A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 12/2 - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sorry the character breakfast was disappointing. It's too bad they seem to be getting rid of them rather than trying to improve them.
Well, we did give some feedback about our experiences - I'm sure it's recorded somewhere later in the trip report (I haven't got that far yet, so I can't be sure! ) so they knew exactly what we thought of it anyway....
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Sorry your character breakfast was such a disappointment. I dislike when meals aren't timed correctly and you end up with everything you ordered coming out at the same time.
Sorry the character breakfast was such a disappointment. I'm surprised at the small servings, as Disney is so good, usually about providing more than adequate food portions.
I really don't know about the skyline on the first picture, but it makes me think of New York.
Sorry your character breakfast was such a disappointment. I dislike when meals aren't timed correctly and you end up with everything you ordered coming out at the same time.
Sorry the character breakfast was such a disappointment. I'm surprised at the small servings, as Disney is so good, usually about providing more than adequate food portions.
That's why the portions at this breakfast came as such a shock!
Quote:
I really don't know about the skyline on the first picture, but it makes me think of New York.
I wondered about New York, but I didn't recognise it, so I figured it couldn't be New York.
Tuesday 1 September – part three: should I ask him to repeat that manoeuvre?
Once we were finished with breakfast, we headed over to StudioSea for the DVC Member presentation with Doug and Melissa, the two on-board Guides, who it turns out both had a history of working in the entertainment side of the business, and it showed. I can imagine there are probably a lot of DVC Guides who’d love to go on the cruise, but if this is the way they’re doing it now, that the Guides basically have to be performers, I would imagine there are quite a few who are excluded, which is a shame if that’s the case.
It was certainly very lively, and we were on our feet a lot, doing all sorts of dumb things, with the two sides of the room competing against each other. However, as in true Disney spirit, there was no winning team, and the whole thing was declared a tie.
Then came the sell, and to me, this felt like a much harder sell than we’ve had on previous cruises. They told us all about both the Polynesian Village and Aulani, the two properties they’re actively marketing, although nothing new of course. The only deals were for Aulani, which didn’t surprise me, given that I understand sales there are pretty slow, and I doubt they’re going to have problems getting rid of Polynesian Village points. The deals were something like a $1,100 discount off a 100 point purchase, so $11 off a point, and $3,700 off for 200 points, so (using my calculator quickly here ) an $18.50 discount per point, along with a $500 stateroom credit, so not bad, but it’s not something that interested me, as I’m just not drawn to buy points at either location. Bay Lake Tower or the Grand Californian with discount? Well, then we’d be talking, but heck, as both are now sold out, that’s not going to happen.
We headed out of there, in all honesty, a bit disappointed. I’ve been to better Member invites, and unless they were selling at a property I was interested in, I’d think twice about going again. It is good to see that the on-board discounts have been reinstated, as they went through a phase of not offering anything better than you could get anywhere else, and that was hugely unpopular with DVC Members. I guess Disney have listened to that feedback…
Our next stop was over at the shops, which were thankfully a lot quieter than the previous night. They also had much more stock out. As I suspected, they obviously couldn’t cope with the volume of people, and just ran out of sizes. All Alaska 2015 merchandise was 40% off, which worked for me. We ended up getting three T-shirts, a sweatshirt for me (ironically I bought the men’s one, as the fit was better and the material less scratchy and two other women both said the same thing, so it wasn’t just me), along with a mug of the famous Disney chimney stack on the ships, and the grand total? An amazing $124. I was very impressed with that. Of course with the Alaska merchandise, we didn’t get our extra 10% off as gold Castaway Club members, but that was fine. We still got it off any other purchases.
We got a few photos, then bumped into Tomand Rhonda from our table last night, who were taking the mickey out of us, as we’d left dinner last night saying we were going to the shops, and they wanted to know if we’d been shopping all this time!
We made our way back to the room, but when we got there, we found it hadn’t been cleaned yet, so decided to head out to the Outlook Café instead. We were very pleasantly surprised to find it so quiet in there, as we were expecting it to be packed, but not a bit of it. When we arrived, we were the only ones in our section, although it did fill up after we arrived, but thankfully everyone was nice and quiet, and it was still a relaxing atmosphere.
We both ordered hot chocolates with amaretto, and watched the world go by, marvelling at the weather outside. It changed from literally blue sky on one side of the ship to dark black clouds on the other side, and from tipping with rain, to brilliant sunshine. It was very surreal.
We also watched the couple in the hot tub who, trust me, spent way longer in there than is good for you. I have to say kudos to the guy who came out of them to dive bomb into the pool. His face was a picture, because obviously that was a little bit colder than the Jacuzzi. If only I’d had my camera ready to capture the moment, but sadly I didn’t. I did consider asking him to repeat the manoeuvre, but thought better of it.
A bit later, it was starting to brighten up, and the rain had stopped, so I headed outside to get some photos. The weather really was improving, and it was more like it had been first thing this morning.
Honestly, looking at some of these photos and the colour of the sky, you could easily be in the Bahamas or Caribbean. You wouldn’t know you were in Alaska.
Hardcore DVC sales on the ship! They must be desperate. Did they offer anything for attending, a drink perhaps?
Score on the shopping! You were right - they had more shirts in stock.
The photos are crazy - that weather is crazy! I tell ya, Amaretto and hot chocolate and the changing scenery... sounds perfect.
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Glad you found some Alaskan merchandise. That was the sad thing on the NCL ship. They didn't have anything cute and not much of what they did have. They really were more geared to sell perfume, jewelry and alcohol.
I've been to two DVC member presentations on DCL and both were so boring I could hardly stay in my seat. I don't know what I expected, but it seemed like such a waste of time when you've got the whole ship to explore. I never went to another one. Glad the skies have cleared!
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) so they knew exactly what we thought of it anyway....
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The only deals were for Aulani, which didn’t surprise me, given that I understand sales there are pretty slow, and I doubt they’re going to have problems getting rid of Polynesian Village points. The deals were something like a $1,100 discount off a 100 point purchase, so $11 off a point, and $3,700 off for 200 points, so (using my calculator quickly here 
I was very impressed with that. Of course with the Alaska merchandise, we didn’t get our extra 10% off as gold Castaway Club members, but that was fine. We still got it off any other purchases. 
If only I’d had my camera ready to capture the moment, but sadly I didn’t. I did consider asking him to repeat the manoeuvre, but thought better of it. 
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