A Swiss spring break with friends TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/27 - Page 32 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Those views are heavenly!! They truly are and I would love to wake up to that every morning!! As far a the dinner issue, live and learn. I believe most people in the customer service business truly want to make you happy because when you are happy, they do well. That being said, we've also run into poorly managed places like that and I believe what goes around comes around. Like you said there are many other wonderful choices in the area!!
As long as I have that view, I'm happy and I know there are other places which will provide much better customer service along with it.
What a great view to wake up to! Sorry about the meals now t being comped properly. I’m with you, what difference would it make between comping the meal I stress of just the burgers. Now you’ve pissed off the customers, who will then go tell others not to bother with the hotel. Seems like they lose in the end!
They certainly have. I've told you guys and we'll tell anyone who ever asks us about Montreux not to stay there. It's the same with Graham and Sarah. It will hurt them in the long term.
In this day and age, with social media, they should always assume an unhappy customer has the potential to reach hundreds (if not much more) of other potential customers, and impact where they chose to stay. Whether Trip Advisor, Yelp, or good old PP, word gets around. That was indeed a bad decision on their part.
In this day and age, with social media, they should always assume an unhappy customer has the potential to reach hundreds (if not much more) of other potential customers, and impact where they chose to stay. Whether Trip Advisor, Yelp, or good old PP, word gets around. That was indeed a bad decision on their part.
Waking up to those views in the morning is just stunning and never get tired of! It's like staying in the AKL with a Savanna view and seeing all the activity each morning. When I stayed there, I kept my deck door a bit open so I can hear the animals early in the morning and they performed my wake up call rather well!
The dinner situation was not rectified well in any way and rather poorly after what you were promised! No one would take responsibility and pretty much the blind leading the blind is how I see it! Go elsewhere next time as you said there are many options with equal or better views and I'm sure better dining options with actual customer service!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
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I can totally understand checking on that view first thing in the morning. It is gorgeous! I can't believe how poor the customer service was at the Royal Plaza. They are definitely losing business with that kind of behavior.
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Waking up to those views in the morning is just stunning and never get tired of! It's like staying in the AKL with a Savanna view and seeing all the activity each morning. When I stayed there, I kept my deck door a bit open so I can hear the animals early in the morning and they performed my wake up call rather well!
Yes it is a bit like that!
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The dinner situation was not rectified well in any way and rather poorly after what you were promised! No one would take responsibility and pretty much the blind leading the blind is how I see it! Go elsewhere next time as you said there are many options with equal or better views and I'm sure better dining options with actual customer service!
We may end up having to pay more, but I'd rather do that than return there.
Once everything was loaded into the car, we headed back on to the lakefront. It was beautiful, as it always is…
We did see this very sad sight!
On the way back, they were being cut up. I thought that might be too disturbing an image to share with you guys though, so you’ll have to just imagine it…
We were heading to the ferry stop to catch a quick one hour round trip around the lake. Usually their tours are two hours long, but all they had today was either an hour or seven hours, which while lovely, wouldn’t work for us, as we had a flight to catch later.
We got 50% off, thanks to our Montreux Riviera card that we’d got through the hotel. With it, it wasn’t too badly priced, but my goodness, I wouldn’t want to be paying full price, as it would be extortionate if we were!
Soon our boat, the Italie, was arriving…
Oh my goodness, what an amazing vessel she was! She’s a diesel electric paddle wheel ship. Originally built in 1908, she was renovated just a couple of years ago. Out of the whole fleet, she’s considered to be something of a mythical boat, as she spent 50 years operating on the whole length of Lake Geneva all the way from Geneva to Le Bouveret for six months of each year.
When he saw the dining room, Graham asked why we hadn’t had dinner here last night. Oh if only! I had looked into this, but unfortunately they only run out of Geneva and Lausanne. Oh well, having seen the location, I think that might be something for a future trip to Switzerland… and trust me, there will be another trip!
We’d opted to buy first class tickets, as they weren’t much more and that entitled us to head up these stairs…
… into the first floor of the boat. We had it all to ourselves until the first stop, so we really felt like royalty!
How nice to take that boat trip and to have it to yourselves for a while!! My goodness!! Where does the seven hour trip go?! That's a long time on a lake!!
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Those shots of the lake with the flowers... oh so beautiful! Glad you had time to enjoy a boat ride, looking forward to those photos. Even better you had the top deck to yourselves for awhile!
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Tanya
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The boat trip sounds like fun. I wonder where a seven hour trip would go? the lake is so pretty I could stay there all day looking at it.
I'm sorry you didn't get a good solution to the problems with dinner the night before, What kind of place doesn't support the acting manager's decisions even if she's an intern. I wouldn't go back there ever again.
Liz
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How nice to take that boat trip and to have it to yourselves for a while!! My goodness!! Where does the seven hour trip go?! That's a long time on a lake!!
It is a very big lake. Remember when we were in Geneva by the lake? It's the same lake. It's then nearly an hour's drive to Montreux around the top half of the lake, so that gives you some idea of how big it is.
The boat trip sounds like fun. I wonder where a seven hour trip would go?
I can't now find the seven hour cruise, so maybe it's only in the off seasons, like May?
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the lake is so pretty I could stay there all day looking at it.
I'm sorry you didn't get a good solution to the problems with dinner the night before, What kind of place doesn't support the acting manager's decisions even if she's an intern. I wouldn't go back there ever again.
Liz