From no trip to celebrating 20 years together… planning it all in less than 100 days! COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 7/24 - Page 20 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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, that's going to be a tough choice deciding between amaretto and chocolate soufflés. I love amaretto, but Palo's chocolate soufflé is my favorite dessert ever. Good thing we have 2 dinners reserved, as I guess I can do one at each.
Or of course one of you could order one and the other orders the other one, then you could.... are you sitting down for this idea... share them both?
What a great meal you had at Palo from your two apps, which looked so good and your Dover Sole entree with such great presentation by Nicola! She certainly is quite the server from what she does for you and her knowledge of the menu! Dessert looked great as well. Great that you had such good company by spending a few hours here just enjoying the evening together! Love that plate for Daryl!
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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!
It sounds like you had a wonderful dinner at Palo. I was totally unaware that you could request room stewards! It seems that would be sort of hard on the steward to have cabins spread about on the ship. They seem to have quite a few in their given area to work on as it is.
It sounds like you had a wonderful dinner at Palo. I was totally unaware that you could request room stewards! It seems that would be sort of hard on the steward to have cabins spread about on the ship. They seem to have quite a few in their given area to work on as it is.
A perfect meal to end the cruise. Amaretto soufflé looked wonderful! And the dessert plate worked as expected!!
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Tanya
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PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Ok.... now deep breath. I did suspect I might get this reaction, but you know it's part of the therapy... must learn to share soufflé... ok, repeat after me... must learn to share soufflé...
Oh and by the way, one day, when you reach that point of being able to share, will you tell me how you managed it?
Ok.... now deep breath. I did suspect I might get this reaction, but you know it's part of the therapy... must learn to share soufflé... ok, repeat after me... must learn to share soufflé...
Oh and by the way, one day, when you reach that point of being able to share, will you tell me how you managed it?
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
I really did not want to know when the alarm went off at 6:00am. We’d set a wake-up call last night, and I was sleeping so deeply, I really struggled to wake up. However, when I looked on the Donkey Sanctuary webcam to see my adopted donkey Gareth, there was plenty to entertain me there, as while we’d been on the cruise, three new miniature donkeys had turned up in his paddock, and they’re all adjusting to each other, shall we say?
Sadly, we were back in port – and Mark said we’d only recently berthed back here, which surprised me, given we were pretty close when we went to bed last night. I guess even though it’s Disney’s cruise terminal, they probably have various rules they have to say they can’t dock too early.
We got going, and headed over to the elevators to meet up with Barb and Daryl. From there, we headed up to Cabana’s. Ok, so who let the cat out of the bag about this place? This was not the plan – that people found out about our secret bolthole on embarkation day! Usually we’re lucky if we see 20 people, but my goodness, by comparison, the place was packed out today…
This guy was hanging around for some leftovers…
It was a sad breakfast, not just because our cruise was over, but also because we had to say goodbye to Barb and Daryl. We have their email address, so hopefully we’ll stay in touch.
We headed back to the room, brushed our teeth, gathered our stuff together, and headed down to deck three just before 8:00am. We were expecting to walk down to the stairs, but there was an empty elevator, so we took that – result!
When we got there, loads of people were hanging around. Some were sitting on the steps to Triton’s. So far they’d said that express walk off could leave, but hadn’t said anyone could, but like a previous cruise, we figured we’d take the risk, and see if our luggage was out. We headed out, and got stuck behind a group of people who had to go through their stuff to find their Key to the World card. There seemed to be a lot of this. I appreciate there seemed to be a lot of first timers on this cruise, but if you’ve got off at any other port, you’d have gone through exactly the same process, so why would this be any different?
We headed down the escalators, and there was a female porter waiting for us at the bottom, so we grabbed her, and quickly found our luggage, and joined the immigration/customs line. We were through in only a few minutes, even though it looked long.
From there, we walked over to the garage, took the elevator to level two, and both followed Mark, as he was the one who’d parked up, and I had no idea where the car was. With everything loaded in the trunk, we were off….
It took us longer to get out of the parking garage than we both remembered, but finally we were on our way out, and saying goodbye to the Wonder… well until January 2018 and the Southern Caribbean cruise anyway!
We headed past some beautiful countryside…
… and some not-so-beautiful…
… and even found some cows on the way!
The GPS decided that the I-4 wasn’t playing, so we ended up going back via the 417 that runs out to the airport, and actually I think that was cheaper in tolls, although be warned, if you come off at exit 3 here, it’s an automated toll, and you have to have the exact coins available. Fortunately we did.
Next: ... and as we're about to return to Walt Disney World property, this instalment continues in the Walt Disney World trip report forum... hope to see you over there!
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