Cruising the Norwegian fjords without Disney! 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Hooray, you've started!!
Weird about the memory card! You'll have to let us know when it finally rematerializes! And where you find it. Maybe it fell beneath an invisibility cloak (doesn't everyone in England have one of those? )?
Sunday 29 April – part one: what’s that glass in the greenhouse doing not actually in the greenhouse?
Despite the howling wind, we slept remarkably well, and when I first opened my eyes, my first thought was “the wind’s gone”, but then I lay there for a couple of minutes, and realised that sadly it hadn’t. It was however less powerful than it had been last night, although the gusts were still strong. The first thing I did when I headed downstairs was to check the shipping forecast. This was looking a little bit more promising today. It was no surprise to me to discover that, at present, the winds were severe gale force nine, which meant rough seas. However, on the route we’d be taking, the forecast was that it would drop to more like force four to five, with moderate to rough seas. Ok, not great, but at least better than it could’ve been. After all, we did have until 4:30 this afternoon, and it was now just 7:00 am, so there was still hope.....
We went around, packing the last of our bits and pieces, and getting the house ready for our departure. Mark noticed at one point that the door of the garden shed was flapping open in the wind, so went up to close that, getting nice and wet in the process.
I did think about not following suit, as staying dry is always my preference, but I had promised myself that I’d go up to the greenhouse and check that all my strawberry plants were Ok to be left, and had enough water. Mark told me, that with all the rain we’d had recently, and the door of the greenhouse had been slightly open, so some had got inside, they’d be fine, but still, I’d better go and check. I was glad I did....
I walked in, and concentrating on the strawberries, I started to water them, as they all did desperately need some water. I then thought how loud the tapping of our next door neighbour’s chain link fence was on the side of our greenhouse. I was surprised, as I didn’t remember hearing that before, and I glanced over there. I didn’t register what I was seeing at first, but suddenly realised with horror that one of the glass panels had come out, but was still intact, and it was this that was making the noise.
I immediately ran to get Mark, and he managed to put the panel back in place again. Wow, that was a close call. I couldn’t believe the glass was out of place, but still in one piece. Lucky indeed.
The watering finished, I immediately off the tray of water underneath where the guttering was leaking, and tried to secure anything else that might blow away, including the lid of the water butt, which was making a bid for freedom... At least with all the recent rain, it had gone from being completely empty to practically half full. Well, at least if it was dry at any point during the summer, which was starting to feel very unlikely we’d have some water in there for the garden, having been on a hosepipe ban for the last few weeks....
We set off at about 10:30 am, as it would take us a couple of hours to get to the port. Oh my goodness, the weather was just foul on the way down. Thank goodness it was a Sunday and there was very little traffic around, as otherwise I dread to think how long it would’ve taken us and how many accidents we might’ve encountered. To be honest, visibility was pretty awful with only very limited visibility at any one time. I’m not sure how Mark did it...
Just to give you an idea of our journey down...
I started to get hungry on the way down, so we stopped off at a service station. Well, that was a bad idea. In between the idiots who couldn’t park there and were blocking everything up, then Mark discovering that the McDonald’s was on the other side and everything had massive lines, we didn’t do very well. He got a couple of large chocolate bars and that would have to do us for the rest of the way down.
About half an hour later, we came to the store I’d found, which I’d worked out was just off the motorway, where I could get another memory stick for my camera. Of course, we hadn’t been able to find the missing one yesterday. I tell you, it will turn up in months or years to come... I went in and found one that was £22.99 – much better than another one that was £45.99, so I went for that one. When I got to pay for it, it came up as £29.99 on the till. Er, I don’t think so... The woman checked with someone, and sure enough, legally as that’s what it’s on display for, that’s what they have to sell it to us for, so they did...
We were on our way again, with only a final half hour of our journey to go now. Fortunately, by now, the spray was nowhere near as bad as it had been earlier in the trip, and dare I say it, I think perhaps the rain was lessening a little. We’d certainly commented that the wind had dropped a lot, which was a huge relief to both of us.
As we found our way to the parking area, it became apparent that our initial joy at the rain dying off was very much misplaced. We pulled up to where we were told to park up. It was actually a very good system, with them parking your cars in order, and presumably we were parked alongside lots of other people on the cruise with us. We got out to start getting out stuff together and literally we were out there for no more than five minutes and, in that time, we were soaked to the skin. Thank goodness I had a waterproof on my top half, but my jeans didn’t provide much protection at all for me. I was drenched very quickly.
We handed our three cases over to the people running the parking, and they were taken to a separate minibus, to head straight for the ship. The next time we’d see them would be when we got to our room. Very impressive!
We boarded the bus with our hand luggage sandwiched in with us. It was while waiting to depart that we got chatting to Adrian and Cheryl seriously from south Wales. We clicked with them immediately and it was as if we’d known them forever. We had plenty of time to chat, as I think we sat there before moving for about 20 minutes or so....
Finally, when we did get going, it seemed to take ages to get to the cruise terminal. I reckon it was probably at least a 30-40 minute drive. It wasn’t that there was a lot of traffic, it just seemed to take us a long time to get anywhere, and we also seemed to be passing through the port itself for probably about 20 minutes, before we finally got to the cruise area.
When we did, we could quickly see our ship, the P&O Azura, as I think it was the only one in port that day. My goodness, it certainly looked like someone had taken a hacksaw to it at its rear! It’s nowhere near as beautiful as the Magic, Wonder, or Dream – and no doubt we’ll say the same about the Fantasy in due course as well, but then again, if I said that it was, I think you’d be worried about me, wouldn’t you?
The first thing I did when I headed downstairs was to check the shipping forecast. This was looking a little bit more promising today. It was no surprise to me to discover that, at present, the winds were severe gale force nine, which meant rough seas. However, on the route we’d be taking, the forecast was that it would drop to more like force four to five, with moderate to rough seas. Ok, not great, but at least better than it could’ve been.
OK, has anyone else been a fan of the BBC series "As Time Goes By", with Judi Dench? I just started rolling on the floor reading this, as Mrs. Bales, one of the characters on that show, was forever listening to the shipping forecast - for no good reason! Maybe this is funny only to me....
I agree, the ship did look like the back end had been chopped off. I don't like the look of ships like that nearly as much as DCL ships! I guess we're all spoiled.
I can't imagine how uncomfortable you were sitting on the shuttle in wet jeans! I find that to be one of the worst things to deal with. Glad the weather is going to improve for you!
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I can't believe the glass fell out of the greenhouse without shattering! Very nasty-looking weather for a cruise! You're right about the look of the ship--doesn't even look like a ship. How great to find a couple of friends right at the start!
OK, has anyone else been a fan of the BBC series "As Time Goes By", with Judi Dench? I just started rolling on the floor reading this, as Mrs. Bales, one of the characters on that show, was forever listening to the shipping forecast - for no good reason! Maybe this is funny only to me....
I agree, the ship did look like the back end had been chopped off. I don't like the look of ships like that nearly as much as DCL ships! I guess we're all spoiled.
I can't imagine how uncomfortable you were sitting on the shuttle in wet jeans! I find that to be one of the worst things to deal with. Glad the weather is going to improve for you!
I vaguely remember that show - it was from quite some time ago wasn't it? I think maybe I occasionally watched it....
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I can't believe the glass fell out of the greenhouse without shattering! Very nasty-looking weather for a cruise! You're right about the look of the ship--doesn't even look like a ship. How great to find a couple of friends right at the start!
And you want to know the best bit? I went to check out the greenhouse when we got home - that glass pane is still intact.
We've just had Adrian on the phone - either they're going to come and see us, or we're going to go and see them over the next few months.
Please be sure to put in for better, sunnier weather when I am over there............
Whenever I see ships like that, I always think they forgot to finish building it.
I haven't dared tell you yet... the newspapers were saying over the last couple of days that it's going to be wet and unseasonably cold for the whole of the rest of May! Hopefully that means it will be better for when you arrive, but at this rate.... no promises...
I haven't dared tell you yet... the newspapers were saying over the last couple of days that it's going to be wet and unseasonably cold for the whole of the rest of May! Hopefully that means it will be better for when you arrive, but at this rate.... no promises...
Ugh!! Well maybe my good luck will rub off and I will bring sunshine and shorts weather!
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Originally Posted by Dlandmom2
It will be pretty darn funny when Wendy finds your memory stick within minutes of her arrival.
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However, on the route we’d be taking, the forecast was that it would drop to more like force four to five, with moderate to rough seas. Ok, not great, but at least better than it could’ve been. After all, we did have until 4:30 this afternoon, and it was now just 7:00 am, so there was still hope..... 
I couldn’t believe the glass was out of place, but still in one piece. Lucky indeed. 
Thank goodness it was a Sunday and there was very little traffic around, as otherwise I dread to think how long it would’ve taken us and how many accidents we might’ve encountered. To be honest, visibility was pretty awful with only very limited visibility at any one time. I’m not sure how Mark did it... 
The woman checked with someone, and sure enough, legally as that’s what it’s on display for, that’s what they have to sell it to us for, so they did... 
Hopefully that means it will be better for when you arrive, but at this rate.... no promises... 
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