Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I'm actually wondering if the poor service stems from a whole lot of lousy tippers. When the economy is suffering people tend to tip less than they might otherwise. Just the other night I had two gentleman at the bar--one asked the other if he left a good tip, he said, of course I did. I'm not sure when 12% became a good tip, but you can get pretty burned out on superior service if you aren't being rewarded for it and you don't necessarily love your job. (I love my job)
Loved the photopass pictures, the one of you and Mark kissing with Wendy showing her thoughts on the kiss...priceless
Glad that you got to visit with Bob & Larry for a bit before splitting up for dinner. Sorry that the service at dinner was so terrible, it is always sad when the service can just ruin the meal, I hope the food made up for it somewhat.
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I wonder if people will stop taking the standard DDP if the service is bad.... I know that Disney are offering a lot of free dining promo's but that's no excuse for poor service
I have also wondered for a while if the Dining Plans do contribute to this or perhaps Tables in Wonderland, as you're guaranteed the 18% tip. I don't know what it is, but I do hope by the time we head back out there again, they've resolved everything....
Sorry about the poor service. We had very good service at Via Napoli while y'all were being abused.
I of course was wishing that we could have had the whole crew together, but after I heard about your experience, I was definitely wishing that we had all eaten together--at Via Napoli!
I wish we could've all eaten there as well! It would've been so good to have spent more time with you and to have got much better service...
I'm actually wondering if the poor service stems from a whole lot of lousy tippers. When the economy is suffering people tend to tip less than they might otherwise. Just the other night I had two gentleman at the bar--one asked the other if he left a good tip, he said, of course I did. I'm not sure when 12% became a good tip, but you can get pretty burned out on superior service if you aren't being rewarded for it and you don't necessarily love your job. (I love my job)
That's true and a good point. I hadn't thought of that.
Friday 8 April – part eight: bad service, but how’s the food?
Anyway, enough of the bad stuff, because when it comes to the really important stuff – i.e the food – La Hacienda really delivers. For appetiser, I went for the Ensalata de la Hacienda, which was spinach salad, with queso fresco, tomatoes, pomegranate, pine nuts and avocado with a mustard vinaigrette dressing. I figured it was so unusual, I’d either love it or hate it.... fortunately I loved it! It was honestly one of the best salads I’ve ever had in my life.
Mark went for Botana, a sampler of Mexican favourites, chicken tostados, Chilorio sope (marinated pork) and cheese empanada.
I didn’t hear much from him about whether he liked it, but that could have something to do with the tequila flight we shared. I wasn’t sure about it, but Mark decided to go for it. We got three tequilas to try – Partida Blanco, Don Juan Reposado and Gran Centenario Anejo. When they were brought out, we did get a long explanation about them from the woman who served them, but to be honest, she had quite a thick accent and spoke quite fast, so we were still a bit mystified.
I quickly discovered that I don’t like tequila, any of them, : so Mark was left to pretty much drink all of them. He then spent much of the meal complaining he had a headache. Can’t think why...
Meanwhile, Wendy was having fun with her appetiser:
For the main course, Mark suggested we share Del Mar, which I was delighted about, as I’d seen it on the menu outside and it looked amazing, but I hadn’t realised that it was a sharing platter for a cool $50! It was a mixed grill, with mahi mahi, shrimps, scallops and vegetables, served with beans and fresh salsa. My goodness, did it look good when it arrived.
And I can tell you that it tasted just as good as well. The fish was cooked to absolute perfection and this is probably some of the best fish that I’ve tasted in Disney for a long time. I was very impressed with the food here. The prices are here, but you don’t mind when you’re getting such high quality dishes. It was just a great shame about the service we had, as that did mar our meal somewhat.
I think our bill came to just $5 more than the Cape May Cafe the night before and the food was just in a completely different league, plus we had the tequila sampler here. I think it says something for the poor value for money on offer at the Cape May Cafe these days.
La Hacienda de San Angel:
Appetiser 10 8½
Entree 9½ 9
Atmosphere 8½ 8½
Service 4 4
Value for money 8½ 8
Average score: 7.85
During the meal, I popped outside to send Bob and Larry a text to say that we wouldn’t be watching IllumiNations in here after all and would meet up with them to see it. When we finally emerged from our meal at 8.50pm, having sat down at 7.10pm I had a message to say that they were in Germany, opposite the caramel shop, so off we set. We couldn’t believe how many people were in Epcot. In Mexico, there were people sitting on the ground about six deep. It was insane! I appreciate that it was Extra Magic Hours night, but this started to bring it home to me how busy the parks were likely to be this trip.
We hustled over to Germany as quickly as we could to find Bob and Larry and they had staked out a pretty good spot. It was so good to see these happy faces!
And this one was happy from the tequila flight:
You can get an idea from some of the photos we took of IllumiNations of just how busy Epcot was.
We wandered slowly back to the Beach Club Villas, getting lots of night-time shots on the way.
Even at 9.20pm, it was still warm and no doubt tomorrow would bring more of the same....
The weather today was very hot and sunny, with temperatures in the high 80s. The best thing today was the Segway tour. The worst thing today was the service at La Hacienda. The funniest thing today was Ben the troublemaker. Today we tried dinner at La Hacienda de San Angel And the result was the food there is absolutely superb. The most magical moment today was seeing Bob and Larry, especially as one of them wasn’t expected.
Wow, I am glad the food was much better than the service! Your main course looked great!
And your photos of World Showcase after Illuminations are lovely, I know that last year after the fireworks were over it was late and we were keen to get back to the car so didn't take the time to admire how lovely it looks at night!
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It would've been so good to have spent more time with you and to have got much better service...
I wasn’t sure about it, but Mark decided to go for it. We got three tequilas to try – Partida Blanco, Don Juan Reposado and Gran Centenario Anejo. When they were brought out, we did get a long explanation about them from the woman who served them, but to be honest, she had quite a thick accent and spoke quite fast, so we were still a bit mystified. 
: so Mark was left to pretty much drink all of them. He then spent much of the meal complaining he had a headache. Can’t think why... 
It was a mixed grill, with mahi mahi, shrimps, scallops and vegetables, served with beans and fresh salsa. My goodness, did it look good when it arrived. 
great pics of IllumiNations!
Yum!!
the cheese dip I had for the appetizer. I could have easily been satisfied with just that. 
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