Living the Dream and remembering the Bagman TRIP REPORT COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM - Page 29 - PassPorter - A Community of Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Disney Cruise Line, and General Travel Forums
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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.
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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 enjoy your photos from AP and it's always an entertaining experience there as I loved it on my cruise! Your apps look good as I enjoyed both yours and Mark's first choices two years ago!
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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!
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Thursday 29 September – part six: “Princess Aurora is just around the corner”
Now I was going to go for the jumbo shrimp salad or the oven baked fillet of salmon, and I should’ve stuck to that original plan, but Mark encouraged me to try the grilled tuna steak with fingerling confit, caponata, sun-dried tomato pesto, and aioli. However, when it arrived on the plate, I remembered the problem I’d had with it last time… it wasn’t properly cooked, at least not to my liking anyway, and I also remembered that last time no-one had asked how I wanted the tuna cooked, and being surprised by that. Of course, the same thing had happened tonight, and it was practically raw. I was not going to eat that so back to the kitchen it went. However, when it came back, and it was fully cooked, I was still disappointed, as I felt as if all the flavours were having a battle for supremacy, and frankly it wasn’t going to end well. As a result, I literally managed only a few bites of this. I so should’ve stuck to the original plan.
Leo did ask if I wanted anything else, but frankly I didn’t, as I was getting full by now – probably a result of Palo brunch, so I just politely told him I was Ok.
Mark went for the slow roasted breast of chicken, and he said it was a bit dry, which was a shame, so I don’t think either of us were overly impressed by our dinner here tonight.
Then it was on to dessert. I got the cookies ‘n cream sundae with cookies and cream ice cream with chocolate sauce and chocolate chip cookies, and it was very nice, but it should be, as it’s one of the more basic dishes on the menu.
Mark had the crunchy walnut cake, made up of dark chocolate mousse and raspberry coulis, and seemed to enjoy it.
Now at this point, we noticed quite a few tables had already left. Our table mates were due to meet with a Disney Vacation Club rep at 7:30pm (sounded promising and we did our best to market it to them! ), so they headed off too. I was literally about to ask our server what the heck had happened to the final part of the show, when it started. In my view, it was far too late, and a lot of people missed it, which was a great shame, especially for first timers, who wouldn’t know to hang around for it.
And then the show was over…
I always feel sad somehow when it suddenly reverts to these drawings, although goodness knows why, as you’d think by now, I’d be used to it.
I finished up my glass of wine, and we took our final bottle of wine (thank goodness we only went for the three night package ), and headed out.
Animators’ Palate
Appetiser 8½ 9
Soup and salad 8 7
Entrée 5 6½
Dessert 7½ 9
Service 8 8½
Atmosphere 9 9
Average score: 7.92
We headed back to the room, and found this adorable offering tonight!
We completed our guest survey, and went to find Budi to thank him for all the wonderful towel animals during our stay. We had given him something extra for great service, and had mentioned him as providing excellent service in our survey, so hopefully that will help him, as he’d been great.
Once the survey was done, I picked up our comments, which ran to a page and a half of A4 paper, and then headed down to ask guest services if they had a stapler to put them together. Oh my goodness, the line at guest services was horrendous – about 20 people! I immediately set off to see if I could find an officer, as I knew they were due to be around, and I found one, who set off to get a stapler for me.
In the meantime, Mark said the immortal words, “Princess Aurora is just around the corner”, so I went to have a look, and this is what I found…
Not quite Princess Aurora then! The officer came back and stapled up my notes to the comment card and took it for me, so that was done.
Sorry your dinner was disappointing.. Your towel animal is adorable!! I can't believe at this point that Mark can't tell Cinderella from Princess Aurora!!
Sorry your dinner was disappointing.. Your towel animal is adorable!! I can't believe at this point that Mark can't tell Cinderella from Princess Aurora!!
Sorry that you were both disappointed in your entrees for dinner. Tuna is a tricky fish to cook just right! Your ice cream sundae on the other hand looked delicious. Funny how Mark thought Cinderella was Aurora!
We make tuna steaks all the time, and definitely prefer it to be rare or medium-rare. Given your love of sushi, it's funny to me that you like it more on the medium to well side. But it sounds as though it ended up being more the flavors that offended. I use a nice marinade that includes orange juice and soy sauce.
Princess Aurora! Hope you gave him a hard time about that! Maybe Mark needs to do one of the Princess meet & greets on your next sailing!!
Well that's a shame in the dinner choice. That's the thing with tuna though. I don't eat it, but my DH does and it's kind of a risk-taking option!
To be fair to Mark, I never knew all the princesses either until I had my daughters. Then I had to learn them!
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Tanya
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We make tuna steaks all the time, and definitely prefer it to be rare or medium-rare. Given your love of sushi, it's funny to me that you like it more on the medium to well side.
Hmmm... I'd never thought of that, although having said that, I don't often eat tuna sushi. I prefer salmon, crab etc.
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But it sounds as though it ended up being more the flavors that offended. I use a nice marinade that includes orange juice and soy sauce.
Now that sounds better to me... hmmm... maybe I should pop over and sample!
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Princess Aurora! Hope you gave him a hard time about that! Maybe Mark needs to do one of the Princess meet & greets on your next sailing!!
Oh trust me, I did give him a hard time. Now there's an idea for our next cruise....
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Thursday 29 September – part seven: finally a lightning strike!
We knew they’d had an event by the pumpkin tree, which was now all lit up, so we went over there to have a look at it:
The duo playing in the lobby were certainly getting into it – at one point, she was performing Gangman Style, and trust me, that had to be seen to be believed!
I honestly don’t think in all our cruises, we’ve ever been to the lobby on the final night, and it was neat to stand there and just take everything in.
Mark asked if I wanted to go to the show, but I said let’s just wander, and suggested we head up to Satellite Falls, so we made our way up to deck 12, and it was neat to see everything lit up at night.
We noticed a ship in the distance, so I zoomed in on it:
We made our way up to deck 13 and over to Satellite Falls…
Apart from one guy totally crashed out on a lounger (and I mean totally crashed out! ), we were alone up there. It was so neat to have the whole place to ourselves.
I dipped my feet in the water, and we just chilled for a while.
A very bad “selfie” with the camera propped up to try and take a shot. As you can see, it didn’t quite work…
Please note that after taking all these photos, including some with flash, the guy on the lounger did not stir once. That’s what I mean about totally crashed out. I don’t think anything was going to rouse him quickly….
Then Mark noticed we had some lightning again, with another cruise ship in the distance. I decided to stand there and see if I could get a shot of it. Frankly, I wasn’t holding out much, if any, hope, but what harm can it do to give it a go? I kept getting occasional blinks of light in the sky….
… and then I really lucked out!
Eventually (what you saw above was the result of about 150 photos ), we headed back down to the room…
We finished packing the final suitcase, and my goodness, that took about three attempts, as we kept forgetting things that needed to go into it, but finally it was done, and Mark sent all of them outside.
I have to confess we did start rocking a bit more a few minutes later, and I was quite glad to be able to retire to bed, having asked Disney to wake us up at the uncharitably early time of 6:00am. Tomorrow our cruise would be over, and we would be starting to make our way home… finally… wow, three weeks really feel like they have flown by!
The weather today was hot and dry with temperatures in the low 90s. The best thing today was our Palo brunch. The worst thing today was how few people turned out to the captain’s reception. The funniest thing today was Gangnam Style! Today we tried to get some photos of lightning And the result was eventually I succeeded! The most magical moment today was watching the lightning and managing to capture it on camera!
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Too fun that the human tank was full of Georgians. 
so back to the kitchen it went. However, when it came back, and it was fully cooked, I was still disappointed, as I felt as if all the flavours were having a battle for supremacy, and frankly it wasn’t going to end well. As a result, I literally managed only a few bites of this. I so should’ve stuck to the original plan. 
), so they headed off too. I was literally about to ask our server what the heck had happened to the final part of the show, when it started. In my view, it was far too late, and a lot of people missed it, which was a great shame, especially for first timers, who wouldn’t know to hang around for it. 
), and headed out. 
I immediately set off to see if I could find an officer, as I knew they were due to be around, and I found one, who set off to get a stapler for me. 
The officer came back and stapled up my notes to the comment card and took it for me, so that was done. 
), we were alone up there. It was so neat to have the whole place to ourselves. 
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