A magical Mediterranean vacation THIS SECTION COMPLETED 8/9 - Page 22 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Yeah, I didn't want to go to the Louvre, but my friend did. I much rather would have preferred the Musee d'Orsay, but we had limited time. Oh well.....
Anyway.... that was all one day? Wow. It sounded scary to cross the canal like that, but apparently they know what they're doing! McDonald's... It's almost a comfort food of sorts - that's affordable too! I remember being happy finding a Ben and Jerry's in Paris!
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Looked like a nice walk in Rialto with some great sights along the way. The Rialto Market was literally right in front of my hotel. I used the traghetto a number of times and happened to use the same one as you as that was closest to my hotel! It is a bit scary, when crossing the canal like that with all the traffic coming at you. It's even scarier standing up!
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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!
Lovely walk in Rialto! While McDonalds might not have been your first choice for dinner, sometimes the easy choice is just what you need. I'm not sure I would have been able to eat that McFlurry Mark got. I love pistachio, but it did look like "chemical waste"!
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Definitely a long day, in fact I kept losing track of whether or not we were still on Day 1! After that rough start getting to the hotel, your rovings in Venice were very picturesque and beautiful. Just what you want from Venice. Too bad you couldn't find room for a cow mask! Wouldn't they ship for you, or was that insanely expensive?
I didn't even want to ask to be honest. Given we still had more than two weeks of vacation left at this point, it would probably have turned up while we were away, then we'd have had to have collected it at the sorting office (now a 20 minute trip away instead of five minutes ) and they only hold packages for so long, so it would've just opened up a huge can of worms...
Yeah, I didn't want to go to the Louvre, but my friend did. I much rather would have preferred the Musee d'Orsay, but we had limited time. Oh well.....
Anyway.... that was all one day? Wow.
I promise it was, although the day started stupidly early and probably finished at around 9:30pm...
Looked like a nice walk in Rialto with some great sights along the way. The Rialto Market was literally right in front of my hotel. I used the traghetto a number of times and happened to use the same one as you as that was closest to my hotel! It is a bit scary, when crossing the canal like that with all the traffic coming at you. It's even scarier standing up!
I'm glad I didn't have to do that, I have to admit....
Saturday 5 July – part one: “this doesn’t seem real”
We did not have a good night’s sleep, and I really couldn’t tell you why. I woke up, thought “oh the alarm will be going off soon” and we’d set that for 7:00am, so I dozed for a bit, assuming it would come through. When it didn’t, and I realised Mark was awake, I asked him what time it was. The response? “3:30am”. Ugh!
I went back to sleep, and assumed the same thing, that it must be nearly 7:00am. Wrong again! By now, it was 4:30am. Double ugh! This was getting silly now…
In the end, I got up around 5:40am, as I was awake, and just knew I wouldn’t get back to sleep. In fairness, I think we were asleep before 9:30pm last night, so we had had eight hours sleep, but I wouldn’t say it was brilliant quality sleep.
I caught up on the boards, and wrote a bit of trip report, then we got going, as breakfast started at 7:30am, and we were both pretty hungry, so we wanted to be down for that.
I took the first suitcase down, and promptly got told off by the guy on reception, who told me I should’ve called for a porter. Well, yes, I guess if I’d thought about it, I should have… anyway, it’s here now.
I got a few more photos of downstairs…
… then we headed into the breakfast room. The smell from here was permeating throughout the ground floor of the hotel, and it smelt wonderful. When we got inside, it looked pretty wonderful too.
I was very impressed by their selection, and proceeded to have some cheese, some pineapple, a banana, a pancake with maple syrup and a chocolate croissant, and wow, that thing was filled with chocolate – just how I like them!
We headed down to reception with the rest of the stuff, meeting a porter most of the way down, who then helped me out with the big suitcase. I was a bit concerned about just leaving everything out right by reception, although there would be someone working there. It just wasn’t what I’m used to, but I’m sure it will be fine.
We wandered out to the Ferrovia area, and boy it was already warm! We got some photos, and headed over the bridge to the other side of the Grand Canal.
We decided to wander up and find Mari and Raleigh’s hotel, even though we weren’t meeting them for the next half hour.
After we found their hotel, we decided to keep walking, so we could work out the easiest way to get to the cruise terminal. It was a beautiful morning.
I’m glad we did this, as we found our way over to the People Mover train using one route, then found a quicker route on the way back, so that’s going to save us some walking later on…
We headed back to Mari and Raleigh’s hotel, and only had a couple of minutes to wait before we saw them. Mari kept saying to me it just didn’t seem real, and I know what she means, and I’m sure you all know what she means as well – you dream for so long about a big vacation that when it finally arrives, it’s like a dream itself..
We headed down to Piazzale Roma to get them tickets for the vaparetto, but wouldn’t you know it, we had a nightmare again with the ticket machines. Honestly, those things are terrible! Three out of the four just weren’t working, and the final one wouldn’t accept Mari’s card, as it was a chip and pin machine. Those of you who’ve travelled to Europe will know what this means. We no longer sign for things over here, as there was too much fraud, so they changed to a PIN number system, where you input your four digit code instead of signing.
We headed to the ticket office, and fortunately this time Mari was able to sign for their 12 hour passes. We went down to our dock, and of course it had to be the furthest away. We got there, and the sign told us there wasn’t another boat to Murano, where we were heading, for 20 minutes, so we took the opportunity to nip into the local supermarket to get some water.
What a bizarre set-up this was… You go in through one door, but you can exit through two others in different buildings… You can guess what happened. We found the water in the final of the three buildings, but at least it was only €0.50 for a litre and a half… pretty good value!
Equipped with our water to face the hot day ahead of us, we wandered over to the dock and managed to find somewhere to sit down and relax for a while and to take some photos…
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I much rather would have preferred the Musee d'Orsay, but we had limited time. Oh well.....
It's almost a comfort food of sorts - that's affordable too! I remember being happy finding a Ben and Jerry's in Paris!
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It is a bit scary, when crossing the canal like that with all the traffic coming at you. It's even scarier standing up! 
PassPorter Guide Author
) and they only hold packages for so long, so it would've just opened up a huge can of worms...
I promise it was, although the day started stupidly early and probably finished at around 9:30pm...
Mind you, I'm not sure what chemical waste would actually taste like... 
We got some photos, and headed over the bridge to the other side of the Grand Canal. 
Mari kept saying to me it just didn’t seem real, and I know what she means, and I’m sure you all know what she means as well – you dream for so long about a big vacation that when it finally arrives, it’s like a dream itself.. 
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