The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 34 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Such beautiful pictures of the sun rising and the island. The colors of the buildings are just so pretty! Have a wonderful time this weekend. Happy Easter!
Great photos on the ship very early in the morning. Breakfast sounded good and glad you found the smoked salmon! Beautiful photos coming into Williamstad! Love the building colors.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Well, we're back, so now for the next instalment...
Thursday 18 January – part two: a sneaky way to get a beautiful result…
We headed down to the Walt Disney Theatre at 8:15am, which was our meeting time, but again we were late heading out, perhaps leaving the ship at more like 8:30am. We’d already heard the all ashore announcement as we walked down, so it wasn’t that.
Although we met in the Walt Disney Theatre, we then had to walk the length of the ship and down three flights of stairs, as the gangway was on deck one aft, which didn’t seem to be the greatest planning on Disney’s part. To be honest, getting off the ship does seem to be organised chaos whichever port of call we’re in.
We were handed over to our tour operator and here’s where things did get a little crazy, but it wasn’t the operator’s fault. It was the stupid family in front of us. They boarded the bus and made a big deal about there not being three seats together. They had a girl aged maybe six or seven. But I Looked behind me and could see plenty of seats with twos together, but perhaps not opposite each other or immediately behind each other, but does it really matter? Anyway, the immortal words were “it’s alright, the three of us can sit here” and they plonked themselves in the seats in front of us. Remember this…
Curacao is owned by the Dutch and it’s a small island – just 38 miles long by seven miles wide. The first settlers here were the Spanish in 1499, but by the 17th century, it was in Dutch hands and proving to be an important military base. It’s just as well, as agriculture was a no-go, because of the dry soil. Instead, the main trades here became cotton, tobacco and sadly slavery, which continued until the late 18th century. It was only in 1863 that the Netherlands finally abolished slavery.
Oil was discovered here in 1914, but income from that has fallen since the 1980s. As elsewhere in the Caribbean, tourism is an important industry, along with financial services and a flourishing harbour.
This is very much a mixed population, with 152,000 people from more than 60 different nationalities. As a result, it’s perhaps no surprise that a variety of different languages are spoken here, including Dutch, Spanish, English and of course their own dialect of Papiamentu.
We were taken out through Willemstad, which is the capital of Curacao. It’s still a Dutch dependency and part of the Dutch kingdom, so not an independent country like either Antigua or St. Lucia. One guy asked why they drive on the right here. That will be because they’re a Ditch territory. Oh boy! :rolleyese2:
Willemstad is home to around 150,000 people, which as you can see from the above, means very few people live outside the capital. My guidebook described it as a “small tropical Amsterdam” and I could see what it meant at once. I was immediately taken with this place and the amazingly colourful pastel buildings they had everywhere. It was just beautiful. I’d seen photos and had high hopes for this place and it was living up to them. It was also very different to our previous two ports of call, which I liked.
I was very surprised to find they don’t generally get much rain here, given how green and lush everything looked, but Maravla, our guide, explained that they use a lot of water on their gardens – probably way more, I’m guessing, than we do. They’re very proud of their gardens and like to have a lot of shade in their gardens to get out of the sun, so they spend time watering the trees for example.
Speaking of the sun, it was cloudy when we set out, but my goodness, quite humid. However, there was a nice breeze blowing, which was very welcome. We found it hotter when we went inside buildings out of the breeze, as then the temperature got a lot hotter.
The place is well known for the pastel coloured homes and Maravla explained that one of the previous mayors suggested painting them, which people did. They only found out after he died that he owned a paint company – sneaky!
We passed the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Cathedral and today was a very special day – it was literally the 100th anniversary of its opening today. I thought that was so neat. Apparently there would be lots of celebrations outside later on…
Gathering for the excursions is somewhat of organized chaos, but it is better than on other lines. On Royal Caribbean, you meet your excursion off the ship by just walking to the end of the pier and looking around for the signs. The gatherings are handled by the tour groups and not the ship, although there are usually some ship personnel around for guidance and to point you in the right direction if you ask. It works, but I like Disney's way better.
Gathering for the excursions is somewhat of organized chaos, but it is better than on other lines. On Royal Caribbean, you meet your excursion off the ship by just walking to the end of the pier and looking around for the signs. The gatherings are handled by the tour groups and not the ship, although there are usually some ship personnel around for guidance and to point you in the right direction if you ask. It works, but I like Disney's way better.
Wow, I definitely prefer Disney's approach to the one you just described. To me, that's asking for problems.
The excursion process on other ships as totally convinced Luke and me that we'll keep cruising with Disney. I know there is some chaos, but fending for ourselves seems worse to us. Willemstad is so beautiful with all it's colorful buildings.
Nice photos of Willemstad and the buildings are just so beautiful and colorful! Some nice bright red flowers in town as well, which adds to the beauty!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
The excursion process on other ships as totally convinced Luke and me that we'll keep cruising with Disney. I know there is some chaos, but fending for ourselves seems worse to us.
Me too. Disney costs a lot more, but my goodness, you do notice the difference in a lot of ways. We think it's worth the extra money... although I will caveat that and say sometimes their prices are just stupid expensive!
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Willemstad is so beautiful with all it's colorful buildings.
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Beautiful photos coming into Williamstad! 
Love the building colors.
Willemstad looks lovely! 
PassPorter Guide Author
It was only in 1863 that the Netherlands finally abolished slavery. 
Disney costs a lot more, but my goodness, you do notice the difference in a lot of ways. We think it's worth the extra money... although I will caveat that and say sometimes their prices are just stupid expensive! 
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