Nineteen nights of MouseFest, Disney and Christmas - THREAD 1 - UPDATED 1/11 - Page 16 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Sunday 9 December – part two: getting to grips with our Segways
We found the rest of our group at guest relations and we were off on quite a different tour to the last time any of us had taken it.
For starters, the classroom side of it now takes place at Segway Central in Innoventions, rather than the previous room they’ve used in the past. We later found out that’s being used for a celebration of Epcot’s 25th anniversary, which may explain it – anyway, the new location makes much more sense.
It’s quite a sight when you roll up at Segway Central and see all the Segways out waiting for you. You still have to go through the safety video and have all the basics explained to you and then it’s over to you. You have to master various things like stepping on and off the things (not as easy as you might think), going forwards and backwards, turning and then slightly more complicated things like ducking under obstacles (such as branches), going up and down small hills and stopping on them. Then you’re set to go out and enjoy the rest of World Showcase.
It didn’t seem that long to get through the classroom session, but when I checked my watch, it had still been an hour, just as before. This time I felt much happier on the Segway than the last time we did this tour. That time, I had been a bundle of nerves and didn’t really get confident with the thing until it was all but over. This time, I still had my reservations about things that I knew I wasn’t great at, but I knew I could do it better this time around and so it proved. I was the last one out of the group, because I wanted to do thing at my own speed, which would be considerably slower than the others and I didn’t want to feel like I was holding anyone up. I liked this approach, as I got to chat to Peg, the Cast Member at the back of the group, who was lovely.
We set out into World Showcase and took a right past the Christmas tree, towards Canada. This was so much fun hurtling around my favourite Disney theme park. As we travelled around, I noticed that there were some new Christmas shops in place and then I saw it – a sea of humanity heading right for us. That’s right, the International Gateway had just opened. It was just after 9.00 and there were hundreds of people streaming towards us. We moved out of the way into single file and got past with no incidents, although there were a couple of close calls. I was very impressed by Peg, who obviously had her eyes all around her. She would occasionally tell a guest that she’d noticed to slow down and stop running.
Then we were back into the quiet part of World Showcase, as we entered France. For each country between there and China, we went round them, exploring nooks and crannies I’ve never seen before (and we’ve spent a lot of time at World Showcase) and learning a little about each country from our other guide Charlie. It was really pleasantly warm already and a lovely way to spend the morning. Despite a couple of the guys in our group occasionally a little silly (none of us, I hasten to add), it was on the whole absolutely fine and everyone was fairly well behaved and sensible. We did the traditional stop for photo opportunities in Japan and were then on our way again.
A familiar Steve sighting! Zooming along!
I’m very pleased to report that I managed all of the challenges (last time I opted out of a few) without mishap and I couldn’t have enjoyed this more. I’m so glad that I did this for a second time, it was 100 times better than the first go. Before we knew it, we were back at Segway Central and the tour was over. Those two hours had just flown by and now the process of getting over the aching feet, legs, ankles and backs (delete as appropriate) began. Although it’s a lot of fun, as soon as you get off, those things do hurt and you know that it’s not a natural way to be standing. That gives me so much admiration for the Cast Members who spend all their time zooming around on those things.
We decided to see if there were any soft openings for Spaceship Earth, as Sue and Steve had seen lots of people waiting there yesterday and were told to come back this morning to see what was happening. The news wasn’t good though. We were told that it might be open later in the day, but there were no guarantees. Oh well. Our plan was to go to Animal Kingdom, so that wouldn’t be happening.
We found Sue and Steve’s Leave a Legacy (very nice guys! ) and we got some photos taken at the front of the park by a lovely Photo Pass guy.
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Great update!! I am so glad you enjoyed your tour more this time than last time. The new Segway central looks great. When we were in EPCOT for the 25th - I had wondered where they moved the Segway stuff to since they had the "remember when" exhibit in the classroom.
Sunday 9 December – part three: a close encounter with a fertility Buddha!
We stopped off briefly at the BoardWalk to get a couple of extra things from the room and to drop a couple of things off and then we were off to Animal Kingdom with Sue and Steve following behind. Although the car park looked busy at first glance, when we got there it wasn’t too bad and we walked over to the entrance and were quickly in, despite the lines at the ticket gates.
We wandered through the Oasis, enjoying some of the animals there.
Then we headed to Asia, as food was calling us and we were going to try Yak and Yeti. What an amazing find this place is. Sadly from the outside, it doesn’t look that impressive and that might explain why it was so quiet when we went in there and why they were advertising it at the front of the park, but by the time we left, the lobby was packed and it looked like the message was getting out about the place.
Once again, we had a great server who was a lot of fun and really looked after us well. Already this trip, the service at restaurants seems much better than our previous visit.
A photo, courtesy of our server
As for the food, it was outstanding, much better than I had expected. I had been worried that there wouldn’t be much for me to eat from comments I had read, but as a fish eater, no problems. In fact, I had problems deciding what to get for my main course, but finally our server helped out by recommending the seared miso glazed Atlantic salmon with jasmine rice, baby bok choy and stiitake mushroom stir fry. I was not disappointed with it at all. It was beautiful. For appetiser, I had the prawn flavoured crisps, really those were just the same as the prawn crackers we get at home.
Mark had the pork wonton soup for appetiser, followed by shoaxing steak and shrimp skirt steak, tempura-battered shrimp, jasmine rice, stir-fried vegetables and chilli plum dipping sauce. No complaints from him about either dish.
Steve and Sue both got dessert, as they were on the Disney Dining Plan, but there was no way I could face it. I was feeling a bit full, but more of that in a minute…. With a beer for Mark and two cocktails for me and tip, the bill came to $97. Not cheap, but it was excellent food.
Yak and Yeti:
Appetiser 8 8½
Main course 9½ 8½
Service 9½ 9
Atmosphere 10 10
Value for money 8 8½
Average score: 8.95
As we left the table, the guys were fooling around, taking some photos:
Now the story behind this is that Steve and I were earlier told that this was a fertility Buddha! Mark didn’t have a clue about this when he hung his PassPorter pouch on it – and I wasn’t sure how to feel when I saw these photos later in the day.
I'm enjoying your TR! The Segway tour sounds like a great way to enjoy World Showcase. Love your restaurant ratings!! Not so sure this need for EMS sounds good though.... don't keep us in suspense too long!
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) and we got some photos taken at the front of the park by a lovely Photo Pass guy. 
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Pixie Dust
Great pictures too! More please 
Margaret
Great pictures too! I'm afraid of what is coming next 
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