A 40th celebration to end the world! COMPLETED 4/23 - Page 37 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I keep forgetting it's Christmas during this trip. I guess the tropical weather threw me for a second.
Tell me about it - it's always freaky being somewhere hot during the holiday season and even more this time, as we've got used to being at WDW for Christmas, but we confused things by adding in a cruise and then Disneyland...
how cute that Donald and Daisey were blowing kisses to each other. I often wonder if the people in St. John (or any other beautiful place) get tired of it?
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how cute that Donald and Daisey were blowing kisses to each other. I often wonder if the people in St. John (or any other beautiful place) get tired of it?
I can't imagine ever being tired of those views...
We loved being in AP for Pirate's night. It was so much fun seeing all the drawings! And I have to say - AP on the Fantasy was the one dining room that was FREEZING all 3 nights. That was a big departure from the AP on the Magic which seemed very, very warm both nights we were in there!
The spa after you tour of St. Johns sounds like a nice treat! Pirate night looks like a lot of fun. I love how AP got in the spite too! Daisy and Donald are so cute!!
Oh how cool!!! I love the moments with Daisy and Donald. That's awesome, just classic!! And the pirate night at Animator's -- how lucky were you?! That's a real treat. What a fun night!!!
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Tanya
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Awesome update, Cheryl!! I love your character encounters-the characters have such a good time with you guys because they can see how fun you are!! I love your shots of the coastline from the ship. The Fantasy looks gorgeous!! Your shot of the two of you with The Fantasy in the background is terrific!!
We just made our 75 day out reservations (at 12:01 AM on April Fools), and I hope that we picked the right nights/days for Palo brunch and Remy. I know that I did not book anything on the Pirate Night Party, hopefully we'll be eating a AP. The family cabanas were already taken, which did not disappoint DH too much due to their price tag!!
Looking forward to your next update!!
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Disney Trips: BLT & Poly Bungalow 2016, VGF 2015, Fantasy 2015, Saratoga Springs Resort 2014, Grand Villa at VGF 2013, Fantasy 2013, BWV and Kidani Village 2011, BWV and Kidani Village 2010, BWV and Saratoga Springs Resort 2008,Beach Club Villas 2008,Villas at Wilderness Lodge 2006, BWV 2006, BCV 2005, HHI 2004,Polynesian 2003,Grand Floridian 2000/concierge, Honeymoon at Polynesian 1994,Polynesian 1980,Polynesian 1978
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Sue
how cute that Donald and Daisey were blowing kisses to each other. I often wonder if the people in St. John (or any other beautiful place) get tired of it?
I suppose there is a bit of getting tired of it, but if it were not for tourists, there would be no economy for places like St. John. Their whole livelihood is based on the tourists. St. John is almost completely restaurants and hotels, totally to support the industry.
Fun update Cheryl and the ship photos are just beautiful. I particularly love the carpets...is that weird of me??
I enjoyed reading about the spa as I have cruised many times but never been in a spa. I will be sailing on the new Carnival Sunshine with my mom in 7 weeks and we are in a Cloud 9 spa balcony cabin which gives us full access to the spa and some of the special steam rooms and showers - your trip report is making me very excited to try them out. I am getting quite certain that there may be a high-maintenance girl hiding inside my low maintenance exterior. I'm afraid once I taste luxury there will be no turning back!
DH and I went on the Segway tour in San Juan in March based on your recommendation so I am waiting for your review...
We loved being in AP for Pirate's night. It was so much fun seeing all the drawings! And I have to say - AP on the Fantasy was the one dining room that was FREEZING all 3 nights. That was a big departure from the AP on the Magic which seemed very, very warm both nights we were in there!
Interesting... we didn't have that problem at all.
Oh how cool!!! I love the moments with Daisy and Donald. That's awesome, just classic!! And the pirate night at Animator's -- how lucky were you?! That's a real treat. What a fun night!!!
Awesome update, Cheryl!! I love your character encounters-the characters have such a good time with you guys because they can see how fun you are!!
Thank you!
Quote:
I love your shots of the coastline from the ship. The Fantasy looks gorgeous!! Your shot of the two of you with The Fantasy in the background is terrific!!
We just made our 75 day out reservations (at 12:01 AM on April Fools), and I hope that we picked the right nights/days for Palo brunch and Remy. I know that I did not book anything on the Pirate Night Party, hopefully we'll be eating a AP. The family cabanas were already taken, which did not disappoint DH too much due to their price tag!!
Looking forward to your next update!!
Tuesday 18 December – part eight: our own personal towel animal tutorial!
For appetiser, I went for two, the pearls of the Caribbean, crabmeat, shrimp and salmon mixed in pearls of couscous with a lemon grass infused vinaigrette, which Mark also had. I really could not fault this. It was a superb start to the meal.
I also got the Buccaneer’s sun-ripened pineapple, fresh island pineapple with a coconut covered banana, and orange glaze. Now individually, the pineapple and the orange glaze, then the coconut covered banana were both superb, but putting them together, they didn’t quite gel somehow, which was a shame.
I couldn’t make up my mind for entrée, so good was the menu, so I ended up getting two. Naya said he’d bring one as a side to the other, and I asked for his advice, as I just couldn’t make up my mind. He told me to get Captain Hook’s macadamia nut dusted mahi mahi, with jasmine rice, sautéed on a mild curry sauce, on the side. Thank goodness he did, as this was not that great. To me, this wasn’t mild curry sauce at all, as a few bites took the roof off my mouth, so that was all I had of it.
However, the proper main was a different story. This was Treasure of the Seas grilled shrimp and seared scallops, served on strings of pasta and fresh creamy tomato sauce. This was absolutely superb, and I loved every bite of this. One of my scallops wasn’t quite cooked to perfection, which is the only thing that stopped this scoring a 10, because otherwise, it was perfect. It was certainly very impressive.
Mark was having a similar issue over his entrée as well, as he couldn’t decide what to get either. He ended up with the castaway chicken breast, rubbed with Pirate Island spice, rice and beans, and fried okra on rich spiced glaze, with a side of Jack Sparrow’s BBQ marinated beef short ribs, rubbed beef short ribs, with tamarind-barbecue sauce, served with onion red bliss, mashed potato and plantain chip, and I didn’t see any of it going to waste…
You might think by now you’d have had enough food, but heck not with the great choices they had on the dessert menu.
We both had two desserts each and one of those choices for both of us was the rum soaked chocolate cake, with raspberry glaze, and whipped cream. I know Mark really enjoyed this, but I found there was far too much rum soaked into it for my taste. I couldn’t help but wonder if there’s an adult version, and then a child version with less rum on it.
My other choice was the crunch time sundae, with rum and raisin ice cream, pineapple, whipped cream, and croquant, which was absolutely superb. I just loved every single bite of this dessert, and simple though it was, it was up there with the chocolate soufflé from Palo.
Mark also had the floating island, soft centred meringue, vanilla anglais, and marinated fruit. He much preferred the rum soaked chocolate cake, and complained that the meringues weren’t really soft centred, so much as powdery.
During the meal, a photographer came round, so we got a shot done with them:
Once we were done, we headed out. It had been a great meal, about 100 times better than the awful Pirate Night meal we’d experienced in Alaska on the Wonder last year.
On the way out, I got a few shots of the restaurant:
We headed back to the room, as I needed to take my contact lenses out. Carlos hadn’t been yet, so I said we’d need to disappear out for a while, to give him the chance to do it. We got our chance, when I discovered one of our tickets for tomorrow’s Segway tour had disappeared. Where the heck it went to, I do not know, as it was there earlier.
Once that was done, we headed up to deck five to see the parts of the ship we hadn’t yet seen, including the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique, which was the Pirates League tonight, and the children’s areas.
We headed down to deck four, and wandered through the Tube…
… then we went into the Skyline Lounge, but it wasn’t showing anything we hadn’t already seen. We did a quick wander through O’Gills pub just to say we’d been there, but they were right in the middle of some kind of quiz, so it was straight out again.
We wandered back to midship, and went to Shutters, where we ordered the CD of our photos, which already numbered almost 70. Not bad going.
We headed back downstairs to deck three and got a couple more added to the CD with photos on the staircase.
Then we had a wander around the shops again…
I think these were a little camp for him!
… before heading back to our room. There we found Carlos, who was mortified to see us, as he wasn’t yet done, but the thing he hadn’t done yet was the towel animal, so we got to watch him create it, which was really cool.
He told us that he’d be doing a class on this on Thursday afternoon, which sounded pretty neat. We chatted to him a bit about his background, and he is such a lovely person. We could’ve chatted all night, but he got the ice for the remainder of our wine ( we were still drinking the bottle of wine Sara got us ) and disappeared.
We decided to watch Total Recall on the TV, as we were tired and it was only 9:00pm. There was no way we’d be making it to see the fireworks tonight.
The weather today was hot, humid, cloudy early on, then sunny, with temperatures in the low 80s. The best thing today was the St. John Island Tour. The worst thing today was how hot it got. The funniest thing today was seeing Daisy and Donald together. Today we tried visiting St. John And the result was although it took a while longer to get there on the ferry than I’d expected, it was worth it, as it’s a beautiful place. The most magical moment today was sailing around the Fantasy and getting photos of it.
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