A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED - Page 45 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Friday 22 September – part five: plan B to attract Gareth….
So Gareth, my lovely adopted donkey, was plainly refusing to come in with a groom, after her first attempts to encourage him over. She told me not to worry, she had a plan B, which involved ginger nut biscuits. Who knew? Apparently donkeys love these… so off she went, treats in hand… talk about being the donkey whisperer, as one by one, they all followed her back…
Benji arrives, so surely Gareth won’t be far behind…
… well apart from one little soul, who was still eating his grass. She had to go back out to him to encourage him, and finally he started to follow her. He was coming over!
Then my little buddy boy was right in front of me, and very happy he seemed too! Little did I know as I wrote this that just a couple of weeks later, he’d be in agony with a hoof infection and would soon be put to sleep…
Gareth with Benji in the background
I was able to pet him more than I’ve ever done before, and he just stood there contentedly. In hindsight, we both wondered if that was the first sign that something was wrong
The groom told us she’d only been there a couple of months. Well, that may be the case, but my goodness, she’s got Gareth (literally!) eating out of her hand! That little donkey patently adores her. I’ve never seen him so calm before.
Even Jan was soon petting him too…
I was so glad that we’d come back, as this was truly a magical experience, for me anyway.
And now, as I review this, I’m so glad I said to Jan that we had to visit the Donkey Sanctuary, as this was the last time I got to see my Gareth before his untimely death. After I posted about him passing on Facebook, Jan posted and said she was so glad that we’d taken her to meet him.
So good to know he was shown such love. Such a sweetheart! It was meant to be that you could spend time with him that day.
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Tanya
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Gareth is certainly a very special donkey and glad you got to spend one last time with him! Seems Jan is very grateful you took her here for the experience.
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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!
Gareth is certainly a very special donkey and glad you got to spend one last time with him! Seems Jan is very grateful you took her here for the experience.
She was and I was very touched by that, especially as that was something she had no option in. I was going to see my donkey no matter what. I made it clear when we first spoke about this trip that there were two things we'd already planned to do in September - the Bath Spa was one and the Donkey Sanctuary was the other and she ended up really enjoying both, which was great.
This final update with Gareth had me in tears, but I'm so glad you got the opportunity to see him up close, photograph him, and even pet him. Such precious memories!
This final update with Gareth had me in tears, but I'm so glad you got the opportunity to see him up close, photograph him, and even pet him. Such precious memories!
Well put Cam and exactly the way I felt about Gareth! Such a great donkey and so special to those who got to interact with him.
It was quite obvious that Cheryl sensed something was wrong with him or out of his element on her last visit to him with Jan as he wasn't his usual happy self and not as friendly as usual! Things happen for a reason and it was the time for Cheryl to return to see Gareth and share this special donkey with Jan as what she has been through over the last two years now!
I'm hoping to visit the Donkey Sanctuary one day when I return to the UK, but don't know when!
Cheryl, how far from London is the Sanctuary and hope you can give me specifics as I'd love to visit this place as so special?
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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!
This final update with Gareth had me in tears, but I'm so glad you got the opportunity to see him up close, photograph him, and even pet him. Such precious memories!
I was in tears going back and seeing it, so I'm glad I wasn't the only one. They were very precious memories.
Well put Cam and exactly the way I felt about Gareth! Such a great donkey and so special to those who got to interact with him.
Aw, thank you. I'm filling up just reading your responses here.
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It was quite obvious that Cheryl sensed something was wrong with him or out of his element on her last visit to him with Jan as he wasn't his usual happy self and not as friendly as usual! Things happen for a reason and it was the time for Cheryl to return to see Gareth and share this special donkey with Jan as what she has been through over the last two years now!
I'm hoping to visit the Donkey Sanctuary one day when I return to the UK, but don't know when!
Well, let us know whenever that is.
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Cheryl, how far from London is the Sanctuary and hope you can give me specifics as I'd love to visit this place as so special?
It's pretty far. It's over three hours' drive and Sidmouth doesn't have a railway station. Originally, when we go back there a week on Friday, I was going to go down on my own and Mark was going to meet me there. With Gareth's death, I said I couldn't face it on my own, so we're driving down together. When I looked into public transport, it would seriously have taken me most of the day to get there from our house - leaving around 10:00am and getting there about 4:00pm.
It's an hour and a half from Stonehenge and a hour and three quarters from Bath, so it's nowhere near anything really.
Friday 22 September – part six: heading over to Stonehenge…
We headed out of the Donkey Sanctuary, and made our way over to Seaton, the next seaside resort along the coast, stopping to get some photos of it as we took the road down to it…
We headed through the town…
… and then stopped to take some photos on the way out on the banks of the River Axe…
This is the Seaton tram that operates for visitors in the summer months
We then made our way through Axmouth…
We had dinner here a few months earlier on one of our visits to the Donkey Sanctuary…
From here, it was out through a series of country lanes…
… before we reached Crewkerne, a market town. As Mark said, you travel through all these country lanes, then you come across quite a large town. It was a bit bizarre…
We were then back out into the countryside again…
Not long afterwards, we joined the A303, a road that’s partially dual carriageway, and partially single carriageway (i.e. one lane going each way). Every time it jumps from one to the other, it leads to long queues, and today was no exception. The worst problem is as you approach Stonehenge, as everyone slows down to look at the stones, as you go past (I am not joking! ) and it was leading to such long lines, we took a detour to avoid it.
We arrived at the Stonehenge visitor centre…
…and Jan noticed how much they charge to visit these days - £17.50 per person. I reassured her she wouldn’t be paying, as I could get one person in, as well as myself, with my corporate English Heritage membership (the same one that got the three of us into the Tower of London free of charge), and Mark had National Trust membership.
We headed over to tickets, and they obviously take from the pre-booked or members’ line before the “today’s tickets” line, as the next guy in that got ready to move forward when the previous person finished, and the guy specifically called me forwards. Now that’s what I call service!
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All these donkeys are just so adorable. 
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
) a good life there and lots of space.
That little donkey patently adores her. I’ve never seen him so calm before. 
After I posted about him passing on Facebook, Jan posted and said she was so glad that we’d taken her to meet him. 
The worst problem is as you approach Stonehenge, as everyone slows down to look at the stones, as you go past (I am not joking! 
) and it was leading to such long lines, we took a detour to avoid it. 
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