Wine, friendship, crème brulee and dinner on the Seine! COMPLETED - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 a pain! I hope they just give you a new one, as it is you've lost so much time in addition to the actual time it's been in for repair.
I know. I spent all Monday evening loading programmes and documents back on to it and most of yesterday morning before I went to work and then yesterday afternoon when I got back from work transferring the photos.
Sorry, to hear about the continued woes with the laptop! It would be nice to get a replacement, but hope nothing important is lost for good and that you can soon resume this TR! Wishing you the best on this!
Nothing is lost - it just means everything's got to be transferred all over again. If you think about it, that's just as bad, as it includes favourite websites, documents, photos, programmes that have to be reloaded... the list goes on.
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Also, tough to balance a lot when you have two TRs going at once ( one beginning and another one coming to an end). We'll be here waiting!
The other trip report was fortunately all completed in terms of writing a while ago. I've finished writing up my shorthand notes, so now I can start adding the photos in, but that takes a while and usually is something I've already started doing when I'm on a trip with a functioning laptop, so that gives you an idea of how far behind I am right now.
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
Still no sign of the laptop - it's been off for the second set of repairs since Tuesday night now. I am hoping to get a call at any time to say the thing's been written off and I can get a new one, but nothing so far. Fingers crossed that happens soon...
Anyway, I've finally had enough time at the desktop to get going on this trip report, so here we go....
The alarm went off at 5:10am, which is early at any time, but especially on a Saturday. I needed to be up early though, as not only were we off to Paris today, but I needed to go online and sort out our bookings for our Disney Cruise around the Mediterranean. Fortunately, that was all quickly done and I was able to book all the shore excursions I wanted and Palo brunch and dinner, which was the most important thing.
That done, I decided to be brave and wash my hair, being as careful as I could with it to avoid the stitches in there. Fortunately, it all went Ok and it dried fine without knotting up, which was my main concern. I didn’t really want to have to tug at it…
We left at 6:30am and were treated to a beautiful sunrise as we did. I hope that was perhaps a good omen for the weather for the weekend, but I suspected if the forecast was right, it wouldn’t be…
We were at Ebbsfleet by 6:50am and pulled up in the car park, getting a space right by the station. We headed inside and through the ticket barriers and then into a long line for security. As Mark said, it wasn’t like this when we were last on the Eurostar in December. Mind you, then it was a Thursday and now it’s a Saturday in March. A bit different…
When we got there, I got the special treatment of a search as something set the machine off. Goodness knows what. The woman apologised as apparently now they have to search your waistband. I tell you what, I hear a lot of complaints about the machines the TSA use in the States, but I think I’d rather have that…
Eventually cleared, we then had a wait a passport control, as there was an issue with the two girls ahead of us. I have no idea what, but they took ages to get through. Our passports were given a cursory glance and as our photos matched with us, we were through.
I have to confess that I wasn’t feeling too great at this point, a bit washed out and according to Mark, I was looking a bit white, but a sit down and some water and I felt a lot better.
It wasn’t long before we were called down to the platform and we were the first ones on the escalator after the Eurostar employee…
One of the local high speed trains going through the station Waiting on the platform for our train to arrive…
Thankfully the tour group (probably another reason why there was a wait for security) headed to the front of the train. We were in carriage 11, which was perfect, as it was literally right by the escalator.
When the train pulled in, you could tell we were travelling in Standard Premier. We were greeted by a member of staff who asked for our tickets and then told us where to find our seats, although I already knew where we were, having looking up the seating plan last night. The seats were perfect – nice and spacious and just the individual ones opposite each other with a table in between.
When the train crew introduced themselves, it turned out that one of them was called Remy. We heard it in French a second time and that was right. How about that for a Disney connection!
We settled down and soon we were off, passing through the Kent countryside. It was still a beautiful start to the day, as you can see from these photos…
The M20 – the motorway near to us Ok so not cows – but sheep, otherwise known by me as fluffy furballs are still cute all the same! Passing through Ashford – the tented structure you can see is the MacArthur Glen outlet shopping centre
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Very impressive how quickly you were able to book your cruise excursions, get ready, and get to the train station! So neat to see the pictures of the train, as that is a form of travel we don't use as much here in the States.
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Looks like a great start to your weekend. I wish we had good train travel here in the states. I think it would be a fun way to go. I really enjoyed our train rides through Alaska last summer. Good luck with the laptop. Maybe it's time to call someone and point out that your contract says you are do a new one by now.
I was hoping this would be started soon, although it's a shame your laptop isn't having the honour. (put the "u" in there, just for you )
What a great start to the morning! Hair washed with no issues, cruise details taken care of, great parking spot, and a nice sunny day! Must have been too much, too early if it made you feel wiped out after the security stop. Glad that passed quickly.
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Very impressive how quickly you were able to book your cruise excursions, get ready, and get to the train station!
I was very lucky this time. The last time I needed to book things, it took a lot longer, as the site wouldn't let me in. Thankfully, I had no such issues this time!
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So neat to see the pictures of the train, as that is a form of travel we don't use as much here in the States.
We don't use it much over here either. The only time I'm usually on the train is to go into London, as it's easier than driving or to take the Eurostar. I do love that we can board a train in the UK and get off in France, in this case, or Belgium, as the service also runs to Brussels.
Looks like a great start to your weekend. I wish we had good train travel here in the states. I think it would be a fun way to go. I really enjoyed our train rides through Alaska last summer.
Now that really is where train travel comes into its own!
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Good luck with the laptop. Maybe it's time to call someone and point out that your contract says you are do a new one by now.
Oddly enough I just did. You won't believe this... they can't sign off on a new laptop until they see it and agree there's a problem again. Now bearing in mind I dropped it in at the store on Tuesday evening, I thought I'd have heard something by now. Apparently it was only picked up this morning so is still in transit to their repair shop. I'm now likely to hear back either tomorrow or Monday - not what I wanted to hear.
I was hoping this would be started soon, although it's a shame your laptop isn't having the honour. (put the "u" in there, just for you )
Yay!
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What a great start to the morning! Hair washed with no issues, cruise details taken care of, great parking spot, and a nice sunny day! Must have been too much, too early if it made you feel wiped out after the security stop. Glad that passed quickly.
Could well have been too much, too early... it could also have been the worry about the hair - I know it sounds bizarre, but it really was stressing me out, as I didn't want to dislodge those stitches. I'm so glad they're now out and hopefully in a few days' time, it'll be 100% back to normal. I'm just waiting for it to heal over fully....
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
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We headed inside and through the ticket barriers and then into a long line for security. As Mark said, it wasn’t like this when we were last on the Eurostar in December. Mind you, then it was a Thursday and now it’s a Saturday in March. A bit different…
The woman apologised as apparently now they have to search your waistband. I tell you what, I hear a lot of complaints about the machines the TSA use in the States, but I think I’d rather have that… 
that was right. How about that for a Disney connection! 
Holly: 
so is still in transit to their repair shop. I'm now likely to hear back either tomorrow or Monday - not what I wanted to hear. 
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