Celebrating the holidays and hogmanay COMPLETED 2/25 - Page 24 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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How nice that they have a tea room on board. I remember reading that the Queen's favorite drink is gin and dubonnet, so I don't know who the beer drinker was!
How nice that they have a tea room on board. I remember reading that the Queen's favorite drink is gin and dubonnet, so I don't know who the beer drinker was!
Now that sounds more like the Queen's type of tipple!
Such interesting places! I would love to visit, especially because of all your wonderful pictures. I appreciate the photo with Hazel in it so now I can put a face with her name.
The ship's rooms are all well-appointed and your lunches at The Royal Tea Room looked quite delicious.
The rooms are well appointed, but then again, you have only seen the ones for the captain and the Royal family so far. The ones for the crew are a little different.
Such interesting places! I would love to visit, especially because of all your wonderful pictures. I appreciate the photo with Hazel in it so now I can put a face with her name.
Oh of course - she doesn't have a picture of herself in her signature pic right now. She used to have one a while ago....
Wednesday 31 December – part four: this is very homely!
We wandered along this deck…
… and made our way down to the next deck. This was where the officers’ rooms were located, starting with the officers’ mess. Unless a seat was roped off, you could sit on it, hence you can see people sitting around in here.
The audio guide told us about the competition involving this poor guy:
Apparently he was donated by someone on the strict understanding that he would be well looked after. Well, basically he wasn’t, and I think he was used as a cricket ball basically, with the guide explaining that the real fun started when he got stuck, as he is here, on top of the light fittings.
There was also a wooden monkey, that you can see in this cabinet, which would move around the room, but no-one was quite sure how, as no-one was supposed to touch him, and no-one would ever own up to touching or moving him.
Next we moved into the officers’ dining room, which was very pleasant. They explained how they would stand for the national anthem at every dinner as an extra mark of respect to the Queen.
Then we moved through the kitchen area…
They explained how every single piece of crockery and glassware had its own place, all of which had been individually created.
In here, the silver was regularly cleaned, and as you can see, it’s still gleaming.
Then it was into the very impressive state dining room…
All around on the walls and in show cabinets were examples of some of the items that the Queen had been given on her State visits over the years. You could just imagine a gala dinner in here, and wow, what an occasion that must have been. Even today, you can still rent out this dining room for corporate occasions, and I bet while it no doubt costs a fortune, it’s probably quite a night.
Next you saw the Queen’s sitting room, which they explained she often used for writing speeches…
… and opposite it was the Duke of Edinburgh’s sitting room.
Then you head into the main living room, and as you can see from the photos, it’s a very homely place. I can just imagine the Royal family sitting down to enjoy some time to themselves.
I have to agree with Marnie -- everything looks so elegant. I love the humor with the monkey and the stuffed animal.
That tickled me too, although I couldn't help but feel sorry for the stuffed animal. I hope he didn't get hurt in any of those "games", but I suspect he probably did... because we all know from Toy Story that toys have feelings, right?
Wednesday 31 December – part five: that’s not included?
We made our way along the deck…
… and headed down another level, entering the mess of the Royal Marines, who had two roles on board. The first was in the band for official functions, and they explained that they had to know the national anthem of every country they visited, although practising on board could be a nightmare, as of course you didn’t want to disturb the Queen. Anyway, this was a fun area – and of course, Mark had to create a fun photo opportunity here!
I would just like to point out that these beers are not real…
Their sleeping accommodation wasn’t that great though…
They even still had the old NAAFI (the Navy, Army and Air Forces Institute)store operating, selling fudge, which was a nice touch.
Next you went into the junior officers’ mess..
… and after that you got to the mail office. Of course, back in the days when Britannia was sailing, a lot of the crew would rely on getting letters and postcards, not emails. Gosh, how much the world has changed in the last 20 years or so!
Then you saw the hospital area. The Queen’s personal surgeon would always travel with her whenever she was on board, although there would be another surgeon to deal with any problems that the crew had. They told us that once upon a time they had looked at turning Britannia into a hospital ship, had the need ever arisen, and that’s why the laundry, that you’ll see in a second, is so big place.
Speaking of the laundry, it was a huge place, but I think we were all horrified to discover that the crew had to pay for their uniforms to be laundered. I thought that would be included! Apparently not.
Next you headed outside to see the motor launch that used to take the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh ashore from Britannia. They explained that it had been carefully designed to ensure that they could be seen, while ensuring their safety. There would be five men travelling with them at all times on this boat.
As I mentioned earlier, from here Britannia looked very big:
We had one final part of the yacht to see and that was the engine rooms. The audio tour warned us that they would pretty much be spotless, and they were right. It was hard, looking at them, to believe these had ever been used, but if I’m remembering right, they had taken the Britannia an equivalent distance of around the world for each year she had been sailing.
We walked through the most junior crew’s area…
… and then we headed out. You finish right at the bottom, so we all opted to take the elevator back to the fourth floor, which is where we’d entered. Of course there was a gift shop as we exited, and I got the obligatory fridge magnet, which also had Concorde on. Seeing as how we’d seen that a couple of days ago, that seemed appropriate.
Those crew berths look a lot like the berths on the air craft carrier my son was on. He always wanted the top bunk as it had a hair more space and no one climbing over you. I can't believe the crew had to pay to have their uniforms cleaned! It's not like they had other options while on board.
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Anyway, this was a fun area – and of course, Mark had to create a fun photo opportunity here! 
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