A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED - Page 7 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Glad they had something to remedy the dress code faux pas! (although I'd expect nothing less from someplace like Club 33!)
You're really going to tease us on this, though, aren't you - not getting further than the bar today?!
Glad they had something to remedy the dress code faux pas! (although I'd expect nothing less from someplace like Club 33!)
You're really going to tease us on this, though, aren't you - not getting further than the bar today?!
My apologies, but when I went back through it, I just wrote so much and took so many photos that I had to split it into a series of instalments, but it will be worth the wait.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Tuesday 8 September – part nine: surprise new additions
We headed into the main bar area of Club 33…
It may look totally empty, but there was one other group of four in here in one of the booths. Although no-one had an issue with taking photos, in fact the Cast Members did encourage it, I didn’t want to interrupt them, so I kept the shots away from them.
Dave was explaining to us how the club re-opened in July 2014, I think he said, and then suddenly in December, there were some surprise new additions. Sometimes, on certain songs the piano plays, although as you can see there’s no-one sitting at it , the ghosts from the various Haunted Mansion portraits in this room come to life, move out of the painting and go to play certain instruments behind the bar. I can’t describe it any better than that, but it is so much fun, although of course getting photos of that is nigh on impossible.
After we’d all had a drink, we headed into the main dining room, and this certainly was a lot busier, with the majority of tables already taken up. We’d earlier been told that there are usually two seatings, one at around 6:15pm, and the other at around 8:30pm, but they figured tonight there’d only be one seating, given that Disneyland was closing at 9:00pm.
The entrance into the dining room is beautiful, very light and airy, and David explained how this table came from Mary Poppins.
The dining room is also very light and airy, and again David told us how that was part of the refurbishment, as they put in a window where there used to be a fireplace, which helped to open it up a lot. I certainly liked the way it looked now.
The menu itself was quite easy to navigate, which I’ll come to in a moment, but this is the thickness of the drinks menu!
In the end, Mari, Raleigh and I all opted for wine pairings, while Mark stuck to soft drinks, as he was struggling with the heat. Let’s move on to the menu, and start with the wine pairings. You can opt for a pairing with either three, four, five or six of your courses. I went for three, as I knew they’d be a fairly decent pour, and I didn’t want to be staggering out of here or disgracing myself!
As I’ve just alluded to, you can get either the five course or six course experience from Le Grand Salon Dinner Menu. Five courses is $105, while six courses if $120. There are four options from each course, and you can also select to have more than one item from the same course, so for example, I chose two items from the third course, as that was the fish section, and nothing from the meat section, which was the fourth course. You could also ask for items to be left out, which I did a couple of times, as there were things I wanted, but they had meat in. Basically, they would accommodate you in whatever way they could.
We had Terrie Jo, or TJ, as Jim and Dave know her, and I don’t think we could’ve been in better hands. She was exceptionally knowledgeable, not just about the food, but also the wines, as with the pairings, she’s the one picking them, as far as I could see. I’m not aware they had a specialise sommelier on hand to help out, as if they did, I never saw him, and she could tell me everything I ever needed to know about every glass of wine I had.
On to the food. First, as with any good restaurant, we had an amuse bouche, and of course, that’s not detailed on the menu, so I can only guess at what it was. I can tell you it was raspberry something, and I can also tell you that I managed to spear my raspberry, only for the darned thing to drop off the dish and straight on to the table cloth. Oh great, not exactly the best start.
I do want to say something here about the whole atmosphere of the place. I felt a bit intimidated when I arrived here, which is unusual for me, but given it’s a members’ only club, and we were guests of members that we’d never met before tonight, I didn’t want to disgrace them in any way, and as we found out with Mark’s shorts, we weren’t sure of any rules here. Of course, Jim and Dave, as you’d expect, were in their element, and it was like all the staff here were their extended family. Mari and Raleigh have been here a couple of times before when they’ve brought friends along, and Jim and Dave have got them in, so they’re at least a bit familiar with the place.
However, as the evening wore on, I did become much more relaxed here, and it wasn’t just the wine I was drinking, before anyone thinks it. I think I came to the realisation that actually, despite the massive fees you pay to be a member here ($44,000 to join and then annual dues of around $16,000 ), it is remarkably relaxed in here, and Disney are here to make you feel as at home as they possibly can. By the end of the evening, I can honestly say I don’t know what I was worried about when I first stepped in here.
The bar area is beautiful. Especially that ceiling, wow! I could stay there all night long - and not just for the drinks! And how cute that it has a little Disney magic happening too.
TJ sounds like a great server so far, especially with the wine knowledge. I would expect nothing less though. With those kinds of fees just to be able to eat there, everything should be spectacular! I can imagine how you'd be nervous though in the beginning. I'm sure I'd be the same way!
__________________
Tanya
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Glad you were able to relax a bit as the night went on. But I can certainly relate to what you're saying about feeling intimidated to start. I imagine folks with a Club 33 membership generally travel in different circles from me!
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Club 33 looked beautiful! I love the bar area, especially the beautiful stained glass on the ceiling - very pretty. Goodness, people certainly do pay a pretty penny to be members there
I made sure. This is an article with amazing photos from before the court was closed to the non-club-33 visitor. Glad you got to see it. I'll save my editorial for another thread, but it's sad that this was closed for the common visitor.
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Oh well. Clearly he's not the only one this has happened to!
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Pixie Dust
Oh great, not exactly the best start. 
I think I came to the realisation that actually, despite the massive fees you pay to be a member here ($44,000 to join and then annual dues of around $16,000 
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