A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED - Page 33 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 an amazing, albeit exhausting, day! Your pictures are beautiful. How rude of the lady not to be willing to move her bag, especially after Mark specifically asked her.
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More great views from the Shard and especially with the city all lit up! Nice shot of Wembley, even though ten miles away! That woman had some nerve on the train! Glad Mark told her off!
I'm glad he did too. I'm glad she moved the bag as well, despite all her muttering.
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Wednesday 20 September – part one: “they’re a window into the past”
After our hectic day yesterday, we had a much more leisurely start to the day, and got going very slowly. Mind you, I don’t know that any of us could have got going quickly, had we tried!
We loaded up the car, and got going on Jan’s mystery tour, which didn’t start out too well, as we couldn’t actually find our first destination. Oh well, we’ll just gloss over that, and headed to the top of Bluebell Hill, which offers beautiful views over Maidstone and the surrounding areas. It was a little hazy, but you can still see why Kent, the county (state) we live in is referred to as the “Garden of England”.
A traditional hop farm house – originally used to make beer
While there, we’d had a look on the English Heritage website, and had found the details for Little Kit’s Coty House, so we decided to try and look for it again.
Little Kit’s Coty House is the remains of a megalithic “dolmen” burial chamber, originally constructed during the Neolithic period. It’s a group of about 20 sarsen stones in a tight cluster, but sadly the burial mound was seriously damaged in 1690, before any reliable records were made.
The origin of the name isn’t known. At first, it was thought to be a corruption of Catigern, the name of a British prince slain in single combat with the Saxon Horsa in a battle at nearby Aylesford in AD 455 (just a few years ago ) where the Britons were victorious, but it’s now thought the barrows preside this by thousands of years, so maybe not…
We got lost a second time, but this time, Mark spotted it. There is no parking anywhere nearby, which is helpful so we parked in the entrance to a business and went in for a quick look. It’s nothing special, but it’s interesting, and I think Jan found it fascinating, so that’s the main thing.
After that, we made our way into Maidstone, where we live, pointing out various sights on the way in. We then parked up, and first showed her All Saints Church, which was originally built in 1395 as a collegiate church by Archbishop William Courtney. Jan loved this, because as we found out, she adores graveyards, as in her words “they’re a window into the past”. I’ve never really thought of them like that, but yes, now I can see that.
We walked past the Carriage Museum, which is home to more than 60 vehicles, including Queen Victoria’s State Landau carriage. It’s housed in the 14th century stables of the Archbishop’s Palace, more of which in a second… The Carriage Museum was the gift of a man called Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake, who was Mayor of Maidstone a total of 12 times. He began collecting carriages, when he realised horse-drawn vehicles were being forced off the road by the motor car.
A Magical Mystery Tour! So far it's fantastic too! Beautiful views from that spot!
Cemeteries are quite interesting, if you can find a good one, or an old one. She'll have to get back to Paris someday and visit Pere Lachaise.
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A Magical Mystery Tour! So far it's fantastic too! Beautiful views from that spot!
Cemeteries are quite interesting, if you can find a good one, or an old one. She'll have to get back to Paris someday and visit Pere Lachaise.
Oh gosh, there are so many amazing cemeteries there. I think she might go back, providing she never had to fly into Charles de Gaulle again!
That's quite the tour and certainly not touristy, which is a good thing!
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That's quite the tour and certainly not touristy, which is a good thing!
Oh gosh, definitely not! I don't think we saw anyone else wandering through the graveyard looking at the various memorial stones the whole time we were there. I'm sure some people do, but probably not very many....
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Wednesday 20 September – part two: where we got married!
The next sight we showed Jan was the Archbishop’s Palace, where we got married in 1999. And how ironic I'm posting it today - yesterday was our 18th wedding anniversary!
As you can see, it’s got a wonderful history to it. It was originally the 14th century residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, hence its name.
We browsed the garden next door…
…and then, having noticed the door to All Saints’ Church was open, we headed in there. After it was built, it became the parish church of Maidstone in 1549. It’s a Grade I listed building, which is the highest protection that buildings can have in this country, and it’s described as one of the grandest Perpendicular style of churches in the country.
There was a dedication to Mark’s uncle on the piano, which was a nice touch. He did a lot for the church in his life, and they’ve got a new piano for the church since his death, and it seems decent to do that for him.
This section is devoted to the Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment.
We really enjoyed exploring the church, and they did say you could leave a donation, which we would’ve happily done, but I wasn’t leaving it in a plate with no-one around. There was a sign saying that they should be put in the box on the wall, but what box? We looked around, and couldn’t find one anywhere. I know it’s terrible, but we left without donating. As Mark said, we’ll give his aunt some money the next time we see her…
We made our way back to the car…
The pedestrian bridge over the River Medway
… and headed out, via the local garage to fill up with gas. Jan was a little shocked at the prices. I worked it out to about $6.60 a gallon, which I thought was quite good, as it has been as high as $10 in the past.
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Nice shot of Wembley, even though ten miles away! 
That woman had some nerve on the train! 
Glad Mark told her off!
Oh well, we’ll just gloss over that, and headed to the top of Bluebell Hill, which offers beautiful views over Maidstone and the surrounding areas. It was a little hazy, but you can still see why Kent, the county (state) we live in is referred to as the “Garden of England”. 
) where the Britons were victorious, but it’s now thought the barrows preside this by thousands of years, so maybe not… 
so we parked in the entrance to a business 
We wanted to show it off as much as we could. 
I think she might go back, providing she never had to fly into Charles de Gaulle again! 
We looked around, and couldn’t find one anywhere. I know it’s terrible, but we left without donating. As Mark said, we’ll give his aunt some money the next time we see her… 
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