The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 fly JetBlue to Houston all the time and since they started charging for the first bag, I have noticed a lot more people needing to gate check their carry on. I have concluded that a number of people do this because JetBlue doesn't charge for a carry on that is gate checked, I;ve even noticed some people with bags that are obviously too big.
Wow, I wouldn't even have thought about doing that. I guess some people are determined to save those pennies wherever they can...
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I don't know what happened with your flight but I had never had a problem with anything less than orderly as people board and disembark.
I guess it was just bad luck.
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I am flying back on Southwest, which I also think has great customer service but my flight home was over twice as much as my flight down on JetBlue. My kids have a strong preference for Southwest but they tend to book earlier than I do.
I must admit I much prefer Southwest. As you say, great customer service and I like the two free bags two - important for us, given how long we usually go to the States for.
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I've though of taking a cruise but am not sure I could be confined to a ship, especially if the seas are rough. I hope yours is wonderful and calm.
We did have some movement, but we've had worse. Honestly though, the ships are so big these days, I never feel confined. That was a fear I had when we first started to cruise.
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Sunday 14 January – part one: this is a bit like Dr. No…
We slept remarkably well, given the circumstances. Let me just set the scene for you. This hotel is not well sound proofed. Whenever a plane took off or landed, you really knew about it, like it was Armageddon, the noise was that loud. You could hear the traffic outside and the sirens if there were any, but most freaky of all, you could also hear all the tannoy announcements from the airport itself. Mark described it as being like a “Dr. No” type place (the first ever James Bond film for anyone who can’t place that reference) with the distant announcements and he was right! After he said that, I couldn’t get that image out of my head!
Oh and then there was the firework display at around 9:30pm, at least that’s what I assume it was. I didn’t hear anything on the news this morning about explosions in San Juan, so I’m sticking with fireworks. I was too tired to get up and see for myself, but it went on for about five minutes, so I’m guessing someone got quite a good display.
As I say, despite that, I slept very soundly through until just after 5:00am, which was eight hours of sleep, so I can’t complain. Our plan was to go and use the outdoor heated whirlpools when they opened at 7:00am, but we’d reckoned without the weather. It was raining quite heavily, so we abandoned that plan and instead got going more slowly. After all, we only had to be at the terminal from 11:00am onwards when it opened, so no rush… for once this vacation!
Once it dawned, we could finally see the view outside. I have to say it wasn’t riveting…
… although you could see San Juan in the distance…
… and of course there were planes coming down and taking off…
We ended up with the most beautiful rainbow, as there was some really heavy rain and sunshine too. It lasted ages. It must’ve been there about an hour or so, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.
We headed down for breakfast and honestly, even though it was hot, it wasn’t great. There was a woman making omelettes, but neither of us were in the mood for that, so we both just got some toast and left it at that. The breakfast room was heaving though. Goodness knows where a lot of these people ate last night. The selection wasn’t great. There were some eggs, but they didn’t look fantastic. Oh well, we’ll be eating more than enough in a few hours’ time anyway…
When we got back to the room, we decided we’d better find the other bottle of wine, as you have to take that in your carry on when you cruise. We couldn’t find it anywhere. Mark was getting convinced that TSA were having a very merry evening somewhere, but finally we found it… in one of the suitcases we’d already looked in…
We had an hour or so of free time in the room, so I uploaded some photos, did some work on the Photopass pictures and we just generally chilled. We made our way downstairs not much after 10:00am, seeing the couples from Ontario we’d met last night in the bar. They were staying on either side of us and one of the women had already knocked on the door to ask about her phone, which wasn’t working. Don’t ask me, I’m having a nightmare with mine!
We headed outside and a taxi pulled up almost immediately. To begin with, he was quiet, but then he burst into life, telling us how it was cold right now. I don’t think so! We chatted away and he was saying how he liked life here, as it was laid back and they never get any snow. Well, there is that…
Mark spotted the Wonder from quite a distance. Our driver told us there were four ships in port today. I commented on the rather nice looking boats in port and the driver just said “those are the small ones”. Wow. I guess there are some people who are doing quite well on this island after all…
I can't believe you slept with all that noise! But apparently you were pretty tired. Still finishing up jet lag nonsense maybe. Your comment about the fireworks had me laughing.... yeah, let's just go with fireworks, who knows really!
A shame about the lackluster breakfast, but as you say you'll be on the ship eating delicious Disney food very shortly! Glad you found the wine too!
The rainbow looks so cool through the buildings of San Juan. Wow, what a treat to see that for so long. Awesome!
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Well, we're going back to Quebec in September on the Magic - we'd love to meet up with you, if that's even vaguely an option for you? Just throwing it out there, although we are in port midweek, so I suspect that won't work....
I would love to meet up but unfortunately my husband had to hand in his vacation request for the year in Feb and he is taking time in July/Aug.
Glad you were able to get some sleep despite all the commotion going on around you. The view of the airport from your room was, umm, kind of depressing. The terminal roof needs some power washing and paint.
Wow! That was one noisy hotel. I'm amazed, but glad that you were able to sleep despite the noise. I love that feeling when you first spot your ship as you approach the port. It always puts me in a good mood, knowing what is to come.
Glad you were able to get some sleep despite all the commotion going on around you. The view of the airport from your room was, umm, kind of depressing. The terminal roof needs some power washing and paint.
Yes, it was a very depressing view. I couldn't help but think that it just needed a little more of TLC - as you say, some power washing and paint would make all the difference.
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That's not good with all the airplane noise you can hear from your room. Perhaps, time for the hotel to replace the windows with thicker glass. It wasn't like this at the Orlando Hyatt when I stayed there as you could barely hear the planes. Good thing you found the bottle of wine! You wouldn't want to lose that at all costs!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
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I guess some people are determined to save those pennies wherever they can... 
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After he said that, I couldn’t get that image out of my head! 
Mark was getting convinced that TSA were having a very merry evening somewhere, but finally we found it… in one of the suitcases we’d already looked in… 
I guess there are some people who are doing quite well on this island after all… 
Glad you found the wine too! 
Perhaps, time for the hotel to replace the windows with thicker glass. It wasn't like this at the Orlando Hyatt when I stayed there as you could barely hear the planes. Good thing you found the bottle of wine! 
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