A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 12/2 - Page 5 - 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.
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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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Beautiful bon voyage photos of Vancouver. And more great photos of the lobby centerpiece!
That's great you're getting along so well with your tablemates. But odd behavior from the server..... I am looking forward to tomorrow's update just to see how the rest of the evening goes!
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Great pictures from Vancouver as you sailed away. Thank goodness the rain has finally let up! Your stateroom is fantastic! I hope you're not going to have the same server issues at dinner! Seems like a rocky start!
Oh no! Hoping the server situation improves quickly! I was hoping you'd have pictures of them, as while they are not the servers we had, I may have recognized them from the dining room. Although we started in Parrot Cay, so they may be on a different rotation.
Glad it was a better situation with the table mates at least!
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How great that you got a long with your table mates. I'm going to say that Tom and Rhonda are from Buffalo, which I would say is the snowiest place here in NY. I hope you didn't end up having an issue with the servers and that it was just first night jitters.
I am glad you hit it off with your table mates! That would have me nervous honestly.
It's probably the only bit I don't like about cruising, unless of course you're cruising with friends that is. You just don't know who's going to be on your table and whether you'll get along. It doesn't help that on our first Disney cruise all the way back in 2004, we had a horrid time with our tablemates. The first night, they made no effort, didn't want to talk at all. The second night we went to Palo, loved it so much and couldn't bear to be with our miserable tablemates again that we asked if we could come back to Palo for our third and final night and they said so thankfully we never had to see them again!
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I hope your server shapes up.
He was never quite as bad as the first night, thankfully!
Great pictures from Vancouver as you sailed away. Thank goodness the rain has finally let up! Your stateroom is fantastic! I hope you're not going to have the same server issues at dinner! Seems like a rocky start!
I must admit that was my first fear as well, given the awful time we had with service on our previous cruise.
Oh no! Hoping the server situation improves quickly! I was hoping you'd have pictures of them, as while they are not the servers we had, I may have recognized them from the dining room. Although we started in Parrot Cay, so they may be on a different rotation.
Glad it was a better situation with the table mates at least!
There will be photos of them, but from memory, it will be a lot later on in the trip report.... like at the rate I do things probably a month or two...
I'm glad that you got on well with your tablemates! What a strange situation with your assistant server shaking!
The whole thing was very weird and one of our table did ask him about it the next night and never really got an answer. He just told them there wasn't a problem... well there might not have been by then, but that first night there seemed to be!
How great that you got a long with your table mates. I'm going to say that Tom and Rhonda are from Buffalo, which I would say is the snowiest place here in NY.
Probably somewhere in that vicinity. I don't think they actually told us, as they said we wouldn't have heard of it, so I guess it was quite a small place.
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I hope you didn't end up having an issue with the servers and that it was just first night jitters.
First night jitters... very good! I think that must've been it, although there is at least one classic faux pas to come later in the cruise, which was actually quite funny!
Monday 31 August – part eight: so how was the food at our first on board dinner
Anyway, on to the food at Triton’s….. We both started off with the iced lobster and jumbo shrimp with green asparagus, horseradish cream, and dill dressing. The fish was beautiful, although I was a bit disappointed not to have a little more sauce to go with it, as I felt it could’ve done with some more.
Now the next item I had was thanks to Mark. I completely missed it at first as it was on the same part of the menu as the iced lobster and jumbo shrimp, so I then went down to soups and salads, but right at the bottom of the first course was breaded and deep fried brief with an orange and cranberry chutney. I love my brie, so that was a no-brainer for me. The brie was a little cold though, which was a shame, and while the chutney was lovely, putting actual orange segments with it did nothing for me.
Mark went for the red wine bosc pear salad, made up of arugula, sliced red onion, and crispy lardons, dressed with a sherry wine dressing and served with a red wine poached bosc pear.
For entrée, I did think about the conchiglie pasta with butter lobster, served in a tomato shrimp tarragon, brandy sauce with lemon basil, but I hate the taste of tarragon, so figured that wouldn’t be a good option for me.
Instead, I had the oven-baked salmon royale, crowned with king smoked salmon and horseradish cream, accompanied by sautéed Swiss chard, truffled cauliflower puree and white wine beurre blanc sauce. Now you may already know what I’m like with beurre blanc sauce. My French grandmother used to make this when I was a child, so I’m something of a connoisseur of this stuff, and this was good. I was a bit concerned about the presence of horseradish, as I’m not much of a fan of it, but I have to say you really couldn’t taste it, as the flavours blended very well together. I thought this was an excellent dish.
Mark had the roasted rack of lamb medium with Dauphinose potatoes, buttered Brussels sprouts and a Burgundy rosemary sauce, and I didn’t hear any complaints, although I know all the guys, as they all had this dish, weren’t impressed by the way the meat was cooked, with rare coming out decidedly medium, shall we say?
We both got the same dessert, the Grand Marnier soufflé, infused with fresh orange zest and served with Grand Marnier crème anglaise, and my goodness, the Grand Marnier in that sauce was quite something. Let’s just say in between that and the wine, we were pretty much rolling out of dinner.
It wasn’t badly timed, and I think we were done at maybe 7:45pm, so at least no such issues on the timing as we had on the Dream, which was something. All in all, it was an Ok start to the cruise as far as dinner goes, with some room for improvement.
During the meal, one of the photographers came round and Mark couldn’t resist fooling around… At least I think he was fooling around!
Once we were done with dinner, we headed up to deck four where we listened to these guys for a couple of minutes. They were doing Pompeii by Bastille, one of my favourite songs, and it’s not an easy one to do or one you’d usually hear a group doing, so it was nice to hear that. I have to say they did an excellent job with it.
We got a couple of photos done…
We made our way outside to admire the scenery…
Mark offered to take a photo for the family next to us, and got chatting to them. They’re from Vancouver, but are heading to England shortly, as her sister is getting married in September to an English guy. We talked for a bit about how different things must be for her sister moving over to our side of the pond.
We then headed off to the shops, but my goodness, it was just a mob scene. I have never seen the shops so busy on any of our cruises before, and you couldn’t get near the Alaskan stuff. I was hoping they’d messed up, and hadn’t got enough stock out tonight, as all the clothes were only out in small or medium sizes, which wouldn’t work for either of us. If they’re out of stock completely, I’d be very disappointed.
With that, we decided to cut our losses and head back to the room, where this was waiting for us.
However, there was no Navigator, which really surprised me, so Mark went to ask our room steward, and apparently they hadn’t been printed yet. Now bearing in mind it was after 8:00pm, I was a bit shocked by that. A few minutes later, after we’d gone to bed, we heard a knock at our door, and it was our Navigator being personally delivered. I’d already joked to Mark that I felt lost without one, as I wouldn’t be able to navigate my way through the next day!
With that, we just crashed. Jet lag is a terrible thing…
The weather today was very wet with temperatures in the low 50s. The best thing today was getting on board the Wonder. The worst thing today was all the rain. Today we tried the newly extended Cove Café And the result was we really liked it in there. The most magical moment today was watching the Wonder arrive in Vancouver.
This is my first week reading cruise reports, as I have never been on one. I followed over from your tr because you always have such detailed information. I am all caught up and appreciate your honesty.
I love how the weather improved for you after crossing under the bridge. A week of dreary travel weather could be rather unpleasant.
Sorry you weren't able to attend the chocolate and mixology classes. I guess I was a little surprised that you can't pre book these. This is where Disney could provide opportunities to different travel level passengers. More classes and reservations made in advance for gold and silver members.
The food presentation seems top notch, however the service doesn't. I am looking forward to reading about the faux pas.
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But odd behavior from the server..... I am looking forward to tomorrow's update just to see how the rest of the evening goes!
I hope you're not going to have the same server issues at dinner! Seems like a rocky start! 
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You just don't know who's going to be on your table and whether you'll get along. It doesn't help that on our first Disney cruise all the way back in 2004, we had a horrid time with our tablemates. The first night, they made no effort, didn't want to talk at all. The second night we went to Palo, loved it so much and couldn't bear to be with our miserable tablemates again that we asked if we could come back to Palo for our third and final night and they said 
so thankfully we never had to see them again! 
I think that must've been it, although there is at least one classic faux pas to come later in the cruise, which was actually quite funny! 
as it was on the same part of the menu as the iced lobster and jumbo shrimp, so I then went down to soups and salads, but right at the bottom of the first course was breaded and deep fried brief with an orange and cranberry chutney. I love my brie, so that was a no-brainer for me. The brie was a little cold though, which was a shame, and while the chutney was lovely, putting actual orange segments with it did nothing for me. 
I was a bit concerned about the presence of horseradish, as I’m not much of a fan of it, but I have to say you really couldn’t taste it, as the flavours blended very well together. I thought this was an excellent dish. 
Now bearing in mind it was after 8:00pm, I was a bit shocked by that. A few minutes later, after we’d gone to bed, we heard a knock at our door, and it was our Navigator being personally delivered. I’d already joked to Mark that I felt lost without one, as I wouldn’t be able to navigate my way through the next day! 
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