National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! DISNEYLAND SECTION COMPLETED - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wow, now that's what I call traveling!!! Your meals looked amazing, almost better than some of the meals on the cruise. Oh, did I say that out loud??? LOL
Wow, now that's what I call traveling!!! Your meals looked amazing, almost better than some of the meals on the cruise. Oh, did I say that out loud??? LOL
There's one meal in particular that springs to mind and the meal on the plane was better than that one!
About four hours into the flight, after we’d had our lunch/dinner (it depends which time zone you’re working on at this stage – London or LA... ) I was the first in the cabin to ask for my seat to be converted into a bed. This has to be done by a member of staff and it’s a fascinating process to watch. I then settled down to some sleep, deep at first and then a bit more fitful later. However, in total, I slept for about six hours, which wasn’t bad going and was exactly what I needed to refresh me. Having said that, later it would perhaps prove to have been a bad move...
Again, I was the first one awake, and found one of the members of staff and asked for a top-up of the smelling salts, as I was having problems with my breathing while I was sleeping. Not great to have sinus issues on a flight!
I got my bed converted back to its seat and the staff began the long process of doing that with just about everyone. There were a fair few empty seats in Upper Class, but my goodness, it was huge! There had to be at least 30 people, if not more, in there, which is a lot of people to look after.
The view outside
Almost as soon as that was done, we were served with afternoon tea. Mark went with prawn mayonnaise and chicken sandwiches, while I had prawn mayonnaise and cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches.
Next up was a scone with jam and butter, then a selection of small cakes – chocolate éclairs, raspberry whoopee and mini-cupcake. It was all very civilised and I saw down with Mark to enjoy it.
By now, we literally had about an hour and a half left of the flight. The whole thing had gone by very quickly. Considering it was 12 hours, rather than my usual nine and a half hours to Orlando, but despite that, I found the whole flight much quicker. No doubt that had something to do with being in Upper Class, rather than Premium Economy. As Mark said, if only we could travel this way every time, but sadly, unless we win ourselves the lottery or the prices go down dramatically, I can’t see that happening.
Some of the in-flight information about our journey
Soon enough, we were coming into land and it was fascinating to see Los Angeles sprawling beneath us. It seemed to go on forever with the infamous freeways clearly in sight. Rather worryingly, it looked like they were moving. What’s going on?
There was another surprise. I don’t know why, but I never realised that LAX is right by the sea, so that was neat to see that, as we flew in. Well, at least through the all too familiar haze that hangs over the city.
Touchdown was pretty smooth, although it seemed to take an age to get to our gate. When we did, we had to be towed to the gate. It was very surreal to see such a small thing bringing such a huge plan in. It’s not something that’s happened to us before. :
We learnt coming out of LAX that this is actually a restaurant!
Sounds like a relatively uneventful flight, which is always a good thing. I'm so jealous of the food you guys always seem to get on transatlantic flights. I got some peanuts on my last flight . . .
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Those seat/beds look SO comfy!!! Better even than the wide, reclining business class seats on some planes. And afternoon tea, complete with scones?! How civilized!
Funny thing about that restaurant at LAX - when we lived there, they had an ad for it that featured this woman who must have been about 80 years old, looking half-embalmed already, that was NOT flattering at all. We used to laugh every time we saw it, thinking, THIS is supposed to entice me to eat there?! So, I never have eaten there....
Now that is the way to travel. What a great flight!
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OMG, how comfortable your bed in upper class looks! Man, I wish we could fly like that! Sooooo much better than economy!!! Can't wait to read more about your amazing trip!
What a comfy way to travel! I love it! I love being able to see the flight data during the flight! I'd probably be watching that for most of the flight!
Yes, you certainly did see the urban sprawl in Los Angeles. You were kind to call it "haze" above LA...we all know it really was just pollution! Thankfully it has improved a bit over the last few decades, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way!
I ate at that LAX restaurant probably 25 years or so ago. It was a fancy restaurant back then (it's gone through quite a few changes over the years), and one of my best friends took me there to celebrate my birthday. It was really cool eating there at night and looking out at the airplanes coming and going.
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