A Magical voyage across the pond TRIP REPORT UPDATED 12/31 - Page 47 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wednesday 12 September – part seven: what did we actually order?
Now having agreed our menu the night before with Andrae, we were all looking forward to this, but in truth, none of us were 100% sure what we’d actually ordered. This should be fun… The first thing to turn up was this:
Oh my goodness, did we have fun with this! The photographer came round from Shutters and we asked her to take a photo of us and she told us that she couldn’t, as it was messy on our table! Yes, that’s the point, it’s messy and we’re having a ball. It’s a shame, as it would have made a great photo and, at the end of the day, if we buy the photo, what the heck does it matter? Oh well…
It took us ages to plough through crab legs, but as I say, it was the greatest entertainment we’d had in a long time. We all laughed so much!
The show got underway…
… and look what appeared right next to Mark! Oh my goodness, that was classic and the poor guy didn’t even have any bacon to torment him with!
My donkey does (sort of!) cruise after all….
Next up for me was the chilled mango and papaya soup flavoured with passion fruit – yes for those counting, that’s three nights out of four so far!
The guys got Caprese salad….
Now please bear in mind here that we’d only just got through our soup and salad course and we were into the show proper….
Those who’ve read my previous trip reports from our cruises (and if you haven’t, where were you?!) will know that I always have a nightmare getting a decent photo of Sorcerer Mickey when he makes his appearance, as the darned rodent never comes near us. At first, I thought it would be the same this time, but no, he obviously smelt the cheese from the cheese seminar earlier and headed our way and finally I got him! I know, small things, but honestly this has haunted me for so long… he has been my nemesis at this dinner and finally I snared him!
He obviously smelt the cheese! YAY! You finally got that darned rodent photo!
But yeah, weird the photographer wouldn't get a group photo at your table. Why should she care how messy the table was? Unless photos are critiqued by supervisors? But still, if a guest requests a photo, they should take it. Oh well, their loss!! Glad you were having so much fun!
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He obviously smelt the cheese! YAY! You finally got that darned rodent photo!
I know, right? It took long enough!
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But yeah, weird the photographer wouldn't get a group photo at your table. Why should she care how messy the table was? Unless photos are critiqued by supervisors?
That's true, but if a supervisor was that concerned about something like that, you could easily check with the guest that they wanted the photo taken, surely?
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But still, if a guest requests a photo, they should take it. Oh well, their loss!! Glad you were having so much fun!
Oh we were - it was a fun night... until... but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Just getting caught up again! Love the sweatshirt and the ornaments! Sorry about the cheese tasting and not having any water. Sounds like you learned a lot! Glad the mixer was fun! Dinner looks like it's off to a good start!
First off, I love your sweatshirt that you purchased and your Christmas ornaments are such a nice reminder of your cruise! That cheese seminar sounded really informative but it's too bad that George was so dull in his presentation. They definitely should have provided water to cleanse your palette! It's amazing that people forgot about the open bar event after pre-paying for it. Those crab legs looked amazing along with the mango soup! So glad that you were able to get a great picture of Sorcerer Mickey finally!!!
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First off, I love your sweatshirt that you purchased and your Christmas ornaments are such a nice reminder of your cruise!
They went up on the tree last night, along with all the other Christmas ornaments we bought on this trip!
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That cheese seminar sounded really informative but it's too bad that George was so dull in his presentation. They definitely should have provided water to cleanse your palette! It's amazing that people forgot about the open bar event after pre-paying for it. Those crab legs looked amazing along with the mango soup! So glad that you were able to get a great picture of Sorcerer Mickey finally!!!
Wednesday 12 September – part eight: I’m overheating!
We were now on to main course and Andrae did warn me they’d gone a bit over the top for mine… oh my goodness, he wasn’t wrong! This was enough to feed the four of us, never mind just me…
Mark had the meatballs, which he was very happy with, although to be honest, all of us were feeling full by now from our first couple of courses. It was such a shame.
Now about now, I’d sunk my last Bahama Mama and decided to move on to the other cocktail. I took a couple of sips of it and I wasn’t 100% sure about it, so decided to leave it. Too late, the damage was already done…
I don’t know if you guys are aware, but a few years ago, I developed an allergy to dark rum. I’m fine with light rum, it’s just dark rum. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the way it is. The first time it happened was in Animal Kingdom with our friends Sue (rescuesk) and Steve. I passed out in one of the shops, but fortunately Steve saw what was about to happen and caught me before I hit my head on the stone floor. They called paramedics for me and I was taken out of the park in an ambulance. We headed back to wherever we were staying (I want to say the Beach Club Villas) in the rental car and I was violently sick a few minutes later, then I was absolutely fine. I put it down to drinking too much.
A few years later, I had a drink with dark rum in our local pub and everything started to go black again and Mark had to get me outside. It was the middle of winter and freezing and it was what I needed to regulate my temperature again.
I’d literally only taken a few bites of my seafood and did think to begin with that it might be that. Oh dear Lord, how could I say that to them after all the problems with the food so far? Then I realised what it was. I was suddenly overheating and put my head on the table and started to drink as much iced water as I could. Mark realised what was happening and got Andrae to get me a cold napkin, which I put around my neck. Mari grabbed another one and put it around my forehead and within a couple of minutes, my temperature was stabilising. Phew – close call!
I think I gave the serving team more of a shock than anyone else. We chatted with Andrae for some time afterwards, as he was really worried that it was an allergy and kept telling us he could get fired over not knowing about it. We were both adamant – no, he wouldn’t be. I accepted the cocktail from outside his restaurant and it’s my decision not to declare it. I guess that shows how seriously Disney takes it. I suspect they’re afraid of being sued.
With that, we headed back to the room. This was tonight’s towel offering… I am officially giving up guessing what they are…
I did wonder if it was supposed to be a Cybermat from Doctor Who as that’s what it looked like to me…
I stayed up a few minutes, but then hit the sack, as I was still exhausted from the earlier exertions.
The weather today was dry and sunny but a bit windy with temperatures in the low 60s. Today we walked 3.45 miles. The best thing today was the presentation for platinum and gold Castaway Club members. The worst thing today was the reaction I had to the dark rum. The funniest thing today was dealing with the crab legs! Today we tried going to the new look gold and platinum reception And the result was it was fascinating and much better than the usual form of reception they do. The most magical moment today was enjoying our “free” drink reception!
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The photographer came round from Shutters and we asked her to take a photo of us and she told us that she couldn’t, as it was messy on our table! 
Yes, that’s the point, it’s messy and we’re having a ball. It’s a shame, as it would have made a great photo and, at the end of the day, if we buy the photo, what the heck does it matter? Oh well… 
I know, small things, but honestly this has haunted me for so long… he has been my nemesis at this dinner and finally I snared him! 
It was brave, but trust me, we were all covered up with napkins... and we got away with it! 
YAY! You finally got that darned rodent photo!
They definitely should have provided water to cleanse your palette! It's amazing that people forgot about the open bar event after pre-paying for it.
Those crab legs looked amazing along with the mango soup! So glad that you were able to get a great picture of Sorcerer Mickey finally!!!
This was enough to feed the four of us, never mind just me… 
Then I realised what it was. I was suddenly overheating and put my head on the table and started to drink as much iced water as I could. Mark realised what was happening and got Andrae to get me a cold napkin, which I put around my neck. Mari grabbed another one and put it around my forehead and within a couple of minutes, my temperature was stabilising. Phew – close call! 
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