From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! UPDATED 6/30 - Page 54 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 know what you mean about the lack of borders for the photopass. Also, I wish they would leave the seasonal ones up year round. Now that AP holders can access their photos for a year, it would make sense. Last winter I was having a great deal of trouble editing photos (as were many others). I just set it aside for a while waiting for Disney to get it figured out. By the time I came back to it, many of the seasonal borders that would have been appropriate were not available.
Looked like a great lunch at Sharks, but can't believe the size of some of your choices! I hope to try this eatery eventually! Great photos of the Grand Villa as quite a room! Hope you enjoy your meal at Blue Zoo as I ate here about ten years ago and enjoyed it!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Wednesday 1 March – part seven: he’s only just started here?
We met Alper very quickly and he was just the most amazing server. We were a bit shocked to discover he’d only been there for a month, he was so good. Not only was he attentive, but he was entertaining with it, and he made a point of saying that he wanted to ensure we had a good time, and wanted us to feel that we were family, and to feel comfortable. Now given the prices in this restaurant (pretty much on par with a signature restaurant), that was a really nice touch. He even identified a bottle of wine for us, based on my description of what we like, which again I was really impressed with, as we tend to like sweeter wine, and it is hard to find wines that please our palate. In fact, he was so good, we took the time to talk to the restaurant manager on the way out to sing his praises. I hope he got some good feedback from that, as he well and truly deserved it.
Here’s another way Alper was good – he actually managed to completely make us change our minds about what we were going to have when we first looked at the menu. We both thought we knew what we wanted, but from his descriptions, we ended up going for other items, as he made them sound so wonderful – and they were as well!
I started off with the yellowfin tuna tartare with miso caviar, scallion cream, and nitro siracha aioli. Now, ok there was a part of me that just wanted to see the show, which was very impressive, as you can see from the photos below, but also I figured I’d go out of my comfort zone and try this dish. It’s not something I would normally order, and while it was a little too spicy for me, I still enjoyed it.
Mark had the teppan seared jumbo sea scallops with braised beef short rib, and silky cauliflower puree, and here’s another example of how good Alper was. When he found out I didn’t eat meat, he suggested having everything to the side to begin with, just so I could try the scallops, which Mark did, and wow, those scallops were cooked to perfection.
For entrée, I was going to go for the dancing fish, which we’d seen on the way in, as I had wrongly assumed they were the signature dish, but no, apparently not, and again here’s where Alper changed my view of what I was going to have. I ended up going for the miso glazed mero, Hawaiian sea bass with shitake-ginger rice, black garlic and sticky soy. This dish was absolutely superb, and I was glad I changed my mind.
Mark had the rustic chicken breast with braised dark meat, carrot puree, forest mushrooms, and an orange—thyme jus, although he did ask for the cannellini beans to be left off.
By the time it got to dessert, I was out, but then again, I had had a huge dessert for lunch. Mark was still game, so went for chocorange, a chocolate fondant cake, chocolate orange cream, marshmallow, chocolate sorbet, and orange vanilla sauce, and again the presentation was amazing:
I managed just one bite, and it was excellent.
All in all, we really enjoyed our meal here. I suspect it gets overlooked by people, and heck we haven’t been here since 2004 or 2005, so that says something, but it is a real gem. Just in case you were wondering, we were supposed to eat here with Deb and Linda, but sadly Linda had to have a tooth extraction that morning, so completely understandably, they couldn’t make it.
bluezoo
Appetiser 8 9
Entrée 9˝ 9
Dessert N/A 9˝
Service 10 10
Atmosphere 9 9˝
Value for money 9 9
Average score: 9.23
We made our way down to the boat dock, and lucked out, and there was a boat just waiting for us – well not just us, but you get the idea.
When we got back, we stocked up on some more cinnamon buns for breakfast, and then headed back to the room. Once there, I couldn’t resist getting some shots of the views outside at night…
I even caught a bit of IllumiNations!
The weather today was hot and sunny with temperatures in the high 80s. The best thing today was enjoying SeaWorld with Janine. The worst thing today was the heat! Today we tried going back to bluezoo for the first time in many years And the result was we had a wonderful meal there. The most magical moment today was seeing the baby manatee.
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The grand villa is huge! Wow. Very cool you could sneak in there!
Your sunset pictures are beautiful, wow! What luck to be in the right place at the right time for that.
What a great dinner! Especially nice to hear the server was excellent too. I love when that happens. Lovely evening!
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Tanya
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The grand villa is huge! Wow. Very cool you could sneak in there!
Your sunset pictures are beautiful, wow! What luck to be in the right place at the right time for that.
That's the thing with sunsets - five minutes early or late and you could completely miss it...
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What a great dinner! Especially nice to hear the server was excellent too. I love when that happens. Lovely evening!
It was, especially since we were supposed to be dining with friends that night. The great service made us forget about that to a certain extent....
Looks like an amazing meal at Bluezoo and glad you returned after many years! I haven't been there since 2005 and I remember enjoying it. It's funny how not only we but most resort guests leave great eateries like this off our lists with so many choices as well as Bluezoo isn't in one of the parks or official WDW resorts!
Seems your experience was even better with such a great server in Alper. The show was incredible as well I already had this on my list for possible ADRs for October and with your review will almost be a certainty! Nice photos at night from the Boardwalk area.
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
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I hope to try this eatery eventually! 
Great photos of the Grand Villa as quite a room! 
from his descriptions, we ended up going for other items, as he made them sound so wonderful – and they were as well! 
Beautiful evening photos as well!!
I already had this on my list for possible ADRs for October and with your review will almost be a certainty! 
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