Four go wild north of the border UPDATED 6/23 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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.
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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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Caught up, and great plans thus far. I find it funny/ironic that Scotland is relatively close to you yet you've traveled so much further so many other times!
This is all definitely on my radar, so I'm thrilled to be virtually coming along on this trip. Hotels look like excellent choices so far!
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Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Nice going with the accommodations and looks like you have scored some really ones that I'm sure you'll enjoy! Hope some of them have spas for you to enjoy as I know you love your spa time!
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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!
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Caught up, and great plans thus far. I find it funny/ironic that Scotland is relatively close to you yet you've traveled so much further so many other times!
In a way, it's deliberate, as I figure you may as well visit the further flung places you want to see while you're young. As you get older, you can still (hopefully) visit the places on your doorstep, but you may not be able to fly halfway around the world.
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This is all definitely on my radar, so I'm thrilled to be virtually coming along on this trip. Hotels look like excellent choices so far!
Nice going with the accommodations and looks like you have scored some really ones that I'm sure you'll enjoy! Hope some of them have spas for you to enjoy as I know you love your spa time!
Odd you should say that - we do have a couple of spa places during this trip. How well you know me!
Pre-trip report – part three: I guess I’ll be driving that day then….
Wednesday 28 December 2016
Ok, so happy Thanksgiving and Christmas! It’s been quite a while since I last updated this – two months in fact! In fairness, I have been keeping a “watching eye” on this trip, but just not doing anything much on it at all. The reason for that is quite simple – a slightly unexpected two week trip back to Orlando in late February and early March and all my planning (and money!) has gone into that instead, as obviously that’s coming up first. That was only planned in November and booked in late November, but now I’m at the stage of starting to get back into this trip.
The flight prices finally appeared for Shetland and Orkney, and they were not cheap. As I said to Mari, much as I’d like to go and visit one or other of them, at £250 (c. $300) per couple for the flights to get there and back, it was a lot of money that could pay for a couple of night’s accommodation for us instead. That seemed like a better way to spend that much cash. So, I took the decision to abandon the plan to visit one or the other, as I knew I was the one who suggested it, and Mari and Raleigh were just going along with us.
That meant we had an extra day or so to spend on mainland Scotland and a bit more spending money too, but how to put that extra time to good use? Well, Mark said to me that Mari and Raleigh were really keen on visiting a whiskey distillery, and while I had programmed one in for our day on the Isle of Skye, I looked at my trusty Dorling Kindersley guidebook to see if there were any other, more famous ones we should be visiting. Well, it turns out there are!
Glenfiddich have a distillery, and that met with Mark’s approval, as apparently he likes it – who knew? More than 20 years together, and you still learn new things. Apparently, I’ll be driving after they’re done there, so I’ll be sure to find somewhere not too far away, and make sure it’s somewhere I can relax in, as that will be the only driving I plan on doing during this trip. That looks like a plan to me!
It’s also meant we can add some more time into Edinburgh, which I figured was no bad thing, given there’s so much to see and do there. We’ve been twice now, and we still feel as if we’ve only just skimmed the surface of this magnificent city.
Monday 2 January
I’d asked Mari when they’d be heading back home, as I didn’t know if they were coming back down south with us, or leaving from Edinburgh. I’ve been trying to work out our itinerary for the way back, and obviously if it’s just the two of us, that makes life a lot easier. They’ll be flying home on Saturday 24 June, which is what I’d figured. Bless her, she said they’d see us that morning, then I had to break the news to her that they wouldn’t.
We’re actually going to start making our way home two days earlier, as it’s a long way from Edinburgh all the way back to ours – 428 miles, which Google tells me should take about seven and a half hours. There’s no way we’re going to do that in one go.
We’ll make our way over to the National Museum of Flight in the afternoon, after we leave Edinburgh, as we’ve always fancied visiting it, but haven’t made it yet on our previous forays into Scotland. Then the plan is to cross the border back into England, and stay in Berwick-upon-Tweed. I haven’t finalised our plans for the next day, but we’ll be making our way back down to York and spending the night in a National Trust hotel, the first one we’ll have stayed at. It’s called Middlethorpe Hall and Spa and it looks amazing.
We’ll then drive down to see a friend for lunch, and she’s about an hour’s drive from us, so we’ll make our way the rest of the way back. That will get us home for Saturday, which is quite nice, as it will give us a chance to recover on the Sunday.
Sunday 8 January
I’ve managed to book another of our nights, but only because they don’t require us to pay until we get there. They didn’t even ask for a credit card hold, which amazed me! They are obviously very trusting, and I’m guessing that trust is rewarded by the fact that people don’t mess them around – when they book, they obviously turn up. The place is called the Lands of Loyal – and if you look at the website, you’ll see why I was keen to book it. It looks amazing absolutely! I was pleasantly surprised by how cheap it was, given how beautiful it looks and the excellent reviews it’s got. Another place I can’t wait to stay at.
Tuesday 17 January
I had a little bit of money left over from this credit card month, so I went ahead and booked the hotel for the day we’re visiting the Glenfiddich distillery. I opted for Kildrummy Park Castle Hotel, which looks wonderful, although it’s a little further away than I was hoping for. It’s 40 miles and it will take about an hour to get there, but hopefully it will be worth it, as again, it looks like a beautiful place. I’m looking forward to just getting there, having dinner in the restaurant, and then just chilling there for the evening.
Sunday 22 January
Well, as we’re into the new credit card month, and I have budgeted a fair bit to spend on this vacation, I got to work on that objective today! The first thing I did was to book the two nights we’ll be spending in the Lake District. At first, I was going to do one night in Windermere, then the second night in Ullswater, but I figured I’d just go for two nights in Windermere, as it will be one of the rare opportunities we’ll have this vacation to spend more than one night in the same place, as we’re pretty much constantly on the move, given it’s a road trip.
I ended up going for the Virginia Cottage Guest House, as it had my magical three criteria of free breakfast, parking and Wi-Fi. I also liked the idea of the fact that you get access to the spa at the Old England Hotel and Spa, which the website told me was two minutes’ walk away. Me being a slightly cynical type, I pulled up Google Maps to check this out. Can you tell I’ve been caught out this way before? It is literally just a couple of minutes away, so that sounds perfect.
I’ve also identified a series of restaurants in Windermere that I like the look of, including a couple of British pubs, as I figured Mari and Raleigh would enjoy those, and a place that dates back to 1612. Heck, that’s not old over here you know! I’ve also got a couple of Italian restaurants in the mix, so we can decide nearer the time. I think going to Disney has made me more of a rigid planner.
I really do not like going anywhere now without dining reservations, especially in peak season. Ok, so it’s not school holidays, but I figure June could be a popular time of year to visit. I can’t think of anything worse than something we have experienced a couple of times before, where you can’t find a restaurant anywhere that can take you. The most notable example of that was in France on a Sunday a few years ago. Now I know that the shops don’t open on Sundays, but I figured restaurants, so families could go out together. Oh boy – how wrong you can be! After driving round the town we were in for about an hour, and finding no restaurants open (seriously and this was June, so not exactly off peak!), we ended up with dinner in McDonald’s. Not exactly what I envisaged…
I also booked our accommodation for Mull. I debated how near to stay to the Mull of Kintyre, but eventually the rave reviews I read about the Anchor House in Tarbert, which was a bit further away, won out for me. They have a very good restaurant there by all accounts, so I suspect we’ll end up making a booking for there in due course.
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Disney has made you a rigid planner. Is that what we're called then? Then I'm a rigid planner too.
It's just good to know all of your options, I think. That doesn't mean you have to do every single thing that you've researched about. It's just good to know that you can choose from 2-3 things to do on Tuesday, or what have you. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Disney has made you a rigid planner. Is that what we're called then? Then I'm a rigid planner too.
I suspect we all are, if we're being honest...
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It's just good to know all of your options, I think. That doesn't mean you have to do every single thing that you've researched about. It's just good to know that you can choose from 2-3 things to do on Tuesday, or what have you. Yes, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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In fairness, I have been keeping a “watching eye” on this trip, but just not doing anything much on it at all. The reason for that is quite simple – a slightly unexpected two week trip back to Orlando in late February and early March and all my planning (and money!) has gone into that instead, as obviously that’s coming up first. That was only planned in November and booked in late November, but now I’m at the stage of starting to get back into this trip. 
As I said to Mari, much as I’d like to go and visit one or other of them, at £250 (c. $300) per couple for the flights to get there and back, it was a lot of money that could pay for a couple of night’s accommodation for us instead. That seemed like a better way to spend that much cash. So, I took the decision to abandon the plan to visit one or the other, as I knew I was the one who suggested it, and Mari and Raleigh were just going along with us. 
it turns out there are! 
It is literally just a couple of minutes away, so that sounds perfect. 
I’ve also got a couple of Italian restaurants in the mix, so we can decide nearer the time. I think going to Disney has made me more of a rigid planner. 
After driving round the town we were in for about an hour, and finding no restaurants open (seriously and this was June, so not exactly off peak!), we ended up with dinner in McDonald’s. Not exactly what I envisaged… 
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