A 40th celebration to end the world! COMPLETED 4/23 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Cheryl, you got some beautiful sunset pictures!
Palo Brunch! The best meal of the cruise... our old 2008 cruise, anyway! Your pictures make me believe that the tradition continues on the new ships.
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Nice Formal Night photos. I would keep wearing the same dress for every cruise. I don't own any formal wear so if I had to buy something I'd be sure to get my moneys worth out of it.
I am always amazed at the talent Disney pulls in to create such wonderful shows on board. All your pictures with the characters and the Christmas tree are wonderful! Still love your dress as that color is very becoming on you.
I am always amazed at the talent Disney pulls in to create such wonderful shows on board. All your pictures with the characters and the Christmas tree are wonderful! Still love your dress as that color is very becoming on you.
Sunday 16 December – part four: a lot done instead of waiting in line…
As it was 6:00pm, we decided we’d better head to dinner, which was downstairs in the Enchanted Garden.
Here we met our other two dining companions, mother and son Anne and Cal. Apparently Anne’s husband won’t set foot on a cruise, so she gets to cruise with her son instead. They seemed very nice, and the table gelled together pretty well.
We weren’t that hungry for dinner, following our superb brunch at Palo, but as you’ll see, that really didn’t stop us.
For appetiser, we both went for the North Atlantic lobster ravioli, with roasted garlic and sweet basil scented tomato juice. I thought it was perfect, although I found the garlic in it a bit disturbing, as without realising it, I took a mouthful of that, and that really detracted from the rest of the dish, which was a shame.
I also had the spinach and raspberry salad, tender spinach tossed with fresh raspberries, toasted pine nuts, and crumbled Gorgonzola and a raspberry vinaigrette. It was very nice, but there was way too much spinach, compared to everything else. I ended up with a plateful of the stuff after I’d finished my raspberries, and cheese, which was a shame, as the flavours blended nicely together, and I didn’t want to have just the spinach on its own.
For entrée, I went for the vegetarian options, as the sea scallops were in a veal juice and although I loved the idea of the sea bass, the fact it came in a sweet chili sauce and with fava beans, which I can’t stand, put me off completely. I ended up with the pearl barley cakes with shallots, leeks and rosemary, over sautéed Julienne of carrots, root celery, and leeks with a light saffron sauce. As you can probably tell by the look of the dish, it was very dry. I was really disappointed with this and only had a few mouthfuls.
Naya asked if I wanted something else, and I thought I’d try the cream of asparagus soup with crabmeat and asparagus tips. This was nice enough, but where the crabmeat and asparagus tips were, goodness only knows, as I couldn’t find them at all.
Mark had the slow roasted prime rib, with thyme roasted vegetables, double-baked potato topped with horseradish and natural jus, which he described as one of the best prime ribs he’d ever had, which is good.
It was around this point we noticed the lights opening up, which we hadn’t seen on the Dream, so that was neat to see.
I found the dessert menu a bit disappointing. I really wanted the “Sacher” chocolate torte, but it came with apricot sauce, which Naya told me was poured over it, so as I’m allergic to apricot, that wasn’t going to be an option for me. Instead, I opted for the passion fruit curd tart, topped with vanilla infused meringue, and orange candy sauce. I have to say, from the description, I really wasn’t holding out much hope. Every time I get anything that has passion fruit in it at Disney, it seems to be a disaster, but my goodness, what a pleasant surprise this was! I was amazed at how light it tasted, and it was just beautiful. A perfect way to round off the meal.
Mark went for the tropical fruit puff tart, a puff pastry case filled with pastry cream and no sugar added vanilla yoghurt ice cream, which he really enjoyed.
Despite my appalling main course, and the lack of entrée choices for me, it had still been a good meal.
On the way out, I got some shots of the restaurant:
I love these tables and one day I’d love to be seated here!
Naya even got a photo of the two of us:
When we came out of dinner, we headed back upstairs, and got in line to see Captain Tom, who was quite chatty.
The line for the stairs shot looked insane, so we headed upstairs, and saw Captain Mickey was out. We chatted to the handler, who said that Donald would be out next, and he’d start the line in about five minutes. As we were right by the future cruise sales desk, we went to discuss our next cruise with them. I made it clear I wanted a place setter, as the summer 2014 itinerary wasn’t out yet, and I’m hoping for more Med itineraries. The girl said that we could change the cruise as many times as we liked, which was good to hear. We booked a 4D category stateroom on the Fantasy for 30 August 2014, with the deposit charged to our room, so we were good to go. As a footnote, we successfully changed our booking to the second sailing out of Venice in summer 2014
By now, the character handler had let us know that the line for Donald had started, so Mark got in line, while I finished off with the future cruise sales desk. He also got some shots while he was waiting:
After I joined him, I noticed Daisy appeared to be out, so I popped over to see her. The Cast Member didn’t get the greatest shot of us, but you get the idea…
Donald was so much fun – he looked lovely in his tuxedo, and I told him he looked smarter than Mickey, and he loved that! We both got individual photos done with him, then a joint photo…
Earlier, we’d noticed that Jessica and Alex had got in line for a photo on the stairs, which always seemed to have insane lines. During the time they were waiting, we’d got all of the above done from booking the cruise onwards.
The Enchanted Garden looks fun. Those individual round booths do look like a nice place to enjoy the meal... which looked good enough to eat!! That spinach and raspberry salad... well, I me some raspberries!! The prime rib must have been wonderful for Mark to give it such a good review!
Yay, Donald!!! Great photos with #1!!
Bummer your choices from dinner weren't the best. At least dessert was better.
Yes, apricot is the usual filling for Sacher torte, but I'm not a fan of apricot. I make little Sacher torte cookies every Christmas and use raspberry instead. Disney should try that! It's not traditional, but it's yummy!!
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I was amazed at how light it tasted, and it was just beautiful. A perfect way to round off the meal. 
That spinach and raspberry salad... well, I 
me some raspberries!! The prime rib must have been wonderful for Mark to give it such a good review!
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