A 40th celebration to end the world! COMPLETED 4/23 - Page 25 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Ok jotting down another great tip - lunch at one of the main restaurants!! We always hit Cabana's or one of the quick pick places by the pools. I never knew the main restaurants were even open! Thanks!!
Glad I could help. We love hitting the main restaurants and sampling what they do at lunch.
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Monday 17 December – part two: they put the Christmas decorations up in how much time?
We headed over to guest services to ask a couple of questions, and met Jana from the United States, who was absolutely lovely. We chatted for quite some time with her. I particularly liked the way she told us that the ships can be moved across the maps, depending where they are. Well, I hope we’ll see them soon back in the Mediterranean.
I was very surprised to see a sign up saying that there were no room upgrades available, as the Fantasy was sailing full. I mentioned that to her, as we’d checked on the website about a week beforehand, and there was still availability. She explained that, if that’s the case, then Disney open it up to both Florida residents, and Cast Members, and that’s how the boat can fill up at a late stage. It certainly didn’t feel like a full sailing, not like the last one we had on the Dream, which was murder…
She also told us that the Christmas decorations are put up on the ship during a two hour window, from 9:00am to 11:00am when one cruise ends, and another begins. It sounds as if they go up either the week before Thanksgiving or the week of Thanksgiving, as they apparently went up on 17 November this year.
We headed back to the room….
Once there, we grabbed our swimming things, and then it was up to deck 11. We passed through some of the counter service areas…
… into the adult only pool, which was pretty busy.
We decided to head upwards, and found ourselves at the front of the boat, where we were able to get some lovely shots of the water beyond. My goodness, you certainly realise how small you are when you see the ocean like this, going on for what seems like forever.
We found a couple of sun loungers in the Satellite Falls area, and sat there for a while.
I quickly got bored, and found that seeing the horizon move was making me feel a bit sick, so I said to Mark that I’d go down to the spa and spend some time there instead.
When I got there, unsurprisingly, it was busy, but I managed to find space in the hot tub, so headed in there first, before disappearing off to try out some of the showers. I can never remember which ones I like, so I had to try all of them. It’s the warm rain that’s my favourite, it’s just lovely. Some are just too cold, and some are just too dramatic, especially the thunderstorm ones, as they do all sorts of different things, and you never know what’s coming next. As a result, my hair got wetter than I would’ve liked…
Now it was time to dry off, so I went into the hamam, and you need to take a towel in here, as you need to sit on it, because the seats are boiling hot. After a few minutes in there, I sampled the caldarium, then it was into the laconium. I just love being able to sit here, and look out to sea. It’s so peaceful and relaxing, and that’s what the Rainforest is supposed to be all about.
Once I’d done all of that, I grabbed something to drink, as I knew I’d been heating myself up nicely, then headed back to the changing room. I’d told Mark I’d be back in the room by 2:20pm, as I wanted to see Disney Wishes at 3:00pm, and it was just past 2:00pm. Apparently, when I got back there, he said that he’d literally only just walked in. Now how about that for timing?
Wow, the spas on the new ships are quite a bit better than on the Magic and Wonder, I guess. Seems like much more to do.
Royal Court is so beautiful! I love the ceilings and lighting in the restaurants on DCL in general. Too bad the dining is up and down on this ship as well. At least so far it seems more up than down.
Wow, the spas on the new ships are quite a bit better than on the Magic and Wonder, I guess. Seems like much more to do.
They are much bigger and there is much more to do, but then again, I guess they're bigger ships, so it needs to be that way.
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Royal Court is so beautiful! I love the ceilings and lighting in the restaurants on DCL in general. Too bad the dining is up and down on this ship as well. At least so far it seems more up than down.
Ahhh, the Rainforest....perfect way to spend some time! I do love that there are windows in so many areas of the RF on the newer ships.
It is the perfect way to spend the time and I love all the windows as well. It just makes it so much lighter and it's lovely to be able to see outside.
I love all your pictures from around the ship. I remember telling Luke on our cruise that looking out at the endless ocean made me feel very small. Your time in the spa sounds divine.
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Monday 17 December – part three: a new Disney Cruise Line show
We headed down to the theatre about 20 minutes before the Disney Wishes show was due to start, and did the same thing as yesterday, and went for deck four, the upper level of the Walt Disney Theatre. This is always so much quieter, and while you may not have the performers right in front of you, there’s still a great view from up here, and it’s always the last to fill up. We were able to snag front row seats, although they are a bit annoying, because of the bars they have in front of them, but if you lean forward, then your view is fine, and unobstructed.
All I knew about the show was that it was new, it was “Broadway style” and it was about three teenagers about to graduate, and how they re-discover Disney magic. It starts on the screen with Kayla’s scrapbook, which had me hooked immediately telling the story of how the three of them, Kayla, Nicole and Brandon, had met at Disneyland, and had become the best of friends, visiting the park on a regular basis. I really liked how they used the video screens for this to enhance the story. The first part of the story is all about how Kayla uses a wish to wish for the “ride of their lives”, although they have no idea what they’re getting into.
They’re transported into a land of magic, where they meet a variety of Disney characters. I loved the way that at first they thought they were in the backstage area of Disneyland. The first section is with Timon and Pumbaa, encouraging them to live life to their Hakuna Matata motto, then you quickly go into the Jungle Book, to meet King Louie, who “wants to be like you”, or Brandon in particular.
Once they get away from him, then it’s off to Hercules, and I have to say that the singers here were superb. It’s not that the others weren’t, but there’s one girl who had such a strong voice in this section. I recognised her as starting off Aladdin yesterday, and I thought her voice was strong then. This bit is all about trying to give Brandon the courage to tell Kayla how he feels about her, because you got it, he’s in love with her, but doesn’t know how to say it. By the way, there were no ill-feelings from Nicole on this one, as it turns out they’re twins…
This really is a more unusual movie section, as they then move into two songs from Mulan, with Kayla and Mulan taking the leading roles on singing. It’s all about Kayla trying to come to terms with her fears that she’ll let her friends and family down at graduation with the speech she’s going to have to do. All the way through, this is a constant thread, with Kayla worrying about what she’s going to say, and the others getting sick of hearing about it. It’s a nice tie-up that at the end she makes that point in her speech, saying she got too wrapped up in it, and forgot about living for today, but I’m getting ahead of myself…
The next section explores the dreams that each of the three of them have, with Nicole trying to pluck up courage to tell her best friend she won’t be going to college with her, as she’s got a scholarship to a dance school in New York, which is what she wants to do. Of course, she manages to do it in the end… This section picks up the part in the bar from Tangled, which was an odd choice, I thought, but it fitted the story. I’m almost 100% sure that the big, surly guy who sang the main part of this was the Genie from yesterday’s show.
Then I think we went into the Pinocchio section, which was just amazing. They had a performance by Stromboli’s puppets, and the music was souped up, and techno style, but it really worked, and was very catchy. This part was a lot of fun, and really surprised me, as I think it was perhaps my favourite of the show, yet usually music like this doesn’t do anything for me.
After this, there’s a really fun section with Lilo and Stitch – and I hope I’m remembering this in the right order, as without photos to refer to, it’s a bit of a nightmare to get it all straight in my head. Stitch was a lot of fun, as you’d expect, and came off stage, and at one point, he sat down on an empty seat. They all did Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, with some surfing effects, including Kayla surfing, thanks to use of a high wire. I wouldn’t like to see that used in high seas…
There’s also a Little Mermaid segment, using Kiss The Girl as the theme, and filled with puppeteers, who re-enact the scene in the movie, using Kayla and Brandon in place of Ariel and her prince, although the kiss doesn’t quite go to plan. I have to say the puppeteer for Sebastian was amazing, and had a superb voice too.
I don’t think I’m missing anything out here, but soon they were wishing to return to Disneyland, and they took a ride back there. What I loved was that when they used the video screens, they bought in so many other movies, so even if your favourite didn’t feature in the show, it was probably in there somewhere. I spotted Tigger, and snippets from Lady and the Tramp for example. It was very real put together, and the video quality was superb, but then again, you’d expect that from a new ship with new technology.
Once they were back, attention turned to their actual graduation, with Kayla predictably giving a wonderful speech, highlighting what she’d learnt on the ride of her life. Then it was into When You Wish Upon A Star, which started with her singing solo, and acapella. Wow, what a voice she’s got! Then the whole cast joined in for the rest of the number, and before we knew it, it was all over, and they were appearing for their final bows, where I did sneak a couple of photos…. I couldn’t resist.
In fairness, it was right at the end of the show, so I wasn’t disturbing anyone and I wasn’t using a screen, so I thought it was just about Ok to do that… hopefully!
All in all, I thought it was a superb show, and a must-see for any Disney fan. I’m not sure it had quite as much hold for youngsters as Aladdin did, as I heard more children murmuring and crying in this, and in a way, if you’re an adult, I do think you’ll appreciate the story and the undertones it’s got about never really growing up more than the kids will.
When it was done, we headed back to the room.
We checked where we were:
It was glorious outside, still in the 80s, so I headed out on to the veranda, lathered up with suntan lotion, and settled down to work on the trip report in the sun. Aah… the perfect life, made even more so when Mark came outside with a glass of wine, as we still had some of Sue and Steve’s White Zinfandel to consume.
When I got back into the room, Mark was watching Beauty and the Beast, which he thinks he saw many years ago, but barely remembers. It’s a lovely film, and I enjoyed seeing it again.
We headed off just after 5:30pm to the lobby to get some more photos.
There wasn’t a long line for the professional photographer, but my goodness, it was still a long wait as she took ages with each group. I popped into Royal Court to try and let the servers know not to wait for us, but I wasn’t sure if the Cast Member I spoke to got the idea or not.
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It’s the warm rain that’s my favourite, it’s just lovely. Some are just too cold, and some are just too dramatic, especially the thunderstorm ones, as they do all sorts of different things, and you never know what’s coming next. 
As a result, my hair got wetter than I would’ve liked…
After a few minutes in there, I sampled the caldarium, then it was into the laconium. I just love being able to sit here, and look out to sea. It’s so peaceful and relaxing, and that’s what the Rainforest is supposed to be all about. 
They all did Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride, with some surfing effects, including Kayla surfing, thanks to use of a high wire. I wouldn’t like to see that used in high seas… 
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