Water, wildlife and wonders... a road trip around Scotland COMPLETED 11/6 - Page 58 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Looks like a great tour. It's everyone was enjoying the tasting and love the expressions on Mari's face! Some were obviously enjoying this more than others!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
Looks like a great tour. It's everyone was enjoying the tasting and love the expressions on Mari's face! Some were obviously enjoying this more than others!
Monday 19 June – part nine: look at our home for the night!
When I got back to the shop, the others were buying, so I left them to it, after getting some photos of course.
I settled myself into the car, adjusted the seat, and programmed the GPS, while I waited for the others to appear with their purchases. As I waited there, I saw our five Czech friends appear, and all of them got on to their motorbikes! I couldn’t believe it. They were all well and truly over the drink/drive limit, and had been told that during the tour, but it didn’t seem to worry them. I just hope they got to their next destination in one piece… and didn’t hurt anyone else on the way.
Then we were off… except we stopped fairly soon afterwards, when we found these guys!
After that, I concentrated on driving, as a lot of it was on roads that were just about wide enough for two cars with passing places. Mark knows how much I hate this type of road, so tried to support me by pointing out when he saw other vehicles. He also tried his best with the photography, and I loved the way I’d suddenly hear him cursing, as he realised how tough this is to do in a moving vehicle…
Finally we were at our small abode for the night, and my goodness, look at it!
What amazed me more was that this didn’t cost that much - £122 (c. $150) per couple, which I thought was amazing value for what we were seeing.
After exploring some of the downstairs, we were taken up to our room – wow!
And the view…
We headed down to the bar at 7:00pm, as that’s when our table was booked for dinner, but they requested that we made our meal choices in there before going through to the restaurant. Let’s just say I was glad I’d dressed up for dinner, as it’s the place you do. We saw women in little black dresses here.
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The hotel and your room are amazing and what a deal you got! That is some view from your room!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
I got some shots of the bar area, which was very nice…
… and the garden outside…
I decided to order a glass of Martini Rosso, which I used to have at home a lot, but rarely drink when I’m out, but I fancied it, so why not? At the same time, a tasting of the rose wine I was interested in turned up, so it looked as if I’d be having a good night!
Mari and Raleigh ordered a bottle of wine, and asked for it to be brought through to the bar area, but they told us our table was ready in the restaurant, so we headed that way. See what I mean about this being a posh place? It certainly lived up to its castle name.
And here’s my rose wine being poured out for me…
We did laugh, as we asked for a pitcher of tap water, and the guy literally poured out no more than an inch of water into each glass. We did wonder if he was working on the theory we’d be doing shots with it!
The bread arrived first…
… with some beautiful butter to go with it…
Then the amuse bouchee turned up, although it didn’t work for me, as it was chicken.
As soon as the guy heard that, he told me no problem, nipped back into the kitchen, and chef made me a bruschetta specially!
I’d had a look at the menu, and liked the idea of the selection of Scottish cheese for dessert, so I got that for appetiser, and it was excellent.
I probably upset the chef, as the others pointed out there was a cheese dish on the appetiser menu, which was cheeseboard mille feuille, oatmeal pastry, whipped blue cheese, grapes, pickled celery, compressed apple, and port gel. Well, for starters, it had apple in it, and secondly I just thought it was “weird” and said as much. I guess that went down really well with the server, and the chef, if he passed the message on…
Mark had the ham hock terrine with pickled vegetables, piccalilli gel, and toasted bread and absolutely raved about this dish.
I had the local salmon, which was pan seared on a salad of rocket, baby spinach, gem lettuce, sugar snap peas, radish, pea shots, and baby potatoes, and lemon dressing. I wasn’t sure about the rocket, as it doesn’t agree with me, and our server said they could leave the whole salad off, but I told him I’d take it as it was supposed to be done. That was a mistake. Honestly, the salmon and new potatoes were perfection on their own. Add in the salad and it just didn’t go, as the dressing was quite heavy, which was a shame.
Mark had the Scottish fillet of beef, but he ended up getting Mari and Raleigh’s version, which was less well done than his, but he didn’t want to swap, as he’d asked for dauphinoise potatoes, rather than the hand cut chips it was supposed to come with. The dish also came with mushrooms, tomato, and onion jam, and garlic and herb butter.
For dessert, Mark asked for the chocolate fondant with orange sorbet, chocolate soil, orange gel, and chocolate nib tuille, which took 15 minutes to cook. I think it was worth it, given how it just melted as he broke into it…
I went for the pineapple sorbet, which was absolute perfection.
Oh my goodness, what a great way to end the meal… except it wasn’t quite… Mark and I may have put a couple of these away too…
The service had been superb throughout our meal. Our server was very knowledgeable about his wine, and food, which sadly hasn’t always been the case at the places we’ve eaten at this trip.
I really felt spoilt and pampered here, and I’m very glad we opted for this place. What an absolute find.
Kildrummy Castle Hotel
Appetiser 9 10
Entrée 8½ 9½
Dessert 10 8½
Service 9½ 9½
Atmosphere 9½ 9½
Value for money 9 9
Average score: 9.29
On the way back to our room, we found the drawing room…
… and I got a few more photos of the communal areas as well… lovely, absolutely lovely.
The weather today was dry with some sun and some cloud and temperatures in the low 70s. The best thing today was the Glenfiddich tour. The worst thing today was breaking the screen on my mobile phone and feeling unwell. Today we tried visiting Balmoral Castle And the result was it was nice, but a bit disappointing compared to the other Royal palaces we’ve visited before. The most magical moment today was seeing the red squirrel.
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Some were obviously enjoying this more than others! 
He also tried his best with the photography, and I loved the way I’d suddenly hear him cursing, as he realised how tough this is to do in a moving vehicle… 
At the same time, a tasting of the rose wine I was interested in turned up, so it looked as if I’d be having a good night! 
I’d take it as it was supposed to be done. That was a mistake. Honestly, the salmon and new potatoes were perfection on their own. Add in the salad and it just didn’t go, as the dressing was quite heavy, which was a shame. 
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