A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED - Page 35 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Thursday 10 September – part eight: a magic word on the menu
We headed up Buena Vista Street through the shops again and got a quick Photopass picture done in the heat:
Then we headed into the air conditioned wonderfulness of the Carthay Circle lounge. Now while there’s a restaurant here upstairs, where we’d be dining with Karen and Sharon later on on the World of Color package, there’s also a lounge downstairs. We discovered this on our last trip, when we came in here with Mari. As well as a very expansive range of drinks, they also do a lounge menu with various smaller items. However, I do need to say that the term “smaller” should be used a bit more loosely here, as you’ll see when I get to photos of the food…
Anyway, we first grabbed some water and Diet Coke, as we were both feeling pretty dehydrated, only having had one bottle of water between us all morning so far, then we perused the menu, eventually deciding to share two things. The first were the lobster pad thai imperial sushi rolls with cashew tamarind sauce, and these were superb. We both absolutely loved these, although Mark was more keen on the sauce than I was, as it was a little spicy for my taste.
Next we had the Togarashi seared Skuna Bay salmon sushi roll with marinated hijiki, Thai basil and pickled lotus roll. I will confess to not having heard of half the ingredients, but it sounded interesting. This one had more spice to it, and neither of us were keen on it. It just didn’t have the wonderful delicate flavouring of the lobster rolls, which we both immediately declared to be our winners.
Now I thought both dishes were pretty large, and would be a big meal for one person. They suited us fine, as we shared. The prices weren’t cheap either, coming in at $19 and $18 respectively, but then again, this equally was high quality food.
For dessert, I knew what I wanted immediately, as I’d seen a magic word on the menu. Mark asked me if that word was “free”. No dear, it was “macaron”. We both ended up having the sampling of ice cream macaron sandwiches, made up of salted caramel, pistachio, and raspberry. Oh my goodness, I was in absolute heaven with these. Every mouthful was just pure delight.
I liked them so much that I asked if they were on the dessert menu for dinner upstairs, and was really upset when I was told However, our server did tell us that if we were told no, to push it, as they could take them upstairs if needed. Good to know…
It’s also worth saying here that we were going to share this dessert, but the second it turned up, and Mark saw me start to devour mine, he knew he wouldn’t get a look in, so he ordered his own. However, that meant he had to eat them, while I stared very doe eyed at him, in the hope of maybe getting a morsel or two. By the way, I did get an extra bite of macaron sandwich, so it was worth it!
Carthay Circle lounge:
Appetiser 1 10 10
Appetiser 2 8 9
Dessert 10 10
Service 7½ 8
Atmosphere 9 9
Value for money 8½ 8½
Average score: 8.96
Now we were due to be meeting Karen and Sharon here, but there was no sign of them by the time we were done eating, so we got the check and headed out. It didn’t help that our cell phone didn’t get a signal inside the lounge at all, which was a bit of a pain. Once again, it was roasting outside, but at least we’d had the chance to eat, drink, and cool down for an hour and a half.
We walked along Hollywood Boulevard, and I got some photos as we went:
… and we also got some more Photopass pictures done:
There were a lot of Photopass photographers out on this trip, which I was very glad to see. I think the Photopass package we got for Disneyland proved to be excellent value.
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We popped into the Carthay Circle lounge but thought it didn't have much atmosphere so we ate upstairs in the restaurant instead (love those "biscuits" with martinis), but now that I see your meal, I think we're going to have to give it another try. Yum!!
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We popped into the Carthay Circle lounge but thought it didn't have much atmosphere so we ate upstairs in the restaurant instead (love those "biscuits" with martinis), but now that I see your meal, I think we're going to have to give it another try. Yum!!
I think, in total, we've eaten downstairs three times now on our various trips and I almost prefer it to upstairs. You get great food, but in a really nice relaxed atmosphere.
Some great PP photos in DL today! Too bad it was way too hot to meet up with your donkey boy! Those A/C'd shops have certainly come in handy on this trip!
Carthay Lounge looks like a winner and the sushi choices you made must have been so good as they look that way to me!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Funny, in your tease about the magic word I immediately thought macaroon, but then when you were having sushi I thought I might be wrong. Ice cream sandwich macaroons sound especially yummy with that heat!
Oh yes!!! Weren't those macaroons downright delicious?! We had those too. Oh my, totally worth it. We had a great time in that lounge.
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Tanya
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The macaroons looked so good and I don't need to ask whether you appreciated them!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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No dear, it was “macaron”. 
However, our server did tell us that if we were told no, to push it, as they could take them upstairs if needed. Good to know… 
Once again, it was roasting outside, but at least we’d had the chance to eat, drink, and cool down for an hour and a half. 
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Pixie Dust
Too bad it was way too hot to meet up with your donkey boy! 
Those A/C'd shops have certainly come in handy on this trip! 
We had those too. Oh my, totally worth it. We had a great time in that lounge. 
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
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