A 40th celebration to end the world! COMPLETED 6/24 - Page 69 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I definitely want to try the watermelon skewers! I love watermelon, oddly enough so does my cat.
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“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.“ ― Winnie the Pooh
October 2015 - Port Orleans Riverside, December 2011 - Caribbean Beach, March 2006 - Coronado Springs, April 2004 - Off property (Never again!), September 2000 - Dixie Landings, December 1996 - Port Orleans , September 1991 - Caribbean Beach, October 1988 - Off property
Thursday 27 December – part six: dinner with a good friend
When we came out of there, Mari wanted to take us over to the wine tasting area at the Wine Country Trattoria to meet her friend Elizabeth, who’s a Cast Member there. Her husband also works there, but I’m for the life of me I can’t remember his name. While there, I spotted that they had a sweet wine flight, so I decided to get that, and Mari told me she’d treat me as my birthday present. All the wines were very nice, and exactly what I like!
After I’d done that, we headed to the Blue Sky Cellar to show Mari the film about how Radiator Springs was created. While there, we chatted to Aaron, who said that he felt like Radiator Springs was his baby, as he’d been working there since you “had to be there in hard hats”. He was lovely to talk to, and he explained that Luigi’s Flying Tires couldn’t operate in heavy rain, as the jets from underneath it actually stop the rain from coming down and send it back up, creating a heavy mist, something they discovered in testing. Interesting stuff.
Once we’d watched the film, we headed off to see the real thing, stopping to get some photos….
Quite busy…
… and to get some Photopass pics done:
We got some shots of Radiator Springs Racers…
After that, we walked back through Pacific Wharf…
… then we walked into the Grizzly Peak area, and noticed that things were not too good on Grizzly River Rapids…
These poor guys appeared to be the only ones who were still stranded, as we didn’t see any other rings out, but we did notice that they had severely lowered the water level in this ride, presumably to allow everyone to get out…
The sun was casting some beautiful colours on Grizzly Peak:
We headed back to the room with Mari, so she could pick up her things, and we got a bit silly – showing just how exhausted we were after a great day!
Considering we were only going to be out for “much of the morning”, we didn’t do badly – I think we got back to the room at about 5:00pm!
We had a quick break, and did some packing to see whether everything would still fit into four suitcases, as we had discovered that if you’re flying Upper Class, your weight limit on each case if 70lbs, as opposed to 50lbs.
We headed out just before 6:30pm to meet up with Jeannie for our dinner with her at Catal. We stopped to watch these guys on the way:
As soon as we rounded the corner, we saw her, and exchanged hugs. I cannot begin to tell you how good it was to see her, and spend some quality time with her, as last time it all felt so rushed. We headed inside, and checked in, and were taken upstairs. I was intrigued to see what this place was like, having walked past it so many times and thought “we must try it” – well, now we were.
Our seat was overlooking Downtown Disney outside, although in fairness, there was a balcony with tables outside. way we wanted one of those – it was too cold out there.
I have to be honest, I really wasn’t that hungry after our late lunch at the Carthay Circle lounge, so I opted for the sashimi of Hokkaido scallops, pineapple, aji-amarillo sauce, cancha, and cucumber sorbet. Oh wow, the cucumber sorbet, which intrigued me when I read that on the menu, was absolutely outstanding. I could’ve eaten that on its own. The whole dish was beautiful, although the sauce was a little too hot, which is why it didn’t get a 10 from me….
Mark was going for an olive overdose today and had the Catalan stuffed olives, lemon, thyme, and Guindilla peppers.
Jeannie got the roasted mushroom soup, truffle powder, and crimini escabeche, which she kindly offered to me to try, and my goodness, it was good – very rich, but very good.
For entrée, I went for the Spanish cheese selection, Cabrales blue cheese, Manchego, and Tetilla de vaca. Usually I love blue cheese, but this time, it was my least favourite, as it was far too strong for me. However, the other two were wonderful….
Mark and Jeannie both opted for the hand rolled cavatelli pasta, braised lamb in red sauce, Calabrian chillies, black olives, and house-made ricotta. How on earth two dishes that are supposed to be the same can be so darned different, I do not know. Apparently Mark’s dish pretty much blew his head off, and he can handle quite a bit of heat in his food. However, Jeannie had no such problems, and she’s not a fan of anything spicy. When they’d both finished their dishes, Jeannie’s was clean at the bottom, whereas Mark’s was all red, indicating the presence of lots of chillies in it.
Mark opted out of dessert, but I had the homemade sorbet, which was berry-pineapple, which intrigued me. The taste of it was lovely, but the texture was just weird. It tasted like a mixture between sorbet, and ice cream, and didn’t quite work sadly.
We got chatting to the couple next to us, who were visiting Disney for the first time. They were from Arizona and they had just got married. They kindly took a photo of the three of us.
Although our server wasn’t terrible, she was nothing special either. Jeannie asked for a soup, so I could share her soup, and we didn’t see her for about another five minutes. As Jeannie said, is it that hard to find a spoon?
Catal:
Appetiser 9½ 8
Entrée 9 9
Dessert 8 N/A
Service 7½ 7
Atmosphere 8½ 8½
Value for money 8½ 8½
Average score: 8.36
Soon we wrapped up dinner, as Jeannie needed to get back, but I am so glad we were able to arrange a meet, and I hope we get to see her again next year – fingers crossed!
We walked with her towards the parking lot, and had a look in the LEGO store, as Mark was interested in a couple of things, but we wanted to check the price back home before we bought anything. That done, we headed back to the room, and bed. Tomorrow would be another early entry day for us…
The weather today was dry and sunny with temperatures in the low 60s. The best thing today was lunch at the Carthay Circle lounge. The worst thing today was not being able to do the Warner Bros studio tour. The funniest thing today was the Genie in Aladdin. Today we tried Catal And the result was the food was pretty good. The most magical moment today was seeing the parade from the Carthay Circle.
Next: “good luck, you’ll need it, the wait’s an hour”
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. You really did get some great pictures of the Parade.
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for the life of me I can’t remember his name. While there, I spotted that they had a sweet wine flight, so I decided to get that, and Mari told me she’d treat me as my birthday present. 
All the wines were very nice, and exactly what I like! 
I cannot begin to tell you how good it was to see her, and spend some quality time with her, as last time it all felt so rushed. We headed inside, and checked in, and were taken upstairs. I was intrigued to see what this place was like, having walked past it so many times and thought “we must try it” – well, now we were. 
way we wanted one of those – it was too cold out there. 
However, the other two were wonderful…. 
When they’d both finished their dishes, Jeannie’s was clean at the bottom, whereas Mark’s was all red, indicating the presence of lots of chillies in it. 
They kindly took a photo of the three of us. 
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