Canals, diamonds and red lights – an Amsterdam getaway COMPLETED - Page 22 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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Oh my, the flowers!!! I think I would go broke if I lived there for sure! I'm a sucker for fresh flowers!
What a bummer about the closed museum. It's something I just never think about...living in California, things are open year round! I remember when I was going to college in Philadelphia...at one point I wanted a break from studying and suggested to some friends that we spend a Saturday at an amusement park that was about an hour away. My East Coast friends laughed at me because it was February or March, I think, and they said all the amusement parks would be closed. I was aghast!!!
I hope you were able to find a place to warm up! Your teaser sounds promising!
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Oh my, the flowers!!! I think I would go broke if I lived there for sure! I'm a sucker for fresh flowers!
What a bummer about the closed museum. It's something I just never think about...living in California, things are open year round! I remember when I was going to college in Philadelphia...at one point I wanted a break from studying and suggested to some friends that we spend a Saturday at an amusement park that was about an hour away. My East Coast friends laughed at me because it was February or March, I think, and they said all the amusement parks would be closed. I was aghast!!!
I hope you were able to find a place to warm up! Your teaser sounds promising!
I guess it depends where you live as to how you think of these things. In London, I'd usually never even bother checking the major attractions, as they're open year round, the same as California. And then of course when you go to Disney as often as we all do - we get spoilt by having something open 365 days a year... right?
Saturday 11 February – part four: a cunning plan to warm up!
Ok, so we needed a plan to get out of the cold and quickly. Consulting my guidebook, I realised that the Hortus Botanicus, with nice warm greenhouses weren’t that far away, so we boarded a tram for one stop and then got off again and headed that way. The Hortus Botanicus dates from 1682, when a small herb garden was started on the site. Now it’s home to one of the world’s largest botanical collections. Many of the tropical plants here were brought back by the Dutch East India Company.
When we got to the admission kiosk, we must’ve looked frozen to our cores (and to be honest, we were!) as the woman immediately pointed us in the direction of the nearest greenhouse!
We literally raced over there, well as much as you can when you’re freezing and it’s still icy and as soon as we got in, we just sat there warming up. At first, I felt a real fraud, as the only other two people in there were people were literally intently studying plants. Honestly, they barely moved. And here we were, only in here to warm up! Mind you, soon enough, other people followed our lead and arrived to warm up too.
After about 10 minutes, the feeling was coming back into my fingers, so we started to explore, with my poor camera complaining about the dramatic change in temperatures and constantly fogging up on me.
We had started in the sub-tropical greenhouse and soon found our way into the desert greenhouse, although it didn’t feel much like a desert today! Ok, so it was warm, but it wasn’t that dry heat you usually get.
The view outside...
The final section of the greenhouse was again a shock to the system and my poor camera, the tropical greenhouse, but oh my goodness, this was so nice! I could’ve seriously explored in here all day. A guy looked like he’d had the same idea, as he just sat there the whole time we walked about!
Finally, we had to suck it up and go back outside, but not for long.
We headed over to the Orangery, which is home to their restaurant, to get a hot chocolate each – with cream on mine, although done in a weird way
... and a cake each. I went for the lemon meringue pie, which was delicious and so light...
... while Mark had the apple cake.
We were very impressed when we went to pay and discovered that it only came to €12 in total.
We headed out, sadly bypassing most of the gardens, but I’m sorry, it was just far too cold for us to explore them any further.
However, we found the most amazing snow sculpture on the way out:
Then it was back to the tram and off again, heading back into the city centre. On the way there, we saw some amazing leaning houses. We did wonder about this during our trip. There’s surely got to be a lot of water ingress into the properties here, with all the canals. I can’t begin to imagine how much damage that’s doing to the canalside houses.
Next: stepping back in time to Greece, Rome and Egypt!
Geat idea, to warm up in the greenhouse! I agree with you-- no way I'd want to take on the maintenance of a building along the canal. They've lasted a good long time, though, so I guess they must have it all figured out.
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Boy, between those two desserts, I'm not sure which I would choose. One of each!! What an odd way to serve the whipped cream though!
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I've never seen whipped cream served like that. of the two desserts, I think the lemon cake looks the best. Those greenhouses sound wonderful on a cold day.
Liz
Saturday 11 February – part five: stepping back in time to Greece, Rome and Egypt!
Having found a cafe listed in my guidebook, we got off at the relevant stop and headed off that way. It didn’t feel too bad in the warmth of the sun along the main street....
However, as we got off the main street and walked up to the cafe, that was a different story. It was as if it had plunged 20 degrees! I think we were both very glad when we saw the cafe and headed inside for a nice, hot lunch.
There wasn’t much space downstairs, so we headed upstairs and found one which overlooked the bar below.
I decided to go for the soup of the season, which was pumpkin and it was very nice.
For main course, I got the warm goat’s cheese with honey and thyme ciabatta, although as you can see, it all came separately, which was a bit odd. Annoyingly, both dishes came out at the same time, so by the time I got to my main course, it was starting to go a bit cold.
Mark went for the spaghetti and meatballs, although in his words, the meatballs tasted a bit “odd”. He also got a bit of ciabatta with it and a visit to the salad bar, which was pretty good going.
We were both stuffed by the time we’d finished, so there was no room for dessert. We sat there for ages, just people watching and taking in the scene. Also, Mark wasn’t feeling too good, so we tried to give him enough time to feel a bit better.
Finally, we settled the bill, which came to just €34, which I didn’t think was bad going. Our guidebook had done us proud.
De Jaren
Appetiser 8
Entree 8½ 7½
Service 7 7½
Atmosphere 8½ 9
Value for money 8½ 9
Average score:
We headed back out and fortunately it wasn’t far to our next destination, the Allard Pierson Museum, which appears to be part of the University of Amsterdam. It’s made up of artefacts from Egypt (one of the main reasons I wanted to visit), the Roman and Greek times.
When we got inside, I wasn’t actually sure it was the right location, as it seemed to be a library, but the museum was upstairs and it was packed with goodies to admire. The only problem was that a fair bit of it was only in Dutch, which was a shame. I still enjoyed everything we saw.
I knew Mark still wasn’t feeling well, as he spent a lot of time sitting down as we explored the downstairs part of the museum. I wanted to see the rest of it upstairs, so suggested he waited for me on some seats, which he did. At least it allowed me to leave my backpack and coat with him. Despite the fact that there were quite a lot of people in the museum, it didn’t feel that way at all and I pretty much had the whole place to myself. Again, there was lots to see up here.
Finally, I headed back down and picked Mark up. He was still looking a little pale, but at least better than he had been earlier. We headed outside and, to try and put some colour in his cheeks, we headed over to the Red Light District.
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Wonder what made the meatballs taste odd? Was it the combination of meats? Were they not cooked correctly--heated through? Did it make Mark feel even worse?
I know, a lot of questions but anytime I hear the words "tasted odd" and "not feeling well" that close together, i get really worried about food poisoning.
I hope you go back to Amsterdam when it's warmer, I've been freezing just reading this! LOL
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Consulting my guidebook, I realised that the Hortus Botanicus, with nice warm greenhouses weren’t that far away, so we boarded a tram for one stop and then got off again and headed that way. The Hortus Botanicus dates from 1682, when a small herb garden was started on the site. Now it’s home to one of the world’s largest botanical collections. Many of the tropical plants here were brought back by the Dutch East India Company. 
and as soon as we got in, we just sat there warming up. At first, I felt a real fraud, as the only other two people in there were people were literally intently studying plants. Honestly, they barely moved. And here we were, only in here to warm up! 
Mind you, soon enough, other people followed our lead and arrived to warm up too. 
Ok, so it was warm, but it wasn’t that dry heat you usually get. 
Sorry it was so cold outside! 
What an odd way to serve the whipped cream though!
Weird....
He also got a bit of ciabatta with it and a visit to the salad bar, which was pretty good going. 
My normal everyday computer routine!
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