National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 20 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Those spa treatments are sooo nice--DH always saves time/money for those first, then we can plan the rest of the cruise around them . Silly man.
Hope whatever it is that you are doing tomorrow is loads of fun! (and will the pictures be on this thread or another?)
The spa sounded like heaven. So peaceful, and friendly too! And as for the whale, well at least you saw something, right? Just go with whatever Mark says... sounds good to me!
He told me last night the pics I got were categorically of the whale - so there you go, I did see something!
Those spa treatments are sooo nice--DH always saves time/money for those first, then we can plan the rest of the cruise around them . Silly man.
Hope whatever it is that you are doing tomorrow is loads of fun! (and will the pictures be on this thread or another?)
If I get pics (I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, that's why I'm not saying what it is), I'll definitely post some in here. I have a few minutes here before my sickeningly early start today.
Thursday 1 September – part eight: finally a duck sighting!
We sat there for a while and eventually dragged ourselves over to Animator’s Palate. We’d had a sneak preview of the menu already, thanks to Mark’s allergy and it really hadn’t inspired us. : The rest of the table were seated by the time we arrived and we looked at our choices without much enthusiasm. Had it not been for the show, we wouldn’t have turned up at all. The late dining was starting to get to us, as we were going to bed straight after eating, which wasn’t a great way to be.
For appetiser, I went for the wild mushroom and porcini twist, served with parmigiano-reggiano, which was very good. I tried a bit of Sue’s sesame flavoured rock shrimp and caramelised onion cheesecake, which I had considered and really didn’t like it, so I made a good choice.
Mark had the ahi tuna tartare, with caviar, chives and wasabi cream.
For the soup/salad, I had the creamy butternut squash soup, which wasn’t bad, but it was very creamy and a bit sickly, so I couldn’t finish it...
Mark had the confetti tomato salad, with tomatoes, bell peppers, olives, Jerez vinegar and herb dressing.
For entree, I really could not see anything that did anything for me, so I opted for the smoked salmon and trout with goat cheese salad on baby greens, with toasted almonds and a cranberry-balsamic vinegar dressing. It was pretty good and probably the best of the three. Definitely the right choice.
Mark had the lemon-thyme marinated chicken breast on top of sour cream mashed potatoes (without the sour cream ), roasted root vegetables and grain mustard jus.
Steve ended up getting some spaghetti and meatballs, which he promptly put into his meal that he’d already ordered!
Neither of us were going for dessert, but for the first time this cruise, the selection was so good that we had to try something. I went for the strawberry sable with passion fruit cream, which was wonderful.
Mark had the buckled warm apple crumble and was also suitably impressed.
Sue and Steve opted for nothing....
As the dessert was about to come out, we were treated to the Animator’s Palate show, which is very neat, and really what we came here for, but in all honesty, we should’ve been coming here for the food as well. Tonight it just wasn’t a stunning selection, which is a great shame.
Once we were done with our food, we headed back to the atrium to get a photo with Donald in his lumberjack gear, as he looked so sweet. I had wanted to earlier, but first the line was insane and then the line had closed. Now it was third time lucky!
I also quickly got my photo taken with Goofy, who was also in Alaskan garb.
It was a great end to the night and then it was swiftly off to bed, as we had an early start in the morning... to be greeted by this:
The weather today was cold and dry, with just a bit of drizzle, with temperatures in the high 40s. The best thing today was seeing the glacier at Tracey Arm. The worst thing today was when we had the wind and rain at the start of the journey into the glacier.
[b]The funniest thing today was the hats at the character breakfast. Today we tried dining in the private room at Palo And the result was it was a wonderful experience. The most magical moment today was finally seeing a darned whale!
Oh my, you are up early! Well, I hope you have a successful day doing whatever you're doing!
As for your trip, sorry the food wasn't as good as you had hoped, but the "nothing" for dessert was just great! And the towel animal...and birthday surprise! Very cool!
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Seems like the food, apart from Palo, hasn't been inspiring on this cruise. I'm sorry to hear that and hope my experience is different. At least I have Main Dining, so won't have to deal with going to bed straight after dinner, which I imagine didn't feel so healthy!
I love your pink long-sleeve shirt and really wish Disney would do more long-sleeve polos. They'd come in very handy in Boston's climate, not to mention the Alaska cruise. I've been looking all over WDW this trip with no success.
Nothing. That's hilarious!!! I'm glad you at least enjoyed your salmon and trout. If any meal screams Alaska, that one does! Oh, and probably crab legs too....
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Just getting caught up. The spa treatments sound wonderful! Sorry the food at dinner wasn't up to par. I loved how Steve and Sue got "nothing" for dessert
It's just so sad that Disney is lacking in the food department. I understand that the food at Palo must be superb because you are paying extra for it, but does that mean they should skimp at all the othe restaurants? To me, you are still paying for that as well, since it is part of the whole cruise package, and Disney cruises aren't cheap. I felt I got better meals when I cruised with Royal Caribbean, and they are much less expensive to travel with than Disney.
When I consider the idea of cruising which is definitely on the top of our list I have often wondered about which dining seating was best...I really think I like the idea of the earlier seating. By 8 or so I am past the point of wanting dinner as well - or like in your case I am not one to enjoy relaxing and heading to bed so soon after eating.
Sorry that the menu wasn't better, but the show definitely sounds worth it.
Oh my, you are up early! Well, I hope you have a successful day doing whatever you're doing!
As for your trip, sorry the food wasn't as good as you had hoped, but the "nothing" for dessert was just great! And the towel animal...and birthday surprise! Very cool!
It was a VERY successful day - exhausting, but well worth it. I'm hoping to post a pic shortly to show you what I was doing...
Seems like the food, apart from Palo, hasn't been inspiring on this cruise. I'm sorry to hear that and hope my experience is different. At least I have Main Dining, so won't have to deal with going to bed straight after dinner, which I imagine didn't feel so healthy!
I love your pink long-sleeve shirt and really wish Disney would do more long-sleeve polos. They'd come in very handy in Boston's climate, not to mention the Alaska cruise. I've been looking all over WDW this trip with no success.
I think that's sadly probably fair comment. I think one of the main disappointments was the food this cruise. We felt so strongly about main versus late dining that we swapped our plans for the Fantasy for December 2012 from late back to main.
The polo shirt I seem to recall came from the US Disney Store many, many years ago and I find things like great for in between weather and for evenings, when it's a bit cool for a T-shirt.
It's just so sad that Disney is lacking in the food department. I understand that the food at Palo must be superb because you are paying extra for it, but does that mean they should skimp at all the othe restaurants? To me, you are still paying for that as well, since it is part of the whole cruise package, and Disney cruises aren't cheap. I felt I got better meals when I cruised with Royal Caribbean, and they are much less expensive to travel with than Disney.
That's really sad to hear, especially as you say, as it costs much more to cruise with Disney than Royal Carribean.
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Sorry to hear your dinner was uninspired. The show looked good, but for me, it is getting a little old, and while a great meal would get me there to enjoy it, a sub-par meal would not.
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and it really hadn’t inspired us. 
: The rest of the table were seated by the time we arrived and we looked at our choices without much enthusiasm. Had it not been for the show, we wouldn’t have turned up at all. The late dining was starting to get to us, as we were going to bed straight after eating, which wasn’t a great way to be. 
I'm hoping to post a pic shortly to show you what I was doing...
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