A Magical voyage across the pond TRIP REPORT UPDATED 12/31 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 sad for Mari and Raleigh with the delay. On your part, it also puts a big damper on plans as you are just waiting around and don't want to get too involved in any long term activity. I'm glad they finally got on their way. At least it was a short flight once they took off.
I think in a way, that was worse - it was such a short flight. They could have driven it or taken the train in the time they waited.
Ahhh, yes. The joys of being on "that" flight. It's like winning the wrong kind of lottery.
Oh my goodness, it is, isn't it it?
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Glad you guys could make the best of the wasted time, but what a bummer for Mari and Raleigh!!
At least you got to see some cows along your (longer than should have been) drive!
Wow! I am impressed that you’ve started already! Me on the other hand...still dragging my feet with photos and going through notes from our September trip.
Hey, it takes everyone different amounts of time to get going. I just wanted to get it started as soon as I could, as I knew there'd be a lot to write...
First, weird that this is already duplicating (and triplicating) posts. Usually I don’t see that happen until it’s really long - not still on page one.
I don't think it's anything to do with this trip report, I think it's issues with the boards. I couldn't post anything on Tara's trip report earlier yesterday, it just kept timing out and I couldn't look at some of the posts, so I think it's a general thing....
I am glad you were able to get the TR started so quickly. Sorry that Mari and Raleigh had such a delay with their flight. Hopefully it all gets better soon.
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Saturday 8 September – part two: where’s your luggage?
We headed into the short stay car park at Gatwick, met an idiot who was trying to reverse, despite all the signs telling them they couldn’t and eventually found a space on the very floor by the departures area, so we could just walk through.
We took the elevator downstairs, passed the horror that was international arrivals, with people just pushing their luggage trolleys along and not caring about where they were going, as they were also on their cell phone…. Yes, seriously!
I managed to dodge them and preserve my ankle and we found Mari and Raleigh, however minus their luggage. Now Mari and I had been half joking about this. I couldn’t believe it! However, it turned out from talking to them that they and a group of other people from the flight had ended up walking through, as the signs told them to keep going for luggage and actually it would be delivered there, but the signs didn’t say that. Well, once you pass through the double doors, that’s it – it’s a restricted area and you can’t get back inside again.
Someone else from their group had gone to customer services upstairs, so that’s where we headed and met the rest of their little group from the plane. The woman on customer services wasn’t much help frankly. She basically told everyone they needed to stand to one side and someone would come and deal with them.
Time ticked past and I was getting more and more annoyed on their behalf. I grabbed a guy, who was nothing to do with EasyJet and very calmly explained the situation and that it needed to be sorted out. He was very good and said he’d go and find someone.
I then patrolled outside the EasyJet rest area (seriously, I paced up and down outside it!) occasionally grabbing members of staff, although with little avail. I was hoping to see a supervisor or a manager, but with no joy.
Now I need to explain that there was one poor girl who was crying and then trying not to cry. She was on her way home from two years studying in Edinburgh and she had a connecting flight with Norwegian, that she was terrified she’d miss, back to Orlando. Even worse, her mum was meeting her and they’d be setting sail on a cruise tomorrow. Poor kid. I spoke to her at one point and she said all she wanted was her mom. I told her not to worry about crying, been there, done that, when we were stuck at Cairo Airport during the troubles in 2011.
When someone did turn up, they first took the group downstairs to international arrivals, as they said that’s where the luggage would arrive. We stood there for a while, with no sign of anything happened, then they got word it would be delivered back to domestic arrivals. Thankfully, all the luggage was there.
While waiting at international arrivals, I told the EasyJet members of staff very forcefully on a number of occasions that they needed to do something more to help that poor girl get her Norwegian flight, as she was something like 10 minutes off baggage drop closing. In the end, a member of staff grabbed her bags and went with her and we just hope and pray she got her flight with help from that guy, although the fact they had to be told was bad.
Finally we were able to head back outside and I said to Mari and Raleigh later, they must have been so relieved to finally be leaving an airport. I think it was now after 2:30pm at this point and they’d arrived at Edinburgh Airport at 5:00am this morning!
That's nuts. Every little scenario there with the luggage is insane!! That shouldn't have to happen. Thank goodness everything turned up though. Or you'd have been there even longer!
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I'm so excited that you started your TR!!! My goodness, that was certainly a rough start to the trip for Mari and Raleigh. I'm glad it all worked out in the end but I know how frustrating it is to have to wait around an airport that long feeling unsure if your flight is going to ever get out! I really hope that poor girl got her bags checked in time. It was so nice of you to interject and help her out.
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It's like winning the wrong kind of lottery.
and eventually found a space on the very floor by the departures area, so we could just walk through. 
However, it turned out from talking to them that they and a group of other people from the flight had ended up walking through, as the signs told them to keep going for luggage and actually it would be delivered there, but the signs didn’t say that. Well, once you pass through the double doors, that’s it – it’s a restricted area and you can’t get back inside again. 
I told her not to worry about crying, been there, done that, when we were stuck at Cairo Airport during the troubles in 2011. 
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