Living the Dream and remembering the Bagman TRIP REPORT COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM - Page 11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Tuesday 27 September – part one: nothing to rush for!
I woke up about 7:30am, as it eventually turned out to be. I thought I heard the engines go off, and assumed we’d arrived at Nassau. Well, all ashore was at 9:30am, and we’d booked the massages for 10:10am, so I figured I’d better get up. How wrong can you be? They must’ve turned the engines down, as we were still moving along. I nipped outside to get some photos of the view…
It was still pretty hot and humid out there, although at least we had a sea breeze, which was a big improvement on the past few days.
We got going really slowly, one of the beauties of a cruise – nothing to rush for! I kept disappearing out on to the balcony to get some photos as we approached Nassau…
Once we got close, you could see the rain in the distance. I was glad I wasn’t on a shore excursion!
At one point, we found a channel, which seemed to be explaining about how to disembark the ship, and it was real Janet and John stuff (for those who don’t know, that means it was basic and the sort of thing you’d teach five year olds). It added to my theory that there were a lot of first time cruisers on board, as there is no way I think Disney would act that way if they had mainly Castaway Club members on board.
As we came into port, you could see how many cruise ships were in port today. We counted three already here, but we were later told by a Crew Member, we were one of six!
We eventually headed up to Cabana’s to get some breakfast…
I didn’t do very well, and managed to miss an entire chunk of the buffet, although Mark kept trying to tell me where it was. I guess I don’t follow directions too well. As a result, I wasn’t overly impressed by the selection, but it was better than these photos show…
We ended up sitting at the bar, which I don’t remember being there the last time we were on the Dream I think it’s supposed to be somewhere you might want to buy coffees, but as we don’t drink coffee, that held no interest for us. While we were sitting there, we got chatting to one of the head servers, Robert from Romania, who was great. When I said I was waiting for my husband to come back before I went off to get anymore food, he told me he could find me a new husband if he didn’t come back!
When we were done chatting to him, we headed outside to get some photos of the view. As you can see, it was quite gloomy, and every now and again, lightning would light up the sky…
We walked back through Cabana’s, and here’s a bit more of the selection I missed originally…
Indeed one of the best parts of cruising is not having to really rush to anything! Oh how I miss that....
The skies really do not look to inviting. What a shame for those hoping for a sunny beach day.
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Tanya
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So nice that you got to enjoy the Rainforest although the love birds in the corner didn't add to the ambiance I'm sure. I've noticed that the clothing in Disney World has gotten smaller looking and the quality not as nice as year's past. Your buffet breakfast selection looked delicious. I hope the weather cleared up as the day went on for you.
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So nice that you got to enjoy the Rainforest although the love birds in the corner didn't add to the ambiance I'm sure.
Not really....
Quote:
I've noticed that the clothing in Disney World has gotten smaller looking and the quality not as nice as year's past.
Oh I'd definitely agree about the quality. We used to buy things and have them five years later. I'm not convinced that would apply to anything we buy today.
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Tuesday 27 September – part two: he’s fallen asleep!
We made our way around deck 11…
… and headed up to deck 13…
These guys were very hopefully waiting to see what they could get from those eating at Cabana’s below!
At one point, we saw this ambulance…
We didn’t realise it, but it was heading for the port…
We saw them checking underneath for bombs, which was a bit scary.
Mark stayed up on deck longer than I did, and he said they headed for one of the ships that had just berthed. I hope it was nothing serious.
I made my way back to the room…
…and when Mark returned, we got our stuff together for the spa, as we had a rapidly approaching appointment for a massage.
We got there a few minutes, and said that we’d go into the Rainforest, and enjoy some time on the hot stone chairs, and they said they’d bring the medical questionnaires there for us to fill in. My goodness, mine seems to take forever to do now with all my various ailments and as for Mark, let’s just say he needs to start carrying his glasses with him more often…
We were escorted to our room, and had to lie face up, which is a bit odd, as normally you start face down, but they begin with the body brush, which is on both sides. They then move on to the hot stone massage, which was lovely, although having told my girl (I cannot for the life of me remember her name now ) that my problems were very much concentrated on my neck and shoulders, I didn’t feel she felt that much time working on them. For the first time ever, I was tempted to say “could I have a bit more pressure?” but she didn’t ask me how the pressure was, and I was too embarrassed to. I mean, how bad would it be if she said “that’s as much as I can do”… Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t terrible, I just would’ve preferred more pressure and more concentration on my problem areas.
This next bit is classic. Once the hot stone massage is concluded, you then have to turn again, back on to your front, and I could hear Bara, who was doing Mark’s massage, repeating the instruction. I immediately knew what had happened. He’d fallen asleep during the massage, and he had!
We then moved on to the foot and ankle massage, before we had the facial. At least here, there was more concentration on my shoulders, which felt very good. It was definitely what I needed.
It was a superb treatment, 75 minutes of pure relaxation, and I think exactly what we both needed. I must admit moving after it was a bit of a challenge though, as I think both of us could’ve happily laid there for another hour, and probably gone back to sleep in Mark’s case too!
We had to move, so after signing for the payment for the treatment, we headed back to the Rainforest. I used the scrubs, although this time we at least remembered to take the darned things with us when we were done. My goodness, it was packed in here. There was actually a wait for the showers, which is something you don’t usually see here.
I scrubbed up after showering, and felt better when I went into the hamam, as this time the floor was full of scrub. I guess we started something then… After a couple of minutes again in the caldarium, I went into one of the cold showers (the only empty one) and then headed off to the hot stone chairs, where Mark was already relaxing.
I was about to settle down, but then Mark pointed out that one of the hot tubs had just emptied out, so we headed into it. However, the bubbles didn’t seem to work, so when the other hot tubs emptied out, we got in there instead. The bubbles certainly worked, but my goodness, it was a lot hotter, so we didn’t last long in there, before we retreated to the relative coolness of the hot stone chairs. Half an hour later, they weren’t quite as cool, so we were out.
I washed my hair in the changing rooms, as there is a lot more space there, and then headed back to the room, getting a few photos on the way…
Sounds like more than usual number of people stayed on board this time!
Your time in the Rainforest sounded lovely. Glad the shoulders finally got the proper attention they needed! I've never had a massage, but I know that would be the first area I'd want worked on too.
Mark fell asleep! I love it!!
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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
I'm always quick to tell them if I need more pressure, because if I don't, I just can't relax as I lay there fuming that it's not the massage I hoped for! I've definitely fallen asleep in more than one massage! Sounds like sheer bliss in the spa this morning, between the spa treatment, and the Rain Forest!