A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 40 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wow, you are braver than I! Not sure if I'd get in a cable thing with even 100 of my closest friends, let alone strangers!! Can't wait to hear more of the Aussie TA!
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Wow. I been reading this post over the last 2 days. It's great. I'm taking many notes as my husband and I want to take our son and daughter to Japan in a few years. My daughter and I are getting ready to take our first class in Japanese so we can converse at least a little when we get there.
Friday 3 April – part four: I’m going to lose it with this woman…
We drove for another 40 minutes or so towards our final destination, Odawa station, where most of us would be catching the Shinkansen, the bullet train, to Tokyo. Some were going with the coach back to Tokyo, but the majority of us would be on the train and so would Take, who handed out tickets for us when we got to the station. We would be travelling in unreserved carriages and were told to go for either car one or two. As we headed towards the platform, I felt a mounting sense of excitement at finally being able to travel on one of Japan’s most famous engineering masterpieces.
We got to the platform as, as we stood there waiting for our train to come in, a Shinkansen passed through the station at full speed. I can not begin to tell you how fast it was and the noise it made. It was incredible. I just stood there and said “wow” and even that didn’t seem to sum up the wonder of this amazing train. I really was lost for words at this point and was now more excited than ever to get on our train.
Soon enough, ours was pulling into the station and we were off. It really is just as regimented as you’ve heard and it does stick rigidly to the timetable. I think it’s something like seven seconds later during the course of a whole year. I don’t know any other railway in the world that can come close to rivalling that. Because we had a station coming up fairly soon after we boarded, we didn’t get up to speed to begin with, but once out of that station, we were away and flying. It was amazingly smooth, so much so that I was able to write postcards, as we were going along.
When we got on there, there were no window seats left, which was a shame, but as people got off, we were able to snag one and I was able to grab some not very good photos of the scenery as it flew past.
All too soon, we were pulling into Tokyo station and our brief trip on the Shinkansen was over, at least for now. We would be back for some much longer journeys on it over the next couple of days and, after our first taste of it, I couldn’t wait.
Waiting to board a train – all neatly in line!
We got out and this is where the tale of the Australian woman comes in. Discovering that we were staying at the same hotel as she was, she had decided to attach herself to us on the train, so we could help her get back to the hotel. OK, so fair enough, she had only arrived last night and hadn’t left the hotel prior to today’s trip, but surely you do some research before leaving home about how to get back to your hotel from Tokyo’s biggest station, especially as the itinerary had said that’s where we would be left. Apparently not. She kept telling us that she had visited Tokyo many years ago, so you would have thought that she might have some idea of how to get about it, but again, apparently not. Even worse came on the train on the way back. The conversation went something like this.
Her: Do you tip?
Me: Sorry, what?
Her: Do you tip?
Me: No, it’s a real insult over here and if you try to tip, it would just be refused.
Her: (sounding surprised) Oh, OK.
In every guidebook I’ve read about Japan, that’s made very clear. I was amazed she didn’t know that, but it confirmed my suspicions that she didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. By now, I was getting irritated with her, but we had had her tagging back to the hotel with us and there wasn’t much we could do about it.
We said goodbye to Take and kept following the signs for the subway, only at one point, they disappeared altogether and I had to ask a station employee in Japanese, which I was very proud of, and he directed us back on track. The signs did disappear once again, but after that, we were OK. We sorted the Australian woman out with tickets for the subway, explaining how to use the machines and headed to get our train. As it pulled in, she started to ask me which station we would be getting off at. For goodness sake, we’ve not even got on the thing, before you’re thinking about leaving it… grrr….
When we got to our station, we explained how to find your way out and I told her to look for the yellow signs with D on. The response? “What yellow signs?” I thought it, but resisted saying it “the huge ones in front of you.” By now, I was starting to lose it. As we got back to the hotel, we saw the cherry blossom trees outside the hotel were more lit up than on previous evenings, which gave us the chance to say goodbye to her before I did lose it. That was such a relief.
We took a lot of photos and she was still there at front desk by the time we got our key. We were just very glad we didn’t have her in the lift on the way up, as we had learnt that she was staying on the same floor as us (I told you that her conversations were loud!)
We had a bit of down time, but not much, before hunger drove us out again. We had decided to go for either McDonald’s or KFC tonight. I know, I know, it’s hardly Japanese, but heck, it’s cheap and that’s hard to find in Tokyo, trust me. As we got to the first pedestrian crossing outside our hotel, who did we see?
Yes, you got it, it was the Australian woman again. We could tell instantly by her distinctive hat. She had grabbed some poor unsuspecting Japanese person and was obviously trying to get help from them for something. We stayed away, making sure she didn’t see us. I have no idea what she was asking. We knew she wanted to get some water and a bottle of wine and we had given her directions for the ship we had been to over the last few days and told her about all the restaurants along that same road, so she should’ve had all the information she needed, but apparently not. We were just very glad that didn’t spot us.
We headed into McDonald’s, knowing from an earlier conversation that there was no way she would be seen dead in there and tried to work out what to order. Fortunately, there was an English menu available again. Mark went for the double cheeseburger and I had the ebi fillet. I couldn’t quite work out from the photo or remember what ebi was, but I knew it was fish. When it arrived, it became clear that it was prawn and it was lovely. I wish they’d introduce this into other countries. I finished off with a cookies and chocolate McFlurry (I couldn’t quite bring myself to try the green tea version of this) and we were set.
Then it was back to the room to finish the packing, as we would be leaving early in the morning. We would be leaving Tokyo to head off on another chapter of our journey to Kyoto.
Today we walked 2.08 miles The weather today was dry and sunny, but cold higher up the mountain, with temperatures varying from the 50’s to the low 40’s. The best thing today was getting beautiful views of Mount Fuji. The worst thing today was the Australian woman. The funniest thing today was the Australian woman and her amazing knowledge of Japan. Today we tried the Shinkansen And the result was it was an amazing experience and I can’t wait to do it again. The most magical moment today was seeing the Shinkansen go by us at the station.
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the pictures of you & mark with Mt Fuji in the background. You can tell you're really enjoying yourselves. 
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
for Disney?
PassPorter Guide Author
I just stood there and said “wow” and even that didn’t seem to sum up the wonder of this amazing train. I really was lost for words at this point and was now more excited than ever to get on our train. 
She kept telling us that she had visited Tokyo many years ago, so you would have thought that she might have some idea of how to get about it, but again, apparently not. Even worse came on the train on the way back. The conversation went something like this. 
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