Putting a boot into our original Easter plans… COMPLETED 5/3 - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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That's quite a restoration project on the house. It will be quite amazing to see how it looks when completed! Like the background you gave on the history of the place. That is a good thing you have the wheelchair you do now and not the old one in that room.
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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!
That's quite a restoration project on the house. It will be quite amazing to see how it looks when completed!
I really want to go back, but I think it might end up being next year, as I don't think it will be done until August of this year and we're off on our cruises in September. After we get back, the weather might not be too favourable once we get into October.
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Like the background you gave on the history of the place. That is a good thing you have the wheelchair you do now and not the old one in that room.
I think you'd have felt every single jolt in that thing!
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We headed next into a room at the Vyne, which is hard to describe, as it had had so many uses. Another volunteer explained it started life as servants’ quarters, then became a greenhouse and an orangery, neither successfully, as it didn’t have enough light coming in. Eventually with one of the Chute family in charge of the house with 11 children, it became a playroom, which seemed a good use for it, given it’s 18 metres long (60 feet) and would be perfect for them to run around…
We then went into the study of one of the Chute family (I’m afraid I don’t remember the details now), who was an architect and did most of his design in here. The walls that you see in here are wooden and date from the Tudor era, the 15th century. The clock in here still keeps time and I can’t remember exactly how old it is, but I know it was over 230 years old. Pretty impressive!
Next we entered what I would call the dining room, but the volunteer told us it was called the print room, because of all the prints on the wall. This was all the rage in the Victorian era (late 19th century), but sadly when the National Trust took over running of the house in the 1950’s, the prints were very badly damaged. They took the decision to restore them to how it would have looked, which I think is the right decision. It’s certainly something I don’t remember coming across in our previous visits to National Trust properties.
We then headed into the staircase area, which would usually take you up to the first floor, but as you can see, it doesn’t at present with all the work going on here. In truth, this was one of the reasons I wanted to come here, as I knew I wouldn’t have to miss out on seeing the upstairs room. There were pictures around to help show you what it would look like and again, it’s definitely gone on the list of places we need to come back to when the work is finished….
While we were in here and I was taking photos, a volunteer came out and asked if I wanted the light levels improved, as she knew I couldn’t use flash. I told her I was fine and showed her the results of what I was taking and, like everyone else who I talk to about cameras, she was very impressed with mine. I like it and I’m glad I bought it.
We then made our way into the living room, and as you can see, this is pretty much laid out as I assume it usually would be…
The volunteer in here pointed out that one of the Chutes (again, the name fails me ), who was the mother of the 11 children, was very talented and had painted some of the portraits in here. It was quite a sad story though, as she explained that they spent so much time and money on the house, that they had little left for anything else. It meant that they didn’t have the money to put their girls into society to marry them off to a wealthy man and sadly none of the girls ever married and only some of the boys did. It was such a shame to hear that story.
We then passed through the dining room, not learning anything about it, as the volunteer here was chatting to a family of four. Yes, there were other people in the house by now, but even so, I’d think there were probably only about a dozen or so of us in here…
The final room we saw was, as you’d expect, the most stunning. It was the chapel. Now this was breath taking enough…
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What a sad story about the family spending all they had on a house. Although if they hadn’t, you wouldn’t perhaps been touring it today.
That chapel is stunning!
No, neither can I, but imagine what an amazing childhood that would've been....
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The Vyne is really something else!! Can you imagine having a chapel as part of your dwelling?! Wow!!
I can imagine it, but only because so many stately homes over here do have one. We quite often see chapels in National Trust properties. I guess we get a bit blasé about it.
The Vyne is quite a place! All the rooms are amazing and so photogenic. I especially like the chapel, which is something with all the decorative and hand made stained glass designs.
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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!