A Magical voyage across the pond LIVE UPDATE 9/30 - Page 17 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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My DD and her boyfriend went to Newport this year and stayed on the outskirts of the city and found a decent price on the hotel but anything in Newport Proper is ridiculously expensive.
Yes, I can vouch for that!
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Mark did a wonderful job on transforming the grassy area into a flowerbed!!!
He did and kudos to him for having the vision to come up with the idea.
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Your dad's plants are so beautiful and I have to say you both have such a green thumb as your garden is incredible!
It is easy though when you have such wonderful plants from your dad to start with.
Quite a nice backyard and the two of you did a great job with the flowerbed and other new additions! So colorful! I see you have a greenhouse as I've never seen this in your photos before!
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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!
Beautiful garden. That looks like a lot of work. Mark's honey-do list must be very large.
Well, his list is getting smaller... he's done a fair chunk of jobs around the house over the last couple of weeks! My list is always long with lots to do every day!
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Quite a nice backyard and the two of you did a great job with the flowerbed and other new additions! So colorful! I see you have a greenhouse as I've never seen this in your photos before!
Yes, we got one a few years ago to grow vegetables. We had a zucchini plant (total disaster, didn't do anything, so I pulled it out in the end), a cucumber plant that did a bit more, but has gone now as well and four tomato plants that have given us enough to keep the two of us going for the last few weeks....
Pre-trip report – part seventeen: “what will the weather be like?”
In the meantime, we were keeping an eye on both Facebook groups. We did find some of the threads in there interesting and entertaining. It is amazing the sort of things that people are concerned about. Some I could understand – there were a lot of posts about how to get to Dover, with quite a lot of people flying into Gatwick and either going straight to the port the day before (sensible) or going into London for a few days beforehand. It seems that apparently Disney are only doing transfers from Gatwick on the day of the cruise, which is irritating quite a few people, as they’d rather get there earlier, which I can understand.
However, other topics really tickled us. We probably shouldn’t laugh, but my favourite was “what will the weather be like?” Let me just dust off that crystal ball! Someone kindly pointed them to a website with average temperatures…
One thing that was very useful in the Facebook group though was the fact that someone had designed door magnets and shared the designs with everyone. They were excellent. We may end up printing those out and putting them on our door. However, it’s a shame it’s only for the Transatlantic cruise. Maybe someone in the Facebook group for our other cruise will come forward with similar designs…
The disquiet continued about the tastings when it got to silver booking on the Transatlantic, as they were all booked up and apparently so was the adult excursion to Stonehenge. If I’d set my heart on that, I’d be annoyed about that as well.
I did find one thing of interest – apparently on the eastbound Transatlantic cruise, they held two “cocktail and canvas” activities that were not listed in advance. You just had to check on day one to see if there was anything like this and apparently it sold out on day one. The person who posted about it got the last ticket and said it was great fun – three cocktails and a guided painting in oils. Neat. I think we’ll be trying for that when we board!
Everyone who’d had the opportunity to experience it was still raving about Rapunzel’s, the new restaurant, and I really cannot wait to try it out.
But there was another aspect to this trip, apart from the cruise, which were the final couple of days in New England. After being unable to book through the Disney Vacation Club, I went back to my original ideas and frankly just sucked it up and paid for our accommodation. I booked the Bouchard Inn - go on look up the website, it really is quite something! It’s very well rated on TripAdvisor and we also get free breakfast, Wi-Fi and parking, which ticks all the boxes for us.
As for Mystic, I’ve gone for the Inn at Mystic, which again looks lovely. I was hoping to find cheaper places in both locations, but let’s just say that didn’t seem to be an option. I guess it’s a popular time of year to visit this part of the world, given it’s New England in late September…
I also got our rental car booked. Now I was going to book with Alamo, as we booked with them for our recent Disney trip and I was very impressed with them. They’re the first car rental company we’ve encountered in a long time where we didn’t have to pay for anything else when we got the car. Yes, I know you don’t have to pay for anything, but when they reel off what you don’t have, you realise you do need it.
However, I found a car for a much cheaper price on another site and, when I read the details, it looked as if it included everything, so I went ahead and booked that. How annoying then to get your booking confirmation through and realise that there were things that didn’t seem to be included. Oh well, I guess we’ll end up paying more when we arrive then. Frustrating to say the least.
The Bouchard Inn is in a great location- walking distance to lots of restaurants and shopping and close to the wharf area
Good that you are getting a car as the mansions would be quite a hike
I have tons of restaurant suggestions if you’d like them and for Mystic also
I can see how people would prefer to arrive a day or two earlier than the cruise sets sail. Might help kill off some jet lag, plus allowing the extra chance to see London too. Indeed that's kind of odd Disney isn't cashing in on that option and offering transfers for those earlier arrivals. Oh wait - maybe they're offering it as part of a complete package with hotel stay in London!
Those two hotels look to be wonderful! I'm sure you'll enjoy them. And if you didn't pre-pay your rental car yet, keep checking on those prices! If you don't pre-pay, you can always cancel and then book again if you see a price drop!
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Tanya
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I understand the frustrations of everything being booked before all had a chance. I wasn't able to get a Palo brunch early on the day of gold booking for our PC cruise. Although I checked quite often for cancellations, I had to wait until I boarded on Day 1 to get it. That was very frustrating. I loved being able to get door magnet designs from the FB group as well. It inspired me to decorate our door for the first time ever. I actually ended up creating most of the magnets myself after the inspiration hit.
I was just having a Facebook conversation with someone about the questions people ask. Most of the time I try to remind myself that not everyone is a seasoned traveler, but some questions do boggle the mind. Like the weather one. The other one I like is when they ask very general questions like “Has anyone ever done a 7 day cruise?” Part of me really wants to answer “No, there is NO ONE who has EVER done a 7 day cruise.” I try to keep those snarky answers to myself, though.. But I’m also considering leaving some of the Disney Facebook groups for that reason - and just rejoining when I’m looking for a specific cruise group. I’m already on the group for the DVC Member cruise next October.
Glad you’ve got your hotels sorted out. It’s too bad nothing with RCI worked. We have friends who now swear by RCI - they’re using their DVC points for a fantastic sounding resort in Barbados I think? We’ve never been able to find anything that looks worth it. We may try again when we come back to your side of the pond. There seem to be a fair number in Ireland.
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It is easy though when you have such wonderful plants from your dad to start with. 
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Pixie Dust
Mark did an excellent job creating the new flowerbed, too! 
So colorful! I see you have a greenhouse as I've never seen this in your photos before!
Someone kindly pointed them to a website with average temperatures… 
It’s very well rated on TripAdvisor and we also get free breakfast, Wi-Fi and parking, which ticks all the boxes for us. 
Cathy
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