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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Hello all! I've never posted a trip report before, so I hope this one ends up being ok. And I'm sorry it's VERY late, but better late then never. So, here we go!
Who went:
Me, AKA Mom. This trip was just a few months before my 40th birthday. I've never been on a cruise in my life, but the travel bug has really bitten me hard lately and our family has been traveling quite a bit lately. A cruise, especially a Disney cruise, has actually been a bucket list item for quite some time. So hubby and I decided there was no better time then the present and we went for it.
Hubby. He was just a hair over 40 at time of cruise. He has also never cruised. He lived a pretty sheltered life as a child and I've made sure to change that about him. We've gone on vacations before, but this is the first one he's ever sat down with me and planned things and visited those plans later and tweaked and changed things. That was awesome!
Daughter. She was almost 14 when we cruised. She loves Disney almost as much as I do. She was very much looking forward to maybe being able to get her nails done in the spa or something super special like that, and exploring the beach on Castaway Cay. This trip was her first time on a cruise, AND the first time on a plane! But she was super excited.
Son. He was almost 15 when we cruised. He likes Disney, but he's "too cool" to show it anymore. However, there was one day when I found out from Passporter that I could order a call from Disney about our cruise. It was a call from Minnie and Mickey. My phone started ringing, I knew who it was, so I had the kids come into the room before I answered it and put the phone on speaker. When the line picked up and he heard Mickey, he got that huge "it's Disney" grin on his face and I saw it for a split second, before he caught himself and smirked the smile away. But it was bliss when I saw it! This was also his first cruise AND first plane ride.
The Journey:
We actually spent the first 5 days of our vacation at Disney World. It was our first WDW trip also, and it was amazing! But that is for a different trip report. So skipping forward, we stayed at POP Century. On the morning of our embarkation, we were woken by the cruise line calling our room to advise us our bell hop was on the way and to make sure our bags were ready. And they were. We packed the night before so we could sleep in a little. So we put our bags out and then went back to sleep for a bit. About an hour later, our phone rang again, it was also the cruise line reminding us of our bus time. We decided we should probably get up at this point and get ready for the amazing day!
We boarded the MDE to take the shuttle to the Port. The shuttle was pretty awesome! The windows looked like port holes, the seats were plush and roomy, and they played cartoons on the tv's the entire ride. The bus ride was a little over an hour to get from POP Century to Port Canaveral.
When we arrived at the Port, it took all of about 30 minutes from the time we arrived, to the time we boarded the ship. We had time to take pictures in the terminal of the scale model of one of the Disney ships, we took pictures on the gangway, and we zipped through security lickity split.
We boarded the Dream, and it WAS a dream! It was simply magnificent. Beautiful details all around, and the service was outstanding from before we even arrived at the terminal. We took some pictures of the ship, and headed straight for our stateroom. We met our stateroom attendant George, he was very friendly and very personable and had some great information for us right off the bat. He would leave us chocolates, towel animals, and pirate bandanas to help us be ready for Pirate night. And from the first time we met him, he remembered all of our names and always asked us about our day and if we enjoyed ourselves.
Our stateroom:
We had an AMAZING stateroom! We'd researched a ton on this room and could find very little actual information on it. It was room number 5018. It was a handicap accessible room, so it was laid out very different then many of the other rooms, and it was huge to say the least. It was on deck 5, forward. It only had 1 very large bathroom which had a huge shower, and tons of floor space, and a very large counter, and a toilet of course. The bathroom was probably 10x10, it was just enormous. Our room had a queen sized bed, a sofa that turned into a bed, a bed that pulled out of the birth, a desk, 2 chairs, and 2, yes 2, HUGE portholes! Everyone in our family could fit into these portholes, they were so huge! A friend of ours and their family just took a cruise on this same ship, in this SAME room, and 2 of their children actually slept in the portholes, they were so huge. Anyway, I digress.... there was a significant amount of floor space in the room due to the size and layout of the room. I had heard many rooms of this similar style have a half wall in the center of the room kind of awkwardly breaking up the room, but we didn't have any such wall in our room. There was a very large closet space, and it was right down the hall from the teen club "Vibe".... where our kids spent most of their time.
Our Special Plans:
Since this was our first cruise, we decided to spend as much time as possible enjoying the ship, and the island. Our cruise docked at Nassau, and Castaway Cay. We attempted to get off at Nassau, but didn't make it very far before we turned around and got back on the ship. Castaway Cay though, we booked some fantastic excursions! We all did parasailing, even the kids. And hubby and I had a couples cabana massage that was just to die for! We got a great deal on the massage also by booking it on embarkation day while taking a tour at the Senses Spa. We originally just went in to the spa to book a mani/pedi for daughter and I, but hubby surprised me and booked the massage since he got it for the same price as if we'd done it on the ship, but we got a cabana and all.... who could pass that up?
The mani/pedi was so nice, the room had a wall of windows where we could just sit and get used to being on a ship. The sun was going down, it was a great view and such a relaxing experience. We watched a movie afterward, had dinner at Enchanted Garden, and had to convince the kids to come back to the room by 11 for bed time.
The 2nd day we were at Nassau, where we pretty much stayed on the boat. My favorite highlight from that day was being in port with some other cruise ships. We were there first, then a Carnival ship docked next to us, another ship docked on the other side of us, and the Wonder docked a little wile later on the other side of the Carnival ship. After the Wonder docked, our ship and the Wonder were blowing their horns at each other, one would start a song, the other would finish it, and back and forth they went for a good 10 minutes or so. We had a good chuckle imagining how this must make the other cruise lines green with envy as their horns only have one tone it seemed.
That night we had dinner at the Royal Palace. I loved all the princess touches!
The 3rd day was Castaway Cay. It was incredible! We rushed off the boat after breakfast to get to our couples massage, what a perfect way to start the day! The weather was perfect for our entire trip, but to just lay on that massage table and hear the ocean lapping on the beach, and the wind rustling through the trees, was just bliss! It wasn't too hot, nor too cold, just perfect for a massage in the cabana. I took lots of pictures before and after our massage too of our surroundings, one now prominently hangs on my bedroom wall so I can see it every day when I wake up.
We then headed back to the boat to pick up the kids and head off for parasailing. We were on a boat with just 2 other people who were parasailing, and the 2 people who worked on the boat. The 2 people on the ship went first, they came back down and told us it was amazing and not to worry. Then my husband and daughter went. My daughter was nervous, she's afraid of heights, but she was very brave. When they came down it was son and my turn. We went up, and it was so quiet and peaceful and calm up there. It was really not what I was expecting. I expected it to be loud, and a rush, but it was very peaceful and serene. I could see the bottom of the ocean, the water was so clear, and we had to have been over 20 foot deep water. I took tons of pictures, I didn't want it to end, but sadly it had to. When they brought us down, my husband convinced the captain to lower us close to the ocean and dip our toes in the water before bringing us back onto the boat. It was breathtaking!
We did some geocaching while on the island, had lunch at Cookie's Too, and spent the bulk of the time at Serenity Bay laying in the hammock and looking for seashells in the ocean. It was time to get back on the ship, so we headed back, stopping by the post office to mail some post cards (which took a full month to arrive, lol).
That night I took some pictures of the most amazing sunset I have ever seen in my life, and I notice every sunset.
We spent the rest of our cruise watching shows, eating, shopping, wandering the ship, and just being in love. It was a magical vacation and we can't wait to do it again... so we are going next March too!
I hope I didn't bore you, and I promise, the next report will be much sooner than this one was. Have a great day!
Agree - your report isn't boring. It sounds like you had a great time. We do the same as you did - stay on the boat at Nassau, and spend the day at the beach on Castaway Cay.
Thanks! We are looking forward to our next cruise though, we will be getting off at Castaway and at Grand Cayman this time. We have excursions planned for both places so I hope it turns out better than Nassau.
That was beautiful! Thank you for sharing![emoji3]
Carnival Elation 2010
Disney World 2011
Carnival Fascination 2011
Carnival Ecstasy 2013
Disney World 3013
Carnival Dream 2014
Carnival Liberty 2015
Disney World 2015
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