Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - Page 89 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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That Spa treatment sounds wonderful. I always say that I am going to try it some time. The tired legs one and the hand and foot parrafin wax sound like a good way to start. Great pictures and sounds like a great day
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Aug,1978- LBV;Apr,1987-Disneyland;March,1993-offsite;Jan,1997-offsite;Aug,1999- CBR;Sept,2000- ASMo;Aug,2001- ASSP;Aug,2002- ASMU/AKL;Jan & July 2003-POR;June,December 2004- PC;January 2005- ASMU; Aug 2005-PC;Dec 2005-AKL;Jan 2006-CBR ; July/Aug-Saratoga springs; Dec. PC;April 2007- Disneyland;Aug 2007-Disneyland & So Cal;Dec 2007-POFQ; Aug2008-POFQ & Nov 2008 PC,Y&B May 2009 ASmu, June 2009 PC ; Nov 2009 WL & POFQ;Jan 2010 BW & WL; June 2010 POFQ ; Aug 2010 Poly ;Oct 2010 WL; Jan 2011 PC
Your spa treatment sounds lovely. The pictures of the Royal Plaza were nice. It's always interesting to see a non Disney Hotel. Marks pictures of the Kennedy Space Center are very nice. It's been years since we were there, so it's nice to see how it's changed.
Liz
What a wonderful day, glad that Mark and the boys had a good time at Kennedy Space Center and you and Sharon seemed to have a very relaxing time at the spa. I totally think that if I ever make it to the spa the tired legs and feet massage would be right up my alley. It has been on the top of my list for awhile (along with the head and neck massage).
Monday 11 April – part four: sightings out on the savannah
We headed into the Zawadi Marketplace as soon as we got there. We just love this shop, but I’m sorry, why the heck do they have so much Animal Kingdom Lodge and DVC merchandise here? Where is a similar selection at the Beach Club? Do they think that people won’t buy Beach Club stuff? Sorry – rant over, but it is a bit of a joke, not having anything from our favourite resort in our resort shop.
When we came out of there, we quickly found Sean, Sharon and Ciaran and headed down to the savannah outlook at the back. My goodness, it’s been a while since I’ve seen this variety of animals out there.... it was like rush hour out there!
We then took them round to the other savannah overlook by the pool, getting a few photos on the way.
Of course, if one savannah is busy, you can pretty much guarantee that the other one isn’t and so it proved to be. There was very little happening out there...
We wandered back to Boma and arrived just as a text came in from Heather, asking where we were.
We were seated within a couple of minutes and off we went to the buffet, although I was quicker off the mark than anyone and had loaded up twice, before Mark even got up!
The soups had changed around, which was a disappointment to me, as I have my favourites, but despite my scepticism, the peanut soup was exceptionally good. I wasn’t so convinced about the seafood gumbo, as I felt it lacked taste.
I then headed for the main course items, getting some salmon, my beloved fufu and kool slaai, along with some couscous with fruit and nuts (not the greatest) and some other couscous with shrimp (much better).
I then went for the dessert, while I still had room and I’m pleased to report that the zebra domes are back to their usual high standard. The last time we came, I didn’t enjoy them nearly enough and I suspect they’d cut back on the alcohol. I also tried the Kenyan coffee cake they had out (very good), the cinnamon chocolate mousse (nothing special) and the passion fruit panna cotta (light and lovely).
Finally, I went back for a bit more fufu and kool slaai to round my evening off.
I have to say something here about the wine. I asked to try a sweet rose wine and really liked it. I did this before starting to eat anything. When I got the half bottle I’d ordered, I’d started to eat and I thought it tasted a lot drier. I figured it was because I was eating, as we all know this can happen. That was disappointing, but I just lived with it. When the bill showed up, they’d charged us $21 for the half bottle and I knew the dessert wine was $19, so we queried it and sure enough, I’d been served the wrong wine and it was taken off the bill. The trooper that I am, I’d drunk most of it, but in all honesty, I hadn’t enjoyed it that much. I really wish I’d said something about it, but as I say, I assumed that eating had changed the taste of it. Obviously not...
After stuffing ourselves completely, we settled up the bill with Jamal, who hadn’t been a bad server. I have to be honest, so far this trip, we’ve found very few outstanding servers. We’ve had some bad ones and some OK ones, but not lots of great ones, which is a shame.
Boma:
Food 9½ 9½
Service 8 9
Atmosphere 9 9½
Value for money 9½ 9½
Average score: 9.19
We decided to go and have another look out on the savannah with Sean and Ciaran, while Sharon went and had a look in the shop. This time, we had zebra and giraffe right up close, so I got some night-time shots of them, before we all said our goodbyes and headed our separate ways.
As Mark and I wandered back towards the Animal Kingdom Lodge, we couldn’t help but think how much we love this place. This has very much become home number two for us and we do love it here. It’s just a shame, but perfectly understandable, how far it is away from everything...
We headed back to the car and back to the room and did the last of our packing, as we’d be making the first of many moves around property in the morning, over to the Villas at Wilderness Lodge.
However, it wasn’t all plain sailing, once we got to bed. We think it was upstairs who decided to have a Jacuzzi bath at 11.30pm, waking us both up in the process! We could clearly hear all the water in the pipes and the sounds of kids shouting and screaming, with the water going on and off and on and off loads of times. Thankfully, eventually we both got back off to sleep again.
The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the 90s. The best thing today was my spa treatment and another great meal at Boma. The worst thing today was saying goodbye to my best friend and her family.
[b]The funniest thing today was Today I tried the paraffin treatment at the Grand Floridian And the result was I loved it so much, I got one for my feet as well! The most magical moment today was getting the T-shirt I wanted, thanks to some great Disney customer service.
[b]Next: I bet Disney’s horticultural team love him!
That was a truly good meal wasn't it! I remember laughing that you went for dessert in the middle of your dinner--in fact I'm not entirely sure that your photos are in the right order--I thought you had dessert right after soups!
That was a truly good meal wasn't it! I remember laughing that you went for dessert in the middle of your dinner--in fact I'm not entirely sure that your photos are in the right order--I thought you had dessert right after soups!
Honestly, those are the order they appeared in on my camera, so I assume that's the order I must have eaten my food in!
And aww, you posted early--I probably should go to bed, but considering the stress of my day--I'm going to have another glass of wine before I call it quits for the night.
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Love your photos of AKL and Boma - I had breakfast there 2 years ago and loved the atmosphere; but you are right it is a bit of a shame it is so far away from everything else!
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Great pictures from around GF and the Kennedy Space Center! 
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Claytrgtshooter (Minnie Lor's Hubbie)
PassPorter Guide Author
There was very little happening out there... 
We could clearly hear all the water in the pipes and the sounds of kids shouting and screaming, with the water going on and off and on and off loads of times. 
Thankfully, eventually we both got back off to sleep again. 
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