Is That a Raincloud Over My Head? EMTPEJ's Land & Sea Adventure **Updated 10/28** - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Finally got caught up. Love the pics of the safari. They are awesome. Great timing with Kendra's ankle. Hope you didn't get rained out anymore today. Hurry back. Looking forward to more.
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I'm still catching up - this is one of the best TRs ever EJ!!!! I love how your family looks so happy in every photo (not the fake smiles either!). You guys just all look so happy and like you are having such a wonderful time. More please......
Episode 6: 07/15/08 Part B – A luau. Our will my personal raincloud reign supreme?
The plan at this point was to go to the early ‘Aloha show and then take a cab to Yacht and Beach Club for the Illuminations cruise, then enjoy the EMH attractions at Epcot. Remember the raincloud over my head? We hoped and prayed that the skies would clear in time for our much-anticipated and planned for Passporter princess meet with Danielle Harmon and her family! I made sure that Danielle knew where we were staying, and had my cell phone number, if they needed to call, but they hadn’t, so I hoped that all was well with them.
After we changed into our spiffy luau threads, we proceeded to the lobby (dodging raindrops and testing the Mythbusters hypothesis that if you run, you actually get slightly wetter, which my wise sons were quick to point out.
Tim and Dave =========== Kenny
We had to wait inside of the lobby at the Polynesian because it was – guess what? – still raining. After you check for the event, they give you a different color lei so they can help to keep track of who is there for the show and who is not. The color is pretty much the skin tone of most of our party. PINK! They got a photo of us in front of the tiki with the blue eyes for the event photo, as opposed to something more Luau-like. Like I said before, those shirts matched everyone’s eyes EXCEPT for my own (including the tiki – I thought they were supposed to have brown eyes, like the islanders – oh, well). Then, they lined us up past Capt. Cooks and the arcade and had us put on (new) garbage bags to protect our clothes, somehow… Then we marched like a line of plastic-clad ants through the beautiful (yet rainy) grounds of the Poly to Luau Cove. We wanted to go to this since we were staying at the Poly and were pretty into the whole south seas island thing. I think we were some of the very few guests to have on Hawaiian shirts. Of course, on the way, many of the leis disintegrated…
We finally were seated right near the kitchen entrance and were well attended by a nice server named Len. Kenny got a Pina Colada (suprise) and he was very pleased. I had the white zinfandel wine and everybody else had the diet coke. They serve you with these platters that are perched on these holders that are off the table, which can make it a little harder to serve yourself, but easier to share. They brought out a kids boxed meal as David did not like the Hawaiian style offerings of salad, pineapple-coconut bread, pineapple, pork ribs, chicken, rice, and vegetables. It was all OK, nothing really great, except the bread, and there was not much of that…
The show is pretty corny, but fun, and the dancing and singing was really good. They performed "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" and also the theme from “Hawaii Five-0” (book ‘em Dan O.)! The band seemed to be authentic and quite experienced. The fire dancer was great to see! He really hammed it up!
They performed some dances from the South Seas and they were very nice.
==============================================The fire dancer passes his baton under his back....
The dessert was un-impressive, but David liked it very much!
They put on a really big show when they bring it out, but it is kind of a let-down.
As I like to tip the extra % at places like this in cash, and pile it up as the evening goes on, we were visited VERY often by our server -- I was never dry in any sense of the word at any time (did I mention my raincloud was still functioning?). My guess is they set up the food for the late show during the early show and keep the staff pretty busy. It is amazing how fast they can serve everyone and have it all hot (or cold) for all the guests.
Since it was – guess what – STILL raining, they did not have anyone get up on stage to dance with them, so that was a little disappointing. People with birthdays that month stood up at their tables and they taught them a dance to perform together. Still, a good time was had by all! They brought the event photos around and so we bought them. One of the annoying things about their system is that every slip you get has a line for tip to be added, even the event photos.
The sound was not very good (I am writing them a letter about that) and I would not go out of my way to see it again, but it was a fun, once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. By the way, we paid OOP for it because we wanted category 1 seating and because of that, we were not short of TS credits, either. We bid mahalo and aloha to the Luau Cove and dodged raindrops on the way back to the GCH and then to our room.
Up next: Episode 7: 07/15/08 Part C: an Illuminations Cruise with a princess (or three). Or not -- It's still raining!
See what happens when I work for a couple of days.... A LOT apparantly... and IT"S GREAT!!!
LOVE the Safari pix!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ArielsMomto2
Finally got caught up. Love the pics of the safari. They are awesome. Great timing with Kendra's ankle. Hope you didn't get rained out anymore today. Hurry back. Looking forward to more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lukeandbrookesmom
I'm still catching up - this is one of the best TRs ever EJ!!!! I love how your family looks so happy in every photo (not the fake smiles either!). You guys just all look so happy and like you are having such a wonderful time. More please......
thanks, Judi! We were having a great time! And thanks in large part to passporter, we were pretty well organized and I was not tapping my foot watching the clock!
Sorry to hear about the luau, it's always been a lot of fun when we've done it. Glad the fire dancer did ok, for our one show it was raining and the fire was floating on the water on the stage. He looked surprised when there was fire where he was going to put his foot down.
I'm sorry that the Luau wasn't anything extra special - I hear such mixed reviews that I never know if this is something I want to try....glad you all had fun though.
Loved the family shirts by the way....you all were feeling that atmosphere
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