On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 38 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I was also surprised to see Gray Line as the tour. Huh. Interesting. Love the license plate photos, that's the sort of thing I love to take photos of!!!
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Wednesday 24 March – part two: they do some interesting festivals here...
From there, we drove along Insurance Mile, as it’s called. It’s home to many of the insurance companies that call Zurich home and that’s what’s helped to make the city the heart of the Swiss economy. It could also have something to do with the fact that around a quarter of the city’s residents are now foreign, a fact that surprised me at least. I didn’t think that it would be quite that high.
Then we passed the red and white spires, as they’re locally known and they’re beautiful buildings...
I couldn’t resist getting a photo of this businessman using a unique method of transport around the city:
We crossed the entrance to Zurich See, with the River Limmat running northwards through the city.
We headed towards the old town and this was our second stop. The square we stopped in was surrounded by guild houses, all of which were brightly coloured.
One of the properties here was where Winston Churchill, the then British Prime Minister made one of his famous speeches in 1946, calling on Europe to unite after the war and there’s a plaque commemorating that fact, which was neat.
We wandered into the Fraumunster, having heard about the amazing stained glass in here. Sadly, this is one of the rare churches that we’ve come across that doesn’t allow photos inside it, so I can’t share them with you, but there are five of them and they were only actually installed in 1970, which makes for a very different look to traditional stained glass. The colours are much more vibrant and, when we saw them, even more so, as the sun was streaming in from behind them.
We came out of there and wandered down to the river, getting some photos of Grossmunster church, another church the Wasserkirche and the city hall. It’s a beautiful area and the weather was perfect for showing it off to its best.
It was back on the trolley not long after that and we drove round more of Zurich, learning about some of the festivals that take place here. We were enchanted by the one where they pack a snowman with fireworks and stick him on a bonfire. Apparently, the longer it takes for him to explode, the longer summer will be. It’s a shame that our audio tour chose halfway through this description to pack up, leaving us hanging waiting for the end of the story, but we got it in the end.
From there, we headed through some residential areas and they explained how Zurich expanded to take in more and more villages, although some of them weren’t that keen, as it could often mean a huge hike in their tax rates.
Then it was off to the university sector, which is massive. Apparently one in ten people in Zurich are involved with the universities in some way, either as students or working for it, which is mind blowing. They also have a very impressive list of Nobel prize winners, headed up by Einstein, who they’re understandably proud of.
Agreed MGW - I'd blow up a snowman, too!! And I don't even live in VA anymore... but I saw firsthand what those snowstorms did, lol! So I'm pretty sure just about anyone up there would agree!!
AWESOME pictures of Lucerne.
katie loved them, too.
I said hey this where you are going (had to distract her from her texting, you know)
I am soo jealous.
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