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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Love the butterfly garden! And how funny to see them eating some of that food - I never really thought about butterflies eating anything other than flower pollen. Seems like a great spot to wander through in the middle of a cold winter day!
Love the photos from the butterfly house - a little touch of spring! There were so many varieties of butterflys in there. Usually you get a ton on Monarch and then maybe a few others - so colorful. This one even looked like it has a snake face on the tips of its wings - don't you think?
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Love the photos from the butterfly house - a little touch of spring! There were so many varieties of butterflys in there. Usually you get a ton on Monarch and then maybe a few others - so colorful. This one even looked like it has a snake face on the tips of its wings - don't you think?
Ok, because we are heading out tonight on the start of our journey to WDW (staying at the airport and flying in the morning) and there are two installments left to go on this trip report, you get a double dose this morning to finish it off!
Sunday 20 March – part seven: exploring Vienna’s natural history
On the upper floors, all the various rooms display various stuffed birds, fish and animals. Most are displayed where they are, but some are in dioramas. Although obviously many were familiar, there were plenty that we’d never come across before. Each room we went there was ornately decorated and it was fascinating to see all the displays.
Downstairs, there was a bit more variety, with a set of rooms dedicated to gemstones and mineralogy. Sadly, these were distinctly lacking any labels, so we sped through them fairly quickly. There was almost too much to see and take in here, which was a shame. Perhaps less could have been more, if you know what I mean?
There wasn’t much else to see downstairs, as the dinosaur exhibition, which is normally one of the highlights of the museum, is closed until September, as they’re obviously renovating them in some way. A number of other rooms were taken up by a paid for exhibition, looking at what goes on underneath animal skins. Not something for someone as faint hearted as me! :
Sunday 20 March – part eight: “where’s the ticket for the airport train?”
By the time we headed out, it wasn’t as cold as earlier and at least the drizzle or sleet had held off. Now the sky was absolutely beautiful and I got some shots, as we headed for the subway station.
Once again, like last night, we had to work out which entrance to go for, as again one entrance only led you down to one line, while the other entrance, across the road, let you to the line going the other way. It’s certainly an odd way to build a subway line.
We were soon back at the hotel and it was here that we tried to work out what had happened to our return ticket on the City Airport Train. I’d asked Mark about it at lunchtime and he told me it was probably in his coat pocket. He turfed out everything in his coat pockets and no sign of it... I told him not to worry, I’d just go and print off another ticket, as I had an e-mail confirmation. I asked at reception and they directed me to the business centre. I got into my e-mail account easily enough, but could I find the confirmation e-mail? : It was nowhere to be found!
I went back to Mark, who calmly said to me “well, I think I gave you the ticket back...”. After turfing out my suitcase, we finally found the ticket.
A quick decant of the remainder of the bottle of wine we bought last night into the water bottle we bought with us, so it didn’t look too bad when I was drinking it later on the train and eventually, we were ready to head out.
We caught the subway over to the Wien Mitte station and started to follow the signs towards the City Airport Train, although wouldn’t you know it, the signs petered out. Isn’t that always the way? We found our way to a platform, as it was signposted to the airport, and quickly realised that there was no way this was the platform we needed. Obviously there must be another service going to the airport...
We finally found our way out of the station and headed to the City Airport Train station. It was straight down to the platform, as at least we now had our ticket. We had a couple of minutes’ wait before the train arrived and then we were amongst the first on board. It’s just as well, as the train was really busy tonight. I didn’t realise until we were a few minutes into the trip, but almost all the seats were taken!
Soon enough we were back at the airport and quickly found our way to the right terminal and checked in for our flight. We weren’t quite sure what to do after that, as the gates were clearly signposted, but looked amazingly quiet, with no-one around. Everyone else in the line seemed to be heading the other way, so we did as well and followed them into the food area.
Immediately, I was taken by the sight of the massive pizza slices in front of me, and I knew what I was going to have for dinner. Mark went for the schnitzel, a traditional Viennese dish, breaded and fried veal.
We settled down for our dinner, with a ringside seat of the aircraft movements in front of us. No more photos from this point, as they haven't resized properly...
After we were done eating, we headed back to see if the entrance to the gates were open, but they were still roped off. A bit confused, with no more signs to follow, we headed towards the other terminal and found another entrance to the gates and through we went. At this stage, all they checked were passports, then we were into duty free.
We browsed a few shops and got two bars of Lindt chocolate, one for each of us. They each had a lovely filling – strawberry for me and pistachio for Mark.
Then we made our way down to the gate. It was a very odd set-up here. There wasn’t much seating outside of the gates, and you couldn’t go through into the gates, as that’s where your security checks were. We settled down at a nearby cafe and got a hot chocolate, while I worked on my trip report. Soon enough, Mark spotted people starting to line up for our gate, so got in line and I joined him as soon as they started to open up the gate.
Once through, everyone congregated around the entrance down to the plane and, a few minutes before they were due to start boarding, a few idiots went up to stand in line. That was it, it was like a bunch of lemmings – everyone was up and we were forced to as well. Fortunately, this time, we were one of the first on board and managed to get seats about eight rows into the plane. It’s just as well we were early as the plane was absolutely packed. I don’t think there was a spare seat anywhere and they ran out of space for hand luggage, with some having to go into the hold.
The flight back was very entertaining. The guy supervising the cabin crew was just like Frank in Father of the Bride. I honestly couldn’t work out if he was actually French or putting an accent on, as at times, it sounded very false. He was so funny. During the safety demonstration, he added in quite a few little extras, like “put your lifejacket on, turn around and do a little twirl.” When we eventually arrived, he thanked the entire cabin crew for their 11 hour shift – I guess that explains why they were a little happy, probably exhaustion setting in!
We got some lovely views of the countries beneath us, as we neared landing. Once again, we could see the coast of continental Europe, with Britain beyond, all to be seen in one glance. I even got to see the area where I work very clearly, although sadly I lost track of where we were, before I spotted where we live.
We had an amazingly good flight back, landing 25 minutes early, which is unheard of in our previous experiences on Easyjet. Usually, they’re late back, but not this time. We were quickly off the plane and through immigration and then, once again, the delight of not having to stop to pick up any luggage, through customs and out. We called the valet parking service and I went to get some water, as I was absolutely desperate for a drink.
We slowly wandered out, taking our time, knowing that it usually does take a bit of time for them to deliver the car back to us. This time, we timed it beautifully, as our car was delivered to us just a moment after we arrived. Because it was late at night, there was barely any traffic around, so we had an easy enough drive home. As soon as we got back, understandably, as it was 11.30pm at night by now, it was straight to bed. It had been a long, but very enjoyable weekend. And best of all? It was only a couple of weeks until our next flight, which would take us out to Walt Disney World!
The weather today was dry and sunny, but cold in the wind, with temperatures in the high 30s. The best thing today was the Spanish Riding School and the Sisi Museum. The worst thing today was how cold it was in the wind. Today we tried going to the Natural History Museum And the result was it’s got some amazing collections in a beautiful building. The most magical moment today was seeing the Spanish Riding School performance.
You got a lot done on your short trip! I guess you're flying to WDW tomorrow-- Have a great trip! The temps will be a bit higher than they were in Vienna.
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Pixie Dust
Holly: 
You're right!! I didn't notice that the first time! Some kind of camoflauge I'd guess!
PassPorter Guide Author
: 
I told him not to worry, I’d just go and print off another ticket, as I had an e-mail confirmation. I asked at reception and they directed me to the business centre. I got into my e-mail account easily enough, but could I find the confirmation e-mail? 
Thanks so much for taking us along for the ride! 
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