Four go wild north of the border UPDATED 6/23 - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Beautiful pictures of the castle and the grounds! What a stunning place! Love the peacock! And more great plans! It's getting so close! You're garden is amazing! You've certainly put a lot of work into it and it shows!
Nice work in the garden, but sorry to hear of the sunburn!
Plans for Scotland seem to be in order! I'd never heard of midges before, but they certainly don't sound like fun.
You've really never had khaki colored pants before?
The plans are progressing well. Your garden is beautiful, it must be a nice relaxing space.
it is, although we don't get to sit out and enjoy it much. I do love looking at it from the kitchen window though. In fact, that's what I've just been doing.
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You have a lot of patience to create a garden like that - but it's worth it. It looks very nice right now and I know it will look beautiful later!
We were discussing that. It is a lot of work and I know it's so much easier to just have shrubs, but I do love my annuals. I will probably start scaling back on them in years to come and move over to shrubs...
Nice work in the garden, but sorry to hear of the sunburn!
Plans for Scotland seem to be in order! I'd never heard of midges before, but they certainly don't sound like fun.
You see, I always thought midges, mosquitoes etc. were all the same. I guess not.
Quote:
You've really never had khaki colored pants before?
never. I always stick with darker colours. About the lightest I've ever had is light blue denim jeans...
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.
Pre-trip report – part fourteen: a test drive for our road trip!
Monday 22 May
I went in to pick up (after trying on) the anti-mosquito trousers (pants) that I’d ordered last week. They fitted Ok, but as I suspected, they are a bit long for me. They’re 31” (yes, we still use inches for some things over here ) and I could do with 29”. I try to avoid anything too long, as I’m accident prone enough as it is – I don’t need anything to fall over, if you get my meaning. I was debating about getting them and the woman on the till was really helpful. I explained about our trip and she told me she went last year and had no problems with midges, mosquitoes or anything else that flies beginning with m frankly! She suggested I just buy some good insect repellent and forget the trousers. Well, as those were £35, and the insect repellent she sold me was £6, that worked.
We got talking, and somehow it got on to the subject of wine and the fact that Mari and Raleigh enjoy their wine, and she also sold me a half price wine cooler. You take your nice, cold white wine out of the fridge and put it into this thing and it keeps it cold.. works for me.
Thursday 25 May
I’ve not posted anything more on this pre-trip report for the last couple of days, firstly because I’ve had nothing to add, but secondly, and perhaps more importantly because other events have been so much more important. We had the Manchester Arena bombing on Monday night and I woke up to the horrendous news on Tuesday morning with a significant death toll that sadly rose later in the day. I don’t want to dwell on it, but I’ll just say it was personal to me, given one of the victims who died and another who was seriously injured went to my school. That really brings it home to you. for all those more directly affected.
Anyway, we are currently starting to experience summer here, with the temperatures increasing. We were into the mid 70s yesterday, and they’re saying it could be into the high 80s over the next couple of days. As we watched the weather forecast this morning, we were both stunned to see that on Friday the highest temperatures again looked like they’d be in Scotland (mid 80s). Good grief, this really doesn’t happen that often to that part of the country! I guess it’s our curse again, as it does seem to be hot whenever the four of us travel together…
We have another dinner booked, this time for our second night at Bowness-on-Windermere, at the Angel Inn. This was somewhere where I had emailed another place a few weeks ago, and they never got back to me. Well, sorry, you snooze, you lose. That’s us sorted with every dinner now, except the middle Saturday, which I’m obviously going to need to do some more work on…
Friday 26 May
Yet again, Scotland was mentioned on the weather forecast in terms of hot weather, and this time, they specifically mentioned Aboyne. I was like “I know that place!” as we’re going to be staying there. You see, travel really does broaden the mind. Before this trip, I’d just have been like “oh that’s nice” and wouldn’t have had a clue where it was…
Saturday 27 May
Today was very much like a test run for this road trip, as we set out to visit my adopted donkeys at the Donkey Sanctuary, about a three and a half hours away – well, theoretically, if it wasn’t for Bank Holiday traffic, that was. Anyway, it was only one night away, and hand luggage only, but it did start to give us an idea. For starters, I discovered the antiseptic wipes are still Ok in the car, which was a good discovery. I also discovered I can fit four bottles of water in the side of my door, and probably the same again in each of the back doors of the car, so let’s just say a pack of eight would easily be packed away. I think I may end up increasing our order of bottle water as a result..
We did discover that we need to have the selfie stick somewhere we can find it. We were about to leave, and we couldn’t see it anywhere, so we ended up giving up. Oh well, lesson learnt… and at least we cleared the car out a bit ahead of our trip, and we realised that we’re going to need to clear the trunk of the car out before we go, as it’s got silly things in it like maps etc. As I say, it was certainly a useful test run… less than two weeks to go now!
So I figured I just had to share one or two photos of my donkey buddies from our visit…
Harry, one of the miniature donkey herd that my adopted donkey boy Gareth runs!
And here’s my adopted donkey!
This is my adopted girl, Ruby – talk about one extreme to another – she’s massive!
Stroking Twiggy, one of the donkeys they have in the main yard to meet visitors
Gareth and his best friend Benji!
Benji rolling around…
… and after he’s done, looking as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth!
Gorgeous Gareth at the trough!
Now this is really neat… they do weddings here and here’s the barn they use…
… complete with donkeys in it!
This donkey was the ring bearer…
…. Here he is having his hooves painted!
And now he’s ready for his part in the ceremony…
This donkey managed to get his neck collar off and was guarding it!
I had to just check Gareth out one more time and I got to stroke him!
Sunday 28 May
Yet again, we learnt some useful lessons today. I thought I’d already packed enough of my prescription and non-prescription meds (I take various herbal supplements to help with my chronic fatigue) and I realised today I’d missed one, Q10, which helps with your energy levels, so those are now in my carry-on luggage. I’ve also put enough contact lenses in there as well.
We stopped off at a National Trust property that we’ve visited before called Mottisfont, as we wanted to see if we could get some roses there. We visited a couple of years ago, and we saw lots we liked the look of, but sadly it was a bit later in the season, and they were sold out of everything we wanted. Anyway, we got some roses, and we also bought a bottle of English wine, a pinot noir rose, from the Lyme Bay Winery. We’ve had a lot of stuff from them over the years, but it’s tended to be things like mead, or strawberry wine. Hopefully their ordinary wine is Ok, as it’s for us to enjoy with Mari and Raleigh. We figured if we didn’t buy some, then they probably wouldn’t get the chance to sample English wine, and it’s pretty good stuff by all accounts.
On the way back, we also agreed we must find some plastic carrier bags for the car to put our rubbish in as we go. Even when we got back from this trip, we had antiseptic wipes and two empty bottles of water, so you can imagine how much stuff we’ll accumulate during the course of a two week vacation, rather than just one night away.
Next: “Does Manchester Airport only have the one terminal?”
Hope you have a wonderful road trip and safe travels, and looking forward to reading about all of your adventures. I'm off on my trip to Disney tomorrow, so will catch up on yours when I get back.
What a nice salesperson! Good to hear firsthand experience too - with insects that start with the letter m.
Beautiful day to visit the donkeys! And a great test run for a road trip indeed. It's the little things that you don't think of until you experience it.
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Hope you have a wonderful road trip and safe travels, and looking forward to reading about all of your adventures. I'm off on my trip to Disney tomorrow, so will catch up on yours when I get back.
Love the donkeys, it would be amazing to have a wedding there, very unique.
We really wanted to try and find out how much a wedding there would cost, but no matter how many times we asked, they were very good at avoiding the question...
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What a stunning place! Love the peacock! 
And more great plans! It's getting so close! You're garden is amazing! You've certainly put a lot of work into it and it shows! 
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
it is, although we don't get to sit out and enjoy it much. I do love looking at it from the kitchen window though. In fact, that's what I've just been doing. 
never. I always stick with darker colours. About the lightest I've ever had is light blue denim jeans...
) and I could do with 29”. I try to avoid anything too long, as I’m accident prone enough as it is – I don’t need anything to fall over, if you get my meaning. I was debating about getting them and the woman on the till was really helpful. I explained about our trip and she told me she went last year and had no problems with midges, mosquitoes or anything else that flies beginning with m frankly! 
I guess it’s our curse again, as it does seem to be hot whenever the four of us travel together… 
That’s us sorted with every dinner now, except the middle Saturday, which I’m obviously going to need to do some more work on… 
as we’re going to be staying there. You see, travel really does broaden the mind. Before this trip, I’d just have been like “oh that’s nice” and wouldn’t have had a clue where it was… 
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