We were inspired by Samantha Brown's Carnival cruise so away we go! - Page 17 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Congrats girl!
And I just set up my photobucket to upload at the "medium" setting so I dont have to individually resize. I set like a days worth to upload right before bed a lot of time.
Congrats on the new job!! If you are running Windows XP, there is a resize tool to do a whole folder of pictures at once. There is a sticky in the Garage forum.
Thank you
And I am totally using windows vista arghhh LOL wonder if vista has that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by KMB733
Congrats on the new job!!! :
thank you girl...I need some luck and pixies hahahah
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Congrats on the new job!
And don't worry, I understand fully about resizing photos for the trip report - it always takes me forever.
Thanks Cheryl!
I KNOW you know my pain with the pics since you are constantly doing it for TR's etc...at least i know I'm not the only one who hates that it takes so long *L*
Quote:
Originally Posted by MyRapunzal
Congrats girl!
And I just set up my photobucket to upload at the "medium" setting so I dont have to individually resize. I set like a days worth to upload right before bed a lot of time.
thanks girl! I couldn't remember if I told you about the job or if you saw it on facebook...so I wanted to share that here cause I'm excited and nervous and its what is delaying my TR ughhh
okay so set the upload to medium setting and you dont have to resize???? does that mean it resizes it for you that way?? let me know cause that is what I will do...
Thanks for the info cause that's what I'm going to go home and do today maybe if I can get all the filing done today I can start an update tomorrow yay!!
Congrats girl!
And I just set up my photobucket to upload at the "medium" setting so I dont have to individually resize. I set like a days worth to upload right before bed a lot of time.
Thanks for the tip!! I didn't know you could do this!!
Sorry you got late moving, but sounds like it went well driving down. I'm glad you found a nice place to stay eventually - live and learn right? And thanks for the heads up on the TR starting. I haven't had much time to get on here lately.
And as far as pictures go, I use Shutterfly and don't resize at all.
Okay...so I thought because I have been sooo crazy with work and school stuff and this PTO thing that I couldn't just keep my mouth shut about and now I'm chairing some event...UGH...that I would have missed a bunch about your trip. But, I only missed the pre-day. Whew!! I thought I was becoming like the worst BDF.
Anyway, so glad it sounds like you had a fabulous time and can't wait to hear all about it. Hopefully Eric is okay from whatever it was that happened.
thanks guys about the new job! I will start Monday so hopefully I can get an update in today because next week might be a bit crazy not sure yet
I was able to resize my pics pretty fast so I'm thankful for the advice about that!!
and away we go!!!
Saturday March 27th: Embarkation Day!
We all went to bed around 1130pm the night before. Eric's parent said they wanetd to leave by 11am. So, I set my alarm for 9am so we could get some good sleep to start our trip. Boy were we wrong. This is why I hate sharing a room with his parents. His dad got up at 7am and made it known to the whole room that he was awake. I think he tried to be quiet but that didnt work well.
His dad didn't take too long to get ready. But, his mom was in the bathroom for nearly an hour and got out just as my alarm went off on my phone. However I was already awake.
I have to rave about this hotel! It was really spa like and wonderful. The shower was a shower that was all tile and flush with the floor. With a half glass wall and a waterfall faucet! The by far coolest shower I've seen and then the sink was a big square sink with Bath and Body works travel size products!
Anyway, so I was ready by 945am ish. I asked his parents if they were going to eat and they said no. I went downstairs and bought a coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. In the 10 mins it took me to do that, I came back and they were fully packed and said they were going to go downstairs to eat breakfast. They really about drive me crazy with their indecisiveness! They were driving Eric crazy too! they were hurrying us at 1015 when they said they wanted to check out at 11??? argh! Anyway I ate and Eric and I finalized the overnight packing. We took it to the car and then sat with his parents while they drank some coffee. After we checked out at 11am we took a pic of the hotel
This was the lobby in its craziness of the hotel. People were checking in from another cruise that had just come into port.
On our way out Eric decided he needed to buy deo and his dad needed something as well. We went right down the street to Kmart and bought last minute things.
We then headed straight to the ship. It was only a 10 minute drive and Eric and I decided this is the way to go from here on out. If we go out of Ft. Lauderdale again we will drive all the way the day before again and stay somewhere close to the ship. It was perfect this way!
We pulled up at about 1130am. They took our bags at the curb and Eric and his dad parked the car.
We waited for about 15 minutes for them to park. It was getting crazy there at the loading place.
We took a pic of our boat before loading
here is where we loaded the boat
Embarkation is very fast. There were a ton of people but the line was always moving. They check your passports and cruising tickets and you move on to fill out a Health form and then you move on to to get your Card to the boat which is your charging card your room card, your everything!
The whole process took nearly 40 mins or so.
We were soon on the boat and being ushered into the the Lobby of the ship!
They would not let us into our rooms just yet so we went straight to the Lido deck to go to the Lido Buffet for lunch.
Here is a pic of that room
We all decided on different things to eat which is why I love the buffet of a ship.
I had a turkey club from the deli with chips. Eric's mom had hot ham and cheese.
His dad and Eric both had the hot buffet with a sampling of everything but mostly seafood related items.
When we were done it was nearing 130ish. Our room was on the Lido deck so we walked over to see if we could lay our things down and sure enough we could!
We put everything down in the room and took some pics off the balcolny
Here is a pic of the Royal Carribbean ship the new one the Oasis of the seas
Here we are taking our usual pics of ourselves on our balcolny
We decided to go in the room and take pics of it before they brought our luggage in. The room was very spacious. The room looked newly renovated which we had heard they were. There was a flat panel TV, plenty of storage space everywhere and the room was really nice!
On the other end of the room that I seemed to not have downloaded pics of were the closets which were soooooo roomy and the bathroom and over to the right of us in this last pic was a couch which was huge with more storage and a table for eating.
That is a great room!! One of these days I'm gettin' me back on a cruise, but with a balcony this time!! And what a way to start the cruise...BUFFET!! You know I love me some food!! Can't wait to see pics of the rest of the ship.
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Crissy, so sorry I have so much catching up to do on your TR(I don't know how I got unsubscribed). I really am looking foward to to reading about your cruise.
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maybe if I can get all the filing done today I can start an update tomorrow
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
Boy were we wrong. This is why I hate sharing a room with his parents. His dad got up at 7am and made it known to the whole room that he was awake. I think he tried to be quiet but that didnt work well. 
The by far coolest shower I've seen and then the sink was a big square sink with Bath and Body works travel size products! 
They really about drive me crazy with their indecisiveness! They were driving Eric crazy too! they were hurrying us at 1015 when they said they wanted to check out at 11??? argh! Anyway I ate and Eric and I finalized the overnight packing. We took it to the car and then sat with his parents while they drank some coffee. After we checked out at 11am we took a pic of the hotel
Can't wait to see pics of the rest of the ship.
Susan
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