Going north, south, east and west! **Updated 1/25** - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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So glad that you had a great time at Napa Rose. Unfortunately, we had a less than stellar experience there in May. Our anniversary and with some wonderful Disney friends....our servers were a bit arrogant....brought the incorrect wine, forgot my DH and my dinner (we were sharing) and a dessert was forgotton...no apologies. Perhaps we hit it on a bad night, but I don't think we need to go back for dinner. Now, the scallops with lobster sauce ( an appetiser) is worth returning to savor. We'll partake in the lounge with some vino, but that's it.
I am so enjoying seeing DL thru your eyes. What fun.! I will return to DL on Fri the 16th for some downtime and some 'therapy'
Looking forward to your report on DCA....I have thoroughtly enjoyed all of the reports from your vacation. Awesome!
Mari
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Caught up again!! Great pictures, of course. Mark must really be a riot to be with around the characters! I was wondering if you would show the drawing of Mary Poppins! lol!! Great updates, Cheryl!!
Tuesday 28 October – part one: where are the characters?
Fortunately, we could line in a bit, as we were meeting Sharon for breakfast at 8.00 at Storytellers Café and again, that was just a three minute walk from our room. Despite that, we still managed to be late, I have no idea how.
Here, you can either order a la carte or from the buffet. Mark went to have a quick look at the buffer and, after his report back, we all opted for that and it was very good too. Their selection of cakes and pastries was excellent and they also had a lot of good fresh fruit, smoked salmon and hot items, although I didn’t get that far, after they offered to bring pancakes to our table. A plate of four pancakes and four Mickey waffles turned up, which was a bit excessive. We were never going to be able to finish those and we didn’t even try.
Our server was a little quick off the mark in taking away our bill, as we did want to speak to her about the characters. As happened the last time we were in Disneyland, they weren’t exactly quick in coming around. We saw Kenai and Dale enough times. In face, we saw Dale twice or maybe more, but no sign of his friend at all and no sign of Meeko or Koda either, so we asked on our way out and got told that Koda would be out in a few minutes, so we waited to see him, but there was no way we were going to wait for Meeko, as we were told he had gone on a 30 minute break.
Now I’m a DVC member!
Storytellers Café:
Food 8 8½
Service 7 7
Atmosphere 8½ 8½
Value for money 7½ 8
Average score: 7.88
We headed over to the Disneyland Park and it was such a nice feeling to be able to walk in there, ahead of the regular guests. As Mark said, they should do this every day. We were going to head for rides as soon as we got in, but we got sidetracked by characters and ended up seeing both Pluto and Minnie in their Halloween costumes before we headed up Main Street.
Some of the shop windows along Main Street
There was no real line as such for the characters and I guess the reason for that was obvious when we got to Fantasyland, as that’s where everyone was. We looked at Peter Pan’s Flight, but that was a 30 minute wait, more than we saw there during the whole of yesterday, so we passed.
Nemo was of course nuts, so we ended up going on Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters. Again, I got a pitiful score and this time, thankfully so did Mark. I got 24,000 and Mark got 29,000. Sharon, who I was riding with, was the clear winner with 64,000. We were level up to a point and then she must’ve hit something and she was suddenly way ahead of me.
Mark showing off his score!
We said goodbye to her when we came out of there, as she was off to see if she could meet up with Tinkerbell and we had agreed to meet our friends Mari and Raleigh, who we had met on our Med cruise last year. They live locally, so were coming to spend the day with us. We walked back down Main Street and saw all the non-resort guests, waiting to be let into the park:
We headed over to the California Adventure, where we had agreed to meet them, stopping to get photos on the way of the Halloween decorations outside the Disneyland Park and the candy cane letters that make up the word California outside the other park.
We also found some Photopass guys on the way and got our photos done with them. There seemed to be more out over here than there were in the Disneyland Park, which was good to see.
Next: Candy Corn Acre and a Californian Toy Story Mania
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Wow, awesome pictures Cheryl! I just love love love all those pumpkins Also, the candy California is way cool! Glad to hear you had a nice breakfast - despite the characters not coming to your table. OK, Mark, admit it: What did you do to keep Meeko away?
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Love the candy corn decorations and Minnie in her halloween finery. The restaurant where you had breakfast with Sharon looked really nice. I love the Arts and Crafts style.
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Oct '99: CSR ~ May '02: CR ~ Nov '04: SOG ~ May '06: SOG ~ Dec '07: Solo @ Pop ~ May '08: Pop w/friends ~ Oct '08: SOG ~ Dec '09: Pop w/LeAnn ~ Sept '10: Solo @ Pop ~ Spring '11: AKL ~ Jan '12: Pop for 1/2 Marathon ~ Sept '12: 1st trip for DL 1/2 Marathon? ~ Feb '13: Pop w/pals? ~ Mar '13: Tokyo Disney w/PP's?
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
I love all the Halloween Decorations. When we were last at DLR they were just starting to put up the Halloween Decorations towards the end of our trip. I loved the huge pumpkins, etc. It's fun to see how festive it is when it's all done up!
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"When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable." ~ Walt Disney
That was a beautiful restaurant, and it seems they had quite an assortment of items for it to have been breakfast. Sorry you didn't get to see all the characters. Your pictures turned out great. Looking forward to hearing about CA.
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Claytrgtshooter (Minnie Lor's Hubbie)
! I will return to DL on Fri the 16th for some downtime and some 'therapy' 
PassPorter Guide Author
We were level up to a point and then she must’ve hit something and she was suddenly way ahead of me. 
Also, the candy California is way cool! 
Glad to hear you had a nice breakfast - despite the characters not coming to your table. OK, Mark, admit it: What did you do to keep Meeko away? 
ºOº ~*~ 
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