A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - Page 60 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Great pictures so far of St. Petersburg. I tried to learn the Russian alphabet, but it was very confusing. I'm better at the few words and phrases I know.
Great start to St. Petersburg! Love all the photos, but the ones that appear to be of communist era block buildings show the buildings to quite bleak and drear.
I am just starting this adventure and I have to stop to say OMG about your passports!! That is everyone's biggest fear!! Thank goodness you were close enough to drive home and get them.
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Baltic is on my to do list as well!! Can't wait to read about your adventures. When I saw the highway signs the first thing that popped into my head was "well, we couldn't drive there!"
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Wow! Osbourne House is amazing!! :jaw dropped: I can't imagine having that place for a summer retreat!!! Thanks for the history as well. Very interesting!
Sorry to be so far behind, but I will catch up eventually!
Wow! I can't believe you guys are fitting this into one day!! Caries rookie Castle looks amazing and the chairlift from Needles to Alum Bay is gorgeous!! That sand is beautiful!!
Your day is sounding so much better today!! You got a good night's sleep, the weather looks gorgeous, your photos of the wildlife park are amazing and your ferry ride sounds fun!!
Great pictures so far of St. Petersburg. I tried to learn the Russian alphabet, but it was very confusing. I'm better at the few words and phrases I know.
Ugh, trying to learnt the alphabet is an absolute nightmare!
Great start to St. Petersburg! Love all the photos, but the ones that appear to be of communist era block buildings show the buildings to quite bleak and drear.
I know. I can't help but wonder if that's what it looked like completely in the Communist era, with perhaps the odd historic building in between?
I am just starting this adventure and I have to stop to say OMG about your passports!! That is everyone's biggest fear!! Thank goodness you were close enough to drive home and get them.
Welcome aboard! Yep, something I don't think I'll ever do again, after this experience...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
Portsmouth is beautiful, your ferry ride looked amazing and Ryde is really pretty!!
It was lovely.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
Wow! Osbourne House is amazing!! :jaw dropped: I can't imagine having that place for a summer retreat!!! Thanks for the history as well. Very interesting!
Sorry to be so far behind, but I will catch up eventually!
No worries...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
Wow! I can't believe you guys are fitting this into one day!! Caries rookie Castle looks amazing and the chairlift from Needles to Alum Bay is gorgeous!! That sand is beautiful!!
Well, you have to make the most of each day, right?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tara O'Hara
Your day is sounding so much better today!! You got a good night's sleep, the weather looks gorgeous, your photos of the wildlife park are amazing and your ferry ride sounds fun!!
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We first got to a platform where the trains arrive…
… but you have to go down another level to get the trains that depart, which was a bit confusing, but I could understand why they did it that way.
A train pulled in while we were there, but Elena was still talking and really wasn’t fussed about us catching it. I did like this aspect of the tour, as we never once appeared to be in a rush, and in fact we ended up finishing early – definitely the benefit of having a smaller tour.
Finally our train arrived, and I was surprised to see soldiers in uniform, as at home, no-one’s worn uniform to travel around since the 1970s/1980s, due to the IRA. You see, sadly we grew up all our lives with terrorism. Ours came from Ireland. Elena did explain that’s why there are no trash cans on the platform, as someone used one for a bomb. Yep, sadly been there, done that about 20 odd years ago.
When we got to the next station, it was the one for the Admirality, so it was all nautical themed. Again, we had lots of time to walk around and take everything in…
One reason we’d come here was because of the exceptionally long escalator they have here. When you get on it, you literally cannot see the top of it. At one point, about halfway up, you can just about see the entrance and the exit, but that’s about the only time. It really was quite something.
We got some shots done when we got to the top of the escalator…
… then we headed out. Elena had already explained to us that a single ride on the subway is the equivalent of 50 cents, and you can ride around all day, as it’s only when you come to leave that you then can’t get back in again, as this is a one-ride token. It would’ve cost $1 a year ago, but the Russian ruble has crashed against currencies since then.
We saw a familiar logo in Russian when we came out – can you guess what it is?
This was the exterior of the subway station – you’d never believe what it was, would you?
Aren't the subway stations amazing? And I'm sure you found even more so in Moscow. Nothing like the DC metro, or even London Underground, is it?
I would have happily spent a day going station to station if we'd had time.
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I can't believe how small your group is! 
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Love all the photos, but the ones that appear to be of communist era block buildings show the buildings to quite bleak and drear.
That is everyone's biggest fear!! Thank goodness you were close enough to drive home and get them. 
Yep, something I don't think I'll ever do again, after this experience... 
At one point, about halfway up, you can just about see the entrance and the exit, but that’s about the only time. It really was quite something. 
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