Let the Magic Find You - Our October 2011 F&WF TR - Page 12 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Posting that picture was just a little mean - you know how much I wanted those Zeppolis!Hehe! I know, I was sad to miss it but we were feeling so full at that point that Italian felt too heavy somehow! But yes, now I have a reason to go back!
I was just reminding you what you missed! Of course, now I want them and I am drooling over my own picture.
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Bummer that the rain kept up! Looks like you all had fun in spite of it though. Great Jiminy Cricket drawing! I can't believe this trip is almost over.
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The tour sounds like a great way to beat the rain! Sorry about the rude people in line at ToT. I don't understand people sometimes. You're all going to be able to ride the ride, no need to rush! Lunch at Sci-Fi looked really good
I know - we actually ended up ahead of them because we know "the spot" to stand in the library.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taylan1
I was just reminding you what you missed! Of course, now I want them and I am drooling over my own picture.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Bummer that the rain kept up! Looks like you all had fun in spite of it though. Great Jiminy Cricket drawing! I can't believe this trip is almost over.
We spent the rest of the afternoon/early evening organizing and packing. I was feeling a little chilled from being in the rain all day so I took a nice warm shower and changed into jeans.
Normally we love the walk from BWI to Epcot but we decided that the boat would be a good idea since the rain was still coming down. Everyone else had the same idea so we had to wait for a second boat to come before we could get on.
When we got into Epcot we noticed what a ghost town it was, especially compared to last year when we went to Bistro de Paris on our last night and it was just a sea of humanity! Some of the F&WF booths looked to be closed down. The CMs seemed to be taking it all in good stride – we overheard the CMs at the Morocco booth chanting, “one more guest, one more guest” as they were getting ready to shut down.
We made our way over to Japan and we had a little time to shop. Mitsukoshi is some of my favorite shopping in all of WDW! I could spend hours (and quite a bit of money!) there. I wandered into the Mikimoto section and saw some beautiful pieces in the case. One of the necklaces had a hidden Mickey in diamonds. The CM came over to see if I’d noticed it and I asked her if it was on purpose. She said no and then proceeded to explain that the Miki in Mikimoto isn’t Mickey. I think she though I thought it was a Disney brand but I told her I was familiar with Mikimoto!
I kept browsing and set my sights on some cool cross-body bags that had a camera pouch attached to the front. I thought this would be a perfect bag for travel so I decided to get it in this cute turtle pattern:
I was torn between turtles and owls (brown on yellow background) but I thought the red would be more versatile.
Once I was checked out it was time to head up for our ADR at Tokyo Dining. We had just a brief wait before we were seated.
Our server was a very sweet young lady who was “earning her ears.” She said she’d only been here for about a month. She was very attentive and detailed. We chatted a little bit and she said she lives a two hour plane ride from Tokyo Disney, so just a little closer than we are to WDW.
We ordered a few things to share – spicy tuna crunch roll, California roll and shrimp tempura.
Everything was fresh and delicious! We really enjoyed our meal here and the service is always so gracious. Several other CMs checked in on us (I think they were helping to train our waitress) and they are so pleasant to chat with.
Since we didn’t have anywhere to be, and we weren’t too excited to head back into the rain, we lingered at the table for a while. Eventually it was time to get our ponchos back on and head out.
As we passed France we decided to see if the bakery was open but it was already closed. This turned out to be a lucky stop because DH noticed a CM in the doorway of Impressions de France and he ran over to ask if there was one more showing (it was 9:40 p.m. by now). The CM said one was starting in two minutes. Finally! Our timing worked out!!! We chatted with the CM a bit and he asked us which F&WF booths we enjoyed the most. He said his favorite was the fondue because the region of France he’s from is famous for fondue. We headed into the theater and had the place almost to ourselves – there was just one other person there.
The film was as beautiful as I remember (I love the music as well). I wonder if it’s been digitally restored recently because it seemed crisper than last time I saw it. It was just about 10 p.m. when the movie ended so we caught a glimpse of Illuminations. The crowd was very thin – I think everyone was sick of the rain by this point.
We decided to walk back to the hotel when DH made a shocking statement, “Should we stop at Beaches and Cream for dessert?” Um, heck yeah!!!!! (you may remember a couple of trips ago I was practically falling over myself dropping hints to go here and no one wanted to stop!)
When we got to B&C the couple in front of us got the last two seats at the counter. The CM said it would be a little bit of a wait but then another CM came out and said there was actually a table AND two seats at the counter. We said we’d take the counter since we assumed the couple that was there first would want the table but they didn’t, so we ended up at the table!
I told DH one specialty sundae would be plenty to share but he felt funny taking up a whole table for an $8 sundae so he ordered his own. He got the Milky Way and I got the No Way Jose, which I’ve wanted to try for years.
OMG – this was soooooooo good! It was huge though and neither of us came near finishing. Even the waitress said we should’ve shared one!
You can see how much it was clearing out by the time we were done:
With happy and full tummies, we headed back to our room to wrap up our packing.
One other thing I forgot to mention - this day was the 1 year mark since our vow renewal at the GF - the weather on this date was picture perfect last year and I kept telling DH how lucky we were and imagine if it had been raining like this for our outdoor vow renewal?
Love the bag you bought at Mitsukoshi! I know what you mean by that place, I don't think we have made it out of there yet without buying something. Your Sushi looked really good, all though I would not eat the tuna one but the california roll looked yummy. How was the Tempura? Oh my! Beaches & Cream - well that made up for not having dessert at VN. I so want to try the No Way Jose but unfortunately it will have to be when my son is not there as he is severely allergic to peanuts. When we went there last October I got the Mudslide which was really really good. I am really sad that your trip is ending so soon. It was way too short.
Dinner looked so yummy--Japanese food is one of my favorite cuisines, but I can't get my DH to try it. Oh well, one more reason for a girls only trip, no?
Sorry your trip is ending, but here's hoping you're planning another one already.