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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Gorgeous shots...I love the grandeur of Hotel de Ville and we have seen some great free exhibits there as well. This summer, we were treated to an impromptu overhead "fly-by" of various jets and military planes in practice for the Bastille Day celebration....it was quite an amazing sight!
Thursday 5 December – part six: what’s with all the diplomatic cars?
We headed back along the road we had just come along, this time looking for a café, rather than at the architecture of the buildings, as we had been doing on the way here. We quickly found one on the corner of the road with another a little further along the street. We looked at the menu for the first one and it didn’t wow us, so we looked at the second one and all liked what we saw, so in we went.
They had plenty of tables upstairs, so we found one with a window view.
It was exactly what I had in mind, a real French café.
We didn’t do very well with deciding what to eat at first, as we were so busy chatting away and a couple of times we tried to make a concerted effort to look at the menu, but each time, we went back to our conversation again. Eventually we got there and put our orders in.
Hazel and Mark both went for the vegetable soup…
… while I went for the onion soup, as it’s such a classic French dish. Oh my goodness, this was honestly one of the best onion soups that I’ve had and I’ve had a fair few. As Mark said, it was almost a meal in itself, but my plan was to eat well at lunchtime and then we could just snack on the train on the way home.
Hazel told me that she had been put off onion soup for life, because when she first had it, it was like syrup. Well, that’s not right so when I finished what I could eat (there was far too much for me to finish it…) I told her she should try it and she was shocked at the difference from what she had had before and really enjoyed it. Hopefully she’ll get to sample it a few more times while she’s in Paris now.
For entrée, I went for the escalope of salmon with Bearnaise sauce. When we were ordering, I gave mine and then Mark gave his and then our server asked if I wanted the salmon with cream and Mark answered for me. I wouldn’t have minded, but given his dairy allergy, he said ! Excuse me, but I do want cream thank you! The salmon was well cooked, but for me, the sauce was lacking in flavour from what I’m used to when Mark cooks for me, which was a shame.
Mark had the roasted free-range chicken with French fries and my goodness, the size of the thing when it came out! They certainly don’t skimp on portions here.
Our server asked if we had space for dessert and we all figured we could manage just a little more. She went over the menu, which had a lot more on it than the printed version we had got when we arrived. Suddenly crème brulee was mentioned, so this being France, I decided to have that, but I have to be hoenst, it was a real disappointment and I didn’t enjoy it that much. I did polish it off just to ensure that it was as bad the whole way through of course, so it couldn’t have been that terrible, but equally it was nowhere near as good as I’d been hoping. It couldn’t hold a light to the one at Hazel’s café, let’s put it that way.
Mark and Hazel got the Ile Flottante, which is essentially meringue floating on vanilla custard. Mark wasn’t 100% sure about it, but decided to try it, and really enjoyed it. I think I should’ve gone for that..
Hazel then got coffee and so did Mark, which came as a shock to him, as he doesn’t drink it. I think when he ordered, Hazel said “coffee” and Mark then said “tea” but I think our server heard “two”. Soon enough, he had his tea.
The check came to €74 ($101) for the three of us, which given what we had eaten, and where the café was located, I thought was very reasonable.
Café La Comete
Appetiser 10 8
Entrée 7½ 9
Dessert 6 9
Service 7½ 8
Atmosphere 9 8½
Value for money 9 8½
Average score: 8.33
I decided to use the restrooms on the way out, as it’s always my aim whenever we’re in France to find free restrooms whenever I can. Well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t have paid to use these, as they weren’t that great.
When we came out of there, we headed over the road to the Metro station…
… and waited a couple of minutes for a train. Hazel was heading back to La Defense, where she works (I hope they didn’t send out a search party for you… ) and we were going to get off a bit earlier at Concorde, so that we could make our way up the Champs Elysees to enjoy the Christmas market. We said our goodbyes to Hazel with promises that we’ll be back to see her and hopefully she’ll be visiting our side of the Channel in January and we headed up to the ground level.
As soon as we got there, it was clear that something was going on, as we saw a police escort for a diplomatic car with a flag on it that I couldn’t quite get.
We saw these memorials as we walked, all from the Second World War. I never knew these were here:
It’s a beautiful part of Paris:
As we walked along to Place de la Concorde, we saw more and more of these diplomatic cars turning up and they were all parking where we were walking.
It was a very surreal sight and we couldn’t help but wonder what on earth was going on, obviously something big. I did check when we got home, and I found absolutely nothing, so I am none the wiser.
Those ememorials if you stop and look at them are all people killed at the same time. We think they were a group of French soldiers lined up against the wall and shot during the occupation.
Lunch was lovely but I was a bit panicked on the way back to work as I had been 3 hours for lunch which I dint normally do. I remembered as I got back to the office my boss is in a meeting 2-4 on Thursdays so I needn't have worried.
Hazel's dessert looked really good. Mmmmm. Not a bad price for all of that good though. The French onion soup looked perfect! Strange about all those diplomat cars. Somebody important was going somewhere obviously.
Sounds like the company was the highlight of the meal. The onion soup looks yummy, and how amazing to find a vegetarian version. I always wish they'd make it with vegetable stock, but usually end up at places where they use a beef base. I wonder what was going on with all those cars.
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Mmmm, what a lovely lunch. I couldn't help but compare the inside photo of the cafe to Chefs de France. I think I like the real Paris one better. Especially the soup! Wow, that looks really delicious! Too bad about the creme brulee though. But I'm like you, I'd still finish it even if it wasn't the best.
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Sounds like the company was the highlight of the meal. The onion soup looks yummy, and how amazing to find a vegetarian version. I always wish they'd make it with vegetable stock, but usually end up at places where they use a beef base. I wonder what was going on with all those cars.
But of course Laurie as you will find out on the 14th of February if you are still up for joining us at CG
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Last edited by Thomhazel; 12-12-2013 at 11:09 AM..
Mmmm, what a lovely lunch. I couldn't help but compare the inside photo of the cafe to Chefs de France. I think I like the real Paris one better. Especially the soup! Wow, that looks really delicious! Too bad about the creme brulee though. But I'm like you, I'd still finish it even if it wasn't the best.
Cheryl knows where the good creme brulee is she will just have to come back and get some. That is if my boss lets me have enough time at home
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What a delicious meal at the cafe which was very lovely on the inside. Another beautiful area of Paris and very interesting about the diplomatic cavalcade.
Those ememorials if you stop and look at them are all people killed at the same time. We think they were a group of French soldiers lined up against the wall and shot during the occupation.
Oh I didn't realise that. How sad.
Quote:
Lunch was lovely but I was a bit panicked on the way back to work as I had been 3 hours for lunch which I dint normally do. I remembered as I got back to the office my boss is in a meeting 2-4 on Thursdays so I needn't have worried.
And then again you were telling us how many hours you'd been putting in recently, so we figured they really couldn't say much..
Sounds like the company was the highlight of the meal.
Very much so!
Quote:
The onion soup looks yummy, and how amazing to find a vegetarian version. I always wish they'd make it with vegetable stock, but usually end up at places where they use a beef base.
Ah, Ok - that's something that had never crossed my mind before. I genuinely thought if it said onion soup, it wouldn't have meat in it. Not a pleasant thought considering how much of the stuff I've consumed over the years and never checked...
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Eventually we got there and put our orders in. 
As Mark said, it was almost a meal in itself, but my plan was to eat well at lunchtime and then we could just snack on the train on the way home. 
so when I finished what I could eat (there was far too much for me to finish it…) I told her she should try it and she was shocked at the difference from what she had had before and really enjoyed it. Hopefully she’ll get to sample it a few more times while she’s in Paris now. 
The salmon was well cooked, but for me, the sauce was lacking in flavour from what I’m used to when Mark cooks for me, which was a shame. 
She went over the menu, which had a lot more on it than the printed version we had got when we arrived. Suddenly crème brulee was mentioned, so this being France, I decided to have that, but I have to be hoenst, it was a real disappointment and I didn’t enjoy it that much. 
I think when he ordered, Hazel said “coffee” and Mark then said “tea” but I think our server heard “two”. Soon enough, he had his tea. 
Especially the soup! Wow, that looks really delicious! Too bad about the creme brulee though. But I'm like you, I'd still finish it even if it wasn't the best. 
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