The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
your spa treatment with a full body massage and everything else sounded lovely! I really liked the Dumbo door decoration, very clever. Very rude about changing meeting time and not letting anyone know. I would have been a bit disgruntled.
your spa treatment with a full body massage and everything else sounded lovely! I really liked the Dumbo door decoration, very clever. Very rude about changing meeting time and not letting anyone know. I would have been a bit disgruntled.
I'm curious about the acupuncture. Where exactly was she puncturing for sinuses, somewhere on the head, or elsewhere? Very nice that they could do that for him, thank goodness for that spa!
Cute doors on your way to the meeting place! Odd that they didn't tell you about the change in time to meet. They could have made an announcement I suppose.
Well believe it or not you strip off, yes I know seems strange when going for a sinus issue. Felt sorry for the girl seeing humpty dumpty (not the smallest of people), don’t worry I kept my modesty.
So with trepidation I laid down on the massage bed face down wondering what the hell I was doing worse what was she going to do? I need not have feared as she was very reassuring, showing me the needle and explaining all about the various sensor points around the body and just tapping into these points.
So with face buried into the cushioned toilet (the hole thing at the end of the bed) I awaited the first needle to be inserted into my back. Now this didn’t hurt just a slight irritation really, and I cannot remember how many I had in my back, legs and neck but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I was then left for about twenty minutes so the magic needles did their stuff. Now I must admit this didn’t seem to do anything and I was thinking well that’s a waste of money.
She returned and removed them and I had to roll over (poor girl) so she could start on the front. Now this was a little different and some here did cause a twinge shall we say? I now had needles now in my arms, hands belly and top of my head.
Ok the worst bit was to come - the needles in my nose and face now that did hurt or perhaps I’m just a wimp. Anyhow now I must have been looking like pinhead man she left me again for twenty minutes.
Now this is where I could feel the magic work as I could feel my sinus draining and I could breathe, my eyes were watering and it was just a strange feeling. She returned and removed the needles and put a small one in my right ear with the words "just tap it and leave in for seven days" (remember that). I felt so much better and couldn’t believe that it worked, I felt 100% better than I felt before going in.
She did say with another 4 day course, she could really make some headway into sorting my sinuses but at $150 a pot, I said I would see how I got on. Ok the one in the ear... well that fell out in the shower two days later.
I would most definitely recommend this to anyone as it did the trick for me and perhaps if I'd had the other sessions, I might not have got sinus again when back at Disney...
__________________
Mark Uninterrupted time with Grumpy at Tokyo Disney!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Wow, that was quite the answer Mark. Thank you! One stayed in for two days?!? That’s a lot of needles indeed. Glad to hear it helped for awhile. It’s definitely an interesting way to clear the sinuses! And I’m totally reading it in your voice with laughter...
__________________
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
Glad the too of you enjoyed your spa treatments. Even better for Mark as this seemed to work for him. Too bad lunch was a bit disappointing for you but at least you had some great shrimp and desserts! Some nice photos of Antigua from the ship and I'm sure these will get better once you go ashore.
__________________
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!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Yes, it was - he wrote you a little essay there. He was reading it out to me and I was cringing at the references to the needles.... more detail than I can cope with!
Quote:
Thank you! One stayed in for two days?!? That’s a lot of needles indeed. Glad to hear it helped for awhile. It’s definitely an interesting way to clear the sinuses! And I’m totally reading it in your voice with laughter...
Glad the too of you enjoyed your spa treatments. Even better for Mark as this seemed to work for him. Too bad lunch was a bit disappointing for you but at least you had some great shrimp and desserts! Some nice photos of Antigua from the ship and I'm sure these will get better once you go ashore.
Monday 15 January – part three: learning about and seeing Antigua
Eventually, we set off with our Elsa stickers on, relieved to finally get off the ship. There we met Christine and I thought I wouldn’t like her to begin with, as she made us all stand in pairs and it was like being treated as children. However, I soon warmed to her and she turned out to be an amazing guide.
We were accompanied out to the bus, running the gauntlet of traders, including one who after yelling quite a lot about what she was selling, asked if we spoke English. we do, it’s just none of us are interested.
We then boarded the bus and took our 40 minute ride across to the other side of the island.
No I wasn’t sure either… If I remember right, this is the hospital…
… and you can see what these are!
Antigua is 108 square miles and Christine explained how they’d gained independence from Britain on 1 November 1981, but honestly it’s still got so much of Britain, it was amazing to see. They have the same road signs and when Christine explained about the education system, a lot of it is adopted from us. The legal drinking age is 18 and they still participate in the Queen’s Birthday and New Year’s Honours lists, which is how they have various Sirs and Dames out here.
A British road sign, albeit showing its age!
To give you a bit more history to the place, the island was first sighted in 1493 by Christopher Columbus and he named it Antigua after a church in Seville, his home, called Santa Maria de la Antigua. The British first established a settlement here in 1632 and it was the base for the British fleet in the Caribbean during the Anglo-French wars in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was briefly captured by the French in 1666, but that didn’t last long. The island then became a British sugar colony
We learnt about the various political leaders and who roads here are named after. The politics here hasn’t always been clean, let’s just say. Antigua’s first Prime Minister was Vere Cornwall “Papa” Bird and in 1994, he was succeeded by his son Lester. Critics claimed the family was corrupt, but despite all the rumours, they managed to hold on to power until 2004. Then the rumours became too strong and people decided they wanted a change.
Today St. John’s, where we’d arrived, is home to around 80,000 people and frankly the level of tourism is almost terrifying. You’re talking quarter of a million people by air (Virgin Atlantic run regular flights out here from Gatwick to give you an idea…) and more than half a million come in on cruise ships. When we got home, a friend of mine said she’d heard that when the cruise ships come in here, everyone turns out to try and get whatever they can and that does make sense, given our experiences.
Christine also talked to us about the education system. Good grief, they know how to deal with kids here. If you get involved with any violence at school, you’re suspended immediately for two weeks, regardless of whether it was your fault. You only get to come back if your parents agree to come in with you and you have to write a letter of apology to be read out in front of the whole school. We could do with some of that.
As we travelled along, she passed out examples of the local currency and I found it so weird that they were just like British currency with the Queen on. Well, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised – we both have the same head of state.
Some interesting sights on your bus ride. Caribbean islands’ histories all seem similar, yet they’re all different too.
I have to ask, what does that road sign mean anyway, an intersection is ahead?
__________________
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
Some interesting sights on your bus ride. Caribbean islands’ histories all seem similar, yet they’re all different too.
I hear you on that. There's so much colonialism out there. Even the islands that are independent generally seemed to once be owned by the British, French or Dutch or at least so my guidebook to this part of the Caribbean told me anyway.
Quote:
I have to ask, what does that road sign mean anyway, an intersection is ahead?
It does - it means major road (the vertical line) with a minor road intersecting it (the horizontal line).
What interesting history with Britain, I don’t ever remember celebrating the Queen’s birthday in Canada, I do know the official date as my Dad’s birthday was the same day.
So do they speak the Queen’s English, or more of a patois?
I have such mixed feelings about the formerly colonized islands, and the tourist industry, and peddlers along the streets....very complicated....
Interesting beginning to your tour and amazing how much of a British influence there is on the island. Nice facts about the island and especially the disciplinary procedures in the schools. Definitely could use this in the U.S.
__________________
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!
About This Page: 
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Even better for Mark as this seemed to work for him. Too bad lunch was a bit disappointing for you but at least you had some great shrimp and desserts! 
we do, it’s just none of us are interested. 
When we got home, a friend of mine said she’d heard that when the cruise ships come in here, everyone turns out to try and get whatever they can and that does make sense, given our experiences. 
Definitely could use this in the U.S.
Linear Mode
