The trip of many changes... TRIP REPORT UPDATED 4/25 - Page 41 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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No surprise with a big crowd at the DVC event as you're talking about free booze! Great photos of the sunset and so colorful, even with a little bit of cloud cover. Good idea to experience all the lounges on board and see which ones you like best.
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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!
No surprise with a big crowd at the DVC event as you're talking about free booze!
Well yes, there is that...
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Great photos of the sunset and so colorful, even with a little bit of cloud cover. Good idea to experience all the lounges on board and see which ones you like best.
I felt it was a challenge we just had to undertake.
Thursday 18 January – part eleven: “community” dining at Palo!
We headed up to Palo and saw Julia and Mark were already seated and, as Luca wasn’t at the desk, we joined them. We were in the same table we’d had yesterday, but as discussed, we had Alex this time. I quickly showed him the photos we’d got of him a couple of years ago and I think it’s fair to say I suitably embarrassed him! He was doing everything he could to get out of photos after that…
We chatted away for ages and frankly ignored the menu, despite Alex’s efforts to keep us on track. That’s the problem when you meet people you get along with. Honestly, by the time we left Palo, we were both saying that we ached so much from laughing – truly the sign of a great evening with good friends.
Eventually he managed to interest us in the antipasti trolley, and boy this was good!
For appetiser, both Mark and I went for the old favourite of tomato and mozzarella caprese, which we love and this was as good as always.
We also had some dishes for the “community” as Alex put it. Mark (not mine!) ordered the fritto di calamari and gamberi, which is deep fried shrimp and calamari with lemon-garlic mayonnaise and marinara dippings. We’ve had this before and know we like it, so we were delighted to be able to sample a bit of it tonight.
Then we had our palate cleanser, the lemon sorbet…
… and believe it or not, it was now we were presented with the dessert menu, as if anyone wanted the soufflé (and we did) it takes 25 minutes to cook, so they have to get the orders in early.
Anyway, back to entrees. I liked the sound of the pappardelle con aragosta, pappardelle pasta tossed in lobster tarragon sauce with leeks, white truffle oil and grilled lobster, but I really hate tarragon with a passion. In fact, I cannot stress enough how much I hate that stuff, so Alex suggested I order it for the “community” and I’m glad I did, as I could taste the tarragon and therefore did not like it at all, but Mark and Julia enjoyed it, so it didn’t go to waste.
Instead, I went for the sea scallops with celery root puree, baby vegetables and crispy leeks served with a Prosecco and black truffle sauce. Oh my, this was wonderful and the presentation was just exquisite. Look at the tiny vegetables on the plate!
For entrée, Mark had the roasted lemon rosemary chicken with roasted vegetables and potatoes, served with truffle chicken sauce on the side. It was way too much frankly. I couldn’t believe how much had turned up.
Then it was dessert time and it was as if we’d lost our minds with our order. Mind you, we think the chef lost his or her mind with the order too. Here’s where it went a bit wrong and you don’t expect that at Palo. The three souffles we’d ordered (Mark went for the chocolate soufflé with vanilla bean gelato and vanilla and chocolate sauces and I went for the amaretto soufflé with espresso gelato and vanilla sauce) turned up together…
Then nothing. Seriously. We were polite and waited, as Mark had ordered something and his hadn’t turned up. He told us to start and eventually we did, as it got silly. I can tell from the time I took the photos that it took another five minutes for the rest of the desserts to turn up. Mark had ordered one and Julia and Mark both ordered one for the “community” to share, but honestly, I was so stuffed, I couldn’t contemplate taking even a bite of either the limoncello tart served in an almond crust, topped with yoghurt crème and caramel citrus…
… or the warm orange and almond cake with orange fennel salad with rhubarb puree and lemon cream..
I was definitely done for the night after a superb meal, but the others somehow ploughed on…
I didn’t quite manage to grab Alex before the final bit of the night came out – the lemon sorbet with calvados (which has apple in it), so he got the barman to make me a lemon sorbet with vodka, but in his words “I think it’s vodka with lemon sorbet” and when I got to the bottom of it, I could see what he meant. I was definitely left spluttering at the strength of it!
During the meal, we had a photographer come round and this was another photo that we liked and decided to purchase…
We finished off our night not much after 10:15pm and I was hoping we could just pop outside on to deck 10 to see the fireworks, but not a bit of it, as they were launching them from outside Palo, so the deck was closed off. Oh well, it’s not the end of the world and frankly I was beat and staying up until 10:30pm wasn’t going to happen for me. It had been a great night with or without fireworks.
We said our goodnights and we headed back to our room. This was tonight’s towel animal offering:
The weather today was very humid with some cloud, some sun and a little bit of rain and temperatures in the low 80s. The best thing today was exploring Curacao. The worst thing today was being so rushed around the distillery tour. Today we tried visiting Curacao And the result was it was my favourite island by far and I’m so glad we got to stop here. The most magical moment today was sitting out on the veranda watching the sunset.
Fantastic end to the evening with a wonderful meal. And with friends! The souffles looked delicious. I'm imagining the Amaretto one was the best of the bunch.
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Tanya
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Fantastic end to the evening with a wonderful meal. And with friends! The souffles looked delicious. I'm imagining the Amaretto one was the best of the bunch.
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Did you like the amaretto more than the chocolate? I am still in the chocolate camp! I did have those scallops and they were divine! I don’t recall the limoncello tart, as if I’d seen it I may have gone for that community idea....even if my community was just me!
Did you like the amaretto more than the chocolate? I am still in the chocolate camp!
We're going to have to agree to differ. I'm in the amaretto camp, but then again, I love just about anything amaretto.
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I did have those scallops and they were divine! I don’t recall the limoncello tart, as if I’d seen it I may have gone for that community idea....even if my community was just me!
We're going to have to agree to differ. I'm in the amaretto camp, but then again, I love just about anything amaretto.
Amaretto is a huge favorite of mine in all things, I just didn’t think the soufflé beat out the chocolate variety. But I’ll happily sit around drinking amaretto with you next time I see you!
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A great meal as always and everything looks so good! Some great choices you made and love the look of your scallops! Too bad there was a mix up with the desserts, but seemed to workout for the most part. Funny, how you embarrassed Alex a bit. I had one of those lemon sorbets with the vodka in Italy and are quite enjoyable as the two go together well. Although, at the end you do get quite a bit of vodka as you said and certainly feel it!
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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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Great photos of the sunset and so colorful, even with a little bit of cloud cover. 
PassPorter Guide Author
That’s the problem when you meet people you get along with. Honestly, by the time we left Palo, we were both saying that we ached so much from laughing – truly the sign of a great evening with good friends. 
I was definitely left spluttering at the strength of it! 
I'm imagining the Amaretto one was the best of the bunch. 
Love the towel critter! 
Some great choices you made and love the look of your scallops! 
I had one of those lemon sorbets with the vodka in Italy and are quite enjoyable as the two go together well. 
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