The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 12 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Some of the sugar free desserts are delicious - and hard to believe they’re sugar free. But that tiramisu? No thank you! I had a cinnamon creme brûlée that was sugar free on our last cruise (it may be part of my next installment?) and it was disappointing as well. But I had a sugar free lemon pie (I think) that was delicious!
Thanks for the heads up, as the cinnamon crème brûlée is exactly the sort of thing I'd go for. ;waytogo:
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That was an early night! But I know how that feels with the pitching - sometimes being in bed is the best thing, as the rocking lulls you to sleep, and has a different effect if you’re trying to walk around.
Very much so - I often think that's the reason we don't stay up late on board, as we're rocked to sleep. Mind you, we're hardly night owls at home. If we stay up after 10:00pm, that's a late night for us!
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Well that’s a bummer that dessert wasn’t that great. It’s usually the best part of the meal!
I know, right?
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Was it a little scary with the ship pitching that much? Or kind of just - oh it’s a little rough, but nobody was getting sick? I recall the one night we had rough seas and people were getting ill left and right!
It was just a little rough and not scary at all. You could just feel it moving and, to be honest, no-one else on our table felt it during dinner. It made walking around a little more challenging than normal, that's probably the best way I can describe it.
Finally got all caught up with your postings! What nice welcome gifts you got from Disney and your travel agent. You were able to get some beautiful pictures of San Juan even with your camera acting up again. I remember when that happened on another one of your trips. The humidity does do funky things to camera lenses! Your lunch looked so delicious. Sorry your dinner at Tiana's wasn't as good as your first experience. We find that happens sometimes when things go so well the first time around that the second time usually doesn't live up to your expectations. I'm glad you were able to sleep even with the pitching motion of the ship! I definitely would have felt seasick.
Finally got all caught up with your postings! What nice welcome gifts you got from Disney and your travel agent. You were able to get some beautiful pictures of San Juan even with your camera acting up again. I remember when that happened on another one of your trips. The humidity does do funky things to camera lenses!
Since the problems on that earlier trip, it's been in for repairs and they couldn't find anything wrong with it, so maybe it was the humidity?
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Your lunch looked so delicious. Sorry your dinner at Tiana's wasn't as good as your first experience. We find that happens sometimes when things go so well the first time around that the second time usually doesn't live up to your expectations.
Yes, that's often the problem when you have a really good experience first time around.
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'm glad you were able to sleep even with the pitching motion of the ship! I definitely would have felt seasick.
I think we've got better with the motion of the ship with all our various cruises. I remember what a state we were in on our first one and I reckon that was less motion than we had on this night!
Sorry dessert wasn’t so great. That didn’t even look like tiramisu! I make a fabulous homemade one... yum! What a scary reaction you have to a small amount of dark rum!!
That's funny about being drunk at 3 years old! That's a good story to share as not many can admit something like that!
Too bad the Tiramisu wasn't all that great and the meal was a bit off. So much for the DVC event and it figures with free drinks it's something you can't have! The two of you must have been so tired by being in bed by 8:30 but it was quite an active day!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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Sorry dessert wasn’t so great. That didn’t even look like tiramisu! I make a fabulous homemade one... yum!
Yours sounds wonderful. I don't think I know anyone who makes tiramisu, so I'm impressed with that!
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What a scary reaction you have to a small amount of dark rum!!
I know. And, like most allergies, it took us a while to work out what the problem was. I first passed out in Animal Kingdom many years ago after a couple of cocktails with dark rum in them. At that point, we thought maybe I'd just drunk too much, but then a couple of years later, I literally took a sip at our local pub of something with dark rum in it and the same thing happened - suddenly everything started to go dark and I came close to passing out and I knew that couldn't be a case of me drinking too much.
That's funny about being drunk at 3 years old! That's a good story to share as not many can admit something like that!
You're right and the funny thing is I assumed that everyone had experiences like that. It was only later in life I realised that wasn't the case!
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Too bad the Tiramisu wasn't all that great and the meal was a bit off. So much for the DVC event and it figures with free drinks it's something you can't have!
It wasn't their fault. It was just a certain type of law at play!
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The two of you must have been so tired by being in bed by 8:30 but it was quite an active day!
Oh it was. I always think boarding a cruise is a busy day with so much to do on that first day.
I first woke up at 5:00am, then drifted back to sleep until just after 6:00am, at which point I surfaced and found the map on the TV to tell me where we were – about 35 nautical miles off Antigua and going almost directly into a 28 knot wind. Ok, that will explain the pitching around then…
Mark woke up not long afterwards, so I said I’d go upstairs to get some tea.
I took the trusty teabags too, but couldn’t work out how to get hot water out. I looked and looked and got another guest to help me and he couldn’t work it out either, so obviously I wasn’t being completely stupid. They had teabags out, so obviously the intention was that we could have tea, but how? I walked around, trying to find a Crew Member. The Cove Café was closed and eventually I found one at Daisy’s De-Lites who came over to explain it to me and of course then it was obvious and I felt like a total fool. D’oh!
The tea made, I wandered up to deck ten. As the door to Palo was open, I just had to duck in and get some photos…
I then wandered along the deck, taking photos as I went…
When I got to the front of the ship, the wind really was whipping around. I was glad I’d got my long sleeved hoodie with me, as I was able to tie up my hair in the hood. It was that bad, I had to put my lanyard inside the hoodie, as it was hitting me in the face!
Eventually I headed back down to the room and got some more shots of the sunrise while we drank our tea…
Mark was feeling truly awful with sinus – a stinking headache and feeling generally miserable, but I at least took it as a good sign that he said he was hungry, so that was something. We made our way up to Cabana’s for breakfast and I was very impressed with their selection. I loved the fact they had an eggs benedict option I could have (Portobello mushroom) and French toast too!
While there, we had a Crew Member come round and ask us for any comments about the dining so far. I said that we had been very disappointed with the menu and lack of show at Tiana’s Place last night, but she explained we’ll get that menu and show later in the cruise. Excellent! I hadn’t even thought of that option, but if you’re on a four night cruise, as we were last time, that’s what you get there, but on seven nights, they do it later in the cruise. I am so pleased we still have that to look forward to.
As we were eating, we started to come into Antigua. I felt so excited to be seeing a new port of call, then realised we hadn’t had this experience since the Eastern Mediterranean cruise back in July 2014, as then we’d done another Alaskan cruise and since then, it had only been Nassau and Castaway Cay on our travels. The new places we’d most recently seen were with Celebrity on the Baltic cruise in June 2016.
I don’t think you can really see it from these photos, but it was so beautiful, lush and green. The sea was a beautiful blue/green colour as well, although again the wind really was whipping.
Next: “25 minutes late, let’s just leave them behind”
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You were able to get some beautiful pictures of San Juan even with your camera acting up again. I remember when that happened on another one of your trips. The humidity does do funky things to camera lenses! Your lunch looked so delicious. Sorry your dinner at Tiana's wasn't as good as your first experience. We find that happens sometimes when things go so well the first time around that the second time usually doesn't live up to your expectations.
I'm glad you were able to sleep even with the pitching motion of the ship! I definitely would have felt seasick.
That's a good story to share as not many can admit something like that!
The two of you must have been so tired by being in bed by 8:30 but it was quite an active day!
I hadn’t even thought of that option, but if you’re on a four night cruise, as we were last time, that’s what you get there, but on seven nights, they do it later in the cruise. I am so pleased we still have that to look forward to. 
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