Making lemonade out of lemons…. In a titanic way! COMPLETED 5/13 - Page 14 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Springhill is simply beautiful and elegant!! My goodness, I would've been scared witless in that car!! I am so happy to hear that you made it safely back to Avis and got it all sorted out. :::Note to self: Never rent a Toyota Avensis!:::
Oh I forgot about the baby in your group! How weird that it started screaming right then.
Very cool coronation invitation! I wonder how much that's worth now?
Well if you're going to have issues with the car, I guess it's good you weren't terribly far away from the rental place! That's not good for the Avensis though. They don't sell that one over here under that name, I always find that funny!
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Yikes! Scary about the car. I guess better to have it happen in N'iron than in Iceland! At least you were in a populated area. I've never heard of that model Toyota. 2 of our 3 cars are Toyotas, used to be all 3, and overall we've been happy aside for one I had in the past that I'm certain was just a lemon. I actually traded it in after less than 2 years for that reason.
At least you were close enough to the Avis office to get an exchange. Glad it did not happen when you were out in the middle of no-where. Sounds like that model really has its problems.
The stories in the house were so interesting. I loved the library! I would like a copy of a first edition Alice in Wonderland.
That is so scary to have a rental car with problems. So glad you made it back to Avis and were able to get another car.
Springhill is simply beautiful and elegant!! My goodness, I would've been scared witless in that car!! I am so happy to hear that you made it safely back to Avis and got it all sorted out. :::Note to self: Never rent a Toyota Avensis!:::
Oh I forgot about the baby in your group! How weird that it started screaming right then.
It was very freaky....
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Very cool coronation invitation! I wonder how much that's worth now?
I hadn't thought of that. I'd love to know.
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Well if you're going to have issues with the car, I guess it's good you weren't terribly far away from the rental place! That's not good for the Avensis though. They don't sell that one over here under that name, I always find that funny!
Isn't it odd how we often have the same cars, but under different names? It must be something to do with marketing.
Yikes! Scary about the car. I guess better to have it happen in N'iron than in Iceland! At least you were in a populated area.
That thought went through my mind while we were in Iceland. I tried to put it out of my mind as quickly as it entered, as I didn't want to think too much about it...
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I've never heard of that model Toyota. 2 of our 3 cars are Toyotas, used to be all 3, and overall we've been happy aside for one I had in the past that I'm certain was just a lemon. I actually traded it in after less than 2 years for that reason.
It certainly was a lemon and it may well be that the car rental place got a whole heap of lemons?
At least you were close enough to the Avis office to get an exchange. Glad it did not happen when you were out in the middle of no-where. Sounds like that model really has its problems.
It's certainly put us off ever touching one of those again....
Sunday 16 April – part seven: is it going to be closed when we get there?
We found parking easily enough at Titanic Belfast, and although it wasn’t cheap, it did seem to have been well thought out, as there was a pick-up area, where you could wait for a taxi, and you could even call free of charge for a taxi.
We parked up, and took an escalator upstairs into the main building. I was a bit worried, as on the way here, Google had told us that this was closing at 5:00pm, and we’d arrived just after 4:00pm, but thankfully Google was wrong, and the official website was right – the closing time was actually 6:00pm, although the last admission to the galleries was at 4:15pm, and we literally got our tickets about five minutes before that.
The theming in this place was just amazing. Everywhere you looked, it just said Titanic immediately. I really felt as if they’d taken lessons from Disney in immersing visitors in the atmosphere.
Now I will admit I was a little sceptical that it would really take us an hour and a quarter to get around everything, as normally when places say something like that, we always manage to go round much quicker, but my goodness, they were spot on.
Before we entered the exhibition, I got some shots outside. As you can see, the dark clouds were still all around…
The first section of the galleries was called Boomtown Belfast, and it essentially introduced to you to Belfast just after the turn of the century. It was so well done with images and then shadows walking in front of them. It explained why the city was so successful with so many manufacturing industries, all of which could then be shipped all over the world.
That’s how the shipbuilding industry grew, and then they take you through the most famous of the shipbuilders – Harland and Wolf, and once again, you really feel as if you’re actually there.
Then you round the corner, and you see this.
I was running a bit ahead of Mark, and I just stood there, gawping at the enormity of it. From here, you then take an elevator up to the top level, which again was beautifully themed…
As you come out, you realise that this is actually the waiting area for the shipyard ride, as there’s a “20 minute wait” sign, but fortunately we walked past that, and the 10 minute sign, and we only waited about five minutes.
The ride vehicles are very sleek, and reminded us both of Peter Pan’s Flight, although as we were about to find out, they were very different…
As hopefully you could see from some of these photos, there’s a mechanism that lowers and then raises your vehicle to the things they want you to see. Once again, it was fascinating, as you learnt about how they built the Titanic, and the work that went into it, all the way up to the day she was launched. We both loved it, although sadly it was over almost as soon as it began. It couldn’t have been longer than three or four minutes, which was a huge shame, especially if people do wait a long time at peak periods. I felt like yelling “more, more!” as we came off…
Then we did seem to recap some of the same information in the next section, as they took you through similar detail about building the Titanic. I suppose they do it for those who don’t want to do the shipyard ride, as it is optional, but it was a bit frustrating to cover the same ground again, and not in such an interesting or captivating way. There were still some interesting images here…
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I am so happy to hear that you made it safely back to Avis and got it all sorted out. :::Note to self: Never rent a Toyota Avensis!:::
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Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
PassPorter Guide Author
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