Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - Page 45 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Yep, sure wish I was there now instead of here, dealing with storms and some kind of freaky, funnel/micro burst thing that hit near a friends house just down the street from where I work. Curious to see what kind of damage it did, as a my co-worker who I stupidly sent out into that mess, called hysterical about it.
Welcome Home!!! Sorry you're flight to Disney wasn't so magical. It was quite a rough start but I knowfrom your live updates that you had a pretty nice trip Can't wait to hear more.
Loving the photos of the car ride to wdw. The pics of the BCV are good too!!! Is it sad to say that seeing the H2O soaps in the pics of the bathroom made me feel excited??
I love the smell of the "mickey" soap- will have to stock up next time we go and buy some to take home
Sorry your flight had to deal with such PITA kids (and parents). Nothing like a refreshing bath/shower to make things right with the world. Looking forward to hearing more.
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.
That's one thing that I always try really very hard to do is keep my kids quiet and occupied on an airplane. It's no easy feat, but there's definitely ways to do it. I cannot believe the bad behavior from that family! Out of curiosity, were they American?
: they were British.
By the way, after the complaint I wrote to Virgin about not getting the seats we wanted and the food, I called them back today (they'd left a message for us to call them) and they've given us each 2,000 miles on our Virgin account for the inconvenience, so it does pay to complain! This is quite a lot, as a flight each way to Orlando in Premium Economy only gave us 8,000 miles....
Unbehaved children on flights is as horrible as turbulence IMHO. I had the displeasure of a child kicking my seat and when I said something she yelled at me and called my the B word!! It's possible for unruly children to enjoy flying - locked in the overhead bin!!
Sorry about the unrulely children on the flight. some people just don't care what their children do. About a week ago a woman gave each of here children a whistle and told them not to blow them in the store. You can guess how well they listened. Your room looks really nice. I hope the rest of your vacation gets better.
Liz
Thursday 7 April – part four: we didn’t want to wear our dinner!
By now, I had finally caught up with Wendy and we agreed to meet up in our room at 6.15pm. It would be the first time meeting all her clan – with the exception of Ben of course, who we’d got to know in December 2009 on our last trip. I will admit that the kids weren’t necessarily what I expected. Firstly, Gabby was exceptionally quiet and I know, from phone calls with Wendy, just how loud she usually is and then there was Carlee, who Wendy had told me was quiet. Not a bit of it! : We chatted away and got on great. Josh towers above everyone and was full of questions for us, while Michael was quite quiet.
We stood there chatting for a while and handed out the gifts we’d bought them – lots of chocolate for the kids and an Easter bunny and keyring from Harrod’s, while I got a gift card for Bath and Body Works – how well my best buddy knows me!
We headed down shortly afterwards, especially as Michael was asking when we were going to eat.
We checked in at the Cape May Cafe and stood outside, chatting for a few minutes. Just when we figured that there’d be a wait to get in, Wendy sent Josh back to the room to pick up the chocolates they’d bought for us and, of course, wouldn’t you know, the buzzer went off a moment later. Ben volunteered to stay behind and wait for Josh and the rest of us went in.
We sat there for a while and met our server, Kim, who explained about what was on offer at the buffet, but at break neck speed. There sounded like there was a great selection up there, but we were wondering what had happened to Ben. Josh turned up at the dinner table with the chocolates for us, which were in great condition, despite Wendy’s concerns about them melting in the heat. But where was Ben? He was nowhere to be seen.
We decided to go up to the buffet, wondering where he was and he wandered in, just as we got there. He’d missed Josh in the lobby, so had headed back to the room to look for him. We set about loading our plates up with the amazing selection that had been described to us, but sadly the reality just did not match it. There didn’t seem to be that much there and some of the items that had been mentioned were just missing completely. I loaded up as best I could, with Wendy promising to crack open the crab leg I put on my plate and she was as good as her word, when we got back to the table:
The crab wasn’t bad, but it’s frustrating to get so little meat from such a huge thing! Wendy demonstrated how to get the meat out....
The mahi mahi was nice, but too spicy for my liking. That was a theme of the food, it was either too spicy or didn’t have enough taste to it. A case in point is the peel and eat shrimp, which I went back to get, but that was very tasteless. Was there anything good at the buffet? The Caesar salad was superb and Wendy and family told me that the mac and cheese was excellent, but to be honest, these are basics, rather than more complex dishes, so the fact that these were good isn’t that much of a testament to this restaurant.
The one thing that really did annoy me was that the fried calamari was one of the specialties that was meant to be available tonight. The first time I went up, there wasn’t even a dish out. The second and third times, I asked about it and was told “it’ll be out in the next couple of minutes”, but nothing showed up. Not good, when you’re advertising it as a speciality. I would’ve liked to have tried it, but it was not to be...
Kim did not turn out to be the greatest of servers. She was nice enough, but what sealed it for us was her dropping the plates and managing to get food on Mark’s clean top, which was new on today – for the first time ever. He was not at all happy about that. :
We had such good time with Wendy and her family. Carlee showed me all the photos and video on her camera and there were some great shots, especially of their time on the Dream. I so cannot wait to get on that! Josh asked us loads of questions about the UK, while Gabby and Michael were pretty quiet, very surprisingly. We got Kim to grab a couple of photos of us – I hope Wendy has a better photo of the group, as I was totally hidden in the shot she got on my camera!
I did go and grab some desserts, although some of the discussion at the table at the time put me off eating some of it!
Some of the other desserts on offer! Ben with some British chocolate! All of us together – clockwise from Mark: Mark, Carlee, Josh, me (slightly hidden! ), Wendy, Gabby, Michael and Ben Best buddies together!
Soon Josh, Carlee and Michael were heading off to head back out to the parks and we were left trying to deal with the check, with three on the Deluxe Dining Plan and the rest of us paying cash. I was shocked to see that adults pay $33 and children pay something like $15. I’m sorry, but for the selection on offer here, I do not think that represents good value for money. : We finally worked out who was going to pay what, but when the individual checks came out, it was so confusingly done, we had to call Kim over to explain it to us. Like I say, she wasn’t great, but of course, we ended up with having to pay an 18% gratuity, as we’d used Wendy’s Tables in Wonderland card. We both agreed that there was no way that we’d have given her that much if we’d had the option.
Cape May Cafe:
Food 7 8
Service 5 0
Atmosphere 9½ 8½
Value for money 6 6
Average score: 6.25
On the way out, we stopped to have a look at the stunning Easter cake they had, made with pixie dust apparently, which may explain the somewhat vacant look on Goofy’s face...
I got a few more photos of the much improved lobby sans pumpkin chairs...
... then we headed over to the Marketplace shop. Wendy and Ben warned us that it wasn’t good in here and that they had much less stock in here and they weren’t joking. : It was deserted in there, which was such a shame and no resort merchandise to be seen. They had spoken to a Cast Member about it and they told them that there would be more in the future, so that’s something at least.
Vinylmation figures – does anyone get this? We don’t! :
We strolled back towards our respective rooms, getting a shot of the Beach Club in the eerie night-time light on the way.
We bid farewell to each other in the elevator and headed back to our room. Unsurprisingly, given the very late hour for us, it wasn’t at all long before we were in bed and asleep.
The weather today was dry and cloudy with temperatures in the 40s in London and hot and humid, with temperatures in the high 80s in Orlando. The best thing today was seeing Wendy and her family. The worst thing today was that annoying family on our flight. The funniest thing today was dinner with Wendy and her family. Today we tried going back to the Cape May Cafe for dinner And the result was it wasn’t great. The most magical moment today was stepping off the plane and hearing the IllumiNations music.
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
About This Page: 
My normal everyday computer routine!
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Can't wait to hear more.
Holly: 
! Lovely pictures of your room.
PassPorter Guide Author
That was a real pain....
: they were British. 
This is quite a lot, as a flight each way to Orlando in Premium Economy only gave us 8,000 miles....
It's possible for unruly children to enjoy flying - locked in the overhead bin!! 
Josh turned up at the dinner table with the chocolates for us, which were in great condition, despite Wendy’s concerns about them melting in the heat. But where was Ben? He was nowhere to be seen. 
Linear Mode
