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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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so we looked for a place to have lunch, there were a few restaurants, we checked out the menus and decided on one. I had for lunch mango juice, chicken salad (way too much dressing), apple strudel with vanilla sauce. then we looked at shops, i bought an Innsbruck tea towel then at 1 we walked to the bus. the bus left at 1:15 heading towards Switzerland border (2 hours). then to St-Moritz. We drove through the Alps. I slept on the bus. We went through the border at 2:50, beautiful scenic drive through the Alps, we stopped at the border on the Swiss side for 30 mins. i bought a Switzerland oven mitt and 3 bars of Swiss chocolates to bring home. we left at 3:20. The capital of Switzerland is Bern, the country has 8 million people, the second and third highest quality of life (Geneva and Zurich), the first quality of life is Copenhagen, the 4th is New York (i was surprised by that). there are 4 languages in Switzerland: German, French, Italian (in Lugano) and Romanch (in St-Moritz). the world's oldest ski schools. We stayed at the Sport hotel Baeron, nice fresh alpine air, beautiful water, breathtaking view of God's nature. Tonight dinner was not included but the hotel was offering a special for us. we arrived at the hotel at 4:50. went to my room. At 6 i went with some people from the group to the City Centre (we walked), then we walked back to the hotel where we had supper at 6:45 (salad, chicken breast with rice and sauce, meringue and ice cream, one slice of rye bread. at 7:35 we walked back to downtown then we came back to the hotel. I stayed in the lobby with some people from the group until 11:50pm. i went to bed at 12:10
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St-Moritz when we went back for a walk after dinner. as you can see below the Bernina express train that we would be taking the following day to Tirano, Italy
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 St-Moritz, Switzerland - Bernina express train to Tirano, Italy - Lugano, Switzerland
I got up at 6:30, showered, then had breakfast at 7 (OJ, coffee, bowl yogurt with granola, canned peaches, can fruits, 4 prunes, one slice rye bread, 1 slice cheese, jam, 2 rye crackers. i always ate big breakfasts as we usually ate lunch pretty late. the bus left at 8:15 to the train station (5 mins.) we arrived at 8:20, got on the train (Bernina express) to Tirano, Italy. the train left at 8:45 (2 1/2 hour ride) where the scenic view is out of this world, it is so beautiful that words can't describe it. we had all the windows opened and were just constantly amazed at the view
so the train arrived in Tirano, Italy at 11:10. we walked to the City centre for lunch. our tour guide chose the restaurant and the whole group ate there. now i like italian food, but not the food in Italy. when i was younger and went on a youth tour of 2 months to Europe, we did quite a few countries and the only country i was sick was Italy for the whole 2 weeks that we stayed there, so i chose this tour with not a very big amount of time in Italy (only one meal), as i was a bit afraid to eat there. I had for lunch a lemon soda and a ham and cheese pizza (which was gross, it was all burned at the bottom, i only ate a bit in the centre). we then walked around, we went for a gelato, i had a coffee gelato. and then we looked at shops.
at lunch in Tirano, Italy, look at the huge pizzas and they were telling us that these were individuals. i only ate the centre because i was hungry, it was burned and gross. actually it's the only country that i didn't enjoy the food (the same as when i was younger and went on a 2 month tour of Europe)
so we walked back to the bus at 12:50 (5 mins), the bus left at 1pm. Italy, the capital is Rome, it is shaped like a boot, the specialties are leather shoes, fashion designers Armani, Prada, Gucci, volcanoes, gelatos. at 2:55 we stopped at Lake Como, Italy for a comfort stop and cappucinos. I had a cappucino and the guy said that he made the best and i have to admit that they were pretty good.
we got back on the bus at 3:35 heading back to the Swiss border, then Lugano (1/2 hour from the border). we drove around Lake Como, beautiful scenery. at 4:20, we drove through the border into Switzerland then headed to Lugano (the border was at the town of Chiasso). we arrived at the hotel at 4:50. it was right at the city centre Hotel Acquarello. went to my room and then at 5:15 i went shopping with the chinese girls, it was easy as we were right at the centre of town, quite a nice place actually. So we went to H & M store (quite popular in Switzerland and France and the prices are pretty cheap, unlike here in Canada where it is quite expensive). we bought some clothes (i bought a T-shirt and a blouse). we went back to the hotel and left for our optional dinner and cruise on the Lugano lake at 6:20. we walked to the lake (5 mins.) then took the cruise on the lake to the restaurant (Grotto San Rocco) across the lake (30 mins boat ride) for dinner (very good dinner: 1/2 slice rye bread, 1 glass white wine, salad, pork, chicken, fish, shrimp, polenta (made of corn - didn't really like it), risotto, zucchinis, panna cotta (cooked cream), then we took the illumination cruise back at 8:55. at 9:25 some of us walked around the city centre, then got back to the hotel at 10. went to my room, then went back to the lobby at 10:05 and sat with people from our group, talk, read, the lobby closed at 11 and we had to leave, so i went back to my room, read and went to bed at 11:15
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Thursday, May 27, 2010 Lugano, Switzerland - Lucerne, Switzerland
Lugano is the italian part of Switzerland (but different than Italy) and Lucerne is the german part of Switzerland. I got up at 6:30, showered and went for breakfast at 7 (OJ, coffee, bowl of yogurt, granola, kiwi, 2 croissants, 2 slices ham, 2 slices cheese then went back to my room at 7:40, read. the bus left at 8:20. it was raining, the first day on our trip (but it wasn't raining that bad). we were driving to Lucerne (2 - 2 1/2 hour drive). we went through the San Gottardo Tunnel, opened in 1980, 17 km long, the world's longest tunnel, it took 4,000 workers to build, they had tried to build the tunnel before and 19 workers had died. the ventilators are changing the air every 6 mins., there are 83 cameras inside the tunnel. from the tunnel, there were 85 km to Lucerne. After the tunnel 66 km to Lucerne. we arrived in Lucerne at 10:25, we drove around, it was still raining. we drove by the main central train station, then a wooden chapel bridge built in 1300, but burned down in 1903 and was reconstructed. at 10:25, we got off the bus and walked to see the dying lion - monument to 700 swiss soldiers during the French revolution - protecting the French emperor. the loyalty and bravery of the swiss. the lion with a sword going through his chest. the sculptor never got paid so he shaped the cage where the lion lays into a pig to ridicule the monument.
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