A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 52 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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Hearing that history first hand, and then recalling your time at university.... I can just imagine how exciting this visit is so far! She sounds like a great guide so far, lots of information.
The buildings are so colorful, very unique that way.
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I loved that church - partly as my mother's maiden name is St. Mary, and I was very close the those grandparents.
I'm trying to now recall if Tallinn was the place we saw some interesting wall art....that's all I'm saying for now. (I'm on the road, moving my son back to school, so can't easily refer back to my vacation pictures)
Wow, you are having a busy time of it right now! The wall art isn't ringing a bell with me, so maybe not....
The tour is sounding good. The photos of the buildings of Upper Old Town are quite beautiful as is of the two churches. Glad you were able to take photos inside the latter one. A nice background of history you gave us!
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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!
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Lovely pictures of the church!
I didn't know that you study Politics. That was my major in college, and I actually minored in Russian History too. The Soviet Union had only been broken up for about 5 years, and even then information was few and far between.
I think one of the bonuses for me a native tour guide would be the history presented in such a personal way.
That was definitely a bonus and pretty much worth the cost of the tour, as it wasn't exactly expensive - I want to say $29 each, although I may be remembering that wrong....
I didn't know that you study Politics. That was my major in college, and I actually minored in Russian History too. The Soviet Union had only been broken up for about 5 years, and even then information was few and far between.
Yes, I studied politics for my first degree (I've since got three further postgraduate degrees - one full time study, the others while I was working) at the University of Warwick. I mention that, as at the time I studied it, neither Oxford nor Cambridge offered politics. You could only do politics, philosophy and economics there and Warwick was therefore classed as the best university in the country to study politics, so I was delighted to have got in there.
We had to choose four subjects each year for our three years. I'm not sure I remember them all now, but I did political surveys, British politics, French politics, Japanese politics, political theory each year (that one was compulsory), European integration, Californian politics (that was fun) and Soviet and post-Soviet politics. Actually, that's not bad - there's only one of the optional eight subjects I took that I don't remember... my memory isn't as bad as I thought it was, considering this was more than 20 years ago now.
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Ok, so for you guys, it's not quite 8/14 yet, but it is for me. I'm up watching the drama in the athletics live, as that's how I prefer to watch the Olympics when it comes to big events...
Friday 10 June – part four: I prefer the “short leg” version!
When we came out of the Cathedral of St. Mary the Virgin, I got some more photos of the area…
What I liked about this tour was that it was done at a good, and by good I mean slow pace. At no time were you ever rushed, so you always had time to get the photos you wanted, which made me very happy.
As you can see, at this point, the weather was beautiful – lovely blue skies and sunshine, although it was very similar to yesterday in Stockholm, in terms of you felt it could change in a second. You wait and see what happens…
We carried on walking through the old town, and although it’s open to traffic, let’s just say with big tour groups, it was pedestrians who were king today.
We made our way over to the Patkuli viewing platform which I’d read about in my guidebook, so I knew the views from here would be stunning… and they were!
I was also expecting the place to be mobbed, given it’s one of the “must sees” in the city, so I knew there would be crowds, but I wasn’t expecting to find an exceptionally rude group of I believe Chinese tourists, who acted as if they owned the place, and really didn’t want to get out of the way for anyone else. It was very selfish and annoying, and sadly it wouldn’t be the last we’d see of them today…
We could even see our ship from here…
It was also fascinating to see the newer parts of the city. As I mentioned earlier, this really is a city that’s very much on the rise, and so I wasn’t surprised to see skyscrapers in the distance.
As we left this viewing area, the rain that had been threatening for so long finally begun, and we both grabbed our Disney Cruise Line jackets from our backpacks, and hauled those on, and I was glad we had them. At this stage, the rain was fairly persistent, but still light enough not to drown us if you know what I mean.
We made our way back down towards Alexander Nevsky Cathedral…
… and then we made our way down the “short leg” road down to the lower old town, as Miina termed it. She said we probably wouldn’t like the “long leg” version, and having seen it later, I agreed with her. From here, we could see the city walls, which date back to the 13th century.
Getting down this first section was easy, and then we were presented with these “ghosts”. They’re statues of monks, and apparently Tallinn is full of legends of ghosts, which is why they’re called that. They were beautiful, but quite spooky as well.
From here, you also had another view down into the lower old town…
Next: to come to another country and behave as if you own it is just disgusting
She later told us Estonians went to church twice a year on average – once for Christmas and once “when your cousin was singing in the church choir”. Somehow, that just wasn’t what I expected, and I’ve never come across such a non-religious country.
Actually, that's what most parts of Germany are like, too
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The wall art isn't ringing a bell with me, so maybe not....
Glad you were able to take photos inside the latter one. A nice background of history you gave us! 
Somehow, that just wasn’t what I expected, and I’ve never come across such a non-religious country.
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