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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm sorry I've been remiss in checking in here... it's been a lousy week. But tonight... after Meri goes to bed... I plan on reliving some of my fun in the sun! I'm uploading photos to photobucket as I type this... and then tonight I'll get this ship moving on along! All aboard!!!
Ok so first let me upload some photos of the travel day / hotel room... we were in the Holiday Inn Express Port / Conference Center
Me on the plane to Ft. Lauderdale
Our hotel room
Loved the sink
Ok... now I'll start with Day 2 - our first day on the ship...
This morning I had scheduled a before-school phone call with Meri, so I didn't set an alarm, knowing that she'd call roughly around 8:30am... and sure enough, 8:30am on the nose, my phone rang and woke me up. First thing, Mom let me know right off that Meri's ear was still hurting. Drat. I talked to Meri for a few and told her that I was going to set up a dr appt for her, to get her ear dealt with. Mom, meanwhile, was in the background, frantically trying to find a hat and gloves for Meri. She couldn't find the set we typically use, and she had looked all over her car, my car, and the closets. Finally I just told her to go up into the attic over my bedroom and grab a set out of the box right by the door. After I got that sorted and said goodbye to Meri, I immediately hung up and called the doctor and got Meri set up for an appointment at 11:00am. Then I called mom back to let her know, and filled her in on the procedure for picking Meri up... and simultaneously emailed Meri's teacher to let her know about the appointment, and that mom would be picking her up, feeding her (since she'd miss lunch) and bringing her back. PHEW! All that in 15 minutes! Not exactly how I envisioned relaxing on my first vacation morning... but whatever.
Since we were up (and I was now wired), we got dressed and went down to breakfast in the breakfast room. The offerings were sort of typical for a hot breakfast at a hotel... eggs, sausage, gravy, biscuits, make-your-own-pancakes (which are always gross tasting in my opinion), some danishes, bagels, toast, etc. I didn't write down what I got, but I think it might have just been coffee and a croissant. I know I didn't really eat much.
After we finished breakfast, we headed out of the hotel to go for a walk. We had agreed to just head down over the drawbridge, get to the end, then turn around and go back. On our walk, I noticed a drawing in the cement of a certain part of male anatomy... and we had a bit of a giggle and eye-roll over that. Then we continued on. Shortly after, we saw an older gentleman riding his bike. Toni erupted in a fit of giggles, because it looked like Uncle Si from Duck Dynasty (she made me watch it the night before - stupidest show I've ever seen... but yes, I did giggle a few times). We got down to the drawbridge and could see our ship, so we took some photos from Toni's cell phone... I don't have them yet, but it was cool to get to see it. We were flabbergasted at how HUGE the ship was compared to all of the other ships in port. Ours dwarfed the rest!
We headed back, took turns showering / getting dressed, and then packed up and headed out! At 11:15am we shared a taxi to the port with another family who was on our boat. They were from Denver, and the parents had cruised once but the kids (teenagers) never had, so they were excited.
We checked our bags, and then got in line to check in. Our check-in time according to our sea pass printouts was 1:30pm... but we ignored that. During check-in, I leaned against the desk, and it ROLLED! I had no idea those desks were on little rollers! Whoops! LOL! Fortunately the guy thought it was funny. We had computer issues at our desk, of course, so it took a while for our guy to key in everything by hand (as opposed to swiping our passports, credit cards, key cards, etc).
Once done there, we were handed our card and some other paperwork, and directed to where to get our pictures taken. After getting a picture together, we got in line to board the ship, but were told that they were halting boarding for a little while... so we had to sit in some seats. Finally they started the boarding process back up again... and we were first to be called, since we were there first. Off we went!!!
Toni
Me
That circular thing that's swooping out at the top is a hot tub...
Boarding!!!
We walked onto the ship and straight into the promenade!
We couldn't go to our rooms until 1pm... all of the hallways were closed off to where the cabins were. We took some fun photos around the ship...
At this point, we were hungry... so we decided since we were right near the Windjammer Cafe, we'd grab something to eat... We actually didn't make it all the way into the Windjammer, we ate in the Jade... which is basically the same thing I guess.
A buffet, with hot dogs, burgers, toppings, some pastas / salads...
My lunch
The burger was great - the pasta salad, not so much. It was rubbery. We sat by a window overlooking the pier and just chatted and relaxed. I did note that they played Britney Spears music. And they pushed the alcohol. One guy kept walking around saying, "The more you booze, the better you cruise!" LOL.
We still had about 20 minutes until the room was ready, so we went back down to the Promenade to explore the shops / restaurants, and then Toni got a call from her boss saying they were in Sorrento's (pizzeria) so we headed over there for a few minutes to say hi, and introduce me!
The Promenade
A cool walkway / bridge to the Promenade - it looked fabulous at night, all lit up!
Finally, it was 1pm, and we knew we could get into the room! WAHOO!
Toni, opening our door for the first time...
The first thing we noticed and got a laugh out of, was that they put the beds together!!! We didn't mind, though. The bed is huge enough that we honestly never even came close to touching one another, lol.
Our travel agent had left us a bottle of sparkling wine! We popped the cork and then ducked as it banged all around the room, lol! Whoops!
Taking pictures of each other taking pictures!
My feet in photos became a running theme, lol!
We watched a tanker heading out to sea
Then we decided to head out and explore again before departing...
Business Center
Another promenade photo
They had these cool interactive screens which we used on occasion
We stopped in the library and picked out some books for the trip
I loved this statue which was right near our room
I loved that they had the day of the week on the elevators
We finally went back to our cabin for a while, to hang out before the lifeboat drill and sailaway party... both of which were relatively painless... and I got a free beer out of the deal...
and then it was back to our cabin to enjoy the view...
I relaxed and read a book and snacked...
PHEW! And that was our first day on the boat... are your eyeballs tired?
What a gorgeous ship! And your cabin looks perfect. It all looks and sounds quite different from the DCL ships. I'm guessing that all the restaurants on the Promenade are extra-fee?
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What a gorgeous ship! And your cabin looks perfect. It all looks and sounds quite different from the DCL ships. I'm guessing that all the restaurants on the Promenade are extra-fee?
Some are, some aren't. The cupcake place is extra, as is Ben & Jerry's... but the pizza place has free pizza, and the Starbucks has free coffee if you get the basic coffee, and then the premium drinks are extra-fee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
The ship looks great - and I absolutely love the sunset shots!
Thanks! We loved watching the sunset, and I took a few dozen photos of it, lol!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
What a great ship! It looks like a bigger version of the Radiance! Many familiar things! More please!
More coming possibly tonight, maybe tomorrow night... definitely by Monday!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coop
I really have to save up for a cruise someday! Maybe I could convince Chuck if we added it on to a WDW trip?
You could do a 3 night cruise before a WDW trip to give it a whirl without too much of a time commitment! That way if Chuck hated it, you would be outta there fairly quickly, and off to your happy place. However I suspect he'd like it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hugmonster
Great Update, love all the pictures...
Thanks! I tend to take tons of photos.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
Awesome pictures of the show! It looks like a floating city. Your cabin looks really nice too.
It really was a floating city. I really love cruise ships! And our cabin was so comfortable and roomy! I was really impressed! Tons of space for storage - I couldn't even come close to using all of the nooks and crannies!
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