On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 10 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great start!! I was going to ask about the train/tunnel as I was a little confused(ok, a lot confused ), but someone else beat me to it. Can't wait to read more!!
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Stephanie
Riding the Magic Carpets with Jasmine and Aladdin
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The fog looks like it did outside my window today. The train ride sounds very interesting. The countryside of France looks very different that what I've seen around here. Can't wait to read more.
Liz
Friday 19 March – part two: what’s that rare sight in the sky?!
At least as we drove, the weather improved, with the sky gradually lightening up and then something appearing in the sky that was bright and seemed rather foreign to us – can you tell the weather in the UK hadn’t been that great over the previous couple of weeks?!
Something else we noticed as we drove along were the colours of the shrubs and trees. It was almost as if we were visiting in the fall, with all the rich red colours we saw. It was a very pleasant surprise to see.
As you go along, you’ll also see a lot of war memorials. France was, of course, the centre of battles during both the First and Second World Wars and, like many countries, had a brutal history before then (many wars with the English featured in there of course... ) Many memorials were quite distant, but this may give you an idea of the sort of thing we saw as we went...
In case you think that the roads look deserted in any of these photos, it’s probably because we were on a toll road. This is huge in France and the first section cost us €20 ($27) and it was only at that point that we realised you could pay with your credit card. Good to know, as these tolls would significantly cut into the amount of cash we had bought with us...
We seemed to drive for ages and then, suddenly, almost with no notice, we were approaching Reims and turned off the motorway and into the city. A couple of turns later and the city was upon us. As you can see, it’s a beautiful place with some wonderful architecture:
We turned a corner and, there in front of us, was Reims Cathedral, which I wanted to visit.
We followed the signs for cathedral parking and easily found the underground car park. It’s probably worth pointing out here that I was the one who had to do all the work, when it came to things like picking up tickets from the toll booths or at a car park or paying the tolls, as of course, our steering wheel is on the other side to the French, as they all drive on the left and we drive on the right. It’s something quite interesting to get used to.
We headed out and I must admit I did wonder at first where we’d ended up parking, as we came out in a deserted area that seemed to have offices above it. There were signs towards the cathedral, so we followed that and, almost immediately, I felt more comfortable, as I saw a familiar sign – Galleries Lafayette. For those not in the know, this is a major chain of department stores in France and it turned out that we were walking parallel to one of the main shopping streets, which we discovered later.
We got to the next street and looked left and what did we see? That universal sign recognised in just about every country in the world. That’s right – the golden arches. Immediately, we both swore that we wouldn’t eat there, well unless all else failed!
We turned right and headed towards the cathedral and were greeted with a beautiful sight.
All around here, as you’d perhaps expect from such a huge tourist draw, were souvenir shops and they were all focusing on the same thing – champagne. What I neglected to mention earlier was that Reims is in the Champagne region of France and yes, it’s named after the famous drink, as a lot of it comes from here. Mark even managed to create a funny photo op outside one of the shops...
We wandered up to the cathedral and spent ages looking at the exterior. As you can probably tell from the photos, it’s currently undergoing restoration work, but it’s only when you get up close to it that you can see how desperately this work is needed. From a distance, it looked like they were just cleaning up the stone, but when you look at the section that’s already been done, you can see that they’ve also been busy restoring it, as the neighbouring section, that is yet to be done, has stone statues and creatures on it, many with bits missing from them. We later learnt that seemed to be down to a combination of war damage and pollution. They’re spending €4 million on this project and it’s all funded by the French government, which I was very impressed by.
I DO like the idea of putting the passenger to work at toll booths and such...
Mark looks a bit stressed after that drive, I think he could use that large bottle of champagne to help him relax!
That is a beautiful city, and I am just amazed at the detail in the the cathedral!
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Melanie
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Pixie Dust
PassPorter Guide Author
Disney Magic - Oct 2015
), but someone else beat me to it. Can't wait to read more!! 
Teresa
but all I'm saying is the weather will be quite a feature of this trip report....
,
But that would be such a 
) Many memorials were quite distant, but this may give you an idea of the sort of thing we saw as we went... 
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