| May 28, 2009 * Issue 9.22 |
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 In This Newsletter
From the Authors: Book Expo America
Travel Feature: Tokyo, Japan
Disney Feature: Gardens of The World Tour
Updates: What's New and Changed
Tips: DIY ID Cards, Journal It, Prep Your Preschoolers
Captain's Corner: Prime Time
PassPorter PhotoPick: Magic Kingdom Balloon vendor
Q and A: Where can I find WiFi access?
Our
Sponsors: We Recommend...
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 Cool Links:
Stuff and Services
We encounter many Disney- and travel-related products and services. From among
those we try, a few are good enough to use ourselves and recommend to you:
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Owner's Locker - The Purple Place for Storing Your Vacation Stuff!
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Updates:
What's New and Changed
This week we have 2 news bulletins:
Disney Cruise Line terminal closed temporarily on Thursda A bomb scare closed the Port Canaveral terminal and all the roads leading to it. The terminal had re-opened and boarding resumed by 3:00 pm.
Comments: 49
This updates page 260 of PassPorter's guidebook
Walt Disney World Resort Guests get one free club rental Guests staying at a Walt Disney World resort (including the Swan and Dolphin hotels) between now and December 31, 2009 are eligible for one free club rental when they purchase a full price round of golf at the Palm, Magnolia, Lake Buena Vista, or Osprey Ridge courses. Call 407-WDW-GOLF to book tee times or for more details.
Comments: 49
This updates page 260 of PassPorter's guidebook
Tip: Need more news? Read, sort, and search all the PassPorter news bulletins at the PassPorter News Desk!
Our thanks to AllEars.net and MousePlanet.com from which we get some of our news leads.
Hear some news? Be a 'PassPorter Reporter' and send it to us!
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Disney Tips:
From Fellow
Readers
Our readers deliver a wealth of information! Send us your tips! You may see them in this newsletter and win a copy of PassPorter! And you never know -- your tip could even appear in a future edition of a PassPorter guidebook.
DIY ID CARDS
'As a safety measure, before going on our Disney trip last year, I took a recent school picture of my 7-year-old daughter and made a homemade ID card with her picture, height, weight, our cell phone number and names, and the hotel we were staying at, and laminated it. I carried this information in my lanyard around my neck since it was credit card sized, along with my key to the world. That way if we got separated, I instantly had a picture of my daughter handy to show security. I also gave her a sticker inside her shoe which had our cell phone number, our names, and the name of our hotel so she had this information as well. This made us feel a lot more comfortable in the big crowds of all the parks, and eased her anxiety of possibly being separated.'
-- contributed by Sheila
 Save This Tip
JOURNAL IT
'Our trip to Walt Disney World was a dream come true after months of saving, researching, and planning. So when it was time to actually depart, I wanted to savor each moment, and remember as much as I could. I purchased an inexpensive bound writing journal, then each evening I recorded the events and emotions of that day. I tried to be as detailed as possible, to include the order of attractions we saw, wait times, impression of restaurants and what we ordered, our reaction to all the wonderful Disney surprises. When I re-read it, I'm right back there. It helps me recall details that I may have forgotten, like the bus driver's jokes, or the Plaza rose garden. Now I use the blank pages to write down tips and ideas that I hope to use on another Disney trip!'
-- contributed by Colleen
Save This Tip
PREP YOUR PRESCHOOLERS
'Take a moment to explain to young children what they can expect when going on certain attractions. Things that seem obvious to us as adults are often not understood by kids. While waiting in line, tell your kids if the attraction will be in the dark, loud, have scary moments, be a fast roller coaster, etc. I remember my parents having a terrible time with me when I was young. I refused to go on anything after I was taken by complete surprise on Space Mountain and Snow White!'
-- contributed by Ella
Save This Tip
Want more Disney
tips? Look for the concierge bell icon in future newsletters and throughout the PassPorter.com site. When you see the bell, tap it to view and save the tip to your personal tip collection!
For Walt Disney World fans, we've collected 500 of the best tips submitted by readers over the past six years. All have been edited for accuracy and
categorized. For details, visit the PassPorter Disney 500 info
page or the PassPorter store. For Disney Cruise Line fans, we have an e-book with 250 cruiser tips, as
well as a special cruise line comparison section and seven customized packing lists. For information, visit the Disney Cruise Clues info
page.
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PassPorter PhotoPick
Each issue we choose a special photo from the PassPorter Photo Archive which highlights something beautiful, interesting,
humorous, or timely at Disney or around the world. Here is this issue's PassPorter PhotoPick:
Magic Kingdom Balloon vendor
Photo by Dopey007
(click the photo or link to see a larger photo with details)
You can nominate photos as a PassPorter PhotoPick by giving ratings in the PassPorter Photo Archive (you'll need to be logged in to do this). If you'd like to contribute your own photos to the Photo Archive and be considered as a PhotoPick, please read our Photo Upload Guidelines for details and benefits.
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. . . . . . . | Q and A: With Jennifer and
Dave
twinsljo asks: "Does anyone know if WiFi can be picked up anywhere on Walt Disney World property?"
Dave answers: "The Disney resorts with convention centers have WiFi access in the lobbies. That's the Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Yacht and Beach, BoardWalk, and Coronado Springs. You have to create a separate wireless account, so if you're using the in-room wired and the wireless, you'll end up paying extra."
Did our message board members agree with Dave? To see other answers that stinkrbell received, check out the rest of the thread on the PassPorter Message Boards..
Have a question? Post questions at http://www.passporterboards.com -- and if you're
lucky, you may find that folks have already asked and answered the same question that's on your mind!
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Future Newsletters:
Want To See Your Name in Print?
PassPorter News is published weekly, and this means we're always in need of articles! We're on the lookout for guest columnists who want to contribute articles to this newsletter. No professional writing experience is necessary, just a desire to share your experience with others! Not only is this a great way to give something back to the PassPorter community, but you get to see your name in 'print' and receive a $25 gift certificate for use at www.passporter.com.
For details and our article submission guidelines, please e-mail news@passporter.com. Articles about Disney and general travel are welcomed! | . . . . . . . . . . .
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Our Sponsors:
We Recommend...
PassPorter only accepts advertising from services of the highest
quality -- we recommend these companies because we use them ourselves. Please support our sponsors and, in turn, support this newsletter! This week's sponsors
are (in order of appearance):
Mouse Fan Travel -
Book with us by 6/30/09 and we'll make a donation to Avon Walk for Breast Cancer
ALL STAR Vacation Homes -
Choose from more than 150 homes within 4 miles of Disney!
PassPorter Travel Press -
2010 Editions in Pre-Order Soon
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| | | From the Authors: Book Expo America
Hi, {{user('firstname')}}!
This weekend PassPorter is in New York City for the annual Book Expo America convention, where we exhibit and sign copies of PassPorters for booksellers. And, naturally, we're making the city visit a tour stop on the Decade of Dreams Tour! We look forward to sharing the memories with you when we return.
Reader Photo Contest -- Get Published in Our 2010 Edition!
Last year's full-color photo supplement was so popular that we're planning another special photo section for our 2010 edition of PassPorter's Walt Disney World! If you have an extra magical photo of Walt Disney World you'd like to see in gorgeous color in our guidebook, please share it with us -- we think reader photos really expand our scope and make PassPorter more magical! You can contribute a photo in several ways for consideration -- upload it to the PassPorter Photo Archive (preferred), post it (or a link to it) in the relevant thread on our message board, e-mail it to photos@passporter.com, or snail mail it to PO Box 3880, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Photos needs to be uploaded/posted/mailed by June 30, 2009 to be eligible for consideration. If your photo is chosen, the photo will appear in our 2010 guidebook attributed to you and you will receive a free copy of the guidebook. We look forward to seeing your magical photos!
Coming Soon! PassPorter's Disney Vacation Club Guide for Members and Members-To-Be
PassPorter's Disney Vacation Club Guide is a comprehensive e-book covering every aspect of the Disney Vacation Club in detail and answers the most commonly asked questions to help you decide whether the Disney Vacation Club is the right investment for you. For those who are already DVC members, the guide brings together everything you need in one place, including a look at all the ways you can spend your points, lists of the various member benefits, and interactive worksheets for tracking your contracts, points, and reservations. Watch for more details on how and when this new e-book will become available in the coming weeks!
PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line 2009 In Stock!
The brand new PassPorter's Disney Cruise Line 2009 guidebook is now in stock and shipping the next business day. This is a great time to order if you haven't already, as bookstores do have them in stock yet in most cases. Order at http://www.passporterstore.com/store/dcl2009.aspx
PassPorter's Club
Update
- More than 1500 vacationers are now enjoying access to all our e-books, e-worksheets, and super-sized photo archive images. Thank you for your continued support!
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In this issue, PassPorter Featured Columnist Cheryl Pendry shares information on Tokyo, Japan. Then PassPorter Guest Contributor Sikander Durrani gives us a glimpse into Gardens of The World Tour. Finally, Jack Skatt is back with a brand-new Walt Disney World Treasure Hunt.
Jennifer and Dave Marx
PassPorter Founders and
Authors
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Did You Know?
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we'll make a donation to the
Avon Walk for Breast Cancer
Special Offer! Free Dining is back!
Book by 6/21/09 - Walt Disney World® Resort
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Visit us at www.MouseFanTravel.com
*Offer is limited, subject to availability and restrictions apply - CST207807440
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Travel
Feature:
Tokyo, Japan: A Vibrant and Varied City
Cheryl Pendry, PassPorter Featured Columnist
Perhaps the most important thing to know about Tokyo is that it is huge. In fact, it’s one of the most populous cities in the world, with around nine million people calling it home. If, like me, you find that sort of size hard to picture, then perhaps saying that it’s bigger than either New York City or London, will help to put it in perspective for you.
It’s perhaps not surprising that before our visit there, I had some preconceptions about the city. I expected it to be crowded, with traffic jams snaking through the streets, and smog everywhere making it impossible to see far. Nothing could have been further from the truth though. Certainly it was busy and full of people – especially on the subway system, where they pack you in like sardines with no personal space at all! – but there wasn’t as much traffic or pollution as I expected.
Instead, we found large open spaces that were home to some of Tokyo’s biggest tourist attractions. As we were lucky enough to visit Japan during their revered cherry blossom season, Ueno Park was one of our first stops, as this is a prime viewing location for cherry trees. This perhaps gave us one of our best insights into Japanese culture. Seeing blue tarpaulins out on the ground, ready for people to have parties underneath the blossom was quite something. Even though we weren’t invited to any parties, you do feel as if you are a part of it. Day and night time are very different in the park and, by the evening, there’s a distinct aroma of alcohol everywhere, but despite that, everything was exceptionally good natured and not at all rowdy, as you’d find in many other cities around the world.
One of the other main parks in Tokyo is Yoyogi Park and the main attraction here is the Meiji Shrine. One thing we found in Tokyo was that a lot of things aren’t very old. Mainly due to the impact of World War Two, which saw much of the city destroyed in bombings. Originally the Meiji Shrine was built in the 1920s to honor the Emperor of the same name and it’s obvious that he was well thought of, as it was rebuilt in 1958 with money paid for from private donors.
The Meiji Shrine is a beautiful place and very calm, as it’s in the middle of the park, but it’s nowhere near as grand as the Senso-ji temple. This is the one place to see in Tokyo and is to the north of the city in the district of Asakusa, near the Sumida river. It dates back to 628, when two fishermen fished a small golden statue of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy from the river. A shrine, then a temple was built on the site in honor of her and today there’s still a good complex left, although sadly, again, much of it is reproduction. Arriving here was when I knew we really were experiencing the real Japan, with the beautiful five story pagoda to the left of the main entrance gate. Somehow nothing says Japan like a pagoda. Of course, that could be because it’s the view I’m used to from Epcot!
The city has very much grown up around another important sight, the Imperial Palace. It’s very much a mystical place, hidden away and only open to the public on two days in the year. You can catch a glimpse of the palace, with the picture postcard view being the shot of it behind the Nijubashi or double bridge. We’ve seen many views that we thought would be stunning from the guidebook photos, but have sometimes been disappointed. Not this time. Again, this is very much a sight that reminds you that you’re in Japan.
Tokyo’s not all about open spaces, temples and palaces though. The vast majority of the city is as built up as you’d expect. Like any other big city, there’s a main shopping district and here it’s Ginza, which is home to all the major department stores and designer names. In that respect, Tokyo can rival the world’s most glamorous cities and the architecture is stunning, with Cartier’s building all decorated in gold. At the center of Ginza is the Yon-Chrome crossing and, anyone who’s been to New York City, would instantly think of a smaller version of Times Square when they saw it.
However, if you want cheaper shopping, then it’s to the west of the city you need to go, with Shibuya and Shinjuku the major shopping areas. The latter is home to the world’s busiest railway station that’s used by around three million people each day. Everywhere you look around here are train tracks and it literally splits Shinjuku into two, with the shops to the east and the offices to the west.
To get a good grasp of the layout of Tokyo and to see just how much this massive city sprawls in all directions, one place to head for in Shinjuku is the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices. I couldn’t help but think of the World Trade Center when we visited this place, as it’s got both a north and south floor observatory. On the day we visited, we were able to view the Meiji Shrine in nearby Yoyogi Park and Shibuya beyond, but the visibility wasn’t good enough to allow us to see further afield and sadly views of Mount Fuji, one of the iconic sights in Japan, evaded us that day.
Parks, shopping and office areas come to life in daylight hours, but after night falls, other parts of Tokyo come into their own. In particular, the younger set head for Roppongi Hills, which is home to nightclubs, restaurants and shops and it’s also the place to find the Tokyo Tower, based on the Eiffel Tower. It’s a very bizarre sight to see something that looks so similar to the Parisian landmark and that experience reminded me of Las Vegas somewhat!
Tokyo certainly does its best to compete with Vegas, as it’s also got its own Statue of Liberty in the district of Odaiba, on the other side of the Sumida river to the south of the city. Built on reclaimed land, it’s also a mecca for shops and restaurants and again, tends to attract younger people for its nightlife. We enjoyed a superb evening’s tour there, seeing the sights and enjoying some amazing views of the rest of the city across the river.
Tokyo is very much a city of different neighborhoods, with something for everyone, whatever age you are and whatever your interests. It’s certainly got enough to keep you busy for days and we left knowing that we hadn’t been able to see or do everything that we wanted to. Hopefully, one day a return visit will be on the cards for us and we can go back and complete our tour of this wonderfully vibrant and varied city.
Reader Comments (49) - Comment on this article
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About the Author: Cheryl and husband Mark live in England and love to travel, particularly to Disney, and they have made numerous visits to destinations across America and Europe. They recently completed their tour of every Disney theme park around the world, which culminated in their visit to Japan, including the Tokyo Disney Resort.
Questions, feedback, or
corrections about this article, or just want to give kudos to the author? Share a comment here or e-mail
us at news@passporter.com. Also check out our Article Collection for more great information!
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Disney Feature:
Gardens of The World Tour: A Guided Tour During Epcot's International Flower and Garden Festival
Sikander Durrani, PassPorter Guest Contributor
This spring I took the Gardens of the World Tour at Epcot, presented by the Disney Institute. The tour is a 3-hour walking tour that takes you around Epcot for a closer look at Disney's beautiful gardens. The tour group is lead by a Disney Horticulturist.
The first 30 minutes of the Gardens of the World tour is spent going over the way Disney does their decorations and how they get around different issues regarding watering of the plants and excess water. This tour spends most of the morning just going over the different types of flowers that are on display for the festival and in my opinion, the only people that interested in the information in my opinion are serious gardeners that can tell the difference from one flower type and another.
The tour was originally advertised to have a behind-the-scenes look at how Disney grows and prepares their flowers including a look at their greenhouses. I was disappointed that on my tour we only got to see the facility from the outside, which is behind the Canada Pavilion. The guide simply told us a little bit about how they have to do some acrobatics to get the taller trees out of the greenhouse.
Most of the information provided on Gardens of the World tour could be found on information placards below the trees or next to the flower beds. In my opinion, I would have preferred to read the information myself and gotten more “behind the scenes” information from the tour guide.
I am not sure if this tour is given with audio equipment, but we were not offered any. I found it often hard to hear the guide over the regular crowds of the park.
My recommendation for this tour? Unless you are really into gardening, don’t waste your time or money on the tour. You can get the same information at a more leisurely pace by walking around Epcot on your own, reading the placards and looking at the flowers and trees above them.
Gardens of the World Tour Information: The tour costs $59 per person. Discounts are available for Annual Passholders, AAA members, and DVC members. It is highly recommended that you book this tour in advance. The tour is only offered during the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival each spring. To make reservations for the tour, call 407-WDW-TOUR (407-939-8687) at least 24 hours in advance. The tour is offered three days a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
Reader Comments (49) - Comment on this article
View Article Online | Download Free Article PDF
About the Author: Sikandar Durrani is from just outside Houston, TX. He has spent a lot of his time as an adult going to Walt Disney World and Disneyland and hopes to go back to Walt Disney World as often as he can.
Questions, feedback, or
corrections about this article, or just want to give kudos to the author? Share a comment here or e-mail
us at news@passporter.com. Also check out our Article Collection for more great information!
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Did You Know?
PassPorter's 2010 Editions in Pre-Order Soon
Watch this newsletter for news about our 2010 editions of PassPorter's Walt Disney World guidebook. Pre-orders will be opening sometime in June! | | |
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