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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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It was very cold in the house, so I woke up very early and went in search of a blanket to cuddle on the couch with. After breakfast DH went with his Tio to look at our land. When DH’s mother died the land she owned was passed on to my DH and DBIL. It is quite a few acres just off the toll highway. We are hoping to sell it at some point, but with the economy in Portugal it won’t be happening soon. DH and Tio cleaned up the land, cleaning around the olive and fig trees and cutting down the grass to help avoid forest fires. While he was gone, I caught up on my notes, read and marinated chicken for dinner.
Our land.
DH went next door and had sardines on the BBQ for lunch, and I had leftover curry.
Since it was so cold, we headed into town in search of a heater, we also purchased some bins to organize the tools, some more Internet time and of course some pastries. For dinner we had lemon chicken, rice, salad, peas, bread and chocolate cake. We then watched Cars 2 on the computer in front of the heater. We moved the heater into the bedroom and headed to sleep. The power did go out when we first plugged in the heater but we got it fixed up.
Sardines on the bbq
Costs today:
Gas: 44.84 L @ € 1.472 = €63.76, plus € 10.00 from another day without receipt
Internet: € 10.00
Pastries: € 2.30
Heater: € 39.99
Bins: € 16.97
Woke up at 6:30, had breakfast and then we headed to Torres Novas with the Tios to do some business for DFIL at the bank. We then went to the market where I bought tablecloths, tea towels, undies for our neighbor’s son, fresh cherries, pao com chorizo, and dessert buns. We do eat a lot of bread and desserts in Portugal, but we don’t eat many processed foods and we walk a lot, so we always come back weighing less.
All the different items for sale at the market.
We stopped at the supermarket and bought take away chicken and sausages. We then went to Tios and had chicken, sausages, potatoes, salad, cherries, and pudding.
Lunch
We had a nap, then DH took me to see his land and we went to visit some more family for the evening.
Costs today:
Undies: € 5.00
Tablecloth: € 15.00
Dishcloths: € 5.00
Fruit: €4.05
Bread: € 4.00
Chicken/Sausages: € 7.60
Money left behind to pay for cleaning of the land: € 110.00
Groceries: € 21.65
Woke up and had breakfast, and we were just relaxing at the house when the power went out again, this time it was the main power supply for the house. Luckily my DH was able to get one plug working so we could run the fridge. We headed into town for parts, but since we are in such a small town they do not have the big box stores that we Canadians are spoiled by, so we were unable to find parts to fix the power. However, we did find a part for my DH to fix Tio’s pump.
We went to see Tia Sao for lunch (this is the aunt that raised my DH for 4 years), there were a bunch of relatives and we enjoyed a wonderful lunch of beef, rice, potatoes, salad, cod perogies (for those unfamiliar with a perogy, it is a dough stuffed with filling and fried (sort of a half moon shape). In Winnipeg they are usually filled with potato and cheese, and in Portugal usually stuffed with cod), fruit, and rice pudding. We sat and chatted until around 4 pm then headed back to the house. Tio had an electrician come look at the panel, he was able to fix it for now and would come back Friday afternoon to replace the fuses and update the panel for us.
DH's other side of the family
We had leftovers for dinner and spent the evening with the Tios. When we are at our house we try to spend as much time as we can with the Tios, even if that means we just take them to run errands, they are in their 70’s and don’t travel around as much as they once did, so they really enjoy going out with us.
Costs today:
Pump part: €6.90
Up next: heading to Sintra and the castle, lots of pictures taken.
I'd love to go to that market! I love the mix of hand-made and manufactured items. Looks like they have a bit of everything. I love Portuguese sweet bread, so I'm sure I'd be eating a lot of bread also. Rice pudding is a favorite of mine, too. The Tio's must look forward to your visits, both to see you and to get driven around!
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I love the photos of the market. They seem to be selling similar things to the markets near Mark's parents' villa in Spain, but it's so nice and quiet. Every time we go to those, they're absolutely mobbed.
I'd love to go to that market! I love the mix of hand-made and manufactured items. Looks like they have a bit of everything. I love Portuguese sweet bread, so I'm sure I'd be eating a lot of bread also. Rice pudding is a favorite of mine, too. The Tio's must look forward to your visits, both to see you and to get driven around!
Rice pudding in Portugal is on the dry side, so if thats the way you like yours you will be happy. I think the Tios do look forward to our visits, I just wish we could go yearly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
I love the photos of the market. They seem to be selling similar things to the markets near Mark's parents' villa in Spain, but it's so nice and quiet. Every time we go to those, they're absolutely mobbed.
I love markets too and was so glad they opened this one up, and generally they are not too crowded.
I'm another one that loved the photos of the market! It's so neat to see what every day life seems to be like and you are truly relaxing and having a good vacation!
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I'm another one that loved the photos of the market! It's so neat to see what every day life seems to be like and you are truly relaxing and having a good vacation!
Yes we had a mix of relaxing and busy days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great couple of days!
It was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Glad you all were able to get a heater! Very cool looking market!
The heater really helped and now we know that we can't really go before May when we retire.
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We woke up at 6:30 to get ready for our 8:45 departure to Sintra. Sintra was “the summer residence of the kings of Portugal and of the Moors before them. Sintra, set in the wooded mountains with wonderful views out to sea, is a World Heritage Site with outstanding palaces, gardens and museums”.
Today we were taking the Tios with us; we headed out on the toll highway and arrived at 10:11. It was a very curvy climb up the mountainside and we parked near the Moorish Castle. We purchased 4 tickets for the Castle and Pena Palace.
There was a lot of construction going on at the Moorish Castle so we had to take a detour to get to the entrance. They were also doing work inside the ruins, which was nice to see, as hopefully next time we go back they will have more to see. “The ruins of the Moorish castle consist of two defensive positions, set on rocky crags, with a mosque between them.”
There was a lot of climbing up the walls of the castle and one side was open, so just DH and I managed this part while the Tios sat and watched us. We climbed up both sides, enjoying the views and taking lots of pictures. I must admit I am not afraid of heights, but I did have some trouble going up and feeling a little weird. Later on we figured out that it was probably my new glasses throwing off my balance a little. Other than the two walls and all the nooks and crannies there was not much else to see, so we headed to the Palace of Pena.
A photo of the overhead picture of the Moorish Castle
We had to get back in the car and drive a short way to another parking lot. Once inside the grounds we paid to take the tram up to the Palace, as it would have been too hard of a climb for the Tios. We were all hungry at this point so we ate in the restaurant in the Palace. I had goat cheese with honey and a chicken sandwich, DH had soup and cod and the Tios had soup and pork. I enjoyed mine but I think the Tios found it too expensive for what they had.
A little information about the Palace of Pena: it was originally a chapel built in the 14th century, with an adjoining late Gothic cloister; it fell into disrepair after it was damaged in the 1755 earthquake. Queen Maria married Prince Ferdinand in 1836 and he commissioned a German architect to design today’s Palace. It has many different architectural elements; neo-gothic, Manueline, Germanic and Moorish, and there are turrets, cupolas, domes and battlements. The inside is late Victorian, and described as ‘textbook 19th century decorative arts’.
We walked all through the inside and outside of the Palace, taking pictures and looking at all the detail. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside, so I don’t have any inside pictures to show how beautiful it was. After touring it was past 3:00 and the Tios were getting tired, so we headed for home.
There was still so much to see in Sintra that on our next trip we will definitely be booking a hotel and spending a few days in the area. I was so impressed with the sites that we saw on this day that I would go back and view both the next time we are there.
On our way home we stopped at a service centre for snacks, I had ice cream and Fanta, DH had coffee and pasteis de nata (custard tarts), I’m not sure what the Tios had. We arrived home around 5:30, for dinner we had salad and spaghetti, then we worked on uploading pictures and journal entries before heading off to bed.
More pictures in the next post
Costs today
Lunch for 4: € 62.70
Snacks: € 6.35
Tips: € 7.30
Tolls: € 18.35
Palace and Castle entrance for 4: € 60.00
Tram for 4: € 8.00
Charity: € 10.00 (someone came to our door collecting for some group)
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They seem to be selling similar things to the markets near Mark's parents' villa in Spain, but it's so nice and quiet. Every time we go to those, they're absolutely mobbed.
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