Wise Women, Good Looking Men and Way Cool Teens - Page 3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 like the first photo the best because it has the castle in it with the two of you. they are all so great, though, elaine, and really capture the essense of you and danny.
Dec 8
Up and out of the room at 8:30. breakfst as usual at Sassagoula--the big breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, waffle, biscuit, OJ and water. I get half the eggs and all the bacon. One serving of the OJ is mine and lots of water. For some reason, we are conserving those points on the DDP, Still battling the "problem" but its getting better without a visit to the clinic.
Off to the bus stop. Our waits have been very short, maybe just our luck to get there right before the bus or they were running lots of them. Only one trip through POR the whole trip.
Anyway. there are two guys at the bus stop, one of them was wearing a Cheshire Cat shirt with a stuffed tail that hung from the tail of the shirt. Wonderful shirt! He got it at the Queen of Hearts in Japan. We chatted for awhile. (I know--imagine that, us chatting to strangers ) Then we alll get in line for the approaching bus. I look over and there is a little girl in a stroller behind Mr Cheshire Cat. She's doing her best to reach that tail! Her mom kept moving the stroller back and the little girl kept reaching further and further out! Luckily he got on the bus before she caught it.
The trip to EPCOT was quick and painless. We joined the herd to get in. Well, I did since i carry a bag. DBF went through the bagless line. The plan was to meet on the other side and go through the ticket scanner. But i couldn't find him on the other side of bag check. Odd, very odd. He's usually waiting for me. Then I saw him--he had on his "basset hound" something terrible has happened face! I went through my mental list of possible catastrophies and prepared for something truly aweful. He couldn't find his key card, undoubtedly it was on the food tray or something. He was worried about it having charging previliges.
Off to guest services, where we chatted with some nice folks from Strasburg, Germany who are waiting specifically for the lady whose name tag had the "speaks German" on it. Soon it was our turn. The nice man told us that the first card was cancelled and nothing could be charged on it and there was no activity on it except for our bkfst. No charges since the day before. The "basset face" went away and hopefully the disney cm was right. Guess i'll find out when the bill get here.
We stopped at MouseGear and Renita was very helpful. I found my hoodie with the Christmas scene on the back! I love it! Photopass people were located, photos done. This time we had 325+ photos on our card. I'm glad we stopped at every one since some of the guys are awesome and take wonderful photos; some not so great. We wandered around watching people, the dancing waters, and moseyed to the boat dock.
We love boat rides! Seems like we saw Alladin and Jasmine and got our photos done with them. Then we approached Japan.
The group wasn't eating at Teppan Edo, so that was on our list to do today. I've eaten there every visit since '83, same service and style even if they did change the name.
Our hostess was Tomoe who chatted some with dbf who speaks some Japanese. We were seated and quickly addressed by our server, Kumiko who introduced our chef Masa. He had a wonderful, dry sense of humor and great style. Maybe he could have been flashier, but we loved him.
Danny had scallops. I had the filet migon, salad, and half the ginger chocolate cake.
We were seated with a couple from Ohio. She has been to the PP forums but usually read the Dis boards. The other family of 4 kept to themselves and wasn't interested in talking to any of the 4 of us or much to the server either.
Teppan Edo was as good as always and will be on the list to repeat again next time.
After lunch it was time to walk some. We walked around towards the British Isles, collection Photopass people along the way. We got photos at the bridge, with Marie, with Pere Noel, and some great shots in the garden in England. Further along we spotted Le Cellier where we had ressies later in the week. Somehow I never noticed it before. Our Photo pass person loved the Malificent Chrismas button i made the dbf was wearing, so he gave it to her. Its a good thing we made extras, he had a wonderful time giving buttons to people who asked where he had gotten them, so they could go buy one. She seemed to show up in several of the countries we passed through, so we have photos in France, a different angle at the bridge, etc.
Eventually we got to Morocco and sat to listen to MO' Rockin. I love them. It was early but we went to check in early at Marrakesh. They seated up right away. He tried the Royal feast and iced mint tea. I went with the beef brewat rolls and beef shis-ka-bobs.
brewat rolls
They said they are spiced meats but I believe I was thinking spicey like "hot". These are just delicious. Sadly I only ate one to save a carb for what I felt would be needed for dessert.
the royal feast
it has lamb and chicken and obviously lots more. he thought it was wonderful as always.
my beef was excellent, the veggies awesome. I have an allergy to beans like pinto, kidney etc so I was afraid to try much of the hummus. It didn't seem like a time to experiment. the taste was wonderful though.
flakey dessert, with cream and toasted almonds etc
more good stuff.
we do tip envelops with designs and a big thank you. at one time a person here on the boards said that cash tips were best. so i made tip envelopes (thanks for the envelope idea Eileen-i used your template and added different graphics).. Anyway i digress (squirrel!) back to the topic. Our server Mouna came back to the table with the envelope and said she had one just like it on her board at home. she wondered if we had been there before. yup, last christmas we were there too and probably it was the same design or close to it. Another awesome meal and will be on the list for next trip.
We collected some more photopass photos. and took more photos. The ladies working in the shop in Morocco had on dance music and several of them decided to put on the scarves and dance along. it was fun to watch the folks interact with the cm during all this.
We caught the buss back to the resort and discoverd
Our first ever town critter!! What a wonderful day. Although I did go to get my chocolate strawberry out of the fridge only to find it frozen solid! what a shock. the veggies were frozen too! (not so much a loss) luckily we had done one of the allergy shots this mornig because the remaining one was now suspect. I left a message on the doctor's phone line for the next morning. they called to say not to take it. However the towel Santa made up for all of it!
i like the first photo the best because it has the castle in it with the two of you. they are all so great, though, elaine, and really capture the essense of you and danny.
several people have chosen the one of us laughing, but so far no clear choice as "best photo."
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Great pictures! I am so excited after looking at your pictures that we are eating at Teppan Edo again this coming June! The food at Marrakesh looks , too!
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We had just gotten back to the room when dd called. I must say this is one of those times that I wished my phone plan allowed for sending photos. Old plan but we get 3 phones for $66/month. no data, only 20 texts/month but up until recently we nevered texted at all/! shocking i know. (Squirrel!-aka attention deficit moment).
She was excited about our towel critter and I promised to get photos to bring home. In preparation for the morning, I went ahead and wrote a thank you on the CM appreciation card and put the housekeeping envelope with lollipop and card on the pillow on the other bed.
Tomorrow is a big day. I finally get to meet a fellow Wise Woman. The origianl plan was for B and Y to met us at Raglan Road for dinner, timed to let us watch the entertainment also. Sadly the day before I left Y pm'd to tell me that her daughter's friend's flight reservation had changed and they wouldn't be able to join us. I'll have to figure out another day to give her the goodie bag I brought for the group. Taking them to the parks with the bag search does't sound like the best choice so I'll shoot for the day we have breakfast at WCC.
Glad you and Danny took such detailed notes so we can enjoy all the moments of the trip you might have otherwise forgotten! Missed seeing Grace this year....I am glad she could live vicariously through your phone updates!
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Yup without his notes, i'd be saying "we got up, did stuff, came back, went to bed."
i missed dd being there also. so many magical moments that i know she would have loved.