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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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After the sail away party we headed back to the room to get ready for dinner. We had the early seating of 5:45. Dinner this night was in Animator's Palate. Our tablemates were already there. They were a lovely family of 3 from Albany, NY. Lori and Steve also had a 10 yo daughter whose name also happened to be Abigail. Needless to say the girls got along really well. Our table servers were amazing! Dinner was amazing! It all sounded so delicious but with my stomach problems I didn't want to push it so I settled for the main course only. I don't recall what it was called but it was the penne pasta.
After dinner we chose not to go the show but rather roam around the ship and check out the Lab. We also decided to call it an early night.
Tomorrow...Key West.
If I can figure out how to post pictures, I will get those loaded.
We decided to order room service for breakfast this morning. It arrived as scheduled and was quite delicious. We took our time getting ready since we didn’t schedule any excursions here. We thought about doing the trolly tour but didn’t get advance tickets. We were initially concerned about the weather before we left Texas and weren’t not sure if we would get diverted from Key West. Anyway, we discussed with DD if she wanted to get off the ship or not and do some sight seeing. She thought very hard about it and decided she would stay in the Lab. We left her with her cell phone and explained to her that if she was to leave the Lab that we wanted her to give us a call, just so we would know.
We went and dropped her off and once again checked to see if by chance she wanted to join us, she declined. We once again reminded her to use her cell phone. DH and I made our way off the ship and boy was it HOT! We opted to walk our way around town and take in the sights. We made our way to the Southern Most Point. Lord, we didn’t know it was gonna be quite a trek but we made it. We took some photos and then made our way back to locate the Blonde Giraffe. Had to have some key lime pie! Located the Blonde Giraffe and enjoyed a slice of pie in the coolness of the shop. Did I mention it was hot? We then decided to make our way up the street, had to hit Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. Didn’t go into the restaurant but DH had to do some shopping in the store. We spent quite a bit of time in there. DH’s a BIG fan.
After some shopping we were walking along when we got a page from the Lab. It didn’t “say” anything so we decided to call DD on her phone. Got a hold of her and she asked where we were at and we told her we were in town sightseeing. We asked if all was alright and she says yes but that she had left the Lab for a little bit and was making her way back to Animator’s Palate where they were at. We told her we would be seeing her shortly and she assured us all was alright. So we thought.
We continued our sightseeing and then made our way back to the ship. Once on board we headed up to the room and relaxed for a little bit. Gave DD a call to let her know we were back on board and she said she would be back to the room soon. We then showered to cool off and got things ready for dinner. After a while DD made her way to the room and we got her ready for dinner. While getting ready we were making small talk and she was looking out on the verandah and says…I went out there today! Our response, you did what???? Her response…I went to that blue tent. Needless to say we started the 20 Q and she got frustrated and upset. We continued to question her and she plainly told us that she went looking for us. She asked a crew member how to get off the ship and they told her where she needed to go. She managed to make her way off the ship. I don’t know how but my DD (10) got off the ship without an adult. According to her, she made it past the “blue tent” and then figured out this was not a good idea and was making her way back. Luckily the men checking ID noticed she was alone and contacted the ship. They then had a crew member come meet her and escort her back to the Lab. Well, this will not do, not at all. We quickly made our way to Guest Services to discuss this with someone. GS didn’t have any information for us but said they would have someone promptly to speak to us. However, they were in the middle of a shift change or something and asked if we could come back. We didn’t want to be late for dinner so we told her we would be back. She told us that this would give them the opportunity to investigate and possibly view video footage and check the log that would show her card being swiped when she came back on board.
We went to dinner and it so happened that our tablemates saw her being escorted back on board. We just couldn’t believe it but did manage to have a pleasant dinner and then headed back to GS to speak to someone. They did have one of the head of security there to speak to us. He was very apologetic and said that this definitely should not have happened. As far as they could figure out is that she managed to leave when there were other adults leaving at the same time and the security just didn’t pay close attention. He informed us that he would definitely investigate this further and that this was most certainly an isolated incident. We were not upset but definitely relieved that nothing worse had happened. We just wanted DCL to inform their crew to pay closer attention.
All in all we had a good day with the exception of almost losing our daughter. We got to visit a place we were looking forward to and DD received a Minnie doll and a apology.
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UH... nice?.. day in Key West? DD is a pretty smart girl to know when she was getting into a bad situation and get back on board! I'm glad it all worked out, to say the least!
On a lighter note, great sunset picture! And, nice door decorations!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was HOT thay day in KW! And how scary that your DD was able to get off! We saw an older teen trying to get off during my many trips of getting off and on that day (I think his parents were already off) and they wouldn't let him get off! Very scary! I'm glad it turned out okay!
SO glad that your daughter returned to the ship when she did. Don't you love it when kids leave the safe place you put them to come and look for you when you're not lost!
Can't wait to hear more!
__________________
Tina
2009 Feb Disneyland - offsite
2007 Aug WDW - offsite
2005 June DCL West Coast/DL & DCA
2002 April Disneyland - offsite
2000 September WDW/DCL - CBR/Wonder
Wow, I am shocked your daughter was able to get off , glad she was smart enough to return on her own. As a nexium user I can sympathize with the burn ! Hope it starts to improve
Great start. I have watched teenagers try to get off the ship on a few of our cruises and been told no, they did not have their parents OK to do that. Hopefully, it was a wake-up call for whomever was 'asleep at the switch' and didn't confirm the little girl with a different name did not belong to the group of adults disembarking!
Can' wait to hear more! Hope your acid reflux gets under control and stays that way.
I am so happy your daughter is ok. I am glad she did not go any further. I have a question, we are taking the same trip in February, at the Southern most point is there a photographer there for pictures or do you have to ask someone to take your picture? How far is the walk from the ship?
I am so happy your daughter is ok. I am glad she did not go any further. I have a question, we are taking the same trip in February, at the Southern most point is there a photographer there for pictures or do you have to ask someone to take your picture? How far is the walk from the ship?
Hi, we just returned from the western on 10/10/09 and while at southernmost point, there is not a photographer. But a line of people are lined up & the people behind you take your picture and the people behind them do the same and so on... Have a great time, we DID!
OMG.... I'm so shocked about you DD. We just booked a cruise for Feb 2011,and security was a selling point for us. Now I'm not so sure. I've never done a Disney cruise, but was under the impression that once you checked your kids in , you got a pager and they page you to let you know if the child wants to leave. Why would they let a 10 year old out of this area to roam the ship all alone ???? I'm really confused by this. It doesn't sound like anything I've read. I'm extremely concerned now about leaving my 11yr old daughter behind!!
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Caribbean Beach -February 2009 *1st time ever planned trip in less than a month !!! *
All Star Movies - November 2006 - CAN"T WAIT !!!
All Star Movies - December 2004
Caribbean Beach Resort - November 2003
Off site many times prior to children !!!!
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Located the Blonde Giraffe and enjoyed a slice of pie in the coolness of the shop. Did I mention it was hot? We then decided to make our way up the street, had to hit Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. Didn’t go into the restaurant but DH had to do some shopping in the store. We spent quite a bit of time in there. DH’s a BIG fan. 
Her response…I went to that blue tent. Needless to say we started the 20 Q and she got frustrated and upset. We continued to question her and she plainly told us that she went looking for us. She asked a crew member how to get off the ship and they told her where she needed to go. She managed to make her way off the ship. I don’t know how but my DD (10) got off the ship without an adult. According to her, she made it past the “blue tent” and then figured out this was not a good idea and was making her way back. Luckily the men checking ID noticed she was alone and contacted the ship. They then had a crew member come meet her and escort her back to the Lab. Well, this will not do, not at all. We quickly made our way to Guest Services to discuss this with someone. GS didn’t have any information for us but said they would have someone promptly to speak to us. However, they were in the middle of a shift change or something and asked if we could come back. We didn’t want to be late for dinner so we told her we would be back. She told us that this would give them the opportunity to investigate and possibly view video footage and check the log that would show her card being swiped when she came back on board.
PassPorter Guide Author
And how scary that your DD was able to get off! We saw an older teen trying to get off during my many trips of getting off and on that day (I think his parents were already off) and they wouldn't let him get off! 
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It has been awhile! I am booked on a western and love to read others trip reports.
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