National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 36 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I think I would have wanted to fly first, then eat! And I really don't think I could have been snapping pictures. But I would love to experience a water landing (at least an intended one! ).
Sunday 4 September – part five: a pirate birthday for Mark
We headed up the ramp to the terminal building, where another bus was waiting to take us back to the Wonder. As we drove through the town, you got a sense of how big it was. I would say that it was much larger than Skagway and Juneau. It had a couple of hotels that I saw, along with at least two or three grocery stores and even a McDonald’s! Now there’s a sign of civilisation, if ever I saw one! Still, I’m not sure that I’d want to live here, regardless of that, as it’s still just too cut off for me. Nice for a day or so, but a lifetime? Not for me... :
We were dropped off back at the Wonder and headed aboard and for the room, so that Mark could lie down for a while to try and get his head feeling a bit better.
Fortunately that worked and, by the time dinner rolled around, he was feeling better. We had earlier had an announcement in the stateroom that tonight’s pirate party would be in the lobby atrium, rather than out on deck. That was no surprise to me, but I did think it might make dinner interesting, as we were in Triton’s, right next door, with the party due to start at 9:45pm.
We found Sue, Steve, Barb and Bob waiting outside for Triton’s. It was a bit painful getting in tonight, as they didn’t open the doors until maybe 8:25pm tonight, which is the first time that’s happened.
When we finally got in, we weren’t overly impressed with the menu. Marta told us that they usually go to Palo on pirate night, because of the menu, but they actually swapped around nights on this cruise. I had seen the Navigators from previous Alaskan cruises and the semi-formal night was on this night on those, while pirates was the night before. However, there was a swap here. I have no idea why, but obviously something wasn’t working out with the previous schedule...
As you can see, we all had a fun night as pirates...
Barb and Bob had got Mark a birthday present, a Grumpy T-shirt, which was so sweet of them.
I was very glad that we had stuffed ourselves earlier with the crab feast, as there wasn’t much on the menu that did much for me. :
I ended up going for the avocado-citrus salad with iceberg and radicchio leaves and an orange vinaigrette. It was pretty good, but sadly it wasn’t going to last for me...
Mark went for the tomato and basil soup, but was obviously so excited to dig in that he forgot to photograph it.
For entree, he opted for the slowly braised lamb shank with a creamy polenta and portobello mushroom in a red wine sauce. He didn’t think it was great, as it had be carved off the bone, rather than falling off it.
As for me, mine was an absolute disaster. First I tried the Trtion’s seared sea bass topped on a mushroom and herb risotto, sweet onion marmalade and garnished with a potato chip. I have to say that the flavours just did not go together at all. I even tried the sea bass on its own, but without any sauce, it wasn’t great either. I took about half a dozen bites, but the clash of flavours was so bad, I literally could not eat anymore.
Our server Joel offered me another dish and I opted for the three-cheese lobster macaroni, lobster meat, gruyere and cheddar cheese sauce, topped with tubular pasta and a parmesan wafer. However, before it arrived, Sue told me to try a mouthful of hers, as she wasn’t impressed at all. The second I tasted it, I could see why. Some kind of herb – I was thinking tarragon maybe? – was completely dominating all the other flavours, which should have been so good. Poor Joel arrived with my substitute dish to be sent packing back to the kitchen with it again.
He did offer me the chance for another entree, but the only other option, but the only other thing I could eat on the menu was the porcini-mushroom stuffed pasta in a vegetable broth and that sounded rich to me. To be honest, I just couldn’t face it, especially after two bad experiences so far. Despite much pleading from him and our assistant server, Ray, I refused any further offers of food. I figured I wouldn’t chance it for a third time...
When the dessert menu came out, I knew immediately what I was going to have – the Grand Marnier soufflé with Grand Marnier vanilla sauce. Oh my goodness, that was so good. I was just disappointed that I couldn’t manage to eat more of it, as I was already stuffed from our crab feast earlier.
Mark went for the same thing and, as it was his birthday after all he also went for the crème brulee.
Barb knew what she wanted – a Mickey bar!
Now as we were rapidly heading towards the end of the meal, I was starting to get a bit worried that perhaps the servers had forgotten about Mark’s birthday. I’d even asked Bob to prompt them the night before to ensure that it wasn’t forgotten. Finally, I saw our head server come over and discretely point at Mark behind his back, so I knew that they hadn’t. They all surrounded us and sang to him and then presented him with a birthday cake. It was really nice.
After that, all done with dinner, we headed out and round the corner to the atrium to see a bit of the pirate party. We couldn’t see much by now, as it was pretty packed on deck three.
After we kept losing each other, Bob told me to head upstairs and, if he saw the others, he’d let them know where I was. I had every intention of getting a couple of photos and heading back to the room, but I was enjoying it so much, that I stood at a prime spot on deck five and watched for about five or ten minutes, photographing and shooting some video. It was a lot of fun, although as I looked around, there weren’t that many guests watching it, as there wasn’t much space around, which was a shame.
Mark found me and we headed back to the room, finding perhaps the best towel animal creation ever:
Our watches put back forward an hour to Pacific Standard Time, from Alaskan time, and we headed to bed.
The weather today was mainly dry, with some rain late in the day, with temperatures in the 50s. The best thing today was the crab feast. The worst thing today was the rain pounding down later on. The funniest thing today was Bruce and Marta trying to find each other at breakfast. Today we tried going on a floatplane And the result was it was a bit hairy at times, but fun on take-off and landing. The most magical moment today was celebrating Mark’s birthday at dinner.
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Sorry about the continuing problems with the food on board-- from what you say about over-or-under seasoning, it really sounds like a quality control issue by the chefs-- why it would be accross the board in all locations except Palo is pretty worrisome! I hope they get the kitchen issues straightened out! Looked like Mark had a great birthday celebration! So glad his poor head recovered in time to enjoy the evening.
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It's a shame to hear about your lack of dinner. Good thing you had such a good lunch. At least desserts looked scrumptious!! Looks like Mark had a great birthday dinner!!
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I'm finally all caught up after missing a week of this report...phew, that took me a good bit of time. Sorry to hear the food is still lacking on this cruise...such a shame. Looks like you've been enjoying some fabulous excursions though!
What a shame about the food. This was the last sailing of the year? right? Maybe the chefs were being lazy at that point? Ready to get on with the Mexican Riveria ....anyways, it should've been top notch for the price of those cruises.
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Still, I’m not sure that I’d want to live here, regardless of that, as it’s still just too cut off for me. Nice for a day or so, but a lifetime? Not for me... 
: 
I was just disappointed that I couldn’t manage to eat more of it, as I was already stuffed from our crab feast earlier. 
he also went for the crème brulee. 
Looks like Mark had a great birthday dinner!!
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