National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! DISNEYLAND SECTION COMPLETED - Page 19 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Another great day! It would be nice to have more resorts opening directly in to a park, with a resort-only entrance.
Did you end up looking at the Aulani rooms? I am hoping you did as I'd love to hear about them (and see them)!
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Wow, you continue to get lots done and to cover lots of ground. I can't get a feel, from the maps, of distances between DL and Downtown and CA, nor can I really picture how they all connect. I'm looking forward to exploring it all, though!
I wasn't that interested in Aulani when it was first announced, but the more I hear the more I really want to go. Any project Joe Rohde supervises has got to be great. The videos of the shows and opening ceremony at Allears are amazing.
What a wonderful breakfast and talk about characters. WOW what a great group to be parading through and I love that there are some rarely seen characters at WDW there. The meal sounded wonderful and I love the idea of paying before you begin and having it complete so you can leave when you are ready. Looks like a great meet with some friends and also a great location to enjoy.
I love all of the characters that you got to see during your breakfast! That definitely doesn't happen at WDW. BTW, I have one of those stuffed Eeyore's on my bed, and Hope has one of the BIG Eeyore's in her room...he's just so soft.
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Another great day! It would be nice to have more resorts opening directly in to a park, with a resort-only entrance.
Did you end up looking at the Aulani rooms? I am hoping you did as I'd love to hear about them (and see them)!
Wow, you continue to get lots done and to cover lots of ground. I can't get a feel, from the maps, of distances between DL and Downtown and CA, nor can I really picture how they all connect. I'm looking forward to exploring it all, though!
I wasn't that interested in Aulani when it was first announced, but the more I hear the more I really want to go. Any project Joe Rohde supervises has got to be great. The videos of the shows and opening ceremony at Allears are amazing.
Distances between them? Disneyland and California Adventure entrances are opposite each other - a minute or maybe two minutes' walk? To get from there to the start of Downtown Disney again maybe a minute or two walking? To walk through all of Downtown Disney, I would say a good 10 minutes - and that would be the distance from the Disneyland Hotel. From the Grand Californian to Disneyland, maybe 10 minutes from our room, maybe a couple of minutes less? From our room to the California Adventure, maybe three or four minutes. I don't know if that helps at all?
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I love all of the characters that you got to see during your breakfast! That definitely doesn't happen at WDW. BTW, I have one of those stuffed Eeyore's on my bed, and Hope has one of the BIG Eeyore's in her room...he's just so soft.
Saturday 27 August – part seven: lots of changes...
Soon we got to the Little Mermaid, where we’d been told to turn left and then it was 30 seconds walk. I think the 30 seconds was a bit of exaggeration, as it took a good couple of minutes at least but it gave me a fascinating first look at an area of the park that had undergone a major refurbishment since we were last here. I’ll be honest here. I wasn’t sure what I’d think of this, as I hadn’t been overly impressed with some of the plans for the California Adventure, but having seen it now, I thought that it didn’t look as if it had changed that much and those changes did seem to have put it more into the time period of the 1920s or 1930s a seaside boardwalk and I preferred it.
I was pleased to see that Pacific Wharf was still intact, as I remember hearing rumours that would go as part of the changes. Thank goodness it hadn’t, as I like that area.
Just a little further along, you could see where the major changes were taking place, with the construction of Cars Land. You could see mountains in the distance from quite a lot of the park, but it looked as if those had always been there and they fitted in perfectly. Interestingly, you could see quite a bit of the construction, as it’s overlooked by the Wine Country Trattoria, where we were heading for dinner, which is up a level. Unusual for Disney to do that.
We settled down to wait for Mari, Raleigh and Lauren, enjoying the breeze that had now sprung up to take the edge off the temperatures. Soon they arrived and we went over to the bar next door to the restaurant to meet Mari’s Cast Member friend Katie, who was absolutely lovely.
We checked in and were sent upstairs, with Mari telling us that the “riff-raff” were seated downstairs, except after a couple of beers, it didn’t quite come out right, shall we say... For a long while, we were about the only people up there, which was a lovely feeling and it’s a beautiful setting. Although we were in an open-air building, thankfully it was a pleasant temperature in here and we were only bothered by flies once for about five minutes during the meal.
It was a set meal, as we were on the World of Colour dining package, and you have a choice of salad, with arugula, fennel, red onion, spiced walnuts and goat cheese with a fig-balsamic dressing or chef’s selection soup for starter. I think we all went for the salad, although mine came with instructions about leaving various bits off, but they did a good job and found plenty to substitute for me, so that mine looked very similar to everyone else’s.
For entree, I opted for the seafood pasta, spaghetti tossed with sautéed jumbo shrimp and scallops with garlic and herbs in a light pomodoro saucewhile Mark went for the braised lamb shank served with polenta, Pinot Noir reduction and Gremolata. I loved more, although as always, there was far too much pasta for me to finish it. Mark loved his lamb, but found that the polenta was a bit of an odd choice to go with it and he would’ve preferred potatoes.
I didn’t realise it when I first looked at the menu, but you actually got a selection of them, which were Trattoria tiramisu, European macaroons, vanilla bean panna cotta with fresh fruit, and chocolate caramel espresso tart.I loved all of them, except the chocolate tartas that was salty and that was just too weird for me.
The only thing that wasn’t great was the service. Although, per se, there was nothing wrong with her, there were little things that annoyed me, as she bought Mari lemon for her drink, instead of lime, and she didn’t seem to know the menu or wine list that well.
We sat there for ages, just chatting, while Lauren took a break and napped. It was quite funny to see, as she had been so full of activity earlier and now she really had had enough.
I can’t tell you whether the meal was good value for money or not, as Mari and Raleigh paid for it very much guys. We really appreciated that and it was a really fun time with good friends.
Wine Country Trattoria:
Appetiser 8½ 8
Entree 9 9
Dessert 8½ 9
Service 6½ 7½
Atmosphere 9½ 9
Value for money N/A N/A
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Salted chocolate and caramel desserts are the new rage (or so I hear)....I know I like salted caramel. Haven't tried chocolate yet. I agree with Mark - potatoes would have been a better option than polenta. Overall your meal sounds great - and I am SO looking forward to Carsland opening!
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BTW, I have one of those stuffed Eeyore's on my bed, and Hope has one of the BIG Eeyore's in her room...he's just so soft.
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For a long while, we were about the only people up there, which was a lovely feeling and it’s a beautiful setting. Although we were in an open-air building, thankfully it was a pleasant temperature in here and we were only bothered by flies once for about five minutes during the meal. 
very much guys. We really appreciated that and it was a really fun time with good friends. 
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