Don't Stop - part one of Disney trip COMPLETED - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Wow what a great flight!
The only flight we have done that compares would be Lufthansa Business Class from JFK to Frankfurt Germany
The return flight was staffed by Singapore Airlines which was awesome!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Looks like fun! It appears that Americans who fly first class are missing out as it does not at all compare to the set up you've got in upper class.
I've thought, for a long time, that you guys miss out in the flying stakes compared to us. Having flown on various American airlines on their international flights, the service and what's on offer is nowhere near as good as we get on British flights. It's a shame for you guys.
Ok Cheryl. Oh my. What seats! What food! (it actually looked edible!) and your FIRST Bailey's?????? Your FIRST? Yummy, right?!
The food was excellent, but in fairness to Virgin, the food is very good full stop in all their classes and it is usually edible, a novelty I know! And yes, it was my first Bailey's - I think I had one more and then moved on to wine after that...
Thursday 10 December – part four: time to go to bed!
Once that gourmet delight was finished with, then I finished watching Up! Finally, I got to see it and every review of it said you’d laugh and cry at it and indeed I did that. Beautifully put together and Disney at its best.
Watching Up!
With the film finished, I got a crew member to help me, as they need to convert the seats into a bed, as it’s quite an operation, but a slick one. It was amazing and I was delighted to get to try out my first ever bed on board a plane. I will be honest, when I saw it, I thought “this is not going to be comfortable”, but my goodness, looks can be deceptive and it was very comfortable. I slept on and off for a couple of hours and I was glad I’d opted for the bed to be done when I did. Not long after that, we hit turbulence and the seatbelt light was on for about an hour. It was pretty rough and I was very glad to be lying down during it.
Eventually, I asked for it to be put back to a seat and settled down to watch G-Force, although sadly this aircraft has one of the oldest type of entertainment systems on the fleet, with each movie looping round and around. They don’t start at the same time, so once it starts, you basically need to flip to your channel and hope you catch it near the start. I caught it about halfway though, but could still make sense of it and then watched the first half. It was a weird way to do things, but it worked and again, it’s another great Disney film.
During that, we again hit turbulence and had the seatbelt signs on for another hour or so. At that point, I really did wish that I was lying down, as it did get rough at points. It’s been a long time since we’ve hit sustained turbulence like that on a flight. Usually it’s bad for a few minutes and then it’s over, but this just went on and on. Good thing we’re not bad flyers.
When the sign finally did go off, nearly all the cabin got up, including us. Mark decided to try his bed out for a while and got chatting to the crew member who did his, who ended up getting photos of the pair of us at the bar. They were a really chatty and helpful crew and nothing was too much trouble for them. You did get the feeling that you were being treated as really special passengers, which was lovely and a nice touch.
Mark was next to try out the bed:
The rest of the flight was spent sleeping while we could and finally enjoying afternoon tea sandwiches, scones or carrot cake. I had sandwiches, as did Mark, but he also got a piece of carrot cake. It was all very civilised and very British.
Finally, we were descending and I got some lovely sunset shots.
Then it was through the clouds and that seemed to go on forever, but finally we saw the lights of Orlando below us and we were touching down. It was a weird experience for us, as we had never landed in the dark before and we both commented that we felt more tired landing at night.
Once on the ground was where the problems began. We seemed to taxi for ages and then sat outside the gate. Mark could see what was going on and told me that they still had vehicles on the tarmac and, sure enough, the captain then told us that the gate wasn’t ready. Why I don’t know. we were there at the time that we were meant to be. It was a bit of a farce, to be honest.
Finally, we got in and then it seemed to take an age to open the doors, but fortunately, we were at least the first off the plane and that meant no wait at all for immigration, which was very straight forward. It was interesting that Mark had had to have all ten fingers and thumbs scanned, but I only had to have the fingers on my right hand done and that was it. I could only put it down to the fact that I had been to the States in May and of course Mark hadn’t.
The luggage took forever to come through and annoyingly, because there were only 60 of us on the flight, there was no separate luggage carousel operating for Premium Economy and Upper Class. As a result, some of the Upper Class luggage, ours included, was amongst the last out. 55 minutes on the ground and we were still waiting for our cases. At least after that, things did speed up a bit for a while. We were quickly thought customs and on to the monorail and then it was down to level one to find Disney’s Magical Express.
It’s not too badly signposted, but it was a bit of a hike and I think both of us could have done without that. Fortunately, we didn’t have long to wait for our bus and boarded immediately, but there we sat and waited and waited and waited a bit more. We were probably on there about 20 minutes in total. By the time we finally left the airport, we had been on the ground for 95 minutes. Not good and of course, forget our ADR for the Wave. That was well and truly lost a long time ago, but then again, I had figured that when I heard the plane was going to be late leaving and, to be honest, we were still pretty full from everything they had fed us on the plane.
Of course, it goes without saying, with the luck that we were having tonight, that the Contemporary would be the last drop-off, after the Polynesian, where a few people got off and the Grand Floridian, where everyone on the bus got off. Literally we were the only ones left on the coach! Finally we were at the Contemporary.
Wow, sorry to hear about the delay but my God, Upper Class looks SO RELAXING!!! If I could fly that all the time, long-distance flights wouldn't be so bad Yay, you're at Disney!!! Can't wait to read more...
Oh, that looks like such a luxurious way to travel... your own personal bed on the plane! Glad you finally made it to Orlando. Can't wait to hear about your adventures!
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Pixie Dust
<--- Disney Fantasy 2016!
Cathy
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the pictures from the air over England! 
Deb
PassPorter Guide Author
Beautifully put together and Disney at its best. 
we were there at the time that we were meant to be. It was a bit of a farce, to be honest. 
Finally we were at the Contemporary. 
Yay, you're at Disney!!! Can't wait to read more...
Susan
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