On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 12 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 cathedral is amazing. The only thing I'm not sure about is the winr bottle in from of it in one picture. Can't wait to see more of your great photos.
Liz
Friday 19 March – part three: it’s a bit cold in here...
After lingering outside for a long time and taking in all the detail of this amazing place and the amazing amount of restoration work that’s being undertaken, we wandered inside. There’s no charge and I got the impression that this cathedral is very much a place that welcomes visitors. We saw only a couple of people who appeared to be there to pray. Everyone else seemed to be a visitor and it was lovely that everyone was respectful. Fortunately, no flash photography in here, which we have seen in the Notre-Dame in Paris before now.
This place was first started in 1211 and has seen many coronations of French kings, when they had a monarchy. The major stained glass windows here date from the 13th century.
With jaws hanging down at everything we were seeing, we walked slowly round the cathedral, taking in all the detail and especially the beautiful stained glass windows that this place is famous for. It’s a truly wonderful place and I’ll let the photos we took tell its story:
I must admit that, beautiful as this place was, we were very glad to get out of it, for one reason – it was absolutely freezing in there. We couldn’t believe how cold it was, bearing in mind that outside was a beautiful spring day with temperatures into the low 60s. We could literally see our breath inside the cathedral, it was that cold!
Returning to the outside and the warm day, we took some more photos of the cathedral and surrounding area and then went and had a look inside the tourist information office, picking up a few leaflets in there.
By now, our stomachs were demanding to be fed, so that was our next priority. We wandered towards the town centre and discovered that Reims is undergoing a major project to install a tram system. It’s clear that they’re getting on well with the work, from what we saw, and I’m sure when it’s done, it will greatly improve the city. That was a theme here. There were lots of notice boards, setting out Reims’ plans for its future (all in French of course! ) but they were really interesting and I love what they’re planning to do with the place over the next decade or so.
We quickly found a sandwich bar and Mark got a chicken sandwich in a traditional baguette, while I got a Mediterranean pizza slice with courgettes (zucchini on the other side of the pond!) and tomato and cheese. They even heated it up for me.
We figured we’d find some toilets and hopefully without having to pay for them, as the French are infamous for that. We looked in a couple of places, including McDonalds, but they had a security guard by the stairs and I figured going up there with no food wasn’t a good plan. : Defeated, we backtracked to the public toilets we’d seen, thinking they wouldn’t be great, but actually they were OK and they were free, which was the main thing.
Now it was time to head back to the car, where we paid for our parking and quickly ate our lunch (sorry, no photos ) and then we headed back on the road.
Unfortunately, due to the tram works we’d seen earlier, we had a nice instance of Tim, our sat nav, trying to take us down a road that was a dead end, but we quickly recovered and made our way out of the city. From there, it was back on to the motorway and we both had to salute Tim, who took us down some real back roads that we thought were dead ends, but no, they brought us out into exactly the right place.
We realised as we left Reims that we would need to get some fuel soon and, before too long, our car warned us of that. Just to prove that we’re not the only country in the world to have high fuel prices, I offer this as evidence... remember this is the price per litre and this is equivalent to $7.60 per gallon.
We drove and drove for about three hours in total. We found the scenery a bit more captivating than on the way down to Reims. We both commented that there was a bit more to look at, with a few villages along the way and forests. The land was also a lot more lush and much more green down here.
A plane circling hear the road
One of the things that did keep us entertained was all the various signs for the towns, regions and tourist attractions that we were passing. As you can see, some were very colourful:
Love the countryside photos, I hope to someday see that in person. The inside of the cathedral is amazing. Jaw dropping is right!! Weird that it was so cold in there though?!
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Tanya
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We couldn’t believe how cold it was, bearing in mind that outside was a beautiful spring day with temperatures into the low 60s. We could literally see our breath inside the cathedral, it was that cold! 
) but they were really interesting and I love what they’re planning to do with the place over the next decade or so. 
: Defeated, we backtracked to the public toilets we’d seen, thinking they wouldn’t be great, but actually they were OK and they were free, which was the main thing. 
) and then we headed back on the road. 
And on the road as well! More please! 
!!! Those pictures were beautiful! It kind of reminds me of our trip to Italy...they just don't have old buildings like that over here.
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
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