Dreaming of a Disney spring break - part three COMPLETED - Page 19 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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 agree with the amount of people running into each other is staggering (no pun intended). I made the comment last trip that perhaps I had forgotten to pay my Visibility Bill prior to leaving on vakay and that was the reason I was getting trampled - no one could see me! Add the heat you experienced on your trip and I would have been one Crabby Person!
I think probably in fairness I was getting pretty crabby at times in between people and the heat!
I really chuckled about the komodo dragon..."flopped down" really describes that last pic! I don't think I've ever seen a true flop like that!
I, too, have to chime in about manners. I really believe it's all down to parenting. As my BFF and I say all the time, many parents should never have become parents in the first place. Having kids is a commitment, and it's a full time commitment. Sure, you can take some time off when it's appropriate, but some times you just can't take time off. I have two kids, one of whom is special needs, and it's exhausting, but I chose to bring them into this world, and I want them to add enjoyment to the world, not annoyance! I'm in it for the long haul. When I 'm dead and gone, I want them to still reflect my attempts to teach them manners, and hope that they've done the same with their kids!
Kids are always the parents' responsibility, you can't just choose to take a break when you feel like it. Inconsiderate adults today...what in the world do you think they're teaching to the kids of tomorrow? It's sad that we see examples of this all the time (see Cam's latest update about the bathroom kids, lol!).
Okay, sorry, I'll get off my soapbox now!
I think it's a good point well made. You'll probably get a flavour of our views on this issue a little later in this trip report, when we had an issue with some poor behaviour from a child and we were discussing the same thing as you're saying here. I seem to recall some of that discussion made it into the finished report...
Great pictures from the Nemo show!! I agree that the rudeness of people has increased and I'm not sure why. But I'm Little Miss Manners and always love to correct people when they don't say "Excuse Me" or "Thank You"
Love your pictures of the Nemo show! I thought it was such a well done and beautiful show and my son just loved it. I had a good laugh at the Komodo Dragon, it looks like he just said forget it and plopped down. LOL
I agree about the whole manners issue, we have found that a lot on our last few trips. I know that people leave their brains in the trunk of the car back at home when they are there but really - pay attention to what is around you!!! Incredible how many people cut us off because we are being careful not to hit anyone with our sons wheelchair. They seem to think that it gives them permission to just go around us and who cares if we are trying to get through. No amount of excuse me's or watch out's when the practically trip over him and his chair will matter. After so many days you just have to give up and push your way through and then you have someone who is aware and kindly clears a path for you and it reminds you that manners and politeness are still out there. So all we do is keep being polite and hopefully it spreads to our children and then their children and so on and the universe will somehow right itself.
Anywho.....lol I certainly hope the your experience at R&C went well, ours was a little lack luster.... good food but not great, not so great service but someday we will give it another try. Looking forward to reading about your experience there. Keep it coming.
I agree with you about the rude people lately We experienced a lot of that type of behavior in January. Glad you enjoyed the Finding Nemo show so much. I'm going to put that one on my list for August since I haven't seen it in some time It will be a cool respite from the heat I'm sure plus my DD hasn't seen it yet! Can't wait to hear about your experience at Rose N Crown!
We have seen Finding Nemo: The Musical three times now. The first was way up in the stands. We liked it, but didn't see a need to rush back. The next two times we were seated up front and from that vantage it is an incredible show with remarkable singers/actors/puppeteers. Beautiful pictures along the Maharajah Jungle Trek! All your PP pics are terrific!
Great pictures from the Nemo show!! I agree that the rudeness of people has increased and I'm not sure why. But I'm Little Miss Manners and always love to correct people when they don't say "Excuse Me" or "Thank You"
Tuesday 19 April – part three: is it third time lucky for the Rose and Crown?
We got back to the car and drove over to the Beach Club, parked up and headed to Epcot, but saw a family take a different route around the back of the Beach Club Villas. I thought we’d follow them. Ok, well that wasn’t a shorter route after all. : We’ll stick to the traditional route now.
We walked into Epcot and checked in at the Rose and Crown. It was still before 12.00pm, so we had a bit of a wait yet, so we found nice comfy chairs in one of the shops and settled down there to wait.
We were paged just after 12.00pm and we were seated inside just as we had requested, as it was far too hot for us out. I was so glad to be in there, as we have never eaten inside and the detail is quite something.
For appetiser, I went for the Mary and the Lads, a roasted shrimp cocktail with a spicy Bloody Mary mix. The shrimps were very tasty, but not nearly enough sauce... well that was until Mark pointed out a small tub of sauce that I hadn’t seen. I tasted some, but to be honest, I wouldn’t have eaten much of it anyway, as it was too hot for me.
Mark got the scotch egg (golden fried hard boiled wrapped in sausage meat with mustard sauce) and enjoyed it.
For entree, I went for the vegetarian shepherd’s pie (creamy mushroom-vegetable ragout topped with mashed potatoes and cheddar, served with mixed greens and roasted Portobello mushrooms). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as usually when I have had this in the past, it’s been a meat substitute. I saw the chef, as I’m allergic to Quorn, one of the meat substitutes you can get and he told me that it had vegetables in it. OK, this could be interesting... it was filled with mushrooms, which were full of beautiful flavours, although there was just too much of it. It was exceptionally good and I was very impressed by it.
Mark had the Sunday roast, which was roast beef, with Yorkshire pudding, roasted potatoes, seasonal vegetables and shallot gravy, but he described the meat as being more like prime rib.
For dessert, he went for the sticky toffee pudding, which is a real classic English dish.
I had the chocolate scotch cake with chocolate filling and scotch ganache served with crème anglais and that was very good, although again there was no way I could finish it.
All in all, the food here was very good, much better than we’ve had previously and we were pleasantly surprised. The service was pretty good too. We had an Irish girl called Amy, but she had forgotten her name tag, so today she was Suzanne from Devon, in the southwest of England. Just a bit of difference there... I thought she did very well, given that she had a lot of tables to deal with, including a table of nine next to us.
Rose and Crown:
Appetiser 7½ 8½
Entree 9 8½
Dessert 8½ 9
Service 9 8½
Atmosphere 9 9
Value for money 8½ 9
Average score: 8.67
We headed out of the park and back to the car at the Beach Club, seeing some quick maintenance on the way:
The main aim this afternoon was to go back to Best Buy to change the GPS, which still wasn’t working. No matter what we tried with it, it wouldn’t find any address and every time you asked it to do anything, it would turn itself off.
The guys on customer services were very good, although we had quite a wait to get another one, as someone had to bring the keys to the cabinet over. The staff member with us kept asking for it and eventually we got there, but not before the staff member commented “and they wonder why we lose sales”. Quite.
We tested the thing to make sure that it worked and it did. Thank goodness, so we were all set....
The next destination was easy enough to get to, Michael’s, which was over the road. There wasn’t that much in there, although I did get some alphabets and some stickers, so it wasn’t a wasted trip, although the paper selection wasn’t as good as I’ve seen before.
We looked into going to Mouse Memories, but the GPS told us that it would take half an hour to get to and it was due to close around that time. We think that was because the guy in the shop put in any address and it was probably picking up that, rather than where we were.
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So glad your meal at Rose & Crown was better than you had before, gives me hope for our next meal there. Sorry you had to wait so long to get the new GPS but happy you have a working one now. Looking forward to more.
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