It’s Always Sunny in California!..Eh?...L’il Bit! - Page 25 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I quickly got off the Little Mermaid and high tailed it back to the GC.
I walked in and the meeting had already started, but I did notice that not everyone was back yet, so I didn’t feel quite so bad then. I paid attention and was a good girl then. Cass told me that those who had gone in at early entry right away did not get to ride Radiator Springs because it was closed with technical difficulties. I told her I did get on in the single riders line and I saw a few others get on, so they must’ve had a later start getting over there as well and got in line.
So the meeting went on and we had a guest speaker and it was all very interesting. They do ask questions and if you give a good answer….or ask a good question, you get one of these!
It doesn’t look like much, but let me tell you…everyone wants a Mickey paperclip! LOL
I am not going to bore you with all the meeting details, but honestly it was interesting, but I do get jumpy sitting for long periods of time. It was now getting close to lunch and we were all going to walk to our destination together.
We were going to Tangoroa Terrace at the Disneyland Hotel for lunch and I assumed we would walk through DTD to get there, but we didn’t. We took a different way, which involved crossing the street and walking by Paradise Pier. I am glad we went this way because it showed me a different route to get there.
Looking back
Crossing the street.
For lunch we were given the old vouchers that Disneyland used to use for their dining plan. Currently they do not have a dining plan, but the word is they are trying to do one similar to WDW. So…anyways, I think we got something like $80 worth of vouchers for the week to cover meals that weren’t included in the conference room. These vouchers are in different denominations and if you don’t use the full amount you lose it. They do not refund you the difference. We went in to order and they have kiosks to do so, but some of the kiosk do not have everything on them, so you have to order at the register in that case. That is what I did, as the fry choice was sweet potato fries and I would rather eat shoe leather than those. I also got the fish….more on that later…. I give my order and the girl punches it through and I give her a $10 voucher. I think my order came to over $12. She rings it up and tells me I don’t get change….and I tell her I know, I still owe you money. She realizes she had punched in a $15 voucher and she had no clue how to fix it. She tells me to go have a seat, gives me a number for them to bring my food to me, and a manager will be out shortly to collect the additional money. Since I did this at the register, I was one of the first to order and I found a seat for Cass and I and she joined me a little bit later. While we waited for our food, Rita passed out FP’s for us. Since we were in meetings all day they gave us a couple of FP’s to use later in the day. The thing was that the time was for 5-6 PM for this day only…both of them! In the past, when they give out FP’s, they are usually good for the whole week and any time. This time restriction was really bad as it meant once the meetings were done, we would have to get right over to the park to use the FP’s or lose them. We grumbled amongst ourselves about that for a bit while we waited for the food.
Finally my food came out. I had ordered the Island Fish and Chips - Panko-crusted Mahi Mahi and Sweet Potato Fries (which I substituted with regular fries) served with Lime Tartar Sauce.
I got fish sticks! Hunh? It didn’t say fish sticks on the menu, it said fish and chips. I was not impressed. So I went on to taste them. YUCK. They were not good at all and the tarter was nasty. I forced the sticks down as to not waste them and enjoyed the fries. I think Cass got a burger. Whatever it was, it looked better than mine. We ate and chatted and finished up. No sign of the manager yet to correct my bill. And honestly, it was their fault, not mine and I wasn’t going to wait around for someone to find me, so I went for a walk.
Sadly I never actually went into Trader Sams, though I hear it is really cool in there.
I found a few free loaders too.
I went back to the table where Cass was sitting and finally a manager had come out with a correct bill. I paid the difference which seemed like a hard process for them. I also felt like they were making me feel like it was my fault, which annoyed me a bit. And I will take this time to say I did not feel that the CM’s at DLR were as friendly or as “good” as the ones at WDW. We found a lot of the park ones talking about breaks, or complaining about something to co-workers. It was just a very different vibe from the CM’s here. Not to say the WDW ones are perfect, but they in general are better than most of the ones I encountered at DLR, especially the park ones.
Sorry you are having issues with the meals and fast passes. At least you have been able to do a lot of the attractions and enjoy the nice weather and the scenery. Your pix shown how beautiful it is around DLR.
I would be very unimpressed to get fish sticks if the menu said fish and chips. Doesn't sound like the best lunch experience. The sights on the walk over look interesting, though.
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Ew, those fish sticks looked too nasty to serve in a school cafeteria! And lime tartar sauce? No, thank you.
Love the purple flowers outside of the GC. Such a cheerful color!
Pixies to your Mom for her broken wrist. I hope she is feeling better soon!
About the CM's at DLR: I did not have your experience except at Gadget's Go Coaster in toon town. There 2 young CMs were socializing while loading the ride and kind of complaining about being invited to a mutual friend's birthday and having to purchase gifts when they didn't want to. We asked to ride in the front (minimal lines at that time and we rode over and over) and they gave us a bit of attitude and "you'll have to wait longer then" which was fine with us! I felt they were not focused on customer service and were kind of "another day, another dollar" in their attitude.
Other than that, all our CM interactions were to Disney standards though. Hope DLR gets a handle on that, hate to see the Disney Magic diluted!
Sorry you are having issues with the meals and fast passes. At least you have been able to do a lot of the attractions and enjoy the nice weather and the scenery. Your pix shown how beautiful it is around DLR.
I did have some good meals there too, but so far it does seem like most weren't the best. I loved the buffets we had in the mornings for sure!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
I would be very unimpressed to get fish sticks if the menu said fish and chips. Doesn't sound like the best lunch experience. The sights on the walk over look interesting, though.
Yeah, I was not expecting fish sticks at all!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Sorry about the mess with your meal and fish sticks are not fish and chips!
no they are not!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Baloo
Ew, those fish sticks looked too nasty to serve in a school cafeteria! And lime tartar sauce? No, thank you.
Love the purple flowers outside of the GC. Such a cheerful color!
Pixies to your Mom for her broken wrist. I hope she is feeling better soon!
they did look nasty. And I am not a fan of lime tarter sauce I found out. I think the school cafeteria would be better!
The flowers were so pretty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KimmyAnn1147
About the CM's at DLR: I did not have your experience except at Gadget's Go Coaster in toon town. There 2 young CMs were socializing while loading the ride and kind of complaining about being invited to a mutual friend's birthday and having to purchase gifts when they didn't want to. We asked to ride in the front (minimal lines at that time and we rode over and over) and they gave us a bit of attitude and "you'll have to wait longer then" which was fine with us! I felt they were not focused on customer service and were kind of "another day, another dollar" in their attitude.
Other than that, all our CM interactions were to Disney standards though. Hope DLR gets a handle on that, hate to see the Disney Magic diluted!
We had that kind of experience with a lot of the CM's in the parks, but else where they were fine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FanOfMickey
I don't like fish or fish sticks, but that fish does not look the least bit appetizing.
After everyone was done eating it was time to move on again. We were spending the afternoon touring the Disney Resorts. Rita told us to split back into the same groups we were in yesterday. Cass quickly turned her name badge over so no one could see her character and joined my group. LOL. We did notice a few other girls did the same things as well and one said that Rita had said that if some wanted to join a different group they could.
Our leader this afternoon was Craig.
Craig works for Disney and is in charge of the call center basically and he has several CM’s who handle the phones under him. He said basically if you call, there is a good chance you are talking to someone on his team. He was very knowledgeable about DLR as a whole and I was glad he was our leader today.
Since we were at DLH, that is where we started our tour today.
We toured several rooms and found out that not all the rooms are set up like what we had. Actually we really liked the layout we had better than most of the other rooms.
This is obviously a suite.
I believe that is the parking garage for the parks.
I am going to admit now that we went in a lot of rooms and I didn’t take pictures in every one and I can’t tell you off hand by looking at the pictures which was which kind….but these are all from the suite I believe.
And we moved on once again.
Next stop!
I had no clue that each of the lobbies were decorated differently in each building. This had the frontier theme going on. Super cute!
Since our group was fairly large, we had to take 2 elevators each time we went up or down and I typically was on the first one. While I waited I took this view picture.
On to a room…See I knew that couch could be made into a bed!!!!
Back down we went and while we were waiting I was looking out the back door window. We were all trying to figure out what the sign said off in the distance, so I zoomed in with my camera and took a picture so we could read it.