A Magical voyage across the pond TRIP REPORT UPDATED 12/31 - Page 11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Kind of crazy with the boarding process and you being told time and again that Mari and Raleigh couldn't board with you! They should make exceptions as they were with you.
Apparently the way it works with boarding is that they go by the lowest grade of Castaway Club, so in this case, gold. I found that very weird. They'll be platinum after their next cruise, which they booked on board for next year, so it won't be a problem if we cruise with them again.
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You're lunch at Lumiere's looked very good. Lumiere's was definitely my favorite on my Magic cruise. I'm surprised the two of you went for salmon with both courses! You didn't feel a salmon overload with this? I love salmon and may have done this as both variations are quite different!
Not at all! I love salmon and could eat it most nights and not get bored of it!
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I can't believe your servers here as kind of inept! They better not be your service team for the rotation!
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I can tell you as a travel agent that Disney is famous for NOT telling us this kind of stuff and they should. It drives me CRAZY!!!
That's exactly what I suspected had happened... they just hadn't told anyone what they were planning to do, which is really bad communications on their part.
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I am so excited to read about your cruise! (I have friends on the Magic right now and I am stalking their pictures on facebook and then I feel sad I am not with them).
I hope they're having a great time!
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My goal is to do a trans atlantic some day! It probably won't be till Claire is either out of highschool...if she comes with me...or if I go without her, she will have to be driving so she can get her self to where she needs to be while I am gone. My friend does the East bound one almost every year and it always looks like so much fun! Plus I love sea days!!!
Oh my goodness, having finally done one, I would thoroughly recommend it and would definitely look at doing another one in the future. We loved it!
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I know what you mean about seeing the same people over and over. You can never see a person you know(like from a cruise group) who may be on the same cruise, but see the same stranger over and over every single day!
Sunday 9 September – part five: well that’s a first for us on all our cruises!
Once we were done with eating, we headed our separate ways and up to the rooms, as with the (slightly too leisurely) lunch, it was well past 1:30pm by now. We’d seen the exodus as people headed out at that time to get their room, so at least the rush was past. Mark was convinced we were on the side that would have views of Dover, but we were on the other side. I kept telling him that I definitely went for what he told me too and we eventually worked out what happened – we booked New York City to Quebec City and made sure we were on the side that would have views of the Statue of Liberty was we sailed away. Oh well, we’re perfectly capable of walking to the other side of the ship to see the views…
The room was very familiar to us…
This was the view – you can see the cruise terminal below us. I will confess it doesn’t look like much from outside, but trust me, it’s one of the best we’ve been to.
Mark had a very important job to do – putting the magnets on the door…
… and this was the result!
As I was out photographing it, we met our room attendant, Sherwin. He seemed very nice, but annoyingly, we couldn’t understand a word he said. This could be interesting this cruise and on the next one…
He brought our first suitcase to us, so we unpacked that and by the time we were done, number two showed up. We had a bit of a break in between cases two and three, but we were totally unpacked before 3:00pm, I think that’s the first time we’ve ever been done so quickly.
We headed out not long after we’d finished all our unpacking to go and pick up our pins from our Facebook group. This was such a good idea and a nice way of putting faces to name. We immediately met a couple of people we recognised and it was lovely to be able to say hi to them.
We headed out on to deck four to get some photos of Dover…
… then we made our way over to our muster station area for our lifeboat drill. We were very fortunate, as ours had a seat and it was about the one that wasn’t full when we got there – 20 minutes beforehand!
We let the crew know that I have chronic fatigue and can’t stand for long periods, so that’s why I sit during these and, as usual, they were lovely about it.
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Nice and realxing afternoon. A great way to settle in to your home for the next week and a half! The magnets look great on the door!
Crusing (or Disney-ing) 20 years ago was so different without FB or message boards. Can you imagine meeting people the old fashioned way?! How it has changed!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
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I Mark's decorating skills!! What a lovely way to officially start your cruise! That's awesome about your luggage and the photos of Dover are beautiful.
Mark did a great job with the magnets. Hopefully you will be able to communicate with your room steward.
Unfortunately that aspect really didn't improve much through the cruise, which was a shame, but we managed without much communication, so it all turned out Ok in the end....
Nice and realxing afternoon. A great way to settle in to your home for the next week and a half!
Two and a half weeks - we had a total of18 nights on board!
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The magnets look great on the door!
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Crusing (or Disney-ing) 20 years ago was so different without FB or message boards. Can you imagine meeting people the old fashioned way?! How it has changed!
Well, we weren't taking cruises back then, so I can't comment but I know a lot of friendships were made through tablemates and we've met some amazing people on board cruises that we were so sad to say goodbye to at the end of our time together.
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Once we were done with the mandatory lifeboat drill, we wandered along deck four and I got some photos of the French coastline – it was such a clear day, you could easily see it.
Then we popped to the other side to get some shots of Dover. It was so neat to see places we’re so familiar with from a very different perspective.
We wandered through the atrium…
… and carried on walking…
We got to Animator’s Palate, which is where we’d be dining tonight. I was able to get lots of great shots of it without anyone in, which was neat.
We then headed up to deck five and did the same thing, walked along and got some photos…
We made our way back to the room and a few minutes later, I thought I heard a noise. Thinking it was a plane, I headed outside to have a look and no, it wasn’t a plane, we were already on the move!
I am another one that thinks the ship seems empty, I guess a lot of people are unpacking and settling in. I didn’t realize how close to France you were, guess I need to brush up on my geography.
Wonderful photos from around the ship! Oh how I miss cruising. DH wasn't a huge fan of it, and now with a family of 5, it's pretty darn expensive! We will go again though..... some day!
I didn't know you could see France from the ground! I remember flying over the channel and getting a panoramic photo with both countries, but didn't know it was possible to see both from the ground. Very cool!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Finally getting caught up! Glad you’ve made it down to the Pirt quickly! Sorry Disney didn’t give the correct information and there were problems for some people! Great pictures of the shop! It looks so empty! How great to meet some new friends at lunch!
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They should make exceptions as they were with you.
I found that very weird. They'll be platinum after their next cruise, which they booked on board for next year, so it won't be a problem if we cruise with them again. 
You didn't feel a salmon overload with this? I love salmon and may have done this as both variations are quite different! 
They better not be your service team for the rotation! 
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Pixie Dust
This could be interesting this cruise and on the next one… 
How it has changed!
Mark's decorating skills!! What a lovely way to officially start your cruise! That's awesome about your luggage and the photos of Dover are beautiful.
but I know a lot of friendships were made through tablemates and we've met some amazing people on board cruises that we were so sad to say goodbye to at the end of our time together. 
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