Dreaming of a Disney spring break! THIS SECTION COMPLETED - Page 101 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Ben and I had that same view the first time we stayed at VWL! We didn't care much for that part of it, or the walk ALL the way to the end, but it was pretty quiet as far as no one was down that way unless they had their room there. Unlike one time at BCV and we had the very last room on the first floor and people kept going in and out the door!.
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Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Hmmm... I haven't been on Journey into Imagination since 2002. We haven't bothered with it since because it was so bad. Maybe I should try it again next month, just to see if I like it better.
It's a shame that the restaurant service continues to be lackluster. At least most of your meal sounded good though. LWTL is still one of my favorites. It's almost always a walk-on and it's a nice break! Yep, Imagination is definitely not as good as the original one. Sad. Sometimes when they refurbish, they don't improve I guess.
I agree that your room view seems a little poor. But that lobby blows me away every time! You're right, at least you can check it off your list!
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Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
That poor dolphin! I loved all the pictures of the Villas at Wilderness Lodge as it took me back to our two stays in a studio here. Sorry about the lousy view!
I really like Living with the Land, just the way it is! But maybe I'm weird. I do like Figment, but I haven't been able to get my boys to ride it in ages. Maybe next month!
Tuesday 12 April – part seven: Disney’s latest signature restaurant
We got our luggage shortly afterwards and had a bit of downtime in the room, although not long, as we had an ADR at Le Cellier for 6.05pm, so we had to get moving pretty quickly.
There was no way we were going to risk Disney transportation, as we knew that we would have to allow a lot of time for that, so we drove over to the Beach Club instead and walked through from there.
Maintenance work on the monorail
We did pretty well and made it into Epcot, just before 6pm. I sent a text to Heather to tell her where we were and they were just a bit in front of us, so they stopped walking and turned round and found us quickly enough.
We checked in and were told to go and wait by the entrance.
We waited outside for a while, but then it started to rain lightly, so in we went. Brandon debated about going outside for a smoke, but when he did, Mother Nature made the decision for him. It was tipping with rain by then and he came back in pretty wet, despite only having stepped a couple of paces outside the door. It was pretty bad out there.
We waited a while to be seated and, when we were, a lot of tables were empty. Heather and Brandon explained to us that could be because they don’t have the servers to accommodate people. We got Thomas from Niagara Falls, who was a dead ringer for Michael McIntyre, a comedian from home, so every time he came to the table, I was expecting him to crack a joke! He wasn’t bad, but again, he just didn’t blow me away. : I guess with dinner having gone signature, I was expecting more than I got.
The dessert choices on our way in to be seated
The menu wasn’t bad and I debated for sometime what to have for appetiser, eventually going for the grilled jumbo asparagus gratinee with sauce Hollandaise and Canadian cheese, although without the bacon that it usually comes with.
Mark went for my second choice, the Le Cellier lobster chopped salad with mixed field greens, haricot verts, tomatoes, avocado and “Lake Meadows” egg.
I’m not sure the gratinee was a great choice. It was OK, but it just didn’t blow me away and that’s what I was hoping for. It wasn’t anything special. :
Moving on to entrees... there wasn’t much choice for me, being a non-meat eater. It was either the potato-leek and goat cheese quiche with melted leeks and truffle butter sauce or the pacific King salmon with parsnip puree, braised greens, pickled pearl onions and mustard sauce and I went for the latter.
Mark surprisingly went for the roasted free-range chicken with marble potatoes, morel mushrooms, English pea nage and roasted shallot butter, as he had had steak for lunch.
The salmon was not a good choice. It was just far too sweet and the flavours that had been put with it were overpowering. Brandon tried a bit and agreed fully. It was such a shame, as I had such high hopes for this place, especially now that it was signature.
Mark told me that his chicken wasn’t great either, as it was just far too salty and sadly that appeared to be a general problem, as Heather and Brandon both said similar things.
The food "looks" decent. How funny that the "Lake Meadows" egg looks EXACTLY like a hard boiled egg!! Who knew I was calling them by the wrong name all this time??
I scored a Le Cellier dinner ressie for this upcoming trip at 7 days out. It just took me a couple of days to decide to cancel it because of all the reviews of it being so salty now. And the 8:35pm dine time was not what I wanted, so I set free back into the system.
What a dissapointing meal! They certainly didn't think out the change to signature restaurant very well. The food seems to have gotten worse, and the service as well.
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I loved all the pictures of the Villas at Wilderness Lodge as it took me back to our two stays in a studio here. Sorry about the lousy view!
I do like Figment, but I haven't been able to get my boys to ride it in ages. Maybe next month! 
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: I guess with dinner having gone signature, I was expecting more than I got. 
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