Returning to Roman times… COMPLETED - Page 29 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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One of the places we wanted to see was the Stabian Baths, the city’s oldest bath building. This was built in the second century BC, but it was built over a previous one, dating from the fourth to third centuries BC.
We soon found it, although this is where we started to meet the tour groups. It was only later when we looked at the map that we realised literally how little we’d seen of this place on our first visit here on the cruise excursion. We had literally visited four places, including the Forum we’d walked through earlier, and the baths, and that had been it. It had been enough to give us a taste of what was here, but by goodness, we had actually barely scratched the surface of it.
The baths brought back some great memories, but again, we were able to explore all four sides of it, rather than the tiny little segment that the tour groups we witnessed today saw.
It meant that we got to see these brilliant colours up close, the same ones I’d seen from a distance on a previous visit and loved so much.
We headed inside to an area we’d never discovered when we were here before, and lo and behold, we were inside the baths. There was a small viewing area, and I assume this is why the tour groups don’t come in here, as there is no way they’d fit in here. I was truly in awe at what we saw in here. It was just wonderful, and it felt like our little secret, with probably 90% of the visitors today not seeing this…
Just to give you an idea of what would’ve been here in Pompeii’s heyday, there would’ve been a frigidarium, with a tub with a cold bath, tepidarium, the warm room, and the caldarium, with its hot tub, along with furnaces to produce the heat for the baths. The baths were divided into men’s and women’s sections. The furnaces would produce warm air that then circulated underneath the floor area and through ducts in the walls – a very clever system.
From there, we headed into the melee of the tour groups. This is the area we’d seen previously, with its magnificent entrance….
Wow, seeing those bodies really brings it home, just what really happened there. Makes it all a little more sad....
But the baths look so neat! Can't believe you didn't get to see those (or most of what you saw today!) on a shore excursion, although, as you said, large groups wouldn't really fit. I also wonder if just due to preservation concerns, if the larger groups are more limited in what they can see/where they can go? I'm still astonished you can touch the walls!
Glad you were able to continue your tour without the bus groups interfering. I can see why, when you're on a cruise with the logistics and time issues it's necessary to go through these places with a tour guide, but you really don't see much! If you have a deeper interest and are willing to read the guide books, you see and learn much more. That site was massive when I was there and I'm sure is twice as large today!
This a very interesting site for sure. All the colors and art that are visible, are just wonderful. Love the tour of the Bath rooms. WOW, the two mummies are remarkable.
Wow, seeing those bodies really brings it home, just what really happened there. Makes it all a little more sad....
I know.
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But the baths look so neat! Can't believe you didn't get to see those (or most of what you saw today!) on a shore excursion, although, as you said, large groups wouldn't really fit. I also wonder if just due to preservation concerns, if the larger groups are more limited in what they can see/where they can go?
I suspect they are limited in what they can see and do.
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I'm still astonished you can touch the walls!
I know - there were no signs saying you couldn't, but I'm still amazed you can just walk around and essentially touch history!
Glad you were able to continue your tour without the bus groups interfering. I can see why, when you're on a cruise with the logistics and time issues it's necessary to go through these places with a tour guide, but you really don't see much! If you have a deeper interest and are willing to read the guide books, you see and learn much more. That site was massive when I was there and I'm sure is twice as large today!
I'm sure it is - and the map also shows areas still to be excavated. It's mind boggling how big the site is.
Finally all caught up, and happy that I am since you're now in Pompeii. I can't believe how empty it is for you. When we were there we never got a chance to see an empty road like you did. It's amazing because you can almost get a feel for what the streets would have looked like with the buildings all around it.
And you're right about the map showing you just how big the place is, and how very little you actually get to see when you have only so much time to explore. It feels like you've walked around the whole place, but think again...it's huge!
The colors on the bath walls are so beautiful! I remember seeing the preserved bodies in a National Geographic magazine, I think. This definitely is a place to visit without a tour and to just take your time finding all the hidden secrets. for all the photos.
Finally all caught up, and happy that I am since you're now in Pompeii. I can't believe how empty it is for you. When we were there we never got a chance to see an empty road like you did. It's amazing because you can almost get a feel for what the streets would have looked like with the buildings all around it.
So true.
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And you're right about the map showing you just how big the place is, and how very little you actually get to see when you have only so much time to explore. It feels like you've walked around the whole place, but think again...it's huge!
According to Wikipedia, the town covered a total of 163 acres, although that does say it needs citation, so I'm not 100% sure if that's right, but it's certainly big.
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Monday 6 May – part five: Mark finds a home that suits him….
We fought our way out through the crowds and headed back along Via dell’Abbondanza. As we did, we found some wonderful houses…
This one is the Fullonica of Stephanus. Fullones were responsible for creating clothes from wool, and it was one of Pompeii’s most important trades. There were 13 laboratories processing the raw wool, with seven spinning and weaving, nine dyeing and 18 washing. At the back of the building were various tubs used for washing, with the cloth trampled in a mixture of water and soda or urine. you read that right – they hadn’t invented soap at the time.
This building is the Thermopolium of Vetutius Placidus, one of many snack bars in Pompeii that served hot food and drinks. Generally, people wouldn’t eat their lunchtime meal at home, but would go to these places instead and would perhaps eat their meals in one of the back rooms of this building.
We also saw lots of restoration work underway…
In fact, there was so much restoration work that, at one point, the road was closed off, and you had to go down a side road. That happened a lot, which I guess in one way is good, as it shows that they are working to preserve and restore Pompeii, but it was frustrating, when you were trying to find your way to something, and your route was blocked off.
We found another Thermopolium and Mark seemed very at home there!
We carried on walking, finding lots more places on our way:
We saw the vineyards that would’ve supplied the city two millennia ago:
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I was truly in awe at what we saw in here. It was just wonderful, and it felt like our little secret, with probably 90% of the visitors today not seeing this… 
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Pixie Dust
It's mind boggling how big the site is. 
It's amazing what they were able to do so long ago! 
for all the photos.
Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
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