I LOVE Comedians with Guitars......You didn't tell me that part...COMPLETE 2/28/13 - Page 12 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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They handed us glasses of champagne as we walked in. I do like champagne! I am not big on wine, but champagne always tastes so good.
Carolyn and girls hadn’t arrived yet, but Brook and Mary were there. Mary’s friends didn’t come to this event.
You could bring a pink feather boa, but I didn’t, mostly because I was lacking space and the one I could’ve brought that was Claire’s just sheds something awful.
We sat and chatted a bit. We really didn’t move around the room much at all.
I ordered an amaretto sour and Lisa got a bloody Mary. I didn’t get a picture of my drink though.
Mine was darn good!
I had thought Brook took my camera and took some random pictures, but I don’t have many, so maybe she didn’t.
I went up to the bar and ordered a strawberry daiquiri and while I waited for that, I grabbed another glass of champagne …..yeah I was going to get my money’s worth in that hour. LOL
Here is my daiquiri.
And Lisa’s drink.
They had some sort of Beauties contest.
And some trivia and you would win prizes, which were magnets. I think Lisa got 1, and she gave it to me, but I think I left it there on accident. After 4 drinks I was a bit happy.
They also had a beer drinking contest. Susan went up with a couple of guys. We were laughing so hard.
She didn’t even come close to winning, but it was fun and we all had fun cheering her on.
We then went for a group picture. I have no clue how I took this picture of Lisa, because I thought she had my camera, but maybe she has Brooks and then I handed her off mine after I took this.
There is just no way to get a good group shot like this. We all kept talking and moving and being goofy. I am in the back row towards the left side.
After our hour was up, people started clearing out and many went down to the atrium to get a group shot, but we didn’t feel like going there.
I took one last shot before we left. One of the gals had a banner made for the event.
It was really a fun time, but I drank too much. I was actually surprised how well I was doing. I rarely drink anymore and I had had 4 drinks in an hours’ time. I should’ve been falling over, and at most I was just giggly.
We headed out and I made a stop in the bathroom there in Beat Street. This is a BEAUTIFUL bathroom.
After that drinking, we had to get a snack. I think I got a Panini at Goofys. I did not take a picture of it, and it really wasn’t that great. It did fill the void, but it wasn’t tasty to me. I think it was the kind I got rather than just a really bad sandwich.
Lisa got some fruit.
While eating, I looked over the back of the ship and took some pictures of the “secret” aft decks.
After our little snack we headed back to the room to get ready for the show. We also wanted to take our dose of bonine for the day.
After we were showered and dressed we headed off to the theatre. Guess who was out to greet guests?
Sadly, I took about 8 pictures and all of them are pretty blurry.
We found some seats and I took a look back to see if we saw the other girls, which we did not, but I did take a picture.
The show tonight was Twiced Charm. I was excited to see it. I had heard about it for many years and never thought I would get the opportunity to see it myself. I really enjoyed it. The costumes were AMAZING! The only downfall for me was there is that they never had a real catchy tune that you wanted to sing for the rest of the night. Other than that flaw, I loved the show. Lisa loved it too. She wished we could take pictures just because she loved the costumes so much.
After we left the show, we did some roaming. I wanted to find the door to the deck 7 secret deck.
I think this is actually the deck 8 door here.
Lisa was worried we would get in trouble for being back there, but I assured her we would be fine.
We headed down to deck 7 then.
And I opened the door and got 2 quick shots. It was a major wind tunnel when I opened that door. WOW!!
We got back to the room to find a new friend waiting for us!
And a nice little gift for being on the Galveston Maiden Voyage.
We then decided we needed some pictures of us dressed up. I took Lisa first. We kept laughing because she had some strange facial expressions.
And she wasn’t sure what to do with her arms.
Then it was my turn.
Yuck, I look too fat, make me look skinnier!
Let’s have a fun expression!
And now for sexy!
Then we laughed at that one because my hand on the bed looks totally contorted.
We then turned on the TV till it was time to go. They did have some awesome movies playing every day and we got to see bits and pieces of some of them. We started talking about the movies playing at the Buena Vista and which we would like to try and see. Lisa has always been famous for crying at Disney movies and I told her as I have gotten older, I now start to get teary eyed at them too. So I told her about Brave a bit, and I got slightly teary. Then we started talking about Toy Story 3 and I tried to tell her about the movie and the emotional part where they are all about to get burned up and I just start crying telling her it and she is getting tears in her eyes too. Then we start laughing that we can’t even talk about the movies without crying. So we blot our eyes and get ready for dinner.
We start the walk to Animators Palate and we see Aurora walk by all by herself. I took a quick shot, but it’s blurry.
Then we see Belle all by herself making her way towards us.
I was amazed that they didn’t have any type of escorts. I must say though, on the ship, people don’t tend to chase the characters down like they would at the parks if they were alone. Belle went down the stairs and we kind of hung back a few minutes so she didn’t think we were stalking her.
We made our way to Animators Palate and were directed to our seats. Mary, Julie, Erin, and Chris were already there. Brook, Carolyn, Susan, and Shelly had decided they did not feel like dressing up this night and were just going to get some fast service food and hang out. When we told Raphael and Luis this, they told us they would be sure to make those girls regret not coming.
We made our orders. It was really hard to decide. There was a fish on the menu, but no one had ever heard of it and no one ended up ordering it because we just weren’t too sure how it would be.
Again, I got some terrible shots of the menu.
Bread was served. Fig and Date Ciabatta Roll with minted yogurt dip
The show was not going to happen tonight since it was the Prince and Princess menu. I still took a few pictures of the room.
For an appetizer I got Roasted Roma Tomatoes and Herb Flavored Goat Cheese on mixed greens with aged balsamic vinegar dressing.
This was VERY good. I could’ve had a 2nd plate.
I also got The Beast's Potato and Sausage Casserole Soup, a hearty recipe with a touch of paprika.
Lisa got this too. From the description, we were expecting a potato soup. This was much more like a bean soup in taste and you had to really hunt to find anything that resembled a potato. Lisa is very picky and she was really surprised how much she liked it. I on the other hand didn’t care for it much, nor did many at our table. It was Ok, but not what we expected and I would not order it again.
Then our entrées started coming out.
Lisa got the oven baked fillet of salmon and potato. I think this one of those things on the basic every day menu.
I got the Peppercorn Crusted New York Strip.
But Raphael also brought out a few other main course dishes to try as well.
This is the fish. Baked Fillet of Turbot, Garlic smashed potatoes, sauteed fennel, and a light dill foam.
This was soooooo good. Many of us wished we had ordered it. We also sampled a few other items and they were all really good. But I was kicking myself for not getting that fish.
Soon it was time to order dessert.
Or so we thought. Raphael refused to let us order and said he was just going to bring us out something ….OK, I was worried, as I am picky with my dessert, and there was only one thing I really was eyeing on the menu.
He ended up bringing everyone out a Sweet Temptations trio. Miniature tasting of Cinderella's Lemon Cheesecake, Chilled Chocolate Souffle and Tiramisu.
Of those 3 items, I only liked the Chilled Chocolate Souffle.
I really loved that, and could’ve asked for another one, but honestly, I didn’t have much room left anyways. Chris has allergies, so she was limited to what she could eat. He brought her out a full sized one and she swore she wouldn’t like it. Well she did and not only licked the plate clean but had a second one as well. LOL.
I have never had bread pudding before, so this was new to me. I actually liked it. Not my favorite thing, but it was still pretty darn good.
He also brought out Princess Aurora Sundae. Rocky Road ice cream, topped with cookie crumbs, chocolate sauce and whipped cream.
I didn’t even try this. I don’t like chocolate ice cream nor do I like rocky road. I don’t even know if anyone had a bite. I think we just had too many other options and we were getting pretty full.
We had a fabulous time this evening. We really got to know Mary’s friends well this night. It was again like we had been old friends for a long time. We sat and talked and I think it was actually close to 10 when we left the dining room. I was pretty tired today. I think we just pretty much chilled out in the room and went to bed.
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A very fun afternoon and great dinner. I don't know how you kept going so well after 4 drinks! I'd have been back in my cabin out for the night. Great that you're all getting along so well!
Very good continuation. You did very well especially after having 4 drinks. Some blurry ones but too many. The food pix look yummy.
I was surprised i wasn't passed out after that. Evidiently the adrenaline of the trip was fighting it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lauriep
A very fun afternoon and great dinner. I don't know how you kept going so well after 4 drinks! I'd have been back in my cabin out for the night. Great that you're all getting along so well!
I normally would at home, so I was surprised too. I had fun though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What a great rest of the day!
Thanks
Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchdisneyfamily
A nice dinner! Yum!
It was a nice dinner. We had a good time chatting.
Today we woke up and decided we would do a load of laundry. Between the 2 of us we had a few items we wanted to wash and as sweaty as we had been over the past few days, it might be nice to have some extra back up clothing.
While we gathered our things I took a few pictures around the room again.
We liked to track where we were at each day.
We got our load started and headed up for a quick something to eat. We had a character breakfast today, but our rumbling stomachs were not going to make it till then.
We chatted and enjoyed the view once again. We then went back down to put the laundry in the dryer.
It was soon time to head to our character breakfast, something I did NOT want to miss.
I thought the menus were cute.
Brook, Carolyn and gang were there, but Mary and her gang did not show up. I don’t think we ever asked them why.
We weren’t seated too long and the characters had already arrived.
And Chip made a mad dash right for our table.
He was a fast devil, but we all managed to get pictures with him.
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I am leaving this afternoon to drive to my sisters and will be flying out tomorrow morning, so I will be posting my last installment till I get back on the 14th. I will be trying to post updates of this current trip on facebook, so if you would like to add me as a friend, just send me a PM and I will try and get you added.
Thanks for being patient and I'll see you all in a few weeks!
I believe this was a big highlight for Susan because I think she has a dog at home named Pluto.
We started to eat and I noticed Mickey walk by on his way out. He had already made it through the whole room, probably because he was skipping half the tables. LOL. I quick told a CM walking by that Mickey had skipped half our table and they grabbed him and brought him back to get a picture with Lisa and Carolyn.
And not long after that, Minnie arrived.
We then worked on our meals while Luis did his best to make us all look like fools with our napkin hats. He asked me if I had a preference and I told him “I want to be rich, do you got a hat for that?” And he gave me Minnie ears/bow because he said she was the richest lady he knew of.
We talked about plans for the day and I had decided I wanted to hit the 2nd animators drawing class. Lisa was going to go and get our laundry and I would meet up with her later.
I made a bathroom stop in Beat Street and I guess I really was admiring the floor.
I went into Diversions and looked for a seat. There were actually quite a few people in there. I wanted to be able to see well and the only table that was in a good spot had someone’s drawing from the class right before. I asked some others if that person was coming back and no one knew, but said she had been gone for quite a while now. They told me to just sit there and I could share the table if she came back.
She did come back eventually and seemed surprised to find me there. Then a little bit later more family members came in and she waved at them. We were at a VERY small table, so they really couldn’t join us and went to a table in the back. I kind of felt bad, but there was no way they all would’ve fit at this table even if I did move.
Our instructor was so nice. She was one of the dancers from the sail away party and she chatted a lot with us and told us how hot this weather was compared to being in NY just a week prior.
She also told us that she was NOT an artist at all. She said another girl usually does the classes and a few weeks back had gotten sick, so Disney asked her if she could draw and she promptly told them no, and they said “Great, here are some books to look at and you can teach the class will be tomorrow.” LOL! She said she really does enjoy this now and her and the other girl take turns teaching now.
If you haven’t guessed yet, we drew Pluto.
And here is my version of Pluto.
I was actually pretty proud of it, as I have no artist skills at all.
My table partner offered to take a picture of me and my masterpiece.