A Baltic boating adventure TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 11/19 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Oh my goodness, that must've been an even worse realisation!
It most certainly was! I cringe, whenever I think about this!
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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!
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The Durbur room was amazing! I can see why they saved it as the last room on the tour. The beach looked so peaceful. I knew the Victorians were modest, but the bathing carriage was quite something.
The beach is beautiful and looks very relaxing. Love that you all got ice cream and sat taking in the view. Delightful! I bet that bus driver has lots of funny stories.
Everyone? Am I understanding that right? Everyone on that cruise that booked valet was affected by your change?
The change was the boarding time that we had no control over. Because of the outbreak of the Norovirus on the previous cruise, they were doing a deep clean and as a result, no-one could board until 2:00pm at the earlier. Unless people had planned to board after 2:00pm, everyone booking valet would be affected.
The beach is beautiful and looks very relaxing. Love that you all got ice cream and sat taking in the view. Delightful! I bet that bus driver has lots of funny stories.
I bet he does too. He could probably tell those for hours on end!
Saturday 4 June – part eight: where can I find the donkeys?
Eventually, we were back into the countryside…
… and soon we were arriving at Carisbrooke Castle.
I was very disappointed when we entered to find that the donkeys wouldn’t be treading the boards until 2:30pm, as we’d just missed the most recent demonstration. Basically they walk round and round, showing visitors how water used to be brought up from the well. It’s something that’s been going on here for hundreds of years. I immediately asked where I could find the donkeys if they weren’t walking the walk and the guy found the donkey shelter for me on the map, much to Mark’s disgust…
As we headed through the gift shop, you could see donkeys were popular here…
We made our way up through the entrance, with Mark pointing out all the various ways they would’ve defended this place in years gone by. As he said, you had very little chance of actually getting in here, with all these various defence mechanisms in place.
We headed in to see the introductory film, which was very interesting, and highly entertaining as well, as it was narrated by a cartoon donkey, who was walking the walk. We learnt how King Charles I, who was defeated in the Civil War back in the 17th century, was imprisoned here and eventually killed, and how his daughter died here as well. It wasn’t planned, she was ill before she came here.
Later in the castle’s history, Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter Beatrice ended up owning the place, and really put her mark on it. One of the things she did was built this chapel as a memorial to King Charles I, and I think it’s nice to see he was finally remembered, albeit a few hundred years later.
It’s also home to the island’s war memorial, and there were a terrifying number of names in here. We were later to find out in the museum the reason for that. Apparently they had a garrison here, and a lot of local men joined up at the start of the First World War. In total, the island ended up losing something like 2,700 men in that war, which is just a terrifying number for a relatively small island.
We headed over to Princess Beatrice’s garden next, which was beautiful, and a lovely relaxing place to visit.
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What a beautiful castle - and I know what you mean about war memorials. It is so scary how many names are listed on them.
I think you went to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific over the weekend, if I remember right from Facebook? I found the numbers there of headstones just horrifying.
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I cringe, whenever I think about this! 
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