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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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That empanadas looks great! So sorry the sea sickness got to you a bit but overall it sounds like a great night with getting to take advantage of some of the late night fun!
They were tasty!
I am so glad I took bonine or I am sure i would've felt worse.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Your dinner choices looked delicious! Sorry you felt so tired and motion sick.
It was good. Not my favorite restaurant though of the 3.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Dinner looks great. Sorry you weren't feeling great later on.
That was really the only night I felt bad and i think it was partly due to how much I had been doing for the last week...and probably just needed more rest.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindawdw
So glad that you and Skip enjoyed your dinner and that Claire had fun at the Kid's Club! The motion of the ship got to me on my last cruise and I didn't know in the beginning that the ship offered Bonine. I started taking it but too late really as I already had that motion sickness feeling once the seas got rough from the Nor'Eastern that we were heading into. Sounds like Skip enjoyed enjoyed the evening entertainment!
Skip did have a good time...He will never come out and admit it though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KimmyAnn1147
Fun update! Glad Skip is getting into it.
He really had a good time and enjoyed the ship. he told me it wasn't something he would want to do every year but he would do it again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Sounds like Skip is having fun and definitely getting the hang of cruising!
He was. I need to work on him some more so I can get him on a ship in the next year or so.
I was up before anyone else…..because they are deadbeats on vacation!!! Ok, I also went to bed much earlier than them too.
I went for a walk. I love the carpets.
Still dark outside.
This time of morning is very peaceful to be up on deck. You really see only a few people at most.
The sun is trying to peek out.
The crew hard at work cleaning the ship.
A ship off in the distance.
This one didn’t turn out like I wanted it to. I was trying to focus on the Mickey logo but I guess I wasn’t paying attention and it got the background instead.
Continuing my morning walk.
I had to check out the new splash area.
The stairs up to the new slide.
Pools are still closed at this time.
I was getting a little hungry so I think I grabbed a banana.
And walked around a little more and took a peek in the arcade.
Such neat photos of the ship before the morning really gets going! I am really not a morning person, so I never get these kind of photos. The photos made me a little homesick to back on board the Magic.
I had a couple posts to catch up on! The food looks delish!!! (As I am sitting here eating cereal for dinner at 9:30pm ).
I love early morning walks like that - all by myself, taking it all in! thanks for sharing so many great photos!
I am so behind everywhere lately.
I know, writing it and being hungry isn't good either. LOL!
I love how peaceful the morning is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Such neat photos of the ship before the morning really gets going! I am really not a morning person, so I never get these kind of photos. The photos made me a little homesick to back on board the Magic.
I headed back to the room and got the family going. Sadly, Claire was pretty tired and it took a lot of coaxing to get her moving today. Once we were ready for the day we went and got some breakfast.
All the important essentials.
I believe we were eating out back so we could watch us pull into Nassau.
I thought that this ship looked like a lego.
A carnival ship already docked.
It was warm out but still extremely windy and the seas had still been rocky out there, but calm as we pulled into the harbor.
Another Carnival ship coming in.
I think this is the one that was already docked.
We had plans today! When we sailed the Dream in 2012, Claire tried snorkeling for the first time with the sting ray feeding adventure at Castaway Cay. She took to it easily and she has asked since then to do a real snorkeling excursion. So I looked at options and we booked one for this day. It was a morning excursion and the plan was to do it, come back to the ship for lunch and then take a taxi over to Atlantis to check out the Aquarium.
At the designated time we met up with the group.
Most of Disney’s excursions meet on the ship and then you head out together. I really like that. Most other lines don’t do it that way.
After everyone was there and accounted for and we all showed our room keys and ID’s we were escorted off the ship.
We were led just outside a gate and told that our boat would soon be there for us.
They let us in the gated area and our boat arrived.
And we boarded her.
I like to people watch and check out the people on excursions with us. There was one family that was all blonde and beautiful…the perfect family. LOL. It was like a family out of a magazine. Then there was the family with a mom (I don’t remember if a dad was with them or not, but I think so), and she was the loud talker that explained things to her preteen to young teen kids. It was obvious she wanted everyone to hear what a perfect parent she was explaining it all to her kids and you could see her look around to see if anyone else was listening. I swear I attract those kinds everywhere I go and it’s fine to explain to the kids what is going on etc, but I don’t need to hear it. In fact I did do some explaining to Claire….and Skip, but I said it in low tones…..of course Skip said Hunh?
Once we all were settled in we took off towards the snorkeling location.
I thought that boat looked kind of neat.
The buildings look so pretty and colorful.
We went right around the Mail Boat.
Some of the boats docked there made me wonder how they were still staying afloat.
And out to the open seas.
It was still pretty wavy and for a little boat like this we did do quite a bit of bouncing around. We also received directions as we headed out. Finally we made it to our destination and we came to a stop.
There were other people snorkeling in the area as well. I think we had a flag or something to identify which boat was ours and also were told to stay in a certain distance.
Claire is ready and excited!
We all used the stairs to jump in. …..remember that family where the Mom explained it all to basically all of us….her kids were blocking the steps because they didn’t want to get in and I think they ended up going back up and waiting till the rest of us went.
The water was cold, but we got used to it fast…but it was wavy. It took us a bit to adjust our things so we weren’t swallowing water or getting it in our masks. I will admit, it was kind of hard to snorkel with it being so wavy. Claire was having the most trouble. I took some underwater pictures and tried to play with them in photoshop, but unless you have a really good camera with a flash, I just don’t think underwater pictures come out all that fabulous.
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I love your people watching stories Jenn So funny that the loud woman's children were blocking the stairs and afraid to go in the water! I enjoy snorkeling but the water in the mask thing is pretty annoying.
Beautiful pictures of the ship waking up! How cool that Claire enjoyed snorkeling so much she wanted to do it again looks like a fun excursion so far!
thanks. It was challenging for her, but she would liked to try it again in the future.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
I hope Claire enjoyed her second set of snorkelling as much of the first, as the conditions, with it being so wavy out, don't sound ideal.
Conditions were pretty rough...even I felt that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
I really enjoy snorkeling, but hate when my mask leaks. I hope Claire enjoys this excursion.
I hate that too. At one time I told her if she kept her mouth shut (instead of complaining) less water would get in. LOL
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
You got some great pictures of Nassau as you all came into port! If I could swim, snorkeling looks fun. Sorry it was so wavy though.
They do give you a little vest to help as well. Salt water really makes you float too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lindawdw
I love your people watching stories Jenn So funny that the loud woman's children were blocking the stairs and afraid to go in the water! I enjoy snorkeling but the water in the mask thing is pretty annoying.
I am sure there has been times when other people have "people watched" me and thought I was crazy too.
I am not sure who this guy was…probably one of the instructors.
Skip kept telling us he saw a bracelet or necklace on the bottom….I never could see it, but he insisted it was there. I think he thought he found treasure because he would tell everyone about it. LOL.
Claire was struggling and I tried to help her a bit, but I think the waves were just a bit too bumpy for her as a beginner to go with the flow so much.
Here is a look at the waves. Now I know they don’t look huge but for a snorkeling day for us who are not super experienced it moved us around more than we would like.
Claire really was struggling. Every time we pointed something out she said she couldn’t see. I really should’ve taken more time to see if her mask was right, because I think she was taking in water more than I thought, which made it hard on her. She also told me later she just had a really hard time looking down and keeping her air thing (that’s the technical term. LOL) out of the water as waves kept going over her.
But she wasn’t having as hard of a time as those 2 kids with the loud mom. The mom would take each one out separately and the other would cling to the steps at the boat. They did a lot of complaining and I think one was crying. They clearly did not like this at all. At least Claire was giving it a shot….but this was something she wanted to do. I will say Claire was not overly impressed with it when we were done but I think it was the conditions more than anything and she is willing to try it again in the future and hopefully we’ll have calmer seas.
I noticed more fish seemed to be in the area all of a sudden.
And then I realized why. This guy was feeding the fish bread.
By this time Claire had had it. She was taking in too much water and was feeling cold. I too was getting pretty tired as it was harder swimming with it being wavy and I too was getting a bit cold so I told her I would take her back on the boat. Skip wanted to stay out a bit more, which was fine with us.
We headed to the ladder and had to tell the child clinging for life that we wanted up. I think in the end that family just gave up and went back on the boat too. Claire went up and then me. Let’s say I am not graceful using these stairs. I think the ladder is actually easier. I took off my flippers and then threw them on the steps and tried to hoist my body out of the water….It took a few tries…If someone was videoing it, it probably would make America’s Funniest home Videos.
We dried off and got situated in our place on the boat.
I believe that is Skip out there in the red trunks….probably still looking at that bracelet!
They started to call everyone in and Skip made a slight more graceful transfer to the steps than I did.
But not but much!
Time to head back.
I just love how blue the water is.
This boat appeared to be sinking, but no one seemed to care…I am not sure if it had been there a few days or what. I just found it creepy.
They did hand out snacks and drinks for us as we went back. Just basic small stuff and I think it was koolaid and very watered down.
There are always these junky boats here in Nassau. Not sure why, but they look like they will sink…or they are loaded up with garbage too.
I always love to take pictures of Atlantis…and the plan was to head over there later yet today.
All the cruise ships docked ahead of us.
I think this is the most I have seen in port at one time on a visit to Nassau.
Ours is the prettiest though.
Holy cow! ANOTHER one is coming in too.
We were dropped off at a different location than where we boarded but still not far from the ship.
We then stood around and decided what to do next.
We were hungry so we decided to head back to the ship for lunch. The plan had been that after lunch we would head over to Atlantis but Claire only wanted to swim. She complained about how it wasn’t enjoyable while snorkeling because she kept taking in water and that she saw next to nothing. I am pretty sure she was exaggerating but I also knew she was at her max. She had not had enough sleep over the past week and this girl needs a lot of sleep. Skip agreed that we could just spend the afternoon on the ship and forget about Atlantis. I have to admit I was disappointed, but it wasn’t worth an argument. I told them after lunch I may come back on shore though to do a little shopping around. We headed back towards the ship.
I did take pictures as we walked though.
I laughed at that sign on the right…..thank goodness they have a large selection of Booty Shorts!
I got a shot…sort of…of the new duck tale the ship was sporting.
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Sorry you felt so tired and motion sick. 
Sorry you weren't feeling great later on. 
Sounds like Skip enjoyed enjoyed the evening entertainment!
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