A Scottish right Royal time! TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 1/10 - Page 7 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Nice time in town. That clock is amazing and the work that went into it! Too bad you didn't stay around for the performance artist with the nails and knives! Don't think that is something I would want to be at as like everything it takes practice and when you're learning this and all doesn't go well, the result will not be good! Glad you and Mark enjoyed the vegetarian restaurant.
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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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Nice time in town. That clock is amazing and the work that went into it!
I know. I can't even begin to imagine how you do something like that.
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Too bad you didn't stay around for the performance artist with the nails and knives! Don't think that is something I would want to be at as like everything it takes practice and when you're learning this and all doesn't go well, the result will not be good!
I look at the flower clock and think - I bet that would look great at Epcot for F&GF!!
That festival is everywhere. Wow! Glad you found a great spot for lunch.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Saturday 26 August – part five: painting a picture back then…
While we were in Henderson’s, I decided to call Gladstone's Land, as it turned out this was just around the corner from where we were eating. Oh sorry, didn’t mention that one in the pre-trip report, did I? Ah yes, well I changed my mind… I’m entitled to! I realised that I didn’t know if there were any National Trust for Scotland properties in Edinburgh, and as we get free entry through our National Trust membership, it seemed a bit silly not to check it out. And we found this place!
So what is it? It’s a surviving 17th century house located along the Royal Mile, and the original house was built in the mid 16th century. It was brought and redeveloped in 1617 by a prosperous Edinburgh merchant Thomas Gledstanes. Because of the cramped conditions in the Old Town, and the physical size of the land he purchased, he was only able to extend the property in either depth or height, so it goes up to six storeys, although only the first floor is open to the public.
Thank goodness the National Trust for Scotland got their hands on it, as it was scheduled for demolition in the mid 1930s. What a loss this would’ve been.
We were told to get there about 10 minutes early, and I’m glad we did, as we spotted this place, and decided to pay it a visit.
We’d learn more about it in our guided tour at Gladstone’s Land in a few minutes’ time…
We were also able to see this baby owl that they had outside…
The shop was a real Aladdin’s cave and, trust me, had we driven up or had we got checked luggage, I would’ve bought a few items in here, particularly the hand lotion I found that was very nice.
Our tour was 1:30pm, and was supposed to be 45 minutes long. Let’s just say our volunteer guide was very passionate, and stopped after about an hour and five minutes, saying he kept getting told off for boring people! He wasn’t boring at all, but the problem was there was nowhere to sit, which was a problem for both of us, given we were having problems with our ankles.
The guy started off by explaining about what the original building was and what had been added on by the National Trust for Scotland since they bought it. He kept pointing out the depth of the walls, and I could see why, as some were literally about a feet wide.
We made our way up a spiral staircase, and he told us there was a landing on one part, but honestly it was so small, you just couldn’t imagine it.
The first room we went into wasn’t that spectacular, although it would’ve been used for just about everything. They think it was used for cooking, as a living area, and a bedroom over the years, and sometimes it would’ve been more than one of those things at the same time too.
Our guide painted a very vivid picture of the problem of the little closes (one of which we’d seen just before we arrived here), with basically sewage running everywhere, although he managed not to make it quite that brutal when he said it. He talked about the area of water they had in Edinburgh that was full of dead mice, rats, cats, dogs and even the odd horse. You get the idea!
Now remember I mentioned the Nor Loch earlier when I talked about Princes Street Gardens? That’s where the pollution was coming from essentially. It really doesn’t bear thinking about especially as no-one’s sure whether it was used for drinking water or not. Oh my goodness!
Anyway, our guide talked about how the “ladies of the house” would avoid having to walk in all of this, as they’d have a sedan chair that would bring them right up to the step of the house, so they could literally just step out of that and straight on to the first step, avoiding it. Even worse, he then told us that the stench of the city was well documented in a number of places, and apparently you could smell it over two miles away!
It really was another side of Edinburgh that I sort of knew about, but I hadn’t considered that much. He also talked to us about how they were all expected to go to church (at St. Giles’ Church, which hopefully we’ll make it to tomorrow) and if they didn’t, they’d get a knock on the door, and they were essentially expected to produce a sick note to explain why they didn’t attend. Wow, I guess that’s why church attendance has waned since then…
We next moved into the kitchen, where we learnt about the sort of food they’d have eaten, with oily fish from the Forth, and turnips used for desserts. They apparently didn’t have potatoes, as they were too new and from south of the border (i.e. English) and the Scots didn’t want to associate with them.
It was a very atmospheric place, and again you really felt transported back in time with everything our guide said. He was very good at painting a picture in your mind of how life was back then…
Aahhhhh, I see why the loch was drained. Ewwww!!! The stench could be smelled from 2 miles away?! Wow. Glad they got that fixed.
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Aahhhhh, I see why the loch was drained. Ewwww!!! The stench could be smelled from 2 miles away?! Wow. Glad they got that fixed.
Yes, when you commented before, I figured you were probably thinking about a beautiful loch, along the lines of the ones we saw on our road trip. Not one bit of it!
I'm with you. I'm glad they fixed it too, otherwise there is no way I'd be visiting Edinburgh now, if they still had a stench like that!
Now it makes sense on why they drained the loch. I'd never go to Edinburgh. If it smelled that bad.
The clock is very pretty and I agree that it would look good at Disney.
Your lunch looks good and it was nice of Mark to suggest eating there.
Liz
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Too bad you didn't stay around for the performance artist with the nails and knives! 
Don't think that is something I would want to be at as like everything it takes practice and when you're learning this and all doesn't go well, the result will not be good! 
Glad you and Mark enjoyed the vegetarian restaurant.
It does add an interesting touch to the ancient buildings. Very nice meal! 
Ah yes, well I changed my mind… I’m entitled to! 
They apparently didn’t have potatoes, as they were too new and from south of the border (i.e. English) and the Scots didn’t want to associate with them. 
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