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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Today was embarkation day. We had a wonderful day! I have to sort out uploading photos, which will be done tomorrow. I'm too tired to do it right now, lol!
I have a few fun stories, and some lovely photos.
We set the alarm for 545am this morning so that we could watch the Dream come in to port. It was very cool to see (and there are photos, of course) and it got us all excited. Fortunately, we weren't too excited that we couldn't go back to sleep for a few hours, ha!
Embarkation was very smooth and the day was very nice and relaxing, altogether. The only "meh" part was, as always, the "mustard" drill (as Meri loves to call it). It was boring, and there were a LOT of drunk people - moreso than usual, my goodness. They weren't offensive, more entertaining and odd. But it was weird for us, too. Maybe because we just aren't in that mode.
Other than that, a lovely day altogether. And a lovely surprise was that the three of us have our own booth for dinner!! A totally fabulous treat for me!!! We have a trio of servers, all from the Philippines, and they are lovely. Our head server is named Mario and he has two assistants, whose names escape me, but both are fabulous. The goals of all staff are to get to know people by name.
Our cabin steward is lovely. His name is Ketut and he is so sweet.
We decorated the cabin for Christmas, and of course those pictures will be up, too. Tonight we played Uno after dinner, and now I'm doing a spot of work (don't ask... sigh) and going to bed. Tomorrow will be a long tough day lounging by the pool.
Well, the internet was fine for most things, but did not want me to connect to any photo-uploading site (although it was happy to upload to Facebook - smh).
Today at work was too insane to take time to upload photos, but tonight and tomorrow - piece of cake!
I look forward to telling you about our experience on board. It was a lot of fun, and so relaxing! It will be more of a pictorial than anything else, because frankly, we didn't do a dang thing on our at-sea days. But the port days were a flurry of activity, and we had a blast on every excursion we took!
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Well, finally! My internet was down, for crying out loud. But here we go! Let's get this show on the road!
Embarkation Day:
We knew from Facebook (from a private group I was in, full of people on our cruise) that the Dream was coming in to port around 545am, and Meri was BESIDE herself, wanting to watch it arrive. It was a neat idea, but I was also pretty tired... but... who can say no to such enthusiasm? We set my phone alarm for 530am, and waited. I kept an eye on the Facebook group, knowing someone would see her before we did, and would post - and I was right! We leaped out of bed and dashed to the window, where we watched the Dream pass by! It was very exciting! Even mom got out of bed to come look, lol.
We crawled back into bed once the Dream passed by, and surprisingly we were able to fall asleep for another couple of hours. We woke up at around 8am and headed downstairs to grab some breakfast. At first, Meri wanted to stay up in the room and relax, so we left her there while we went down to the hotel bar, but then about 10 minutes later, she sent me a text message, saying she was nervous being alone. I texted her back and told her to come down the elevator and I'd meet her. Fortunately, I was prepared for that, and had ordered her some beignets. I wasn't very hungry (typically my breakfast is eaten closer to 11am on weekdays), so I just had a bagel and cream cheese. Mom had the breakfast buffet, and got eggs, bacon, fruit, etc.
After breakfast, we went back upstairs and packed up our luggage. I knew I wanted to arrive at the port by 10am. Even though I didn't expect to board until closer to noon, I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. I knew exactly where I wanted to park, lol, and I wanted to beat all of the lines, as well.
We carted our luggage down to the lobby, and then mom headed to go pick up the car from the parking garage.
Once we loaded the car, I drove us over to the port. It was a very quick process. The traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it was last year - but then again last year we showed up nearly an hour later, as I recall. We drove into the parking garage and gave our luggage to a porter. Then we got settled in to our parking spot on level 5. Last year we were in the same spot - directly in front of the ship, and backed in. We arranged Meri's stuffed animals (the ones that weren't going on board, but who kept her company during the car trip) in the rear window, so they could watch the comings and goings of the ships, lol, and then we headed down the elevator to the main level.
Upon walking into the building, we went straight to security, where there was pretty much no line. Then we were directed to the photo area and finally the check-in kiosks. There was no line, and we walked directly up to an agent, who checked us in, took our photos for our sign and sail cards, printed our cards and gave us all of our documentation. We were boarding group 2, so directly after priority boarding. Pretty cool! We sat in the terminal across from the snack bar, and I picked up two coffees, a water, and some lanyards for our cards.
By 11:30am we were on board! None of us were hungry enough to get lunch just yet, so we parked mom in a deck chair on the Lido deck (deck 10), and Meri and I ran around taking a few photos and exploring the upper levels.
They had these neat rocking chairs on deck 11, around the upper borders of the Lido deck
Hi mom!
Looking down from deck 11 to deck 3 (the atrium / embarkation level).
Another shot of the atrium
Lido deck
Water slides
Hi Meri!
The aft pool
New Orleans
Mini Golf
Finally, Meri decided she was a little hungry, so she grabbed her first of many slices of pizza...
After Meri had a snack, we still had some time to kill (cabins didn't open up until 1:30pm, and all doors to the hallways were closed) so we headed down to lower decks!
The candy store
Pretty decor around the atrium
We found our dining room (The Scarlett Dining Room) but the tables didn't have numbers out, so we couldn't figure out which table was ours just yet. Foiled!!! We just knew that we were on the upper level of the dining room.
A few of the levels had these couches around the atrium. I thought it was a nice touch.
The library
Finally I decided I was a little snacky, so we hunted down the Tandoori area, because a little bit of chicken and rice sounded great!
Around 12:50pm, Meri and I took a peek at our cabin area, and lo and behold, the cabin was ready and waiting!!!!! We ran and got mom, and brought our bags up! YAY!!
Meri's bed was already turned down from a couch, and it remained that way the entire cruise. It was fine with us, though.
The teeny, weenie bathroom, lol.
Lots of storage space
I got the bed by the window, as the birthday girl, lol!
First things first... we decorated the cabin!
Once we felt it was festive enough, we relaxed until it was time for the "Mustard Drill". Stupid us, we didn't realize that we didn't have to bring our life vests. I felt like an idiot. Here we are, the only idiots on board carrying life vests. And of course, everyone we ran into told us, "You know you don't have to bring those, right?" Yes, thanks. We met in the theatre, and sat at the top, on some stools. Right across from us was a very lovely, very drunk couple. They were very nice, and not rude, but they were definitely drunk, distracting and a little annoying.
With the "Mustard Drill" done, we could finally get down to the business of actually having fun!! We went back up to the cabin to unpack and enjoy the weather on our balcony.
Then we peeked out on the Lido to see if there was anything interesting going on.
The deck was not too crowded, and people were having fun. But Meri and I decided it would be more fun to watch us sail away from our balcony, so back we went to the cabin!
We had the early seating dinner, at 6pm, and our dining room was all the way aft, so we headed down from deck 11 to deck 4, and then walked all the way back to the dining room. We were so excited to see if we would have our own table, or a shared one. I was so excited to see that table 703 was a lovely booth that was just for us! YAY!!
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Pixie Dust
Both meals looked scrumptious, too. 
We had a wonderful day! I have to sort out uploading photos, which will be done tomorrow. I'm too tired to do it right now, lol! 
PassPorter Guide Author
Looking forward to hearing all about it. 
back! Can't wait for the pictorial report to start! 
them.
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