Dreams do come true **Updated 7/24** THREAD 2 *COMPLETE* - Page 2 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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How could weather so beautiful looking be so hard on the tummies? Poor Mark, I am glad he was feeling better. I hope the seas calm down enogh when you have to go back. And this photo is breathtaking!
Tuesday 29 May – part three: seeing the centre of Sorrento
We walked up to the main square and got some souvenirs – postcards, a book on the place and fridge magnet. It’s the same in every place we visit. We carried on walking and saw the road that we had come into Sorrento on. Let’s just say our minibus driver was brave coming up there!
We visited a couple of churches and were lucky enough to see a service start in one of them, which was quite moving.
We also browsed the shops and dodged the showers, which kept coming down. They didn’t last long, but when they came, they were quite ferocious and it got quite cold.
We had more than enough time in Sorrento, in fact we could’ve probably seen everything that we wanted to just an hour. Towards the end, we really were wandering around, killing time. I don’t know whether they extended the time here because we couldn’t go to Capri, but it’s on aspect of the tour that could be cut back a bit.
Just before midday, we arrived at the restaurant and we couldn’t fault this. We were in the back of the restaurant and took up the whole area. We started with appetiser, which was served for us from a buffet, so you couldn’t really take as much as you wanted, although of course you could choose what you wanted and I said no to all the meat on offer. We had broccoli, mozzarella, tomatoes, pizza and salad and that was followed by some pasta with ricotta cheese rolls. We were told they had a special name, but I can’t remember what it was now. That was followed by ice cream and I was able to eat Mark’s as well.
We were told that we only had 75 minutes for lunch, but it ended up being more like 95 minutes. We had been told that this tour would be between seven and a half and eight hours, as we wouldn’t be visiting Capri, but we went way over that time.
After lunch it was back on the bus and the walk out through the restaurant gardens was pretty neat:
Sorry you had a rough day and missed out on Capri. Your photos of Sorrento were lovely. Matt went there in April with school and whilst he loved Vesuvius, Pompeii and Herculaneum, he wasn't impressed with Sorrento. He reckoned it was too commercialised and not unlike Benidorm! (Can't believe that!)
Sorry you had a rough day and missed out on Capri. Your photos of Sorrento were lovely. Matt went there in April with school and whilst he loved Vesuvius, Pompeii and Herculaneum, he wasn't impressed with Sorrento. He reckoned it was too commercialised and not unlike Benidorm! (Can't believe that!)
I'm not sure I'd say it was too commercialised, but it was filled with a lot of Brits drinking in the bars. We didn't like that aspect, as we like places we can get away from that sort of thing, and I did notice when I got home that it seems to be the hot destination with loads of brochures featuring Sorrento. That did surprise me, I didn't realise it was such a big destination for Brits now.
I love your photos and report. I noticed that you visited a church. How strict are they on the covered knees and shoulders rule? Its easy to pack a sweater to cover up your shoulders but my husband and I don't want to wear long pants in the hot summer sun. What did you and your husband do?
I love your photos and report. I noticed that you visited a church. How strict are they on the covered knees and shoulders rule? Its easy to pack a sweater to cover up your shoulders but my husband and I don't want to wear long pants in the hot summer sun. What did you and your husband do?
That whole "cover your knees and shoulder" thing was really bizarre actually. We went on some tours where we were told to do that, as we'd be visiting churches and then either the churches were optional or we didn't go inside. Very frustrating when it's a warm day and you'd rather have worn shorts. I would personally suggest that if you aren't that worried about going inside the church, then I'd go with shorts and wait outside. By the way, the optional inside visits to the churches were the City Tour of Marseilles, Monaco, Monte Carlo and Eze and we didn't have time to visit the Duomo in Florence, so it wasn't an issue there either.
Tuesday 29 May – part four: the rain gods welcome us to Pompeii
Now it was off to Pompeii. We passed some beautiful scenery on the way, with Mount Vesuvius always dominating the landscape.
When we arrived at Pompeii, the heavens opened just as we were getting off the bus. It really set the tone for the entire visit sadly. It would pour down and then it would dry off for a while, then it would pour down again, you get the idea. As a result, it did seem very crowded, especially in any area that was sheltered, as we were all trying to cram in there.
Pompeii is one of those places that you really can’t take in during your visit. As you walk around every corner, you see something better and just when you think that’s everything, there is still more to see and yet more to take in. It’s impossible to take in how big this site is and what it must have been like in Roman times. You can see occasional traces of how it was and then you realise that sadly this was obviously a town at the height of its power when Vesuvius erupted without warning that day, covering their world in a terrible mixture of ash, poisonous gas and white hot stones, burying it up to seven metres deep and keeping it from the rest of the world until the 18th century, when it was rediscovered.
The highlights for me had to be the spa area, where you can really see the opulence that they lived in, with brilliant colours still showing through a little. Inside are two mummified bodies and to see them really brings home to you what happened here and how quickly it must’ve happened, not leaving anyone the chance to get away.
Words fail me any further, except to say that it’s an amazing place and somewhere that everyone should see, if you get the opportunity to do so. I’ll let the photos do the rest of the talking for this part of the trip.
[b]At the entrance to Pompeii Gladiators’ courtyard and barracks
In the amphitheatre, built in the hollow of a hill for better acoustics. It seats around 5,000 people and has been used for concerts in recent years. That must have been worth seeing!
Cart indentations in the road
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