Celebrating the holidays and hogmanay COMPLETED 2/25 - Page 19 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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A very nice tour of Stirling Castle! The views of the countryside from up top were quite stunning! Like you said it is so well laid out and very tourist friendly! Mark seemed to be enjoying himself with the cannons there!
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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!
A very nice tour of Stirling Castle! The views of the countryside from up top were quite stunning! Like you said it is so well laid out and very tourist friendly! Mark seemed to be enjoying himself with the cannons there!
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Tuesday 30 December – part three: where did they all go?
We learnt a bit about the famous Stirling heads (which I’d never heard of until today )…
… and then headed out into another courtyard, this one called the ladies’ lookout, because this is where the Royal ladies stood to admire the views, and they were stunning…
We then headed in here…
… and wow, these rooms were really impressive, although the whole way through, I couldn’t quite work out whether they were originals or not. I just think they looked too good, if you know what I mean?
This room had the Stirling heads on display, although not the original ones, but copies all painted up. There was also a guy in here, explaining about the history of the room, which was very neat to listen to.
This was the King’s bedchamber, although we didn’t think much of the bed…
Then we moved into the Queen’s bedchamber, where they had another member of staff who explained all about this room. She was amazing, and stayed in character the whole time, as a servant of the time, although for me, she talked a bit too long, as we were waiting at the door, as were others to get in, and of course, while she was talking, we didn’t want to walk in front of people listening, as that felt rude to us.
When she was done, we got our photos…
… and seriously just about every person who’d been listening shot off, and we didn’t see them again. Whether they were on a coach tour, and on a timetable, I do not know, but we certainly spent a lot more time seeing the rest of the rooms. This was the Queen’s meeting room – isn’t it stunning?
When we got to the waiting room, where people would wait to meet the Queen, we had the whole place to ourselves, as you can see:
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Oh wow those are whole new rooms since we were there. I don't think we have been since 2009. We will have to go back sometime.
Oh cool! I love it when they add new things to places close to home - Leeds Castle has recently added something new and I must admit I got really excited when I saw that.
Tuesday 30 December – part four: I don’t think they need any warnings here
We stopped to get some photos of the courtyard here…
Then we came out into another courtyard…
We then headed into the exhibition to learn all about the Stirling heads, how they were created and who they were of, which was fascinating.
We then headed out through the nursery…
… admiring the statues outside…
… and made our way over to the ramparts to admire the views again. Aren’t they beautiful?
At first when I saw this building, which turned out to be home to the Grand Hall, I thought the sun was catching it beautifully, but it was actually made of a different material, hence the different colour of the building.
We made our way along the wall walk, which warned us that we’d be in areas that weren’t fenced off, so kids weren’t allowed along there on their own. Fair enough, but to be honest, everywhere we went was walled off, so I wasn’t sure why they’d bothered with the warning.
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Like you said it is so well laid out and very tourist friendly! 
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Pixie Dust
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What a beautiful place! 
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