To Alaska and Beyond! Updated 4/28 x 3 and it's COMPLETE!! - Page 21 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Amazing pictures as always, Maureen! How cool that they got ice from the glacier for the ice sculpture! Did you take a picture of the finished artwork?
Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
We got to the Safari Class as a dancing class was wrapping up. Aaron and I sat in the back while they got that group out and our game leader got Finish the Lyrics set up.
Soon enough, she was asking volunteers- and you had to be 18 to play. Not like Aaron would have even come close to going up there, but he had an out. What the heck- I raised my hand and to my horror, I was picked.
Unfortunately for you and very fortunately for me- we didn't bring our mpeg capable camera or the Nikon so there are no pics. And another cool footnote- it turns out that another Passporter was on our sailing and their family was present at Finish the Lyrics. Haven't heard from him/her in awhile, so maybe if they check in with the report, they might be able to chime in. But what an amazingly small world. No pun intended. Well, maybe somewhat.
Anyway, we had a really nice entertainment staff host- she was from Argentina I think- and then this hilarious staff member named Rickey, who kept score and had lots of one liners to add in.
They picked 9 of us and we went on an elimination round system. We were given a point for: did we finish the lyrics, and enthusiasm. I was contestant # 6. Of course, everyone before me got really good ones. I get up to the mike and I had to finish the line in Stayin Alive. I did the John Travolta arm point and finsihed the line with "been kicked around since I was born." And the audience gave me my two points. On I go. 3 contestants were eliminated and it was down to 6.
Next round, (my notes are sketchy- I might be off but am doing my best to remember)- I got Believe by Cher. Hello. Knocked that one down easy- although the host told me I got the lyrics slightly wrong by saying "I really don't think I'm strong enough"- which I am for sure was right but whatever. So I only got a point for that round. But somehow, I managed to make it to the final three. Might I add there was someone booing many people- and I didn't see who she was with or cheering for- but that only fed my comptetitiveness because I didn't see her getting the guts to come up and do it! LOL!
So then, we go down to me, another girl and an older guy. This round for extra points we had to also say the name and artist. The younger girl had really gotten some good, easy ones like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. But this time, she got the Eurythmics and didn't do so well on the lyrics part, as well as not knowing the artist or song title. The guy got something else- I don't remember what it was, only that he bombed it. I knew right after that that if I nailed mine I could possibly win.
I step up to the mike. And I hear Jump by Van Halen start. So I closed my eyes, did some impressions of David Lee Roth and belted it out. I finally got a really good, thunderous round of applause. And before I could tell the host it was Van Halen and the song was Jump- she says into the mike- "Anyone here Van Halen fans?" And the place went quiet for a sec, then there were massive groans. She had just given out the answer! And I had lost my chance to win! A few people shouted out to make me go again but there was a guy's voice in the back who said that wasn't fair- and told me to tell everyone the name of the lead singer. Cool by me. I promptly announced that the lead singer of Van Halen at that time was David Lee Roth, who was later replaced by Sammy Hagar. I thought that extra tidbit might save me- and it did. So I got my full points.
Rickey added it up and announced that there was a tie. The guy got second, and then Britney Spears girl and I tied for first place! We each got hats and medals with the RCCL logo! I looked out to see Aaron just blown away. He's not one for compliments much but when I made it back to him he told me, "You were really brave up there!".
A few people congratulated me as we all exited the Safari Club and we headed back to the room- where Matthew and Kevan were shocked and really regretted not going with us. I did too- but I didn't think in my wildest dreams I would have ever had the guts to enter- I don't know what possessed me to do it.
Aaron took a pic of me with my winnings:
The scenery had changed a bit as we were leaving the Fjords so we grabbed a few pics.
We caught a glimpse of the Norweigan Star out in the distance:
My adrenalin was still really pumping by this point and I noticed that according to the Cruise Compass, there was a 5:15 Logo Quiz in the Pit Stop Bar. I showed it to Aaron and he smiled, but this time we also forced Kevan and Matt to come with us- as it didn't say adults only.
While we were waiting for that to start, I grabbed a few pics of the Pit Stop:
I was thrilled when I saw Rickey come walking in to start the game! I wasn't sure if he was going to remember me, but he said something to the effect of "Oh, Cher- are you joining this one too?"
The quiz was actually on paper- you were allowed to have teams- which is what most people did. I think there were probably 8 or 9 teams total. The logos were all on the paper and we had to write in the company or product it was associated with. We had 20 minutes. I have to say Team Austin was a true team. Aaron knew several we didn't and Matthew as well. Some of the logos were ridiculously easy like Nike, McDonalds but others were really hard- there was one for a place called Castle Dental. It had a pic of a castle with a family walking under it. Since we don't have Castle Dental near us, there was no way we knew that.
Rickey called time at the 10 minute mark, and we reviewed what we had, making guesses. Out of 50, we attempted all of them but I was sure we had 40 right. That had to be good. We went ahead and turned it in early. He graded ours right away and we got 43. Matt asked him if that was good, and he said the average was 35- so we might be the family to beat.
He called final time and by that point had graded most of them. He held on to ours at the bottom- so I guessed we had won. Sure enough, Team Austin came in 1st place! Woo Hoo! The closest anyone came to us was 38.
We got RCCL bottle straps and keychains for this one- poor Matt had been hearing about cruises being the prizes for bingo and assumed this game had the same bounty.
It was a really, really fun activity for the four of us and something we each contributed to. Rickey was getting ready to leave and Aaron suggested we get a pic with him. It turned out great- Rickey was a ton of fun.
By the time we finished up the game, it was about 6:00 and tonight, I had somehow lured the boys into eating in the main dining room, as we had hopes of seeing the ice sculpture- so we headed back to 8088 to get ready.
Coming Up Next: This has been on You Tube before you know...
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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I'm just disappointed there's no photos or video for this update. 
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