PTR-Celebrating Retirement with a European River Cruise - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I look forward to hearing about your Med cruise, as that's next summer's plans. I forget that you aren't on the Euro system in England.
I have to say I think that was one of the best decisions we made as a country to retain our currency, but equally being able to just get one currency for so many countries is very handy. I was in Bruges on Tuesday in Belgium and used some, then we'll be using more in Italy and Greece and can also use them when we go back to Disneyland Paris in November. So much simpler than when you needed a different currency for every country you went to!
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Yesterday I was forced to a 4 am start in order to take DD and DSiL to the airport. After coming home to breakfast from McDonald’s (one deserves a treat for getting up that early on a Saturday, I believe!), reading the paper and then grocery shopping, I decided to get some travel brochures in better form. I took out the tour itinerary we received and added dates from our trip to it, since it is a little generic with just “Day 1, Day 2” etc. on it. I was ready to now go on Accuweather and look at some real dates, as we are getting so close. Then I realized the itinerary does not include a map. I had a full-page map of it that I had printed from Viking’s website, so with a little trimming and taping, it is now nicely inserted into my itinerary booklet. Now I could look at the cities I had put into Accuweather and see how they relate on the map, since I don’t have all the little towns programmed. The weather is currently looking really nice with temps ranging from the mid 60’s to the upper 80’s for highs. Of course, some of our dates are still too far out for very good predictions, but I’m happy with the way things are looking.
After a good night’s sleep, I’m being a bit more productive today. The laundry is going for the week and I’m thinking how some of that is ready to go into the suitcases. I’ve outlined and made lists of day-by-day plans between now and lift-off. I’ve gotten my prescriptions refilled and packed in baggies. I read on Cruise Critic that it is a space saving way to carry your meds. Just got an extra prescription label from the pharmacy and placed it on the bag. The pharmacist said she travels with the baggies all the time and never had an issuer. I used snack sized zip-loc bags for mine. I also have small pill bags that I picked up from Wal-mart (the small ones with the blue on them). All of my meds but one would have fit in these, but the labels were too big for them. I’ll still take those bags with us for daily use as needed.
We’ll also take along some of the daily pill cases to help with the memory. DH still needs to get his refilled. He’s a procrastinator and his may take longer as they aren’t due for refill yet. The pharmacy might need to call the insurance company for approval. Each of us will have one larger baggie holding ALL of our meds. Nice space saver, for sure.
Well, it’s official! I AM RETIRED!!!! I started this day at our County Office with a number of other wonderful retiring folks for a breakfast hosted by our Superintendent. Then I traveled to my school. I kind of wandered around visiting and doing the last few check off things on my end of school list. We then had our faculty luncheon where I was honored with three others who were retiring. I have been teaching at that school for 23 years, so I practically doubled the length of any of the others. There were tears in my eyes as my dear friends gave me a standing ovation. I will miss them, but definitely not the hassle of going to work every day. No more tests to grade!! Woo Hoo!!
Now it’s on to the trip. In two days our plane should be taking off. We had planned to cut the yard tomorrow, but the weatherman informed me last night that it is supposed to rain this afternoon and all day tomorrow. Uh, oh! I left school with my mind focused on getting home and cutting the yard before the rain. I got home around 12:30, so that chore is complete now. (It’s now 4 pm and still no rain.)
There was a major problem when I arrived home though. DH had gone to the doctor this morning (routine) and had just arrived home after his errands—cash to pay house sitters and picking up his prescriptions. The first thing I saw when I walked in was a huge cervical collar around his neck! He woke up this morning with a major, painful crick in his neck. It’s a good thing he already had a doctor’s appointment. He now has pain meds and muscle relaxants. Pixies please that this straightens out before we fly out. I don’t think it will be very comfortable making that long flight and sleeping in strange beds with neck problems.
I pulled out all my clothes and got out suitcases this afternoon. DH needs to get his clothes together as well, but that will have to wait until he feels a little better tomorrow. I looked at our to-do list and it is almost done. Whoopee!
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Well, today is the day!! I can’t believe it’s finally here. We leave for the airport at 1:30 and it’s now 9 am. I hope I don’t go stir crazy before then. I finally got all the packing done yesterday and we have plenty of room. When I went to weigh them this morning, I discovered that the battery in the luggage scale was dead. Of course it was one of those button batteries that we don’t have around the house. So, a last minute run to Target. Both weighed in at about 38.5 pounds!! Yea!! Room for souvenirs.
DH’s neck is somewhat better. He called the doctor’s office twice yesterday and begged them to give him a refill on the pain meds and muscle relaxers since we were traveling to Europe today. The nurse gave him a big lecture about controlled substances, etc. He agreed, but this is special circumstances! He contacted the pharmacy a few minutes ago and it had not been called in. We’ll try again about an hour before we leave the house. Fingers crossed!! He went without the meds most of the day yesterday in order to save as much as he could for the trip.
We will have Internet access on the trip, but I don’t know how good it will be. I know I won’t try to upload photos, but hopefully I’ll pop in from time to time with an update. I will post some photos to Facebook for those who see me there. Until later then!! Bye for now!
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I look forward to hearing about your Med cruise, as that's next summer's plans. I forget that you aren't on the Euro system in England. 
I was in Bruges on Tuesday in Belgium and used some, then we'll be using more in Italy and Greece and can also use them when we go back to Disneyland Paris in November. So much simpler than when you needed a different currency for every country you went to! 
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Now I could look at the cities I had put into Accuweather and see how they relate on the map, since I don’t have all the little towns programmed. The weather is currently looking really nice with temps ranging from the mid 60’s to the upper 80’s for highs. Of course, some of our dates are still too far out for very good predictions, but I’m happy with the way things are looking.
DH still needs to get his refilled. He’s a procrastinator and his may take longer as they aren’t due for refill yet. The pharmacy might need to call the insurance company for approval. Each of us will have one larger baggie holding ALL of our meds. Nice space saver, for sure.
I left school with my mind focused on getting home and cutting the yard before the rain. I got home around 12:30, so that chore is complete now. (It’s now 4 pm and still no rain.) 
He woke up this morning with a major, painful crick in his neck. It’s a good thing he already had a doctor’s appointment. He now has pain meds and muscle relaxants. Pixies please that this straightens out before we fly out. I don’t think it will be very comfortable making that long flight and sleeping in strange beds with neck problems.
He agreed, but this is special circumstances! He contacted the pharmacy a few minutes ago and it had not been called in. We’ll try again about an hour before we leave the house. Fingers crossed!! He went without the meds most of the day yesterday in order to save as much as he could for the trip.
I hope those meds come through before you go. 
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