On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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Saturday 20 March – part one: are you sure we’re going the right way?
No alarm this morning, that must mean that we’re on vacation and a quick look around the unfamiliar circumstances confirm that indeed we are.
It was about 7.15, which wasn’t too bad and ironically, when you take the time difference into account, it’s the same time we would usually wake up at home. I did some bits online and we gradually got going, having some tea and some breakfast of the almond croissants that we had brought from home.
Eventually, we headed down at around 8.40 to check out and I was very proud of myself for being able to say the room number in French to the receptionist. I guess they put a note on our reservation that we preferred to speak English (and in fairness that’s what they had asked me last night), as she then immediately switched to English. I paid our bill, a huge whopping €2 for local taxes and headed out to the car after Mark, who was already out there packing it up. It turned out that the British car that we had parked next to belonged to a group from the same part of the UK that we’re from. Now altogether, It’s A Small World after all...
We headed out, feeling very impressed with the Holiday Inn at Dijon. I think both of us would happily recommend it to anyone.
Our first stop today was the Abbaye de Fontenay, which I knew was about an hour’s drive away from Dijon to the north east of the city. I had half hoped that maybe we might get to it yesterday, but it didn’t pan out that way.
What I didn’t realise is that Tim would treat us to a route that took us through what sometimes felt like completely deserted countryside. At times, there were absolutely no other cars around, which was a very odd feeling. It certainly brought it home to us how vast France is and how much of it just hasn’t been populated. I guess, in those respects, it’s very much like America.
We went through some beautiful villages, but some of them literally consisted of about half a dozen houses and then you were straight out the other side of them. They were gone almost as soon as they started. Others looked beautiful and exceptionally old, yet when you got near to them, you suddenly realised that they were all run down and derelict. I guess these buildings cost a lot of money to maintain and perhaps they can’t always afford that cost.
We ended up zig sagging our way around hairpin bends through valleys and up mountains. As Mark said, it was hard work in terms of driving, but equally it provided us with some beautiful scenery along the way, much nicer than we’d seen the day before. This was quintessential France with the pretty farmhouses.
Of course, quintessential France has its drawbacks and one of those was the tractor we encountered, but fortunately that was on one of the roads that was pretty deserted, so thankfully we were able to get past him pretty quickly.
Eventually we made it to the abbey and it really is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Mind you, I guess that worked perfectly for the Benedictine monks who based themselves there. After all, at least there was nothing to distract them or disturb them. We parked up and were one of only about four cars there. I must admit when we first entered, I did think that maybe it was closed and I was very relieved to see some other cars there.
The next challenge was getting into the place itself. The entrance was clearly enough signposted through the bookshop or so it seemed. I’d done some research on this place and my guidebook suggested that you did need to pay for it, which seemed about right to me, but when I went on their website, it mentioned nothing about an entrance charge, so I began to wonder whether it was free. After all, surely they’d mention a charge?
We walked around the shop and browsed everything in there and the two guys there just let us, never once asking us if we needed any help. We tried a door at the far end and that didn’t shift. There were no signs up about how much entry cost and we were thoroughly confused. We came back out, thinking maybe we’d missed the entrance somewhere else, but there was no other way in. Now this was getting very odd...
We went back inside, after a moment where I declared I was ready to give up and just leave and Mark dissuading me not to, and I asked the guy in French where the entrance was. Immediately, he headed behind the till and proceeded to ring two people up on the till. Good grief, could you guys not have said something earlier? I hardly imagine that you get lots of people out here, just browsing the shop for the sheer hell of it, but never mind....
Once we were all paid up, €8.50 each, ($11.50) he picked up a key and took us to the door that we’d tried before and unlocked it. Right, now it all made sense.
The second we went outside, I was glad that Mark had persuaded me to give getting in here another go, as it was truly beautiful. This is a UNESCO site of interest and you always know that those are only handed out to the very best of the best and that falls into this category.
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indeed we are. 
I hardly imagine that you get lots of people out here, just browsing the shop for the sheer hell of it, but never mind.... 
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