The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Too funny about Mark and crashing from the one drink before the drill. Make sure to rub it in that his own wife can drink him under the table! Nice gift with the bottle of Champagne, which you seemed to enjoy. Did Mark have any or was he out again? Glad the drill was a short one as you know the routine by now?
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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!
Too funny about Mark and crashing from the one drink before the drill. Make sure to rub it in that his own wife can drink him under the table!
Oh he already knows that. Something to do with the fact I drank alcohol from a very young age (and I mean young). My parents are of French descent and children drinking alcohol is not as taboo as it is over here and probably (I'm guessing) in the States as well. Three years at university helped too!
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Nice gift with the bottle of Champagne, which you seemed to enjoy. Did Mark have any or was he out again?
He managed a glass.
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Glad the drill was a short one as you know the routine by now?
We do, but there will always be new cruisers. We were surprised at how many there were on this cruise, but also the one we took last year. I keep thinking everyone must've done a Disney cruise by now, but obviously not...
Sunday 14 January – part six: where’s the show and menu we loved?
We were at Tiana’s Place for dinner…
Now this delighted me, given we’d loved the food and the show so much on our first cruise last year when this was newly added. Well, we still enjoyed it, but sadly it was nowhere near as good. The show seemed to get lost a bit during dinner and I don’t think it was that we were chatting to our table mates. It was there in the background, but it wasn’t such a big thing as previously, when it ramped up during courses. And there was no parade, as we’d had last year. It was a shame, as we’d really enjoyed that. I don’t know, maybe other guests didn’t? That’s all I can think of. We were later to learn that tonight was just not the night for that performance… we’d get it later in the cruise…
Tiana at least came to visit with us…
… and we saw Louis the alligator too. Instead of me having to stalk him (which is what happened last time), he posed for a photo.
By now, we were starting to move, so I went to try and grab some (frankly not very good) shots as we left. These were taken through some not very clean windows in my defence… It’s a shame we were so late leaving, as I’d like to have enjoyed the view as we cruised out of San Juan, especially as we knew some of the landmarks, having been here before.
When I got back to my seat, appetisers had arrived. I had the sliced gravalax, marinated slices of salmon with honey-mustard dressing. Mark said it was similar to what he’d had for lunch, but I don’t think so. It was nowhere near as spicy as he said his had been, otherwise I’d never have eaten it.
Mark had the Louisiana hot crab dip with toasted croutons. I was put off by the fact it said “hot” but Mark told me it wasn’t.
I’m afraid I managed not to photograph the cream of wild forest mushroom soup with white truffle oil and chives, but I can tell you it was very good.
I put the fact that I didn’t photograph it down to us pitching around by now. I went to get some travel sickness tablets and we took some just in case… I was surprised by how much we were feeling it at the aft but thankfully when we got back to the room, it was a lot calmer in there. We made it through the meal and that was the main thing.
For entrée, I wasn’t sure what to get, as the selection was somewhat limited, shall we say? I liked the idea of the lime-marinated jumbo shrimp, but it came with Andouille sausage. There were then three meat dishes and the vegetarian options were hardly inspiring – brown rice risotto or vegetable lasagne. Please! Surely Disney can come up with something more inventive than that?!
I went for the grilled rum-marinated swordfish with black bean muneta, roasted corn and sweet potato fries. Now I am no fan of black beans, so I wasn’t sure how I’d do with this, but it was better than I expected it to be – thank goodness!
Now this shows you how lousy the menu was – Mark went for oven-roasted Tom turkey breast with green beans, mashed swede, sweet potatoes, rosemary stuffing, goblet gravy and cranberry relish. He doesn’t usually do turkey outside of the holidays, so like I say, that tells you something… I also managed not to photograph this.
There must not have been a good beef option for Mark to have ended up with turkey!
So the show in Tiana’s must be like the full show in Animator’s Palate - only one time in a sailing? Was there music all thru dinner? I loved the way the ambiance sounded when you described this restaurant the last time.
Well that's a bummer. (I guess good to know the real show was later in the cruise.) Turkey for Mark? Is that drink still affecting his judgment? hahaha.... But kind of a disappointing dinner to kick off the cruise. Well, let's hope that this was the worst thing for the week, then it's not that bad, right?!
I agree with Julia above - the china is really cute! I love that they have the frog detail on there. It's these little things!
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Tanya
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It sounds like the first night's dinner was less than awe inspiring. I wonder if you could have gotten the shrimp without the sausage. Of course, it might have been cooked together, but doesn't sound like it would have been.
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Make sure to rub it in that his own wife can drink him under the table! 
Nice gift with the bottle of Champagne, which you seemed to enjoy. Did Mark have any or was he out again? Glad the drill was a short one as you know the routine by now?
Something to do with the fact I drank alcohol from a very young age (and I mean young). My parents are of French descent and children drinking alcohol is not as taboo as it is over here and probably (I'm guessing) in the States as well. Three years at university helped too! 
We were later to learn that tonight was just not the night for that performance… we’d get it later in the cruise… 
Surely Disney can come up with something more inventive than that?! 
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