A Magical voyage across the pond LIVE UPDATE 9/30 - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We use points for cruises, too. And while I know some don’t think it’s a good use, I feel it works for us. We’ve done a lot of cruises we wouldn’t have been able to without the points.
I hadn’t heard of the star on your ship, so I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a household name. But sounds like an impressive resume, so I’m sure she’ll be amazing.
I hope you have someone like Jeff Kurtti doing a lecture series. We found that so interesting and informative. He’s a great speaker and has a lot of great stories to share.
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I don’t think you are going to be bored on the cruise with all the activities you have planned. Also if you make it to all your drink classes and some are on the same day it might not be the sea that is making you wobble .
Your private tastings sound like fun! I can't get over how expensive the Disney cruises are, and although I have also heard that it's not a good use of your DVC points, if you aren't planning on going back to WDW anytime soon then you might as well use them towards the cruise! It certainly sounds like the shows should be wonderful! Can't wait to hear what excursions you have planned in Quebec City.
Excellent choice to be in this FB group!! What a deal on their open bars! The private tastings sound wonderful too. Yum!
Glad the exchange rate worked for you there. Awesome.
Really hoping the waves and weather work in your favor so you guys can enjoy the shows and the drinks!!
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Oh my! Wow. Just wow. I bet they had some amazing stories to tell.
Oh, they did have stories, and they knew all the top employees on the ship, from hotel directors to head servers to chefs, etc. The head server stopped and chatted at our table every single night. They rarely asked for anything special, but the man loved to have a bowl of blueberries early every morning. He would get a bowl brought to him each night which he took to his cabin for the morning. He also ate very plain foods and would order basically meat and vegetables (certain ones) every night.
Oh, and we had Paige O'Hara, the original voice of Belle on our cruise. Her talks were not widely publicized on board, and, although full, weren't hard to attend. She did not perform, however.
Sounds like the tastings are some good choices and I think going for the higher end one for just $5 more each is the way to go! I'm sure you'll enjoy this one and the others. I did the Cognac tasting on my Magic cruise and enjoyed it. Sounds like some good shows as well.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
We use points for cruises, too. And while I know some don’t think it’s a good use, I feel it works for us. We’ve done a lot of cruises we wouldn’t have been able to without the points.
I am so with you about that comment.
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I hadn’t heard of the star on your ship, so I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a household name. But sounds like an impressive resume, so I’m sure she’ll be amazing.
I always think there are so many amazing singers and performers. You go to see a show in the West End and you're like "I've never heard of them" and they just blow you away.
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I hope you have someone like Jeff Kurtti doing a lecture series. We found that so interesting and informative. He’s a great speaker and has a lot of great stories to share.
Oh my goodness, someone like that would be unbelievable!
I don’t think you are going to be bored on the cruise with all the activities you have planned. Also if you make it to all your drink classes and some are on the same day it might not be the sea that is making you wobble .
Your private tastings sound like fun! I can't get over how expensive the Disney cruises are, and although I have also heard that it's not a good use of your DVC points, if you aren't planning on going back to WDW anytime soon then you might as well use them towards the cruise!
Well exactly! And, in fairness, WDW vacations using our points are so cheap by comparison, depending on the time of year you visit. We tend to go at less popular times of the year these days, which helps...
Oh, they did have stories, and they knew all the top employees on the ship, from hotel directors to head servers to chefs, etc.
Well, I'd expect nothing less after that many cruises...
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The head server stopped and chatted at our table every single night.
I'm guessing at least it meant everyone on the table got very well looked after.
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They rarely asked for anything special, but the man loved to have a bowl of blueberries early every morning. He would get a bowl brought to him each night which he took to his cabin for the morning. He also ate very plain foods and would order basically meat and vegetables (certain ones) every night.
Oh, and we had Paige O'Hara, the original voice of Belle on our cruise. Her talks were not widely publicized on board, and, although full, weren't hard to attend. She did not perform, however.
Pre-trip report – part nine: no, that wasn’t quite the plan!
So with our date fast approaching when we could make our online reservations for a variety of different things, we had some decisions to make about exactly what I was going to book on that day.
The Transatlantic is first up, because that’s the first cruise we’re taking, but for both cruises, the order in which I plan on getting things booked is the same. The first thing I’m going to go for is Palo brunch, as that fills up so quickly.
Then the next thing will be getting booked on any tastings. Am I still going to go for some even though we’ve signed up to a load through the Facebook group for the Transatlantic? I think so, because we just don’t know at this stage whether there will be enough people from the group to make the numbers. I figure I can always cancel our individual bookings if we need to and keep the group bookings.
The final thing to do will be to book the shore excursions, although I will have a look and see if there’s anything else happening on board that appeals that we need to book. I doubt there will be, as we’ve done the character meet and greets before and the character breakfast, but heck you just never know when Disney might introduce something new…
We discussed when it would be best to do Palo brunch and dinner and decided that we’d go for the last day at sea. It’s the last day of that cruise, but it’s the only at sea day which isn’t on the Transatlantic. I don’t want to have brunch booked, then have to cancel it if the weather is bad. At least hopefully this way, we shouldn’t have that issue – fingers crossed!
Equally, we’ve applied the same thinking to dinner and are going to go for the day we’re in St. John, as all aboard is quite late, so depending on the timing of our shore excursion, we might not be back in time for our dinner anyway, so that seemed to work.
The only other thing we needed to do was to narrow down which shore excursions we wanted to do. Our shortlist (which essentially removed ones I knew we weren’t interested in) was still too long. Ok, so the private vehicles were out and anything that was too strenuous – if it had the word “hike” in it, it was gone – but a lot else remained… well for those ports that we have details of, but more of that in a moment.
I suggested that we look through the remaining shore excursions and each rank them from 1 – 10 completely separately of each other, so we wouldn’t be influenced by the other person. Then we could see if we had one clear winner or just a couple to pick from.
That worked where we knew what the shore excursions were. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case everywhere. Cork in Ireland was the main problem for the Transatlantic – mainly because I’d moved quickly enough to copy all the shore excursions from our Canadian ports of call when we first booked. The way Disney does it is that they only show the shore excursions for each port of call up to “around 120 days” ahead of your cruise. Guess when we platinum Castaway Club members get to book? If you said at 120 days out, you’d be spot on. This is definitely an issue when you don’t have previous cruises stopping at places and a problem we’d never encountered before. It meant waiting around for Disney to finally post the details and, if you know me at all, you know I’m not a patient person when it comes to vacation planning…
Finally we got those details and I did my ranking of 1 – 10 for each shore excursion. Mark… well, let’s just say that took a little longer and a lot more persuading. At first he just marked the ones he was interested in. No, that wasn’t quite the plan!
I even took the itinerary with us on our long weekend break to Switzerland in the hope that perhaps he’d do the rankings there. He didn’t. It started to get to the point where we were getting close to booking and I still had no indication from him as to what he was interested in.
I ended up telling him that we’d just end up doing the ones that I wanted to, and he told me that would probably be the case anyway. Ok, so he has a point…
Finally, after a bit more prodding, we did settle down to look at all the excursions and agreed on what we wanted to do. We ended up picking the one that we really wanted to do for each port of call, but also a back-up one, just in case… but let’s face it, we’re now platinum Castaway Club members and therefore we’d get first pick of everything. We wouldn’t need a back-up plan… or would we?
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It certainly sounds like the shows should be wonderful! Can't wait to hear what excursions you have planned in Quebec City.
The private tastings sound wonderful too. Yum!
Wow. Just wow. I bet they had some amazing stories to tell.
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How neat to have Belle on board. 
At first he just marked the ones he was interested in. No, that wasn’t quite the plan! 
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