Go your own way - Decade of Dreams - UPDATED 6/24 - COMPLETE!! - Page 62 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Monday 4 May – part five: five minutes, four Cast Members and one pair of sunglasses
When we came out of the Great Movie Ride, we got some Photopass pictures and then split up, as Sue and Angie were heading for Tower of Terror and Wendy wanted to hit Villains in Vogue, where she got a few bits and pieces.
Then it was out of the park.
We saw a bus waiting at our stop and I power walked over there to catch it. Then the darned thing didn’t go for about another five minutes. As we got on, we saw Bob sitting there and we chatted all the way back to the Contemporary.
On the way back, my sunglasses fell apart. For those reading my Japan trip report, you will know the problems I’ve had with sunglasses so far this year and I was not about to lose my Tokyo Disney pair. : I managed to find the screw under the seat in front of me and went to front desk as soon as we got back with that and my missing arm to see what they could do. Five minutes later and four Cast Members (I kid you not! ) and they got it fixed. It was quite funny to watch them work, as it really was a case of too many cooks spoil the broth.
At work on my sunglasses!
While I was there, Mark called and I told him to call back in five minutes, as I’d be back in the room by then. It’s so hard to hear him when he calls the cell phone.
When I got back to the room, I found that housekeeping still hadn’t been. At first, when they knocked, we told them that we just needed towels, but a couple of minutes later, when I looked around, I figured that perhaps we did need them after all and we told them that we changed our minds when they knocked again. When they finally came back, there were three housekeepers in there, seriously.
We left them to it and headed out and walked into Bob again, so went to explore the resort with him. First, we went to the fourth floor, so he could get a drink refill and then we went out to walk around the pool area. The pool here does let this resort down, as it’s just not that special. We found the quiet pool and dipped our feet in there for a couple of minutes, then slowly walked back to the main building, all the time trying to convince Bob that he should buy into the DVC. I’m so glad to discover that he has now become a member – I was absolutely delighted when I read that on the boards.
We said goodbye to him back on floor four and browsed the shops, before going back to the room. Even though we hadn’t been gone for that long, it was all done for us, so we spent the next hour or so enjoying some down time, before we had to head out again.
We left at around 5.15 and caught the monorail to the Grand Floridian. By the time we got to the Polynesian, we were the only ones in the whole carriage, which was very surreal and a really unique experience.
Do we smell?!
We had a look at the shop upstairs and made our way to the Grand Floridian Café.
Princess Wendy!
We checked in and had the longest wait so far to be seated (yes, longer than the Crystal Palace), before we got in. During that time, we got talking to a family who were using PassPorter and loving it, which is always great to hear.
We had to go up to the podium a couple of times to ask if they had forgotten us, but no, she said that they could accommodate 250 people at any one time and they were the only ones at the Grand Floridian accepting walk ups tonight, which was why they were so busy. Finally, we got seated, about 25 – 30 minutes after our ADR time. Was it worth the wait? Pretty much
We started off with a cocktail each, with Wendy getting a Pina Colada and me getting a Key West, which was strawberry and orange juice laced with Bacardi rum. It was nice, but a lot sharper than I had hoped.
The view from our table Do you think she likes it?!
Then it was on to appetisers. I went for the French onion soup, while Wendy had the field greens. Mine was good, but not on a par with Chefs de France. Then again, as that should be their speciality, I’d be worried if it was on a par. It was more salty and rich tasting and I couldn’t quite finish it.
We did finish the bread they brought out to us and we loved the sweet bread with currants in so much that we asked for more, which then promptly disappeared from the table into my napkin, so that we could take it back to the room and have it for breakfast in the morning.
For main course, I went for the salmon with asparagus, Juliette Shiitake and leeks on a potato-chive beurre blance and Wendy had the Grand Floridian burger, with lobster, asparagus, horseradish-chive hollandaise served with tomato salad. Now the problem here was getting the darned things! We sat there for ages, waiting for them to arrive. Our server was very good about it and didn’t dodge the problem, but told us that she was hassling the chefs and didn’t know what the problem was. At the end of the day, it’s not her fault and she did try very hard to resolve the issue for us.
When they came, they were both very good, although mine was a little too peppery for my tastes and I needed lots of water to go with it, because of that.
The bill came to $71 for the two of us, which wasn’t bad, but I didn’t feel that it was great value, especially when you consider that we had eaten the same amount of food at Sanaa and had the same amount of alcohol and that had come to $8 more for much more innovative food.
Grand Floridian Café:
Appetiser 7
Main course 8½
Service 8½
Atmosphere 8
Value for money 7½
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OMG Cheryl those photos had me laughing out loud! Princess Wendy! Did you see that Sharon??
Um, too bad you didn't have a time and date on that photo of me drinking, you could have shown the world that within 10 minutes it was gone! It was SOOOO good!
I thought our bill was slightly less than that? Oh well, it was definitely tasty and I have to say it was a good value only because I tried something new again with that Lobster Burger. Oh man that was G-O-O-D! I always thought Ewwww when I read it, but by golly if someone is reading this and thinking, wow I'd like to try that, but it seems weird---GET IT!! I just didn't like our wait before our sitting time, especially seeing all the empty tables around us and not seeing people leaving the restaurant ahead of us. KWIM? Then I thought our wait for our food was terribly long and not on par. However, at least it wasn't super fast like Rose and Crown!
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Great updates Cheryl! Chris and I were actually up on the upper level of Brown Derby having lunch while you were down by the windows. Looks like you had a really nice lunch.
Great updates Cheryl! Chris and I were actually up on the upper level of Brown Derby having lunch while you were down by the windows. Looks like you had a really nice lunch.
You were?? I'm sorry I didn't see you!! Um, did you by chance happen to hear us up there??
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As we got on, we saw Bob sitting there and we chatted all the way back to the Contemporary. 
: I managed to find the screw under the seat in front of me and went to front desk as soon as we got back with that and my missing arm to see what they could do. Five minutes later and four Cast Members (I kid you not! 
) and they got it fixed. It was quite funny to watch them work, as it really was a case of too many cooks spoil the broth. 
I just didn't like our wait before our sitting time, especially seeing all the empty tables around us and not seeing people leaving the restaurant ahead of us. KWIM? Then I thought our wait for our food was terribly long and not on par. However, at least it wasn't super fast like Rose and Crown!
That would have been everyone BUT me as I was the 
of the group. 
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