Putting a boot into our original Easter plans… COMPLETED 5/3 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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To answer your other question:
I've only been to one winery as an adult (I was in Napa as a kid, which was pretty useless...) and it was at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. And yes, they had an area where we had to smell a few things before tasting. I'm not a wine person so I was hoping it would help me find it more tasteful. (it didn't) Not nearly as large as what you saw at Bombay though!
Wow, that wouldn't have been my idea of the right drink either as I tend to go sweet with drinks too! That's so crazy. And that's really cute that they give the drivers a little something too.
Your hotel looks very nice, and it is indeed a small world! Glad to see that humor runs in the family!!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
So cool that you got to a custom designed drink at the end of the tour and I love the idea of a driver goodie bag!! Your hotel is lovely!! It looks very charming and what an awesome staff!!
Amazing with the desk clerk knowing Mark’s cousin.
I know. Small world indeed!
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Love your room, although the shower perhaps looks very narrow?
It wasn't, although it was interesting for me using it, as I'd got used to ours at home, so trying to use something I wasn't used to was a challenge, shall we say?
To answer your other question:
I've only been to one winery as an adult (I was in Napa as a kid, which was pretty useless...) and it was at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC. And yes, they had an area where we had to smell a few things before tasting. I'm not a wine person so I was hoping it would help me find it more tasteful. (it didn't) Not nearly as large as what you saw at Bombay though!
Oh wow, that sounds really interesting. We'll have to visit the Biltmore Estate one day. I just looked at their website and it looks amazing.
Interesting drinks and combos you had at the end of the tour! Although, you definitely need the fruitiness to make any gin drink taste good for the most part. As I've said before, I've never had a martini as I just don't like like the taste of gin. There are vodka variations and not a big fan of that either and mostly when it's the overwhelming factor in a drink. With other combos in the drink outside of vodka I'm fine with it.
That decanter is so beautiful and love to have that! But, just a bit out of my price range!
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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!
Interesting drinks and combos you had at the end of the tour! Although, you definitely need the fruitiness to make any gin drink taste good for the most part.
Yes, I managed to get the citrus flavours for my fruit. I guess that works for me, considering my various fruit allergies...
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As I've said before, I've never had a martini as I just don't like like the taste of gin.
Now that's interesting, as I love Martini - the brand name - but I only found out yesterday that generic martini has gin in it (we're looking at private beverage tasting options for our cruise in our Facebook group). Who knew? I'm still in two minds as to whether to try that tasting....
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There are vodka variations and not a big fan of that either and mostly when it's the overwhelming factor in a drink. With other combos in the drink outside of vodka I'm fine with it.
That decanter is so beautiful and love to have that! But, just a bit out of my price range!
We headed out just before 6:00pm for our dinner we’d booked at a pub we’d been to previously. The rain was still heavy, which means we wouldn’t have had anything of a sunset at the spa tonight. We ended up taking a different route, as we’d been warned about roadworks in Bath, but my goodness, the roads were so tiny! They were wide enough for one car with only passing places and going up steep hills. Mark was fine with it, but I wasn’t. Then we found a new housing estate, which I’m sure had some stunning views over Bath, but the road through it was like pothole city! Needless to say we came back through Bath on the way back to the hotel…
As you can see, it’s a beautiful place…
… with what would be beautiful views, if the weather was cooperating. We’ve only been once before and guess what? Yep, it was tipping with rain then. I swear we’re cursed whenever we go to this place…
It’s probably just as well we didn’t have a window table, as otherwise we’d only have been disappointed. It’s a very homely place as you can see…
It was heaving when we arrived, which is unusual, as about 7:00pm is peak meal time over here. However, by the time we left, just before 8:00pm, it had emptied out considerably. I guess a lot of families came here for dinner and wanted an early meal.
I started my meal with a Martini Rosso, which I don’t usually do, but I saw it on the menu and I like the stuff, so why not? I have been drinking it straight since the age of five… Let’s just say my parents had a very relaxed attitude to alcohol due to their French roots. They brought it over with ice in it and I sent it away. When it came back again, there was no ice, but it was still cold as if it had come out of the fridge, which is alien to me, as I always have it at room temperature. Oh well, I wasn’t going to ask them to sort it out for a third time.
Mark enquired about whether you could have the sharing platters for one person, as he was interested in the meat one and it turned out you could. However, when it arrived, we weren’t convinced and apparently even our server double checked, as she thought it looked a lot, but no, this is all just for one person. It was a selection cured meat, mozzarella, pickles and toast…
I went for the crab and hake croquette with roasted red pepper and almond sauce. I have to be honest, it could easily have been served without the greenery, which I didn’t feel went with it and, as for the almond sauce, I didn’t find that at all anywhere. Having said that, the rest of it was a winner and the perfect appetiser portion size.
For entrée, I had the Chalk Stream trout with new potatoes, calcot, capers and crab butter sauce, which was very nice.
Mark opted for the 8oz chargrilled sirloin with chunky fries…
For dessert, Mark had the sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and honeycomb ice cream, which I tried and my goodness, it was sweet! I didn’t hear any complaints from him.
I had the selection of cheeses (Cheddar, Brie and Stilton) with biscuits and grapes, although I asked for the apple chutney to be left off, due to my allergies…
The service was superb from a lovely girl who was in her second year studying criminology at the University of Bath and, from she told us of her course, it sounded very interesting.
Hare and Hounds
Appetiser 9 9
Entrée 9 8˝
Dessert 8˝ 8˝
Atmosphere 8˝ 8˝
Service 9˝ 9˝
Value for money 8 8
Average score: 8.71
Once we were done eating, we drove back to the hotel and, even though it was still early, we were in bed pretty quickly, as it had been a long day.
The weather today was dry and cloudy to begin with, with light rain and then heavier later in the day with temperatures in the high 40s. The best thing today was was our wonderful dinner. The worst thing today was the rain. The funniest thing today was our “small world” moment at the hotel. Today we tried going on a tour of the Bombay Sapphire site And the result was it was really interesting and well worth doing. The most magical moment today was being allowed to take the Bombay Sapphire tour, even though we hadn’t booked ahead.
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I can see how that view would be stunning in better weather. It's still pretty darn good as it is though! Dinner looked delicious. Glad you drove home on the normal roads as your drive there seems like it would have been particularly scary in the dark!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
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It looks very charming and what an awesome staff!! 
PassPorter Guide Author
Great room and service for this night! 
They definitely needed that as one of the options!
We’ve only been once before and guess what? Yep, it was tipping with rain then. I swear we’re cursed whenever we go to this place… 
Let’s just say my parents had a very relaxed attitude to alcohol due to their French roots. They brought it over with ice in it and I sent it away. When it came back again, there was no ice, but it was still cold as if it had come out of the fridge, which is alien to me, as I always have it at room temperature. Oh well, I wasn’t going to ask them to sort it out for a third time. 
Having said that, the rest of it was a winner and the perfect appetiser portion size.
Glad you drove home on the normal roads as your drive there seems like it would have been particularly scary in the dark!
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