A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 18 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Well, I thought it would be several weeks into your report but last night, we just bumped Tokyo to the next big trip slot on our vacation wish list.
Great update!
I love the way we're changing people's minds about the country! We do plan on going back, although I have no idea when, but it is such a beautiful place. You wait until you see Tokyo Disney...
Tuesday 31 March – part one: I don’t need an early start!
The day started sickeningly early for me at 2.10, to be precise, as that’s when I woke up and it took me about an hour and a half to go back to sleep, but fortunately, I did in the end. During that time, my goodness, I knew about the lifts that just didn’t seem to stop, so people were obviously still moving around, even at that time of the night. There was also noise from outside, so again, I guess the traffic doesn’t stop in this city either.
Finally, I got back to sleep and work up at about 7.30, which wasn’t too bad. Mark struggled to get going, even after 11 hours sleep, so I guess he needed that sleep. Finally, we were up and had our breakfast that we had bought at the shop the night before. The doughnut was excellent, as was the other cake we got, not that we could tell you what it was! We managed to make a cup of tea with the kettle thing that we had in the room, although we had the horrible discovery that we only had six teabags with us, as I hadn’t packed the big bag of teabags. Not good.
The view from our room when we awoke
We set out just after 9.00 and the weather was quite nice out and not too cold, but still with a chill in the air. We headed for the subway and got a one day pass. Then it was off to try and find out platform. It was easy enough, as they colour code the lines, so you just need to look for the right colour and they also put the directions in English, which is a godsend. Without that, we would’ve been stuck.
When we found the platform, there was already a massive line of people to get on the train, so we joined the shortest line, but even by the time it got to our turn, the carriage was packed, so we opted to wait for the next train. At least we got on, but my goodness, we were crammed in there. If you are claustrophobic, this is not something you’ll be able to do, as you are literally packed on top of each other and when it comes to a station and people need to get out, they certainly know how to push their way past you. We both had small backpacks on to carry our stuff in and those got jostled around as did my camera. My pedometer even fell off, after one old lady pushed her way past me.
I was very glad when we got a couple of stations up the line and the carriage began to empty and we could finally move up and then sit down. That was quite a relief. I had had heard about them needing to have security guys to push people on to the trains to make everyone fit in and I could now see why they need that. In that respect, it was very much like Hong Kong. On board the trains, just like Hong Kong, they did announcements in both Japanese and English, which I wasn’t expecting.
So far there had been much more English than I thought there would be. I was very proud of the fact that I could understand the Japanese announcements generally before I got the English translations. Not bad going. In fact, I was finding that I could understand a lot of Japanese. Where I fell down again was with speaking it and of course reading it, although I was already starting to get better at recognising the characters. Whether those characters then made words that I understood was another matter though.
We travelled 11 stops to Ueno, where we got out and headed for the park, which was again clearly signposted in English and only a short walk away.
It was packed in there, not surprisingly, as it’s sakura season or cherry blossom season, which is huge in the Japanese calendar. We saw all ages and types of people there all taking the sights in, along with a film crew. It was beautiful sight and very romantic and I felt very lucky that I had been able to find such cheap flights to allow us to be here at this time of the year to enjoy this.
It looked as if they were getting ready for a parade of some kind, as there were blue tarpaulins out on the main walkway, with some people sitting on them already. From what we could gather, whatever was happening would be on at either 1.00 or 5.00. It seemed as if it was big with corporate sponsors, as we saw a number of names that we recognised, including the Honda Formula One team.
We walked down to the zoo entrance and took some photos across the fountains towards the Tokyo National Museum that we would hopefully come back and visit. Visiting Ueno Park hadn’t been on my plans originally for today, but when I heard that they were forecasting rain for tomorrow, I decided that seeing the cherry blossoms today while it was dry would be a good idea.
I am so enjoying this trip report. I'm linking it to my ds as he is very much wanting to go to Japan. He is a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Friend Totoro) and wants to go to his museum there. Now I'm thinking I should come too!
Super updat as always. Love the Cherry Blossoms and the lanterns. I'll bet the lanterns are beautiful at twilight.
So sorry that you didn't bring enough tea bags. I know that is very important to you both. I hope you find a suitable substitute. It's nice that Mark got a good 11 hours of sleep in. You both look a little bit tired in your pic's but I'm guessing that before the day is over you'll both be very chipper.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
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I found the photos of the recycling areas funny- especially of the fish. He was all bones, had X eyes and a frown. It just struck me as hilarious but it gets the point across.
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We do plan on going back, although I have no idea when, but it is such a beautiful place. You wait until you see Tokyo Disney... 
Claytrgtshooter (Minnie Lor's Hubbie)
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