A Festival, Flowers, Friends, & The Fab Four - Adventures both old & new - UPDATED 4/25 - Page 23 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Originally Posted by mom to 3 princesses and 1 prince
I'm glad you told us about having to hide your alcohol while you had your picture taken with SW. I would have totally been like, "Those two look awfully suspicious! What are they hiding back there?"
Hurry back with your Coral Reef report, please! We'll be there on 5/1 and I am really hoping to hear good things!
actually we're not holding anything. They made Andy put his cup down to the side before he even walked up there. I guess they don't want you spilling your booze all over Snow White making her smell like an alky....
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What's the deal with the cruise ticker in you sig??? Hmmmm . . . . I don't think I know anything about that!
Yes yes!! That's what we're doing with the money ole Pres. Bush is giving us. It's my money and I want it now! (have you seen that annoying commercial??) Anyway, that money combined with my teaching supplement I get in June totally pays for the cruise! We just booked yesterday. We're doing the 3-night Wonder cruise (the 4 night didn't work with our time off)... It departs on Nov. 23 a day after our 5th wedding anniversary It'll be our first cruise ever and we are sooooo excited!!!!!
Okay, so let's get this straight - March with Friends, August for late bday trip, November on Cruise, and December with T&K!!!! OMG. Talk about getting your money's worth of AP benefits!! LOL. That should be fun. Now on with the updates!!
That Snow White topiary totally reminds me of that old Scooby Doo episode where Scooby keeps referring to a zombie as "no face, no face!!" Hysterical! more more more!!!
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After Club Cool we walked over to the Seas and checked in for our Coral Reef meal. Andy and I have eaten here twice, once for dinner on our honeymoon, and once for lunch a couple years ago. Both times we really enjoyed our meal and I thought the aquarium setting would be cool for Audrey to see since she enjoys Nemo so much. We weren't blessed with a table beside the tank but we did have a nice big half booth facing the tank. Which was nice, especially nice b/c Kevin and Lori could trap Audrey between them with no escape Although she did manage to turn around, lean over, and produce packets of Sweet and Low. A few minutes later she comes up with the whole little black container that holds the Sweet and Low. Kevin finally turned around to see where she was getting it from and apparently there's a little area between the side by side booths with that sort of stuff on it and she had found it. So he finally moved everything out of her reach.
A shot of us at the table. This place has sentimental value to us b/c it was the first "meal" we sat down to eat as a married couple. The wedding reception didn't count b/c it was a finger food buffet thing that we barely got to eat at and then we didn't eat again the next day until we got to WDW and at the Coral Reef
The view from our table..
Andy and I shared the lobster bisque which was fabulous as it has always been. I enjoy the creaminess of it and there were some nice hunks of lobster meat in there. And the bread that they bring out is soooo tasty and wonderful for dipping in the soup
We also shared the blackened catfish with pepperjack grits and balsamic glaze which is my favorite thing there! Spicy and sweet, and those grits.....man I'm hungry now. Andy and I also ordered the draft beer that was special to the restaurant but I can't remember the name of it now. We ordered the smaller size but they made a mistake and brought us the bigger glasses at no extra charge....but we were nowhere near able to finish them.... what a shame I know...
I do always feel a little weird eating here.... I mean the brother to what's on my plate could be swimming right by, staring at me, at any given moment...
Kevin had a steak b/c he just can't turn down a steak (and maybe he thought the way I do about your meal swimming by you and watching you eat...) and Lori had a seafood pasta of some sort so that Audrey could eat some of the shrimp out of it. That girl is a shrimp eatin' machine. I think she could give me a run for my money when it comes to eating shrimp and I can put away me some shrimp
Since Kevin and Lori were on the DDP they had to order dessert. Lori ordered something with fruit for Audrey and her to eat later and Kevin ordered the Chocolate Wave and made us take it with us b/c we had talked about how much we loved it. He had no room for it, which was the first time I'd ever seen Kevin turn away food...but I didn't argue. I'll take that free Chocolate wave
Kevin was getting grumpy b/c he'd had that Guiness earlier and then the two Spatens and was getting tired. He was really grumpy until he went outside to have a smoke after he ate while we finished. They decided that after dinner they were going to try and ride Nemo for Audrey and then head back to the resort. We still hadn't even seen our rooms yet, remember......
So we opted to go on and grab a spot for Illuminations. Andy told me "You know that as soon as you hear that preshow music you're gonna be all 'awwww...let's watch' so there's no reason to even think of doing something else" And he was right. So we left Lori and Kevin smoking with the plan of riding Nemo so we could go grab a spot for the show.
A photo on the way...
I that fountain!
We had slim pickins when it came to finding a spot but we found an okay place over in Canada. Unfortunately there was a horrid twig sticking up out of the bush that just had to make his presence known in all my photos. Andy asked me later why I didn't just yank it out....but I couldn't do that to WDW shrubbery
So I'll just post a couple photos from the show....like you haven't seen a million of them before...
The Chocolate Wave didn't last long as we busted into it before the show even started. I could only eat a couple bites and I think that's all Andy could do as well, but it was worth it just to get that taste. Gooey hot chocolately goodness.
After the show we mosied our way towards the front, singing a long like dorks to the post show song
I stopped to take this photo before leaving...
As we approached the POR/FQ bus stop we noticed just how many people were out. We've never waited in a bus line this long before. We watched 5 busses go before we got on one. And I do have to say, while we had to get on the 6th bus, we only waited about 25 minutes. They had a CM out there with a walkie and as busses would pull up they'd stop at another CM down the way, then change their sign and pull up to the right stop. I was impressed since we didn't have to wait too terribly long considering it was 6 busses....
When we got back to POFQ we had to unload the car so we grabbed all our stuff in one go and found our room. 4323 for us 4324 for Kevin and Lori. We got into our room and immediately Andy started cursing the front desk. Whatever he had ordered wasn't in the room despite all the mix up earlier in the day. So he marched himself down the lobby while I unpacked. I just have to unpack. It makes me feel like I'm home. Soon Andy returned with this...
With a little note wishing me a Happy Easter trip at WDW. It was such a cute surprise!!! The basket came with two of everything, one to keep and one to share (hmmmm...I told him that I saw why he ordered it....so he could have something, too ) There were two mickey ear rice krispy treats dipped in chocolate, two bags of caramel popcorn (we still have one bag), two boxes of cookies (we still have one of those), a bag of Jelly Belly Jelly Beans , a bag of gummy bears, two suckers in mechanical lazy Mickey sucker eater things, and two bags of Chip N Dale Pretzels.
There was also a special edition pin that was a circle split in half, kind of in the yin and yang shape, with Bambi on one side and Thumper on the other with best friends on both sides as well. On the card it was attached it had a sweet little saying and said you had to keep one and give the other half to your best friend. Well of course I had to give one to Andy. I don't get all mushy and sweet a lot, but the guy is my best pal
I of course had to be a dork with the bow around the basket
And Andy, of course, had to take pictures of it
We set a wake up call for in the morning......it would be time to see how crazy the MK was in the morning
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What a sweetheart your Man is!
My DH would never do anything like that! I can give you his e-mail and you could get your man to send him some pointers!
Very Nice of you Andy!
Great update! i loved that basket he had delivered for you!! it was such a sweet idea. I have never eaten at the coral reef...we had ressies once and had to cancel...but it kinda looks like this place in Nashville,tn called the Aquarium which is a super great resturant. The dinner sounded delish and so did the chocolate wave which now makes me upset i had to cancel that ressie that time*L*
Cant wait to hear more
ps congrats on the cruise...you will have such a great time...we always do on ours
Glad you had a great meal and got to see IllumiNations! I forgot we were still on arrival day here Glad you got into your rooms, and love the Easter Basket More please
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It'll be our first cruise ever and we are sooooo excited!!!!!
Danny and I at Epcot 8/14/08
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