A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 19 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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.
As usual, I am joining your trip report late but I am very happy I found it nonetheless
Great updates so far. I have to admit, I am constantly comparing every single thing you write about the ship to what it would be like on a Disney ship I don't even mean to but I just can't help myself! It is so so weird to see a casino, that's for sure, and the chaotic safety drill would've left me a bit worried, to say the least. The specialty restaurants look promising (from what I can tell from the photos) so I'm looking forward to your report on those. Hmm, did you say you booked an onboard tour for $150 per person? That better be one heck of a tour for that price... Looking forward to your report on that as well.
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.
Like others have said, strange to see a casino and the one armed bandits on board. Were they very popular? And it doesn't sound like you've really rested yet, either. Ok, getting off my "Momming" soapbox now.
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.
As usual, I am joining your trip report late but I am very happy I found it nonetheless
Welcome aboard!
Quote:
Great updates so far. I have to admit, I am constantly comparing every single thing you write about the ship to what it would be like on a Disney ship I don't even mean to but I just can't help myself!
You and me both, trust me!
Quote:
It is so so weird to see a casino, that's for sure, and the chaotic safety drill would've left me a bit worried, to say the least.
While it worried me, the one thing we kept saying is that, in the event of an emergency, there would've been a lot of passengers who physically would find it hard to get from their room to the lifeboats a few decks below, as the elevators wouldn't be in use. Those in ECVs, wheelchairs or walking (some with great difficulty) with sticks would surely struggle and at least we are physically fit and could manage that...
Quote:
The specialty restaurants look promising (from what I can tell from the photos) so I'm looking forward to your report on those. Hmm, did you say you booked an onboard tour for $150 per person? That better be one heck of a tour for that price... Looking forward to your report on that as well.
Ah well, more to come on that eventually. The $150 price tag did include a lunch with wine pairings, which helps explains the cost, but towards the end of this trip report (probably some time off yet ) there will be more about that....
Like others have said, strange to see a casino and the one armed bandits on board. Were they very popular?
We never saw them busy on the rare occasions we walked past, but there were updates daily on how much people had won and it topped $40,000 if I remember right...
Quote:
And it doesn't sound like you've really rested yet, either. Ok, getting off my "Momming" soapbox now.
No, we didn't get much of a chance to rest that day, something to do with boarding so late. Normally we'd have been on board a lot earlier and would have had the chance to relax a bit, but it just didn't happen this day.
Registered Message Board Members Get Our Free Newsletter! When you register you'll have the option to sign up for our weekly PassPorter Newsletter. It's chock-full of feature articles; news; tips; contests; photos; and special offers in our online store.
… and discovered all three suitcases had arrived, although there was a slight design problem with one of them, as you can see!
Seriously, like this, it was completely anchored up, and you had to turn it on its side to get it past the bed. We set about unpacking, and the most frustrating thing was the lack of drawer space, something we don’t usually have a problem with when we cruise with Disney. There was a lot more storage space in the bathroom, but that wasn’t overly useful, when it’s clothes space you really want. We ended up unpacking just two of the cases, as I figured we’d use that set of clothes first, put them in the dirty washing bags, and empty the drawers and then refill, but it wasn’t good, especially not for a 14 night cruise.
While trying to unpack, we were also leaving port, so I kept ducking outside to get some photos of our departure…
There goes the Hythe Ferry we took earlier on in the day!
It ended up being a real rush, with our dinner booking at 6:30pm. I just about managed to grab a shower, and we were about 10 minutes late leaving the room by the time we were done with the unpacking. It did feel a bit like it had been continuous stress from arriving at the port until now with so much to do.
Murano was beautiful inside, although we were surprised at how quiet it was. I said to Mark that I suspected a lot of the clientele on this cruise were people who didn’t want to spend extra money on things. That would account for why this place was so quiet, and why the spa had been so quiet as well.
They had a wine tasting menu, which was $89/person, which I thought was a lot, given you’re already paying a cover price. It’s usually $50/person, but as we’d bought a dining package in advance, it was heavily discounted from that price. We passed on that, and concentrated on the a la carte choices instead.
We did get a bottle of Riesling Spatlese and I was very pleased when the sommelier pronounced it the way I’ve always done. Every time I do, people look at me as if I have two heads, and I always thought perhaps I was getting it wrong, but apparently not. Yay me – I remembered some German!
I mentioned to our server, well one of many actually, as we didn’t just seem to have one, we seemed to have four or five, about my allergy to fruit. How apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, plums and apricots got translated into avocado, I do not know, but I knew something was amiss, when our amuse bouchee turned up, and mine was different. I had this:
Mark had this:
Hmmm… Mark told me his was a bit spicy, and mine was lovely, so I didn’t say anything. However, when my appetiser turned up, I knew something was wrong. It was supposed to be the smoked salmon and peektoe crab parfait, layered with avocado, salmon cavier, crème fraiche and petite greens, but the server said to me as I was allergic to avocado, they’d left it off. I immediately picked him up on that, explained I certainly wasn’t allergic, and he asked if I’d prefer it with, and I said so my first attempt was whisked away to be quickly replaced by this, and it was superb.
Mark went for the pork belly with parsnip puree, caramelised apples and calvados jus, and really enjoyed his.
Hmm, that lack of storage place issue is a big deal to me. I always always always unpack all of our suitcases if at all possible.
Your dinner looks wonderful so far! Since you said you've got the "compare stuff to Disney" bug as well, Cheryl, I might as well go for it:
I love the way meals are set up on the Disney ships but the food quality and variety *could* indeed be better at times. Would you mind giving your opinion of how the food on your cruise was compared to Disney?
Maybe they thought your allergy applied to all fruit with a pit? Since other than apple, all those items do have a pit, as does an avocado?
Nice to find the restaurant quiet, as I find more often than not I'm overwhelmed by how loud most restaurants are.
About This Page: 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Your stateroom is lovely!
I don't even mean to but I just can't help myself! It is so so weird to see a casino, that's for sure, and the chaotic safety drill would've left me a bit worried, to say the least. The specialty restaurants look promising (from what I can tell from the photos) so I'm looking forward to your report on those. Hmm, did you say you booked an onboard tour for $150 per person? That better be one heck of a tour for that price... 
Looking forward to your report on that as well.
Murano's looks like it will be a nice dining experience. 
More coming up on that...
about my allergy to fruit. How apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, plums and apricots got translated into avocado, I do not know, but I knew something was amiss, when our amuse bouchee turned up, and mine was different. I had this: 
I immediately picked him up on that, explained I certainly wasn’t allergic, and he asked if I’d prefer it with, and I said 
Linear Mode
