Happy 10 Years - The Anniversary of Our DREAM- updated 04/06/2014 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Dinner looked delicious! I love it how on cruises, they always try to make you happy and o out of their way to have you enjoy your meals.
Love the pictures!
Dinner looks wonderful! I love the penguin towel animal-- never saw that before-- and the photos of the beds with the animals waiting for the girls. The Shutters photos of your family are so nice!
Sounds like a fun first day on the ship. We'll have to remember to try for an earlier seating at dinner when we cruise in 2016. I don't want my kids falling asleep at the table.
What a great dinner - I loved all of your choices.
Thanks, it was really delicious!
Quote:
Originally Posted by lfredsbo
Dinner looks so good! Poor Arthur was worried about you!
How nice that the girls were able to ride Aquaduck with minimal wait!
He was so funny, fretting over me not eating enough!
Quote:
Originally Posted by xwewhisper
Sounds like a great night and love the arrangement of the room after dinner!
I knew what we would find in our room after dinner, but the girls were really surprised. They LOVED the towel animals!
Quote:
Originally Posted by DMA
Dinner looked delicious!
It was!
Quote:
Originally Posted by MayraLR
Dinner looked delicious! I love it how on cruises, they always try to make you happy and o out of their way to have you enjoy your meals.
Love the pictures!
Yes, they definitely do! Those CMs work so hard, and all with a smile on their faces
Quote:
Originally Posted by OneLittleSpark
Looks like a nice dinner. You got some great pics on this day. I love how the beds are that is pretty cool.
Thanks! They definitely did a good job arranging those rooms, fitting all of that furniture into such tiny spaces.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
Dinner looks wonderful! I love the penguin towel animal-- never saw that before-- and the photos of the beds with the animals waiting for the girls. The Shutters photos of your family are so nice!
The penguin was a huge hit with the girls, those are some of their favorite animals! Thank you so much about the pictures, I was very happy with Shutters. I had gone into the cruise thinking I would only buy a couple of photos here and there, but I was so happy with them that I bought the whole package!
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Dinner looked great! And the towel penguin was very cute!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2
It was a great meal!
Quote:
Originally Posted by stardust190
Sounds like a fun first day on the ship. We'll have to remember to try for an earlier seating at dinner when we cruise in 2016. I don't want my kids falling asleep at the table.
Yes, that's the way to go with small kids I think. The girls did fine with it overall, but they were definitely feeling tired at dinner by our second night!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Russi01
Sounds like a great first day! Love the pictures of your family. Your girls are too darn cute!! Can't wait for more.
Oops, I missed the last update. That penguin was very cute. You Shutters photos are looking good - I bet you have quite the collection by the end of the cruise.
You were across the hall from where we were on our cruise! And I'm pretty sure we had lifeguards at the pools (at least at the Donald pool) on our cruise. I love that porthole though -like a wondow seat!
Great dinner and really good pictures of you all!
Oops, I missed the last update. That penguin was very cute. You Shutters photos are looking good - I bet you have quite the collection by the end of the cruise.
Thanks, Sharon! I was very pleased with Shutters, it was so hard to choose just a few pics like I had planned before we left, so I ended up getting the whole package!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OhToodles!
You were across the hall from where we were on our cruise! And I'm pretty sure we had lifeguards at the pools (at least at the Donald pool) on our cruise. I love that porthole though -like a wondow seat!
Great dinner and really good pictures of you all!
Oh, how funny! Wasn't that a great location for the room?? I don't think it could have gotten more perfect. I would definitely choose it again should we do another cruise! I've read that they have added lifeguards to the pools onboard, I think it's great. Some of the bigger kids were acting very rowdy and that will cut down on that, or atleast I hope it will.
This morning we would be pulling into port at Nassau, but our plan was to stay on board and have a sea day of our own. Chris and I had both been to Nassau before and none of the port adventures really called out to us as something we needed to do, at least not with the price tag that they held. : I think that we would have enjoyed going to the Atlantis Resort, but the price was just a little too high for my taste. We could have went to the beach also, but we are going to Castaway Cay tomorrow and will get our beach time then. Being that it was such a short cruise we wanted to get as much ship time as we could!
The plan was to sleep in a bit in the morning, have a leisurely breakfast and then head up to the pool deck for some R&R. I had ordered room service the night before, having it delivered between 8:30 and 9:00 am as our wakeup call. Well, that plan of sleeping in went out the window when Kaeli woke up. I heard her jump out of bed, and then sprint over to the window to pull open the curtains as soon as she could. Of course, now Abby was awake, since her bed was right in front of the porthole and Kaeli decided that she was just going to climb right over her to get to it, not caring in the least that she had to step on her. I tried to get them to go back to bed for a little bit, but they didn’t want any part of that. Oh well, I was up now, so I might as well join them. I grabbed my camera and we sat in the porthole bench, just watching as we slowly pulled into Nassau. It started out a bit hazy and cloudy, but eventually it turned into a beautiful morning.
Eventually, our room service arrived, it was just lovely to sit in the window bench sipping my coffee and enjoying the views. I was fine just munching on the coffee and fruit that we had ordered, but the girls and Chris were in the mood for something a little more substantial so up they went to Cabanas. They were able to bring their plates back down to the room to enjoy. I haven’t mentioned it before, but the location of our room was just perfect. We were right near the elevators, and then it was just a two floor ride up to Cabanas and the pool deck, it was very convenient.
After breakfast, we puttered around the room and took our time getting changed into our swimsuits, watching the sea of people depart the ship to head into Nassau down below.
We headed up to the pool deck and had no problems finding some open loungers, what a difference today in the crowds around the pool! We plopped our butts down and watched one of the Disney movies they had playing on Funnel Vision, it was a perfect morning. The girls did some swimming, and we all took turns on the Aquaduck, we were having a blast.
Even though we had some midmorning snacks over at the Eye Scream Zone, our bellies were starting to rumble, so we decided to head back to our cabin to freshen up a little and then headed to Cabanas for some lunch.
While we were getting ready, the Carnival ship (I think it was called the Sensation) that had been docked next to us at Port Canaveral yesterday had arrived. They must have been really slow going, as they left port nearly an hour before we did!
Lunch at Cabanas was just as good as it was the day before, we thoroughly enjoyed it.
Abby really loves shrimp, and she showed us how much by arranging them on her plate into hearts.
We had some good views over into the Sensation’s pool area, so I snapped a pic while we were eating
After lunch, things get a little hazy for me. I really slacked and didn’t take a single note while on board the ship, so I’m just going by my memory and the pictures I took to write this up, but there is a big gap of time after lunch that I have no photos to show from. I think the girls might have gone into the kids club for a little while, while Chris and I strolled around the deck outside of level 4.
I know the girls wanted to go and do the Family Craft activity which was in the D Lounge at 2 pm though, so we must have picked them up from the club sometime around then.
As you can see, there weren’t many people in there taking part in the craft, but the girls had fun and that’s all that matters. The craft was to create your own scrapbook page, and Kaeli really loved this. They had different scrapbook paper in there, tons of stickers, glitter glue and other things you could use to decorate them with. I think we came home with 4 pages, and Kaeli is determined to make a scrapbook of our whole cruise, she even used some of her Christmas money to get a Disney scrapbook kit from the Disney Store to put it in. I guess I need to get on printing some of the pictures for her so she can complete it.
After our little crafting session, it was time to try out the Midship Detective Agency. This was a lot of fun! It was a great way to get to see a lot of the ship as it sent you all over the place to find the clues. We’ve never done the Sorcerers of the MK, but I’m thinking that the technology used for that is very similar to this. We signed up at the kiosk located on level 5, and we got our badges all ready to go. Basically, you follow the clues given and then use that badge to interact with the magic picture frames located throughout the ship. There weren’t many people doing this, but there were a few frames where the line was a few people deep, and I was worried that while waiting we were going to have things given away by watching the people ahead of us. It wasn’t a problem though, as everything is random I guess. Not one person ahead of us was given the same clue/outcome as us, so it was all good.
Some pics along the way:
At one point we passed by a window and we saw that it was pouring outside!
Now I was really glad that we hadn’t booked any excursions, because they surely would have been cut short by this rain!
We finished up solving our clues and the girls had a ton of fun doing it. Some more pics along the way:
The next group of pictures are from the walls inside of the elevator shafts, we had a lot of fun watching them go by, some a little quicker than others so I apologize for the blurriness.
We must have been on those elevators for a good half hour, because of course we had to see all of the characters up and down, and each shaft has it’s own set.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
: I think that we would have enjoyed going to the Atlantis Resort, but the price was just a little too high for my taste. 
We could have went to the beach also, but we are going to Castaway Cay tomorrow and will get our beach time then. Being that it was such a short cruise we wanted to get as much ship time as we could! 
I heard her jump out of bed, and then sprint over to the window to pull open the curtains as soon as she could. Of course, now Abby was awake, since her bed was right in front of the porthole and Kaeli decided that she was just going to climb right over her to get to it, not caring in the least that she had to step on her. 
I tried to get them to go back to bed for a little bit, but they didn’t want any part of that. Oh well, I was up now, so I might as well join them. I grabbed my camera and we sat in the porthole bench, just watching as we slowly pulled into Nassau. It started out a bit hazy and cloudy, but eventually it turned into a beautiful morning. 
I was fine just munching on the coffee and fruit that we had ordered, but the girls and Chris were in the mood for something a little more substantial so up they went to Cabanas. They were able to bring their plates back down to the room to enjoy. I haven’t mentioned it before, but the location of our room was just perfect. We were right near the elevators, and then it was just a two floor ride up to Cabanas and the pool deck, it was very convenient. 
I think the girls might have gone into the kids club for a little while, while Chris and I strolled around the deck outside of level 4. 
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