Lions, lanterns and lots more! – a unique Christmas celebration at Longleat COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
Sunday 30 November – part one: shall we go and have a look at Stonehenge?
We didn’t sleep too badly, although I wouldn’t say we slept that great either. I know I was awake around 5:00am, as I heard a clock chiming that, but thankfully I didn’t hear it again. I know Mark said he’d heard more chimes than me, indicating he hadn’t slept that great. I’m sure the wine didn’t help, and I know I woke up with a bit of a sore head, although fortunately that soon subsided.
We crawled out of bed just before 8:00am, and headed down for breakfast. On the way down, I got a couple of photos of the place in daylight, as we hadn’t seen it in daylight before.
I guess everyone staying here must’ve said they’d also have breakfast at 8:30am, as the father and daughter were down at the same time as us, and there was a family of six who were already down, but were only just being served when we arrived.
We certainly heard some interesting conversations from everyone else in there. We gathered some of the family went to Bath, and apparently they spent an hour looking for parking while we think the rest of them went to a shopping centre in Bristol, and apparently most of the shops were still open at 9:00pm last night. I guess that explains why we didn’t see them for dinner last night.
There was a selection of cereal out for us to pick from, along with orange or apple juice, then you ordered what hot items you wanted. I just went for a fried egg, mushrooms and tomatoes. I didn’t fancy vegetarian sausages this morning, and this was perfect, although I think she could’ve found a smaller plate for it.
Of course, Mark went for a full English breakfast, and his plate was a little bit more full than mine…
When we were done eating, we headed back up to the room to get ready. We both commented on the fact that everyone else was still down at breakfast, and were all really taking their time. I headed out to take some stuff out to the car, and took the opportunity to get a few photos of the place…
Then we took the rest of the stuff down, and I went to hand back the key and settle up for last night’s meal, and we were on our way. This is a lovely village.
As you can see from these photos, it was still a very misty and murky morning, which certainly brought some atmosphere to the drive…
We were just coming up to the roundabout where you turn off for the Stonehenge visitors’ centre, and I suggested we go and have a look at it, as I knew it was relatively new. I thought it had opened in the summer, but we later discovered that it actually opened on 18 December 2013, so it’s nearly a year old. It’s a weird building…
We figured that as the car park was quite empty, we might stand a chance of being able to get in. The reason I say that is that we’d both heard about the need to pre-book now, and the fact that you can’t just get walk-up tickets. Well, thankfully we had no problems on that front. We were directed to the members’ section, as here both the National Trust and English Heritage members can get in for free, as the National Trust owns the land around the stones, while English Heritage is responsible for the stones themselves.
We chatted to the guy there and he told us that during the peak periods, if you don’t pre-book, you could easily be out of luck, as on the busiest days, they do become swamped, and once they’re full, that’s it, no-one else is getting in for the day. It will become apparent why that’s the case shortly.
We also talked to him about when President Obama came here, and the nightmare it caused them. I mean, think about it, Stonehenge had to be closed for his visit, and can you imagine if you’d pre-booked only to discover that you couldn’t then get in? You’d be pretty mad, and the guy we spoke to was working that day, and said it wasn’t pretty, especially as they couldn’t tell people why it had been suddenly closed with little notice. Not an easy situation to deal with I’m sure.
About This Page: 
PassPorter Guide Author
while we think the rest of them went to a shopping centre in Bristol, and apparently most of the shops were still open at 9:00pm last night. I guess that explains why we didn’t see them for dinner last night. 
during the peak periods, if you don’t pre-book, you could easily be out of luck, as on the busiest days, they do become swamped, and once they’re full, that’s it, no-one else is getting in for the day. It will become apparent why that’s the case shortly. 
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Threaded Mode
