On the road (2) - beaches, chateaux and castles COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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On the road (2) - beaches, chateaux and castles COMPLETED
This is a continuation of the trip report that's been running in the Globetrotting trip reports forum for a number of weeks. It saw us do a road trip to Normandy and the Loire Valley, which is what's already been covered in that section of the report, and then Disneyland Paris, which is what I'll be focusing on here.
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Wednesday 9 June part six: lots of lovely little Disney touches...
Its quite a drive to get into the Disneyland Hotel at the entrance to the Disneyland Park. As we drove up to it, we passed floral displays and a parking lot, which is a little surreal.
We parked up and unloaded the car, leaving the baggage with bell services, who helpfully brought it straight to our room, which was a lovely touch, not having to call down for it. Why cant they do that at Disney World when your room is ready? Our room was indeed ready and we chatted for ages to Kevin, who checked us in, telling him about all our adventures in the Disney parks around the world. He told us that the Disneyland Hotel is full for the whole of June, which amazed me, considering the prices it charges.
We discovered that hed worked at Epcot, in the France pavilion, oddly enough and had been there in December, when we were last there, which was neat. He explained the layout of the hotel and we booked in dinner at the resorts two restaurants, with the California Grill for tonight and then Inventions for tomorrow night. We thought no more of this exchange, but it would seem to have been a good one for us, as we would discover later....
The lobby here is quite something... remind you of anything?
We followed the directions to our room on the third floor and got there to find bell services waiting for us with our luggage. Now thats what I call service.
Inside the elevator We thought this was a really cool way of indicating where the stairs were! The view from our room I loved these touches around our mirror in the bathroom And how about this for the door into the rooms from the corridors?
As soon as we walked into the room, the first thing that struck us was the size of it. It seemed much bigger than the rooms were used at Walt Disney World and pretty much seemed on a par with the space we got at Tokyo Disney. As youd perhaps expect, there were lovely little Disney touches everywhere, although some of them you really had to hunt for. We spent a fair while just examining every little bit and finding all those wonderful touches.
We decided to head out to the park, as we were starting to feel in need of a little something. First though, we had to head to the car, having accidentally left one of my camera batteries on charge and to work out our mileage for yesterday and today, having forgotten to do that first thing. I managed to explain the situation in French and we rescued the keys and quickly found the car, getting some photos of the hotel on the way back.
The corridor outside our room In the elevator Back in the lobby again talk about an impressive staircase!
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Very nice photos. We will be checking in tomorrow to Newport, I can not wait! I'll be reading your next installment while at Disneyland Paris - I hope!
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Very nice photos. We will be checking in tomorrow to Newport, I can not wait! I'll be reading your next installment while at Disneyland Paris - I hope!
Wednesday 9 June part seven: whats happened to Big Thunder Mountain?
From there, it was into the Disneyland Park. I cannot begin to tell you what a wonderful experience it is to come out of your hotel and then literally have the park right on your doorstep. It was just a few paces and we were passing through the turnstiles. How cool is that it really reminded me of the Tokyo DisneySea MiraCosta in that respect.
We wandered under the railroad and into Main Street USA, taking photos as we went.
Looking back towards the Disneyland Hotel
My first mission was to find some stamps for the various postcards I had been busily writing up as we went. That was quite a mission I ended up going to three shops, before finding the place that actually sold them. Interestingly, it wasnt the Emporium as you might have thought. The shop we did find them was certainly beautifully themed inside.
Of course, the next issue was posting them. I knew there was a postbox in the reception of the Disneyland Hotel, as Id just seen it, but apparently theyre not exactly plentiful in the park, so we tucked them away safely, vowing to post them when we got back to the hotel.
We headed up Main Street, snapping away and visiting various shops and exploring the Liberty Arcade behind the shops that runs up the left of Main Street, designed for periods of rain. We were about to find out all about that...
Interesting way of renovating the buildings along Main Street We think Remy was deliberately posed like this how cute does he look?
From there, it was into Frontierland, by which time it had clouded over considerably.
We wandered around to the Phantom Manor the Haunted Mansion to everyone else and were going in, when the Cast Member on the gate said something in French to Mark. She then explained in English that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad had got stuck, with one train about to head down the big incline. She said that theyd been stuck there for at least 15 minutes. We were both thinking that it was quiet in Frontierland and this would explain it....
We saw a Cast Member go up to everyone in the train, presumably freely handing out Fastpasses to apologise, but they stayed put and we assume they eventually got round, as it was running later on...
We headed into Phantom Manor with the most irritating group of Spanish schoolkids ever. We got into the stretching room and the Cast Member went through his spiel in French and then English, as they do everywhere. Then the kids said words to the effect that they didnt understand, as they were Spanish. Nothing threw this Cast Member. He just repeated it in Spanish for them at least twice, but even then, they wouldnt shut up. He said something to us about it being pointless saying it in French or Spanish, as whatever language he used, they just ignored him....
Fortunately, when the doors to the stretching room opened, we were right in front of them and we were first out. It was so quiet that they actually had the ride stopped completely when we got there, which was amazing to see. We boarded and fortunately, didnt hear too much more from the annoying group, although we did have to put up with them again on the way out. They were not a nice bunch. :
This ride is wonderful, especially in the final part, where you end up in the Wild West, in a nod to its setting in Frontierland. Youre made to feel as if youre going through a cave, which is a great feeling. I dont know if its just me, but the amount of narration in French also seems to have greatly reduced, which is no bad thing. :
Wondering how we got such good shots? Something to do with the fact that the ride stopped during the Wild West section near the end!
Great update Cheryl. I love the pictures on the ride. So sorry about the obnoxious group. I hope you didn't have a run in again with them. How scary for those stuck on BTMRR. More please.
Great update Cheryl. I love the pictures on the ride. So sorry about the obnoxious group. I hope you didn't have a run in again with them. How scary for those stuck on BTMRR. More please.
Fortunately we didn't run into them again, thank goodness!
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Just joining in on the fun, Cheryl. The hotel looks gorgeous; what a treat to be footsteps to the MK. I am curious how the crowds were when you visited....with any luck, we will be visiting the same week next June.
danielle
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and had been there in December, when we were last there, which was neat. He explained the layout of the hotel and we booked in dinner at the resorts two restaurants, with the California Grill for tonight and then Inventions for tomorrow night. We thought no more of this exchange, but it would seem to have been a good one for us, as we would discover later.... 
We got into the stretching room and the Cast Member went through his spiel in French and then English, as they do everywhere. Then the kids said words to the effect that they didnt understand, as they were Spanish. Nothing threw this Cast Member. He just repeated it in Spanish for them at least twice, but even then, they wouldnt shut up. 
He said something to us about it being pointless saying it in French or Spanish, as whatever language he used, they just ignored him.... 
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