Some Food, Some Wine and Some Christmas!!! - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What a awesome afternoon/evening at Epcot! All your F&W tastes looked yummy! Especially since I am sitting here eating a peanut butter toast for lunch!
We loved Olivia’s for breakfast! I’m glad you enjoyed it as well! Can’t wait to hear about your Epcot day!
Thanks, Donna!! Everything really was delicious-well except the pretzel! Olivia's ROCKS!!
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Originally Posted by pamcarey
Your F&WF eats all look and sound as amazing as you describe them! Those seared scallops!! I love the Christmas themed refillable mugs this year... they are so cute!!
Thanks, Pam!! Those scallops were delicious!! They melted in your mouth!! I love that mug!! Especially since I have the other ones already!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
You have been busy with updates!
I hear you about the security lines at Epcot, that's why we always prefer to use the International Gateway entrance if we can. I just hope that doesn't get too congested when the Skyliner opens.
Great eats from around Epcot and I love all your purchases.
I am trying to get as much done as I can on this. I am off today and it is too cold to do much else! We so missed the IG!! Thanks, Cheryl!!
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Okay, I think this will be my last update for today because it takes a lot of work to post it both here and then on FB!
Spending the Entire Day at Epcot!!! Part 1
We arrived just after 9:00 AM and got a great parking spot. You can see the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster going up and it is HUGE!!! We were told it will be the largest indoor rollercoaster in the country!!
I can never seem to catch an entire monorail in a picture and today would be no exception:
This little dog was so cute I asked if I could take a photo:
After going through the horrible bag check, we saw that there was some taping going on for a Christmas show.
There was a good crowd around the area but we didn't recognize anyone (Proving we are getting older and older! ). We then went to Soarin’ for our first FP for today.
We were lucky enough to be in the first row this time which really makes a nice difference! I absolutely love hearing people riding this for the first time! There are always cheers and tons of comments on how awesome this attraction is!!
Then I mistakenly thought that it was time for our next FP for LWTL at 10:25 when it was actually ripe at 10:55. . We luckily received a bit of Disney Magic here though when the CM said to just go right on in! Believe it or not, the standby line was 50 minutes! So we really felt pixie dusted by being able to use our FP early!
I loved seeing the F&WF plants!!
Can you see the Hidden Mickey here?
Next we went to check out the Living Seas but the standby line said 45 minutes and we both looked at each other and said : We tried Journey into Imagination after that with the same result! As much as we love Figment, definitely : to 45 minutes for that ride. Our last FP was for Pixar short films but it wasn’t ripe until 12:10 PM. It was starting to get really hot out and since we really didn’t need a FP for this attraction, we decided to just go into the next show.
Muffin got a little miffed with me because I made him take this picture until we got it right :
Those shorts are just adorable and always make me cry! We had no idea what to do after this as our Wine Tasting wasn’t until 2:30 PM so we decided to check on JII again and this time, the stand by line said 20 minutes. Okay, we can do that!
After our journey, we decided to take a walk around the world. We went into the light lab but it really isn't our thing. It did look cool inside.
We stopped at the Cheese Studio to get waters and I got a Maple Boursin Cheesecake. It was incredibly delicious!!
We continued around World Showcase. Today we took our time exploring the countries and I, of course, did a little shopping. . We stopped in England where I bought a Never Grow Up t-shirt.
By this time, it was around 2:00 PM so we got two more waters and headed towards the Festival Center.
You guys, it was really hot at this point. Muffin looked at his weather app and it said 89 degrees! It was very sunny and the humidity wasn’t bad but hot is hot. And there isn’t much shade walking around World Showcase. We were very very glad we drank lots of water and the Festival Center felt wonderful!!
We were also glad we had gotten there a little early giving us time to cool down because who the heck wants to drink alcohol when they are hot?! Certainly not us!
Anyway!
Muffin is checking the temperature
The Wine Tasting was delightful! Our host was Desiree Napolitano Leja. She was energetic and very informative. We tasted three wines from the Salentein Winery in Mendoza, Argentina. By the time she was done with her description and slides, Muffin and I decided to put Argentina on our bucket list! The chief winemaker is Jose Galante and he is as famous in Argentina as Paul Hobbs is here. In fact, they know each other.
The first wine was a Chardonnay. It was just okay and not something either of us would run out to buy. The second wine was a Cabernet Sauvignon and that was way to alcoholly for both of us! To be fair we are white wine drinkers but we do like to try different wines.
But the third wine was Bellissimo! It was also a red wine blend called Numina. Neither of us had ever heard of it before but we sure will look for it now. It was smooth and delicious!!
Our class was over a little after 3:00 PM, so we decided to head around World Showcase in the opposite direction this time towards Japan.
Coming Up: Our Tokyo Pairing Dinner!!
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Last edited by Tara O'Hara; 11-28-2018 at 04:00 PM..
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I love the "never grow up" T-shirt, very neat and I still find it amazing to see all the Doctor Who merchandise everywhere, given it wasn't that popular until a decade or so ago - quite a change from most of the time I've been a fan (all the way back to 1983 )
Wow, the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster is going to be massive!
The wine seminar sounds like fun! Like you, I prefer white wines, but like to try new things, especially when it’s a tasting and I don’t have to buy a whole bottle!
Nice start to your trip and quite some extensive updates.
Glad all went well getting to WDW with the exception of the delay on the tarmac. Your room and view at OKW looks very nice and recognize it well as I've played golf at the LBV course many times. Some nice eats and bevs at the festival and what you needed after the travel today.
Nice breakfast at Olivia's and hope to try one day but not sure if it's worth traveling to. Your wine seminar looked interesting and enjoyable and the host is the same one I had for mine last year. Enjoyed all the photos as well! Too bad it was so hot!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Wow! You were busy with the updates today! Sounds like a good start to your trip.
You didn’t say whether you cried when they said ‘welcome home’ for the first time?
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Our internet has been down today and is still slow, but you've definitely been busy with updates. I totally agree that Epcot as the worse security check lines, even when they have both sides of the entrance open. I really wish they could expand this somehow. I can't believe how hot it was for you all.
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We were told it will be the largest indoor rollercoaster in the country!!
). We then went to Soarin’ for our first FP for today.
. We luckily received a bit of Disney Magic here though when the CM said to just go right on in! Believe it or not, the standby line was 50 minutes! So we really felt pixie dusted by being able to use our FP early!
: We tried Journey into Imagination after that with the same result! As much as we love Figment, definitely 
:
We had no idea what to do after this as our Wine Tasting wasn’t until 2:30 PM so we decided to check on JII again and this time, the stand by line said 20 minutes. Okay, we can do that!
It was also a red wine blend called Numina. Neither of us had ever heard of it before but we sure will look for it now. It was smooth and delicious!!
) 
Too bad it was so hot! 
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