A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 16 September – part seven: you can’t take it all in
The Commonwealth Memorial in Thiepval was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, who we learnt a bit about in the visitor centre. I’d heard of him, but couldn’t place him. He’s been described as the greatest British architect of the 20th century, and was responsible for designing and building New Delhi in India.
The memorial was built with 10 million bricks, and is 45 metres high, and has been described as the most majestic British war memorial in the world, and I can see why. It was built between 1928 and 1932 and is the largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing in the world.
We headed outside, and as we made our way over there, the overwhelming atmosphere was of peace, with even a rainbow in sight…
Well, actually that wasn’t 100% true. It would have been peaceful, had it not been for the tractor that passed through – nothing you can do about that. However, you can do something about the visitors. I was shocked to hear two Welsh women walking towards us, gossiping in very loud voices, yelling at their companions, presumably on their coach trip. I just found their whole demeanour to be very disrespectful. They just didn’t seem to get this is a memorial to the fallen war dead, and while there were no signs here, asking you to be quiet (there were at La Coupole), for goodness sake, shouldn’t it be obvious?
Thankfully they were leaving, so we made our way over to the memorial, and were able to enjoy it pretty much in silence. It was beautiful, but you just couldn’t take it all the names of the missing under each battle and each regiment. It was just too much.
Just as we were finishing up, we heard a school trip arrive, and both had the same thought – time to leave! With a few final photos as the sun had now come out…
… we headed out. The teacher was doing an excellent job explaining what the memorial was about to the kids, and for the main part, they were engaged. However, Mark spotted a couple who obviously wanted to be somewhere else. I think we both had the same reaction, but thankfully neither of us followed through on it. We both wanted to shake them, and tell them if it wasn’t for these people who gave their lives, you wouldn’t have the freedom to stand there looking bored.
That is quite the memorial and so well done! I just can't believe the way some people behave at places like this! Like you said, it should be a given to be quiet at a memorial! Once again a few more leaving their common sense somewhere else.
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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 is quite the memorial and so well done! I just can't believe the way some people behave at places like this! Like you said, it should be a given to be quiet at a memorial! Once again a few more leaving their common sense somewhere else.
I would have been very uncomfortable at that exhibit as well. What a sprawling graveyard and a beautiful memorial. The amount of lives lost is just stunning!
I would have been very uncomfortable at that exhibit as well. What a sprawling graveyard and a beautiful memorial. The amount of lives lost is just stunning!
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Saturday 16 September – part eight: where is our hotel?
We headed back to the car, and set off again, seeing various bits of rural France, as we drove along country roads and lanes – certainly something we’ve never seen before on our visits over here.
We went through a bit more rain, then we were heading into the outskirts of Paris…
We headed off at the junction for Charles de Gaulle airport, and at first, it was all going Ok in terms of finding the hotel.
Then we had a complete and utter nightmare. We could see the Hilton, we just couldn’t see how to get in there. Neither the car GPS nor Google Maps were that much help, and we felt as if we went round and round and round. It was a complete nightmare. Good grief, were we ever going to get there. Thank goodness we did finally make it, after an unscheduled stop in the bus station here…
When we checked in, I was very impressed with the lobby – more of that later…
We parked up, and made our way up to our room – this was the view from the sixth floor, which we were on, as you stepped out of the lifts…
I wasn’t overly impressed when we found this outside our room…
However, thankfully our room was fine…
… as was the view from it…
We didn’t enjoy it much, as we both wanted food, so we made our way back down to the lobby, stopping to get some more shots from the sixth floor first…
This is the view from the sixth floor of the lobby…
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Hop picking?! Ummm, ok. At least you didn't cram your car full of water bottles for this road trip, right?! Still love this whole car on the train thing.
Love the little towns on the country roads. But the WW2 place is heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking. Truly makes one feel lucky to be alive today in our part of the world, despite the current issues ongoing. I had to google why it's called the Disney bomb. I'd never heard of it before! (unless it was mentioned at the Disney Family Museum and I've since forgotten....)
Not sure I could have gone on like you did in the dome. I would have asked for an exit. There's only so much one can tolerate, that's beyond my limit!
The village and the cows are much easier to take on. Such a shame so many bad things happened on such peaceful grounds. Beautiful monument. The names listed makes your heart skip a beat though.
I can see how the area around CDG was confusing. In my ever being prepared, I was looking at hotels in the area too (in case of flight cancellations or whatever) and the map was indeed confusing! You chose the right hotel though for the views!
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Tanya
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Nice room and hotel and love the lobby! The view is quite good too as I enjoyed that when I stayed at the Orlando Airport Hyatt prior to my cruise with a nice view of the tarmac! That is weird what was outside your door as room service staff can be a bit laxed picking things up. It wouldn;t of been bad now, if the bottle was full!
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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!
I'm back! Quite overwhelmed seeing how many pages of your TR's I need to catch up on!
Caught up on this one. I guess being married to a rocket scientist, I've know all about Warner Von Braun. I can only assume some of the thought in the US taking him is was that you'd rather have someone like that working FOR you rather than against you.....
The hotel reminds me a little of the Hyatt at MCO - just in terms of the views maybe?
That trip through war history would have done me in. So important to remember the past, but emotionally draining to be sure.
We met a couple who live in Dunkirk on the Magic last week! They said tourism there is all of a sudden going nuts. No doubt thanks to the movie from this summer.
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It was built between 1928 and 1932 and is the largest Commonwealth memorial to the missing in the world. 
It was beautiful, but you just couldn’t take it all the names of the missing under each battle and each regiment. It was just too much. 
I just can't believe the way some people behave at places like this! 
Like you said, it should be a given to be quiet at a memorial! 
We could see the Hilton, we just couldn’t see how to get in there. Neither the car GPS nor Google Maps were that much help, and we felt as if we went round and round and round. It was a complete nightmare. 
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