The waiting area had a really nice little viewing area so you could go outside and see the ship:
About 15 minutes later, they began calling folks to board- beginning with a wedding party. We were next and right behind them in the US Customs line. Customs took hardly anytime at all. I had all the passports open to our photo pages in order to make things easier and the Customs agent told me how he appreciated it- that if every passenger at every checkpoint would do that- lines would move much quicker. So I'll make sure I do it all the time- I honestly didn't give it much thought before that.
After Customs, we approached the embarkation photo op (which didn't turn out good, so I didn't buy it). Stick an image of the four of us in front of a drawing of snow capped mountains and the words Welcome Aboard. Poof! You've got the embarkation photo in your head and I saved $19.95.
At that point, we could see the boarding checkpoint and Matt was quite excited!
The wedding party was right in front of us- they were a fairly large group of about 25 people. The bride was holding her dress and clearly had her hair done, ready to go. They were allowed to go forward and the rest of us held back, so that all their family members could catch up with them. Made perfect sense to me. All of a sudden, I hear someone starting to get very loud and pitching a fit, that the wedding party should have to wait like everyone else- and why did all the people have to go with them- just let the bride and groom go?? I don't know dude, maybe those people paid a lot of moolah to SEE the happy couple get hitched! Good grief- dontcha love folks who have to start their vacation by complaining the second it starts??
We were processed through about 5 minutes later and entered on Deck 4 in the centrum. It literally took my breath away- absolutely stunning. Much nicer than the Monarch of the Seas. )The Centrum is RCCL speak for the lobby and 7 deck high atrium). I also noticed immediately the fact that it was the 4th of July was not lost on Royal Caribbean- quite a few patriotic decorations adorned public areas.
Sculpture that hung down through the Centrum
We stopped at the kids desk and got Matt and Aaron set up for their programming. Crew members were directing us to Windjammer- the buffet restaurant for lunch- but none of us were quite hungry enough for that yet. More exploring first, food later.
Hey Lorie, With Cheryl and Cam's reports, I cut and pasted their portions into a Word Document. I would have just printed everything, but I was running out of toner. It was a bit time consuming but was well worth it when I had good reading material on the plane!
Mo had the foresight to ask if I could send it to her in a Word document, but when I checked, it was in something like 30 different Word documents, as I divided every part into a different document... I don't make life easy!
How awesome - you're on board! I can't believe that guy complaining about the wedding party - what a misery.
And that's very interesting about the passports - I didn't realise everyone didn't do that. We just take it for granted and always do it. I guess it's a good tip for everyone.
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The ship looks wonderful. You're so right that there's just something especially exciting about embarkation day. I've only been on two cruises, but I'm glad to hear that the excitement and anticipation of boarding doesn't fade with multiple cruises.
How awesome - you're on board! I can't believe that guy complaining about the wedding party - what a misery.
And that's very interesting about the passports - I didn't realise everyone didn't do that. We just take it for granted and always do it. I guess it's a good tip for everyone.
There seems to always be someone who just can't let themselves be satisfied with what they have! They are usually the same people who, if the tables were turned, would be pushing and shoving their way through!
I'm like Cheryl, I thought it was just natural to have your passport open to the picture.
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(Although this was nothing compared to what was ahead!). I was kind of curious to see what ships would be in Canada Place but it was so early, none were there. Kevan woke up almost right after me- he stayed up, I went back to bed. At 6:45, he got me up again to show me the Holland America ship that had just pulled in.
.
I don't know dude, maybe those people paid a lot of moolah to SEE the happy couple get hitched! Good grief- dontcha love folks who have to start their vacation by complaining the second it starts??
I can't believe that guy complaining about the wedding party - what a misery. 
There seems to always be someone who just can't let themselves be satisfied with what they have! They are usually the same people who, if the tables were turned, would be pushing and shoving their way through! 
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