The Grand Poohbah Trip: Food & Wine Festival and the Grand Californian: COMPLETED 5/21/09 - Page 7 - 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
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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 encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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So we've thinking about more things we wanted to say and realized we needed to post a "Final Thoughts" post. LOL!
I'm not sure we mentioned how much fun we had twittering about our Disneyland trip at the same time that some of our PP friends at the "Decade of Dreams" at WDW were twittering their trip - posting twitpics - making it feel as if we were at Disneyland and Disney World at the same time. Thanks Bob & Larry - you made our trip even more fun!
We also forgot to mention the sweet little CM from Brooklyn at the DCA entrance from inside the GC. Because the APs have our pictures and names on them, he always greets us by name, "Good morning, Richard," and "Good morning, Katherine" he says in his distinctive Brooklyn accent. He's such a sweetie!
Renewing our APs online was a breeze. We debated about whether we should do that or wait until our next trip (not realizing our next trip would be in a month), but eventually decided to renew online. We saved some money by doing this, and our APs were mailed to us - no standing in line, no taking of pictures again, etc. This year there were 2 choices for the design of AP you wanted. Rich chose the new one, and I decided to stick wtih the old one just so we could tell our APs apart at a glance.
The other cool thing about this trip was when we drove up to the guard gate at the GC. Rich was wearing his Epcot shirt and the CM asked him what his favorite WDW resort was. Well, that took awhile since we have so many favorites. It was fun having that connection to WDW while at DL.
And as for our upcoming trip to Disneyland, we just bought tickets to see an Angels game like we did last year. And guess who they're playing? The Dodgers - wow - two of our teams at the same time - who will we cheer for? I hope you'll come back for our next trip report to find out.
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Thanks for the descriptions of the F & W events. I'm not a wine drinker, so I probably won't ever attend those. But I liked reading about them.
I agree that the "snack" food part needs some improvement. It's just weird getting Lobster Roll from Award Weiners (hot dogs), and Seared Ahi from Taste Pilot (hamburgers.) Last year, they had all the food samples at the Wharf, all cooked in the kitchens that were formerly the Chinese fast food area. I didn't like that everything was in the same place, but it was better than having everything spread out around the park at the CS places. At least you could get your sampling of a variety of food. I wonder what they will do next year. It's a shame they can't set up the kiosks like they do in WDW.
Great final thoughts! So, which WDW is Richard's favorite?? Always got to a good baseball game! Looking forward to hearing all about it in your next TR!
Great final thoughts! So, which WDW is Richard's favorite?? Always got to a good baseball game! Looking forward to hearing all about it in your next TR!
I think basically we rattled off all the deluxe resorts. But our very favorite - the one we think of as our home resort - is the Yacht Club.
Just found this TR. I haven't been in the Disneyland boards in a while. See what I've been missing? It sounds like the F&W Festival was a hit for the most part. I enjoyed hearing about your experiences and the difference between it and the International F&WF at Epcot. I am happy that you'll be starting a new TR soon, and hope you decide to come to the Passporter gathering in December so I can meet you both!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
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Just found this TR. I haven't been in the Disneyland boards in a while. See what I've been missing? It sounds like the F&W Festival was a hit for the most part. I enjoyed hearing about your experiences and the difference between it and the International F&WF at Epcot. I am happy that you'll be starting a new TR soon, and hope you decide to come to the Passporter gathering in December so I can meet you both!
Oh, Sharon, what a sweetie! Okay, so we started our trip report on our Disney blog because it's more a Southern California trip than a Disneyland trip. But maybe we should post here, too?
Looks like we won't be at the PP meet at WDW in December (gotta do a family thing in Philly) but we're hoping to do PP meet at DL in October and WDW some time next year. Woo hoo!
I just found this trip report from a link in your new one, and I'm so glad I did. Although, now I've got my Disneyland AP talking to me and my bank account wouldn't be happy with a stay at the Grand Californian! Maybe I'll just have to live vicariously through your reports. I loved what you had to say about Date Nights. My favorite thing to do at Disneyland on a Saturday night is to watch the "dates" of all ages, although Zack's tastes tend to take us to the Tomorrowland Terrace more than the swing bands. I'm 99% sure that we'll be at the Passporter meet in October; maybe we should plan on some time at the wine terrace at DCA? Thanks for writing, now I'm off to read your new report!
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Karen, aka Zack's Mom - Lover of all Things Disney and the San Francisco Giants!
I just found this trip report from a link in your new one, and I'm so glad I did. Although, now I've got my Disneyland AP talking to me and my bank account wouldn't be happy with a stay at the Grand Californian! Maybe I'll just have to live vicariously through your reports. I loved what you had to say about Date Nights. My favorite thing to do at Disneyland on a Saturday night is to watch the "dates" of all ages, although Zack's tastes tend to take us to the Tomorrowland Terrace more than the swing bands. I'm 99% sure that we'll be at the Passporter meet in October; maybe we should plan on some time at the wine terrace at DCA? Thanks for writing, now I'm off to read your new report!
Cool, cool, cool! A Golden Vine Winery wine tasting meet would be perfect! You know the first time I heard live music was at Tomorrowland Terrace. I couldn't believe it. I was a young teen and when I heard the music I walked faster and faster toward it and thought, "Why haven't I known about this before?" LOL! But later in my 20s I danced to the big bands at Carnation Plaza Gardens. Oh, I miss it already! So glad it's still there - can't wait to see you all in October.