A DREAM is a wish your heart makes...Halloween on the High Seas edition - updated 09/14/2014 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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First I’ll share what our favorite things from each day were. This is something I had us do every night (or every few nights when I remembered we hadn’t done it). I punched out different Mickey heads (one color for each family member) and then pasted them at the end of that day in my ‘smashbook’.
Day 1 – 10/9
Mike – picking the boys up from school
Kelly – being on vacation!
Dylan – watching a movie
Lukas – watching TV
Day 2 – 10/10
Mike – eating dinner (Sanaa)
Kelly – seeing the view from our standard room
Dylan – pool
Lukas – playing the drums
Day 3 – 10/11
Mike – looking at Miniland in Legoland
Kelly – watching Lukas ride ‘big’ rides and seeing Cam & Luke
Dylan – riding the horses and Chima ride
Lukas – riding the rollercoaster and seeing the pirate show
Day 4 – 10/12
Mike – seafood at dinner
Kelly – seeimg family and Lukas loving the characters
Dylan – Chef Mickey’s and riding the monorail
Lukas – seeing zebra & giraffes and seeing Minnie
We got up pretty early today as today was sailing day! Yay! I wanted to leave at 9 but that didn’t happen, but we were only a half hour behind. I texted Melissa to say we were on our way and that the GPS said we should arrive at 10:20am. Melissa was packing up their car and they were 25 minutes from port. At this point Hope still didn’t know where they were going. My boys did know about the cruise, but none of us had any idea what exactly we were getting ourselves into as we’d never cruised (even non-Disney) before. We were all very excited! With one last look out the balcony at the animals and around the room we headed to the car and to the port. It was a beautiful sunny day! I had brought quarters with us to pay the tolls and the drive to/from the port is the most expensive!
First glimpse of the ship!
We found the place I had pre-booked parking easy enough and soon we were standing in line for the shuttle to port. By parking off site it saved us easily half of what it would have cost us parking at the port. Melissa sent a text just after 10:30 that they were waiting to get into the terminal while we were waiting in line to get on the shuttle. It took a while to get a shuttle (there were lots of people there that morning) and we didn’t fit on the first one that came. By 11:20am we were in the terminal and got into a rather short and fast moving line to check-in. While waiting in line I heard them call to board group 1 and at this time I had no idea what group we’d be boarding with. When I did on-line check-in I said we’d be at the port at the earliest time available which I think was 10-10:30 or 10:30-11. Check-in was painless and we went to see the line to check the boys into the kid’s club but it was really long! And they were already boarding our Group (2) so we decided to head on board and check the boys into the kid’s club since the CM that checked us in said we could do so on board.
from the shuttle
We waited in line for our photo and soon we were hearing those magical words “Welcome Aboard Davis Family!” It still didn’t seem real. It all happened so fast and I just couldn’t believe we were actually taking a Disney cruise! I tried to soak it all in, but we wanted to get some things done first. We headed to deck 5 to check the boys into the kid’s club and after wandering the halls with a few other families we learned that they didn’t open until noon. That may have been useful to know before, but it was only 10 minutes ‘til so we decided to stay put so we could check them in when it opened. We waited behind one family and then the boys got their bracelets and explored the area for a while. Soon though we coaxed them out as we were getting hungry and we had too much stuff to be lugging it around and chasing them too. We headed to Cabanas for lunch and to meet our new friends!
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Love the shirts in your embarkation picture!
Where did you park? We were just going to park at the terminal but if we could save half the money - that would cover a few days worth of my bar bill!
So exciting! I'm glad check-in went quickly for you. Your boarding photo is beautiful and you've already gotten some good on-board photos. The boys look dazzled in the kids' club area-- what fun! Can't wait for the two families to get together!
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Yay, you're finally onboard! How exciting!
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