A very personal Decade of Dreams tour! UPDATED 6/5 - Page 28 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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beautiful photos! I cant believe all the women wore the same clothing bascially. I would have to buy my self a bright pink coat if I was one of them lol.
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Too funny about the 'clones', but it is strange that they are all dressed alike. I even noticed more in the background dressed the same way.
More lovely photos, especially of the temple!
Loved all the pictures, glad that even though you could not get into the Imperial Palace that you were able to have such a great view. After listening to your explain the subway system I suddenly don't think that rush hour in NYC is as bad . Another beautiful shrine, what amazes me about the city is that you have such modern buildings that are beautiful and the views are wonderful and then in the same instance you have such tranquil settings in the shrines and historical areas and they are all together in one place....
Wednesday 1 April – part four: is that a castle I see?
We headed out through the main entrance arch and, as we did, we saw what we can only imagine was a school party coming towards us. They were all beautifully dressed, especially the girls and Mark couldn’t resist getting a photo of them. I even noticed some of them posing for him!
We headed out of the park and down towards Shibuya, passing the Olympic stadium on the way from when Tokyo last hosted the Olympics back in 1964. Everywhere you go in the city, you see reminders of the fact that they’re bidding to host the 2016 Olympic games after London. I will be very unpopular with all Chicago resident when I say this, but having visited both cities in the past few months, I have a sneaking suspicion that Tokyo may just get it. I know Chicago is the favourite, but then again, so was Paris for 2012 and we managed to sneak it away from under their noses, so there’s no such thing as a dead cert in hosting the Olympics. Somehow, Tokyo’s bid is everywhere you look and much more prominent than in Chicago. There seems to be a buzz and excitement around the place. It will be interesting to see what happens later this year when the final decision is made. Best of luck to both cities, although we were told later in our trip that Rio is the new favourite now, so who knows?
We carried on walking down the road to get to the train station and, as we came into Shibuya, it was interesting as we saw a lot more foreigners. I preferred this area to Shinuku as well. I don’t know why, it just felt more welcoming.
Japanese phone box… … and fire engines, these things were tiny!
As we got close to the station and we went to cross the road, we looked right. There was what looked like a castle and I was abut to say to Mark “what great theming, it almost looks like Disney”, then I realised it was! Yes, that’s right – a Disney Store in the middle of Tokyo! Immediately, Mark kept saying to me” you knew”, but honestly, I didn’t, I promise. Safe to say that I was straight over there like a shot. No-one was stopping me from getting in there and Mark knew better than to try!
It’s probably one of the best themed Disney Stores that I’ve been in. It was tiny in here, although it was on three floors. I didn’t find much in there, apart from an Eeyore beanie, but I did discover which characters the Japanese like. Stitch is obviously a huge favourite, along with Mickey and Minnie, Chip and Dale and some more unusual ones, such as Marie the cat. It was interesting to see and I’m glad we found it. An unexpected surprise, despite what Mark might think!
It wasn’t that much further to Shibuya station and there, Mark managed to spot the statue of Hamachiko. I was the one who wanted to see it and knew what it looked like, but Mark saw it first – typical! Hamachiko was a dog who was so faithful to his master that he waited at Shibuya station for 11 years after his death and now it’s a popular meeting place at the station. It was certainly full of people taking photos of it when we stopped there.
Next was the easy task of getting the subway back to our hotel or so you might think. I was standing there with the guidebook, saying “apparently line G runs from here, but can we find it anywhere?” We both figured that we had got it wrong, so we decided to go for line Z instead, but it wasn’t as convenient, so I still kept an eye out for line G and then spotted a sign for it, back the way we had just come. We had three flights of steps to go up and I think it’s fair to say that Mark was nearly dead by the time he got to the top of them. I was pretty out of breath, although it did feel like a bad session on the cross trainer. At least it was at the start of the line, so we were able to get seats, which was just as well, as I think Mark was at the end of his tether by then.
Fortunately, it was back to the hotel without any further incident. When we got there, our package of high speed Shinkansen train tickets and details of our hotels for Kyoto and Hiroshima were waiting for us. I must admit that was a weight off my mind, as I never liked not having tickets in my hands. It’s good to finally know our train times as well, as we hadn’t had the details of those up until now.
We headed back to the room for a break, before our night-time tour of Tokyo, which would start at the bus terminal. Having enquired at the front desk about how much it would cost to take a taxi and how long it would take to get to the bus terminal, we opted for that. The nearest subway station was some way away and neither of us was feeling up to the walk. We left just after 4.20 and the girl at front desk was very good in her estimation of the cost and time it would take to get there. She said 20 minutes and 2000¥ and it took us 15 minutes and cost us 1790¥. Best of all, we could pay by credit card, which was a pleasant change, as we were finding that cards just aren’t accepted in a lot of places over here. It’s something all cabs should look to do. It makes life so much easier. Even more fun was getting out of the cab when we got there. Here, the driver operates the doors, so you have to touch them, they open for you and then close after you get out. It’s really neat.
Great update...love the Disney Store - what amazing theming, love the castle on the outside and all the details in the store. Definitely not like many of the small ones in the states. Looking forward to hearing all about your dinner....
Cheryl, I understand your apprehension leading up to getting your tickets. I'm always nervous something will go wrong and things just won't happen right. I thought the little clones were so neat. I wonder if they have a different color for each day or if every day is the same. Finally, the taxi cabs seem to be very customer focused (aside from being cash only). Seems very first class. I can't wait to read more.
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My DH was looking over my shoulder while reading this installment and told me that he just watched the pedestrian flow from that intersection near the dog. Looking forward to your night time adventures
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Disney Magic - Oct 2015
. Another beautiful shrine, what amazes me about the city is that you have such modern buildings that are beautiful and the views are wonderful and then in the same instance you have such tranquil settings in the shrines and historical areas and they are all together in one place....
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Safe to say that I was straight over there like a shot. No-one was stopping me from getting in there and Mark knew better than to try! 
We had three flights of steps to go up and I think it’s fair to say that Mark was nearly dead by the time he got to the top of them. I was pretty out of breath, although it did feel like a bad session on the cross trainer. At least it was at the start of the line, so we were able to get seats, which was just as well, as I think Mark was at the end of his tether by then. 
for the photo of Donald and his 
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