A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 15 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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We were at a beautiful garden/nature centre in Cornwall a couple of years ago, and we watched in horror as the captive otters there were fed dead baby ducklings ........ There were otters happily running around with tiny duck feet sticking out of their mouths, and we overheard a nearby family trying to explain to their small child that it was pieces of bread, whilst their slightly older daughter looked on with a cynical expression on her face.
Oh my goodness, that's just appalling! I cannot begin to imagine how horrified parents deal with that one - not something children should have to witness.
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And then in Edinburgh zoo we watched as they munched on frozen white mice.
I do love otters, they are one of my favourite animals, but I wish they ate, oh I don't know, something innocuous like lettuce!
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Sunday 5 June – part five: oh wow, this is pretty!
All done, we headed out of the New Forest Wildlife Park, and debated what to do next. We decided to go a little further into the New Forest, as we still had a couple of hours to kill. We ended up heading over to Hythe, which is where we were due to go for dinner last night. We parked up, and made our way over to the seafront…
Talk about a pretty town! On the way over, I’d read on Google that they had a ferry that runs from here to Southampton, and back, so we figured that would be something quite fun to do. They also have a train that runs out along the pier, but sadly it didn’t seem to be running, so we ended up walking our way along the pier, and trust me, it was a long walk, although we had some wonderful views along the way…
We spotted our ship along the way, although Mark did think the Queen Victoria was ours at first. Oh dear!
I also photographed these guys, although frankly, I thought they were pains zapping around, sending waves everywhere. They just didn’t exactly strike me as thoughtful to other users, shall we say? At one point, they were very close to a fishing boat, and I’m sure that can’t have been pleasant for those guys.
Finally we were at the pier head…
… and we had a few minutes before our boat was due, so I got some photos…
Everyone kept commenting on this – such a fun use of hard hats!
When it turned up, it was literally just ourselves and another couple, who turned out to be locals, who boarded. There must’ve been another eight or 10 people out on the pier, but I guess they’d only walked out there to take in the view.
The other couple didn’t exactly reassure us, when they told us one of these boats had smashed into the pier head literally a few weeks ago. I guess that’s why there’s now so much fencing up, as presumably it needs repairing? Thankfully the boat docked safely, and we boarded.
We headed downstairs, as I figured I didn’t want to get any further windburn, but it was really hard to get any photos down there through the glass, and as that was the main aim of this ride, we headed back outside, but sat in the shade. I got lots of photos as we headed over to Southampton…
Great pictures from your ferry ride! It looks like a beautiful day!!
I would say it was the best day so far of the summer. I honestly thought it would stay like that the whole two weeks we were gone, but not a bit of it! Apparently I think the Monday and maybe the Tuesday were nice and like that, then it degenerated into rain/showers/drizzle/torrential rain/wind with some sun if you were lucky... we were told we had better weather on our cruise than at home. They're saying we might get to 80 on Friday, which is about the temperature we had that day, and if we do, that'll be the first time since then we've had such nice temperatures...
That little town was quite lovely and the ferry ride seemed to be the perfect way to pass a few hours.
Oh it was. There's nothing worse than when you have time to kill on the hoof, so you don't really have any plans. Usually I tend to find we find something to do, but nothing that great - well, this time I think we chose the perfect thing to do...
Sunday 5 June – part six: this is so calm and peaceful
Frustratingly, because of where our cruise ship was docked, we couldn’t really see it on the journey over, although I got a couple of shots as we headed back to Hythe…
As we headed back, you could see how long the pier was.
When we got back, we were very pleasantly surprised to see the train heading down towards us, so we got that, and even better, there was no additional charge for the journey.
It’s a world breaker, as you can see:
It was a neat journey back, and we easily beat those who decided to walk back from the ferry…
When we got back, we were feeling a bit like Winnie, in terms of having a rumbling in our tummies so we headed over to the town, which was beautiful…
It reminded me of a traditional English town, with lots of unique shops, although sadly our high streets these days all seem to resemble each other, with the same big chain names. I think that’s such a shame, as unique shops really make places.
As a Doctor Who fan, I was very taken with this!
I was particularly taken with the name of this one!
We got some sandwiches at the supermarket, and Mark got some nuts, and I got a flapjack. We thought about eating in the town, but decided to head back to the car instead. As we did, I spotted this park, and it was the perfect place to enjoy lunch…
It was just so quiet and calm here, with barely any cars around, and it wasn’t crowded. I could definitely see the attraction to living here.
After we’d finished eating, we wandered around the park, and got a couple of photos….
… then we headed back to the car. We made our way over to Southampton, and as we did, the car told us it needed filling up. Deciding it would be easier to do today than when we got back, we headed to one petrol station, only to find it was closed due to refilling, so we headed over to Tesco instead. That sorted, we decided to make our way over to the terminal, as we knew there was a viewing area right at the entrance, which we’d enjoyed a year earlier. We were in for a shock when we got there. The port had taken it over, closing it off, and erecting marquees there.
Ok, so now we couldn’t park up there, where to go? The email from Celebrity had clearly told us not to turn up before our 3:00pm time slot, and it was only 2:20pm, so we headed off to find some parking. Mark pulled into the Ikea car park, and we both figured it was free, as they usually are. Well, not here. Given they have a massive shopping centre that charges for parking, I guess they had to make it the same for all the car parks, and we were stuck. We had no option but to go through.
We found a parking space, and agreed we’d have a look around the West Quay shopping centre as we were here.
Once inside, I had an important mission – I needed a restroom, as I’d been thinking for the last hour or so I could do with a visit.
Once that was done, we headed back to the car, as we didn’t want to be late for our 3:00pm appointment. We entered here…
… and were given our instructions of where to go. We had to drop off the luggage at the terminal entrance, which was fine, except we had no luggage tags. I quickly found a staff member, and he wrote them out for me. I got the impression from him that Celebrity had done different things with different people, as most people seemed to have luggage tags. He was so helpful, and cheerfully told us he’d take all the three cases himself, but Mark was having none of that, saying that was too much, so helped him over with one of them.
Beautiful pictures, I can almost smell the ocean air! And that park was so pretty, a perfect place to enjoy a quiet lunch before the chaos of a cruise terminal. Not liking the title of your next update!
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I cannot begin to imagine how horrified parents deal with that one - not something children should have to witness. 
I guess that’s why there’s now so much fencing up, as presumably it needs repairing? Thankfully the boat docked safely, and we boarded. 
What beautiful photos of this sunny day on the ferry ride. 
so we headed over to the town, which was beautiful… 
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