Don't Stop - part one of Disney trip COMPLETED - Page 31 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 Contempo Cafe, though I would probably have preferred the french toast or a breakfast croissant. I have been very pleased with the food there.
And Woohoo! Wendy and Ben have arrived!
I loved my visit to Sanaa. The chef there (he came out to discuss food sensitivities with one of our group) was a real gem. We enjoyed talking to him, and he was very helpful.
Love the bathroom pics, Mark! Yep, that's one fancy Loo, isn't it?
The Hilton looks very, very nice! Glad you were finally able to get the rental. It was so nice to see photos of again. I love Kidani Village, even if it looks like a prison!
Saturday 12 December – part two: that is one strong cocktail!
We then met up with Wendy and Ben and headed back to the lobby.
We then explored the resort a bit more, finding a neat overlook to watch the giraffes grazing. I got a couple of fun presents from Wendy and Ben, including a cuddly little cow from Indiana, which of course I loved and Mark hated.
It was soon time for our Sanaa ADR, so we headed that way and checked in and waited a couple of minutes before our buzzer went off. We were led to a window seat, which I was secretly hoping that we would get. We had Drew as our server and he was very knowledgeable about everything at Sanaa and very helpful. I couldn’t fault him at all. :
It took us a while to order our food, as we were sitting there, laughing and joking. In fact, we had been doing that ever since we got in the car together. Good times. As a result, it took us a while to sort out what we wanted, but Drew reassured us that if we weren’t in any rush, which we weren’t, then he wasn’t either, which was good.
Eventually we picked and all got cocktails. Ben, Wendy and I went for the Kande Coconut Clear, made up of Starr Africa rum, coconut, ice cream and orange juice and it was heavenly. Mark went for the African Starr Mojito and we all had a taste of it. Good grief, you knew about that thing, I can tell you. It’s perhaps not surprising that he said later that he lost all sense of taste after drinking it. I’m not surprised. : It was pretty mean stuff.
As we waited for our food to arrive, a group of Cast Members came through, singing carols, which was really neat.
For appetiser, Wendy and Ben had the tomato soup with Paneer cheese, while I had the salad sampler with watermelon, lime and radish, roasted beets and roasted potato, corn and spinach and all were beautiful, but unusually flavoured. Mark went for the lamb keftas with Tamarind and dried papaya sauce.
”Don’t you even think of pinching mine!” :
Wendy and I knew what we were going to have, once Drew said that he could do a dinner portion of the sustainable fish, the Atlantic char, for it’s served with seasonal vegetables in a light curry broth, but dinner comes with shrimp and scallops. Ben went for the club sandwich and Mark had the grilled pork chop with ginger and pickled lime sauce, served with warm potato and spinach salad. All of us agreed that the food was superb and Mark, whose first time it was could see why I had raved so much about this place after our visit here in May and why I wanted to bring him here.
We eventually went for the dessert, with Ben and Mark getting the rice pudding and me opting for the dessert sampler, which consisted of chocolate cake, passion fruit kulfi and chai cream. All were very good and I’m glad I got the chance to try this out. I also had a painted Lemar drink, made to resemble the striped tail of the Madagascar lemar. It had Amarula fruit cream liquer and van der Hum tangerine liquer in a chocolate striped glass. It was very nice and well worth getting.
Eventually, about two hours after we started, we literally rolled out of there after all the good and drink we had taken. What an excellent meal we had had there. I’m still just as impressed by Sanaa as I was on their first night open.
Sanaa:
Appetiser 8½ 9
Main course 10 9
Dessert 9 9
Service 10 9½
Atmosphere 9½ 9½
Value for money 9½ 9½