On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 45 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Oooooh now we're getting into the part of the trip I have to pay close attention to! (Not that I wasn't paying close attention before, lol, but now I'm going to actually take NOTES!)
Those food pictures look outstanding! Now I'm all hungry!!
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Friday 26 March – part one: entering Mercedes-Benz land
We were up reasonably early and I battled for a while with the (very) slow Internet connection, but heck, at least it was free.
We had our quick breakfast, sharing a chocolate cake. It quickly became apparent that wouldn’t be enough to keep us going, so Mark went out to the car to get some more cakes from in there, which gave us a better start.
We headed out from the hotel, noticing that, as far as we could see, there was no fine on it for not having an environmental pass, so that was a good start.
Just outside the hotel
We drove round Stuttgart, seeing the major sights from the car. It looks like a beautiful city and very compact as well. I’d noticed last night that all the hotels seemed to be within easy walking distance of the main sights, which is no bad thing.
I’m not sure what this was, but it’s very nice!
From there, it was off to our first stop of the day. Yesterday I had given Mark the option of either going to the Mercedes-Benz Museum or the Porsche Museum, knowing that we would only have time to do one. I fully expected him to pick the Porsche Museum, but he really surprised me and opted for the Mercedes-Benz Museum.
As we got closer to it, it was like we were entering Mercedes-Benz land! Nearly every car we saw was a Mercedes and we passed the Mercedes-Benz Arena and the Carl Benz Centre. What we didn’t see until we were on our way back is that the first arena we passed, which was next to those two, was the Porsche Arena!
We saw the museum easily enough, as it was a huge, imposing building and certainly one that you couldn’t miss.
The next challenge was finding parking, as every parking space we could see in front of us was already taken and, of course, 99% of those were taken up by Mercedes cars. Fortunately, there was a sign for parking for the museum and we followed that, going behind the complex and finally ending up in a car park that led straight into the museum, complete with Mercedes cars in glass boxes, which was pretty cool.
We got there not long after opening, which probably explains why the massive shop wasn’t open.
You had to head up escalators to get to the entrance on level one and we paid our €8.50 ($11.50) each and were directed to go and get audio guides. It turned out that getting the audio guides then cleverly led you into the elevators, which were designed to look like futuristic cars. We quickly noticed that, as they climbed up the walls of the buildings, they were also projectors, showing films on the opposite walls.
Looking down from the top to the elevators below
The elevators deposited us on the top floor of the museum and, from there, you essentially worked your way down to the bottom. Most of it was down with gentle ramps downwards, so that the whole place was stair and barrier free and exceptionally friendly to wheelchairs.
We were greeted by this horse and this quotation when we first got out of the elevator:
From there, you went into a room to learn all about the work that went into coming up with the first motorised vehicle. It focused on the work being done both by Mr. Daimler and Mr. Benz, with them exploring motorised travel, not only on the ground, but also on the sea and in the air.
Those picture are great, if you enjoyed the museum there is a much smaller version here in the UK.
We live just down the road from Mercedes Benz World at the old Brooklands Track, it is not quite as big, but free to look around, and well worth a visit if you are in the north Surrey area.
Love the pics from the museum! Stuttgart is one city in Germany that I really wanna see that I haven't gotten around to visiting yet. We even have a friend who's an engineer at Mercedes-Benz there! Can't wait to see more pictures!
Let’s just say that when we finally got a piece of dual carriageway, Mark really put his foot down, as he was determined to get past those pesky lorries....
I think you know that I can't let this go without comment...:
I am wondering if there is a speed limit for lorries? When Montana tried the no speed limit thing, it was only for cars, trucks were still 65mph. And, if not, did any of those lorries pass you once they got up to speed? LOL... just curious, most of them, if not all, are probably governed to 100k or so, anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Mark had the pork in bacon (pig in Piglet as I called it! ) and he had nothing but praise for his.
Well, I am glad to see that poor Piglet grew up to be quite tasty, indeed!
I really liked the museum pictures, too bad you couldn't do the Porsche one as well. I guess you had to leave something for the next visit to Sabine and Manuel's!
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Those picture are great, if you enjoyed the museum there is a much smaller version here in the UK.
We live just down the road from Mercedes Benz World at the old Brooklands Track, it is not quite as big, but free to look around, and well worth a visit if you are in the north Surrey area.
Cool - I never realised that we had one of our own.
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Love the pics from the museum! Stuttgart is one city in Germany that I really wanna see that I haven't gotten around to visiting yet. We even have a friend who's an engineer at Mercedes-Benz there! Can't wait to see more pictures!
It would've been great if you guys had been able to join us - we'd have had a ball at the Mercedes-Benz place.
I think you know that I can't let this go without comment...:
I am wondering if there is a speed limit for lorries? When Montana tried the no speed limit thing, it was only for cars, trucks were still 65mph. And, if not, did any of those lorries pass you once they got up to speed? LOL... just curious, most of them, if not all, are probably governed to 100k or so, anyway.
Well, I am glad to see that poor Piglet grew up to be quite tasty, indeed!
I really liked the museum pictures, too bad you couldn't do the Porsche one as well. I guess you had to leave something for the next visit to Sabine and Manuel's!
I think I'll have to leave the speed limit question to Sabine, as I honestly don't know...
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