A 40th celebration to end the world! THREAD 1 COMPLETED 2/16 - Page 33 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 don't know if it is just on my computer but some of the Epcot and Cars pics are intermingled....doesn't bother me...I love them all!
Glad you had a great photo pass photog....those pics are really capture you and Mark! Hoping lacking service doesn't also include lacking food at dinner....
Danielle
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~Shoot for the moon, if you miss, you will land among the stars~
The cars themed area of AOA is very well done. It's a little too busy for me, though. I was wondering about the outside balconies, too. I thought it was rather eerie before when the place was abandoned in midconstruction. It's good to see it finished.
Liz
Finally caught up again. Love all the details in your photos.
I think the difference with the AOA walkways/balconies is that at the AllStar resorts those face outward whereas AOA they must face inward, since the photos are of just the windows which have to be the back of rooms. Just an idea.
A confession - I've never used photopass . 2 trips ago I wanted to wait until I wasn't as big as ... well, not as big. Then we gave it a shot last trip and I suppose we got a bad egg? This took for-ev-er! The photographer had to adjust the camera, move us around, look for something in her pockets, chat up the other photographer ... we decided our time was better spent elsewhere. This must have been an anomoly since ya'll seem to manage to get lots of PP pics.
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Not sure why, but the Cars section doesn't seem so ....er....over the top in the sensory assault. Maybe because the colors of the dessert are more muted than the Nemo section?
When I first saw Mark's chef hat, I thought the photopass photog you raved about even had props! But then I realized it was from the Mark Collection (or he ran off with it?!)!
I know I'm late to the party .... Can't believe you so far through your trip report! I haven't even organised my photos yet!!!!
Well in fairness, I was organising my photos as I went along and uploading them most days and I had the first few instalments of the trip report finished during the trip itself, so I could get going pretty quickly...
Another great update Cheryl It was wonderful meeting up with you and Mark if only for a few brief minutes! I'm hoping that we'll be able to meet up again on a future trip
I hope we can too. Next dates should hopefully be the beginning of November, then sometime in December 2014...
Love all the AOA pics! I wonder if their prices will level off to be the same as the other values??....
I'm guessing that won't happen for a while, as it's new and exciting and presumably there's going to be more demand from people to stay there, so Disney can get away with charging more to stay there.
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The cars themed area of AOA is very well done. It's a little too busy for me, though. I was wondering about the outside balconies, too. I thought it was rather eerie before when the place was abandoned in midconstruction. It's good to see it finished.
Liz
It was eerie. I always wanted to actually go over and explore it when it was abandoned. I remember someone did that and posted the video on YouTube and that was fascinating to watch.
I think the difference with the AOA walkways/balconies is that at the AllStar resorts those face outward whereas AOA they must face inward, since the photos are of just the windows which have to be the back of rooms. Just an idea.
You could be right there.
Quote:
A confession - I've never used photopass . 2 trips ago I wanted to wait until I wasn't as big as ... well, not as big. Then we gave it a shot last trip and I suppose we got a bad egg? This took for-ev-er! The photographer had to adjust the camera, move us around, look for something in her pockets, chat up the other photographer ... we decided our time was better spent elsewhere. This must have been an anomoly since ya'll seem to manage to get lots of PP pics.
I'd give it another go. Sometimes you do get fussy Photopass photographers, although usually that means that you'll get a really good result from them. Usually they're fine and I find them quite quick and easy to do.
Not sure why, but the Cars section doesn't seem so ....er....over the top in the sensory assault. Maybe because the colors of the dessert are more muted than the Nemo section?
I think that could be one reason, because I thought the same thing.
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When I first saw Mark's chef hat, I thought the photopass photog you raved about even had props! But then I realized it was from the Mark Collection (or he ran off with it?!)!
it's from the Mark Collection (love that! ) It came from Disneyland Paris, although we did see the hat elsewhere. I can't remember if we saw it at Disney World, but we found it on the Fantasy. I wish they'd keep unique things for each location....
Friday 7 December – part nine: we got the short straw for service
When we were seated at Chefs de France, we just sat there like lemons for about another 10 minutes before we even met our server, Harry. It wasn’t a good start to the meal. Harry seemed nice enough, but as we were to find out as the meal wore on, he wasn’t particularly good at his job. I can’t even tell you how long we waited for water to be brought to the table, but I’m guessing it was a good 20 minutes from when we sat down.
Marta turned round to the people next to us, who had to ask for their glasses of wine (Harry said “I thought you wanted them with your entrée”!) and said that we’d got the short straw for service, and she was right.
I was interested in the scallops and shrimp dish, but the sauce came with bacon, so I asked if it was possible to leave that out. He told me he didn’t think so, but he’d check. When he came back to the table, I had to ask again, and he just told me, as he thought, it wasn’t possible, and I got the distinct impression he hadn’t even bothered asking.
For appetiser, both Mark and I went for the salade de crabe et crevette, sauce cocktail, or crabmeat salad, with shrimp cocktail on a bed of cucumber, and tomato. The crabmeat was beautiful, and there was so much of it, but somehow it just didn’t gel quite right with the flavours of the shrimp, which was a shame, as it spoilt an otherwise perfect dish.
Bruce ended up with the French onion soup, although he’d ordered the lobster bisque, so things really were not going well with the service.
At least we all got the right main course. Deprived of the shrimp and scallop option, I went for the lasagnes de legumes du soleil a l’huile d’olive au thym, or zucchini, eggplant, bell peppers, onion and tomato baked into layers of pasta. I was disappointed with their fish choices, as I couldn’t bring myself to have broiled salmon with mash ( seriously) but this was pretty good.
Mark had the demi poulet fermier roti, Pommes rissolees e broccoli, or half of an all natural roasted chicken, rissole potatoes, and broccoli, which he really enjoyed.
For dessert, I went for the gelato, which came with one scoop of passion fruit, peach, and pineapple. I had to say to the peach, as it’s one of my allergies, but the other two were very nice, and it was a lovely end to the meal.
Mark had the crème brulee, which he thought was nice, but it was nothing special.
When it came to the checks, Bruce asked to see a manager, as he and Marta were using Tables in Wonderland, which comes with an automatic gratuity. The manager did that, but he didn’t ask why, which isn’t a good sign. As Bruce said, either he doesn’t care, or they know there’s a problem with Harry and don’t want to do anything about it.
It was a very loud meal. If we thought Via Napoli was loud, my goodness, we hadn’t heard anything. The place was absolutely packed, and I couldn’t help but think I would’ve much preferred Bistro de Paris for a nice quiet meal.
Our bill came to $106, which is interesting, as it was about the same price as lunch at Via Napoli, which just goes to show how expensive Via Napoli is. All in all, it had been a good meal, with some great food, but just some truly appalling service which spoilt the evening. As a result of the slow service, we missed IllumiNations, which annoyed me, as I’d deliberately programmed this so we’d be done in time, and I’m sorry, but I do think that two and a quarter hours should be plenty long enough for a meal like this…
Chefs de France:
Appetizer 9 9
Entrée 8½ 9
Dessert 9 8
Service 4 3
Atmosphere 7 7
Value for money 8½ 8
Average score: 7.50
We headed back through France, getting a couple of photos on the way….
… then we said goodbye to Bruce and Marta and made our way over to the Beach Club, getting a couple of final shots.
It had been a very long day, and thoroughly exhausting, as many days at Disney are, but it had also been a lot of fun.
The weather today was cool and misty in the morning, but hot with temperatures in the 80s in the afternoon. The best thing today was The worst thing today was the service at Chefs de France. The funniest thing today was the joke Segway photo we got and Sarah and Ed’s great interaction! Today we tried doing the new Segway tour And the result was I really enjoyed it, and it’s very different to the previous version. The most magical moment today was
Next: “are there electric fences and are the animals trained?”
The photos that show the buildings with just windows on the back are showing the back sides of the buildings. The front sides of the buildings are just like any other value resort. So no--there are no balconies at AOA.
Oh my goodness--your meal at Chef's sounds like my last meal at Bistro. I'm so sorry you had such service issues. Getting the wrong food is not okay, getting subpar service is not okay. I would have had a fit!
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. 2 trips ago I wanted to wait until I wasn't as big as ... well, not as big. Then we gave it a shot last trip and I suppose we got a bad egg? This took for-ev-er! The photographer had to adjust the camera, move us around, look for something in her pockets, chat up the other photographer ... we decided our time was better spent elsewhere. This must have been an anomoly since ya'll seem to manage to get lots of PP pics.
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Next dates should hopefully be the beginning of November, then sometime in December 2014... 
) It came from Disneyland Paris, although we did see the hat elsewhere. I can't remember if we saw it at Disney World, but we found it on the Fantasy. 
Harry seemed nice enough, but as we were to find out as the meal wore on, he wasn’t particularly good at his job. I can’t even tell you how long we waited for water to be brought to the table, but I’m guessing it was a good 20 minutes from when we sat down. 
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