On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 47 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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All caught up again and my goodness what amazing travels you have had! Love all your pictures, you have such a fine sense of finding great things in nature! Can't wait for more.
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!
There's indeed a speed limit for trucks on German freeways - 80km/h (=50mph). A lot of them drive 120km/h (=75mph) though
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Friday 26 March – part four: where did that wind come from?
We headed back to the car and the car park was certainly a lot more full now. We were back on the road and heading for Ludwidsburg a few miles north of Stuttgart.
We saw this as we crossed the road to get to the palace and I was fascinated by it, as I thought this style of green man was only in Berlin
The centrepiece here is the palace that was built between 1704 and 1733 by the Duke of Wurtemberg for his mistress. As I said to Mark, imagine how his wife must’ve felt about that one.
This place is massive, but it was also very odd when we arrived there. We walked inside to the area that said “kasse”, which we knew was where you paid. We wandered around and wandered back out, without being asked to pay for anything. When I’d checked my guidebook and on the website, there had definitely been a charge, so that was very odd. We were able to walk into the courtyard, which was absolutely huge.
We got lots of photos there and the sun really was blazing down. So much for it cooling down today!
We carried on walking and came across this horse, very nice, but poor thing, having a tail decorated like that!
Then we noticed there was an entry gate to get into the park beyond. Ok, fair enough, we don’t mind paying for that. We asked for two admissions and handed over our credit card. The woman’s face fell and she told me she didn’t take them. Well, I’m sorry, but at a combined charge of €15 ($20.25) for the two of us and, with only about €40 remaining in cash in total for the rest of our trip, we weren’t going to pay in cash. : We said thanks, but no thanks and walked back towards the courtyard.
As we got there, I suggested getting a couple of photos with the tripod. As we did, I quipped about the sun being really bright and looking into it for the photos and, as I did, the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Fair enough – we thought nothing more about that and got our photos done.
As we then walked back to the main road and the car park, the wind started to whip up from absolutely nowhere. I could barely see and was having to shield my eyes, as I had contact lenses in and there was dust and debris flying around everywhere. We saw some temporary fencing around roadworks that had come down and the trees had lots of leaves and twigs flying off them. I don’t know where this wind came from, but my goodness, it was vicious and you could suddenly feel rain in the air. It felt like the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees in about as many minutes. From being really warm and in the 70s, it was now more like the high 50s.
We got back to the car, windswept, but just about in one place and saying that the woman who didn’t take credit cards had done us a favour, as there was no way we wanted to be wandering around the park in that weather. :
We headed out of Ludwigsburg, with Mark battling with the wind, as we went along. I know it wasn’t a fun drive for him at all, especially once we got back on the Autobahn and he was trying to pass lorries. It wasn’t a picturesque drive either, as we went though some very industrial areas:
Then the rain started and the further we got, the heavier it became. We got to Heidelberg, which was full of “US facilities” as the signs called them. I think we can all work what that means in Plain English and the American influence was clear from this diner we saw! Talk about a taste of home...
Heidelberg is a huge city, much bigger than I expected and it seemed to go on forever. The architecture wasn’t doing much for me, as it seemed to be very modern, but fortunately we went through a tunnel and that all changed.
We followed the signs for the castle and wound our way up a road. We could see the castle, but we couldn’t see any parking. They kept signposting you further and further up the road. We did try to see if we could park right by the entrance, but it looked like the only area that was available had parking restrictions, so on we went and eventually found somewhere. It did say something about charges in German, but there was nowhere to pay. We watched a couple of other cars pull in and they didn’t pay anything, so we assumed that it was OK to pay there and set off, hoping we didn’t come back to find our car clamped....
The centrepiece here is the palace that was built between 1704 and 1733 by the Duke of Wurtemberg for his mistress. As I said to Mark, imagine how his wife must’ve felt about that one.
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As I said to Mark, imagine how his wife must’ve felt about that one. 
: We said thanks, but no thanks and walked back towards the courtyard. 
It wasn’t a picturesque drive either, as we went though some very industrial areas: 
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