The way We do a Disney Re-Do ~~ Beach club Aug 13-22 - FINISHED!!! 1/20 - Page 36 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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So glad you had such a wonderful time at breakfast at CMC! Although we haven't tried breakfast, our dinner there last year was the best!! Looking forward to going back again! Great pictures! Hope the rain goes away!!
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CMC is an awesome character buffet! Minnie Mouse is truly a doll here! Stefanie has always gotten the special treatment from her here. Glad your experience was just as magical!
Great updates! Glad you enjoyed CMC! We make a point to visit here every trip! The food is fantastic! The character interaction is unbelievable! I love the pics of Delaney with Minnie! So cute! Sorry about the crowds at MK but it sounds like you had fun with your family!
Glad you had a great time at CMC! It's our favorite character meal!
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Originally Posted by chezp
Sounds like a magical breakfast!
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Originally Posted by debrabrown
Looked like a great time!
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Originally Posted by KMB733
Glad you had a great time at Cape May!
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Originally Posted by mcc0313
What a great meal at CMC, we absolutely loved our breakfast there, and we also found the character interaction to be amazing. Hope to hear that the rain stops soon so you can enjoy some time at the pool.
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Originally Posted by islandgirl
So glad you had such a wonderful time at breakfast at CMC! Although we haven't tried breakfast, our dinner there last year was the best!! Looking forward to going back again! Great pictures! Hope the rain goes away!!
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Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
Great breakfast! I liked the food at CMC quite a bit!
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Originally Posted by disneyfreeeak
Wow! What a gret breakfast
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Originally Posted by Cam22
CMC is an awesome character buffet! Minnie Mouse is truly a doll here! Stefanie has always gotten the special treatment from her here. Glad your experience was just as magical!
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Originally Posted by DonaldGirl1
Great updates! Glad you enjoyed CMC! We make a point to visit here every trip! The food is fantastic! The character interaction is unbelievable! I love the pics of Delaney with Minnie! So cute! Sorry about the crowds at MK but it sounds like you had fun with your family!
Sounds like I am not alone in my LOVE of Cape May's breakfast! We also loved our dinner there, but if I could only choose one it would DEFINITELY be the breakfast!!
So the rain continued most of the day. The pool was even closed for much of the day. We had not gotten any pictures of the pool or the grounds yet this trip, and were actually planning to do that this day as well.
Not to be…here is one sad picture of a rainy days at SAB
There was a brief break in the rain during the afternoon. Ben wanted to play with his new legos back at the room, DH and DD (3) took that time to nap—his SIL and the niece were doing the same thing…
I was able to go to SAB for a brief time with Hannah. It was overcast, and sprinkling at times, but we had about an hour in the pool before the rain chased us away again. I was able to make small talk with two other moms who were also at MK the day before…one described it as more hot and crowded than she had ever seen in her many WDW trips. The other family, AP holders, arrived after 7pm and left the park before getting all the way down mainstreet. (It had always been their first day tradition to go to MK for a brief evening while they awaited luggage delivery to their room—not worth it this time!) I felt more redeemed by my perception of the crowds!
Unfortunately, between the rain and the napping, we were not able to spend much time with our family. We were looking forward to dinner at Captain’s Grille…
Here are a few pictures as we waited for our 5pm ADR’s…
Patriotic ben enjoyed playing the captain steering the boat. Stoic. Took it seriously.
I was so looking forward to eating at Captain's Grille. I had read so many awesome reviews, it seemed like a sure hit!
It was the WORST meal of our entire trip.
In their defense, there may have been a number of things going on that were out of the ordinary:
It was the beginning of the "free dining" promotion (although we were not using that)
It had been raining the entire day, which I am guessing pushed more guests out of the parks and into the restaurants.
We were seated fairly quickly for our ADR, and the restaurant seemed almost empty. They had to seat our party of 8 at 2 small tables. Although the tables were next to eachother, we were not allowed to push them together to make one larger table for all of us to sit together.
We asked if we could be moved to one of the larger tables that were open and we were told no, that they were reserved. (In case I forget to mention it later, the restaurant was a quarter empty or more throughout the night—maybe people were not making it across the park in the rain? That was probably a big gummer to all the people who were at the resort who seemed frustrated that they could not get seating at one of the restaurants!)
We adjusted to our two small tables. Once the kids realized they could move from one table to another, from one adult to another, the kids seemed to have fun. We allowed it at first so we could spend time with everyone, but it quickly became a frustrating game—especially for the two 3-year olds.
It was made worse by the fact that it took FOREVER for a server to find us, almost like we were forgotten. In fact, we did ask a passing server if they knew where our server might be. We were sitting at the table at least 20 minutes before anyone even came to take our drink orders—and we found out that person was not our server, just trying to help out.
By the time our server arrived, he seemed rushed and frazzled. I think it was also confusing him that we were all together and the seating kept changing.
We continued to be forgotten throughout the meal. We were still positive…so far. There was a chef’s meal on the menu that looked great to all of us adults—it came with an appetizer, entrée and dessert. I do not remember all of the details of our meal—I had the crab cakes for my entrée and they were “fine”—nothing spectacular. BIL had one of the steaks and described it as one of the most dry and flavorless hunks of meat he has ever eaten.
After we had our drinks and waters, it took about a half hour to order food, another half hour for the apps to come, another half hour for the food...We had to keep asking for refills—often talking to the first CM who passed out way…(sitting there for 2½ hours makes a person thirsty!!)
Our oldest kids were getting very antsy, especially once their bellies were full. They did NOT want to stick around waiting for dessert to come, so I agreed to take them back out to the YC lobby, by the TV, to wait for the others to finish up. We knew that would mean skipping dessert, but DH promised to package it for us to eat back at the room.
I kept checking back on the group to see when they would be finished. The third time I checked (an hour later) my group was gone.
I called DH and SIL but no one was answering their phone. I was worried and we headed back to the room…where I had found DH and Delaney…He asked where we had been—“You knew we were waiting for you in the YC lobby…”
He assumed I could not have possibly still been waiting so he did not come to find me. The whole thing was over 3 hours. Niece was done and could not be forced to have anymore family time.
The rain had finally slowed down to a light mist. We heard Illuminations starting in the distance so I took the big kids back outside to see if there was anything going on at the beach and to try and catch a bit of the fireworks. (On our agenda for tonight was the campfire/beach movie/and beach view of illuminations this day….not to be…).
We did not see much of Illuminations, but we walked a bit on the beach. There were no activities and everything was soaked. In the distance we heard the sound of water and people splashing…so it appeared the pool opened up again around 9:30. We returned to our room, hoping to get a good night’s sleep before we traveled back home the next day.
Sorry to hear that the rain really put a damper on your last day . I am really sorry about the fiasco at dinner, I still don't understand why they could not have put you a party of 8 (since you had an ADR as well) at one of the larger tables since you actually were there. I would have been pretty upset and then the wait times, the missing server, I ahve to say I am surprised you all lasted that long, I probably would have given up and said forget the rest of the meal. I can already picture the kids, no child wants to sit at a 3 hour dinner.
Sorry to hear that the rain really put a damper on your last day . I am really sorry about the fiasco at dinner, I still don't understand why they could not have put you a party of 8 (since you had an ADR as well) at one of the larger tables since you actually were there. I would have been pretty upset and then the wait times, the missing server, I ahve to say I am surprised you all lasted that long, I probably would have given up and said forget the rest of the meal. I can already picture the kids, no child wants to sit at a 3 hour dinner.
If memory serves me right...you were at WDW during that rainy day....right? Then the temperature broke a bit the next day....
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If memory serves me right...you were at WDW during that rainy day....right? Then the temperature broke a bit the next day....
We got there on the 26th and we had a lot of rain that first and second evening but then the weather did break a bit until the last two days of the trip...which fully reminded me we were there in August
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that they were reserved. (In case I forget to mention it later, the restaurant was a quarter empty or more throughout the night—maybe people were not making it across the park in the rain? That was probably a big gummer to all the people who were at the resort who seemed frustrated that they could not get seating at one of the restaurants!)
We were still positive…so far. There was a chef’s meal on the menu that looked great to all of us adults—it came with an appetizer, entrée and dessert. I do not remember all of the details of our meal—I had the crab cakes for my entrée and they were “fine”—nothing spectacular. BIL had one of the steaks and described it as one of the most dry and flavorless hunks of meat he has ever eaten. 
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