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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Today we were headed to Nazare, a fishing village on the ocean about 1˝ hours from our house. To me it is a must-do every trip, even if it’s only for a day. Normally we would spend a week in Nazare but since it was so early in May it was too cold to swim, so we only went for a day trip.
Nazare is unique in that when you arrive you will see traditionally dressed fishermen’s wives and they will be lining the main streets offering you places to stay. You tell them how long you will be staying and how many people are in your party, if they have a place that is open on those dates and holds the number of people you require, then they will take you to the place to view it, if they do not they will shout out to one of the other women who they know does. You then go for a tour of the place, and if you like it, then the negotiations begin. Whenever we have gone the Tios have done all the negotiations for us and we have ended up in some very nice apartments for a reasonable amount of money. Nazare has a daily indoor market, it makes it easy to shop each day for your meals, although there are lots of restaurants to choose from. There are plenty of shops which sell traditional Portuguese items to take home as gifts.
The tables on the side are restaurants and cars drive in between.
In the summer, usually the last few weeks of July, they build hundreds of tents right on the beach that you can rent either by the day or week, this provides shelter from the sun and a nice place to have a nap. It really is a site to see. There is also a funicular that takes you 360 ft up to the original settlement of Nazare, which was built there to protect the people from the marauding pirates. It provides a beautiful view over the city below. The ocean at Nazare is very rough and you have to watch the flags to ensure it is safe to swim, green means, go red means stop. It has some awesome waves and a very strong undertow.
Since this was just a day trip, we were not in need of a room. So we found a place to park and we started walking along the esplanade, enjoying the views and doing some shopping. I found a really nice sweater for my mom, and some unique black and white pictures of Nazare in earlier days. They were doing some kind of emergency training so there were lots of firemen and policemen around.
We headed to a seafood restaurant that the Tios always eat at, my DH and the Tios shared a huge platter of fish (sardines, octopus, cod and plenty of other types of fish), they also got potatoes and salad. I had steak with ham, cheese and egg on top of it served in gravy; it came with fries, rice and salad. It was a lot of food, but somehow we had room for dessert. I had a frozen lemon gelato that was served in a frozen lemon - the presentation was beautiful and it was delicious. My DH and Tia had a frozen flan. It was a nice leisurely lunch, with family we love and don’t see often enough.
My lunch
DH, and Tios Fish Plate
My dessert.
After lunch we headed to Peniche (known for surfing), a little south of Nazare but still on the ocean, DH’s cousins have an apartment here right across from the ocean. They live in British Columbia, and this is their vacation home. They were not in Portugal when we visited but it was a very nice apartment, lots of room and I am sure they would let us stay here on our next trip. We headed back home and arrived around 5:30. We had soup and bread for dinner, I wrote out some postcards and then we watched a movie and headed to bed.
DH, cousins apartment.
Beach at cousins apartment
Costs today:
Lunch for 4 € 60.30
Tip € 4.70
Sweater for Mom € 25.00
Postcards € 1.80
Pictures € 6.00
Bracelet € 3.50
Up next: First Mother’s day without my girls, and I am not getting in a car today!
Nazare looks wonderful! I love the description of the women with rooms to rent. They do that on some of the Greek Islands, too, and I've stayed in great places, for amazingly low prices. I really like that you get to tour the accommodations first, so there's no way you'll be surprised or disappointed. The meal you all had sounds just great, and those plates are brimming with food. I love the way the gelato was served. Bet that was delicious!
Nazare looks wonderful! I love the description of the women with rooms to rent. They do that on some of the Greek Islands, too, and I've stayed in great places, for amazingly low prices. I really like that you get to tour the accommodations first, so there's no way you'll be surprised or disappointed. The meal you all had sounds just great, and those plates are brimming with food. I love the way the gelato was served. Bet that was delicious!
It really is a neat concept, it has allowed us to stay in some nice rooms in the past. The gelato was delicious.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What beautiful places and my goodness your lunch looked lovely as well. I should've had breakfast before reading this!
The lunch was good, still way to much food for us.
I see those narrow streets with the tables right in them and I wonder how people can eat with cars coming by, though it looked very quiet in your photo. Beautiful beaches!
I see those narrow streets with the tables right in them and I wonder how people can eat with cars coming by, though it looked very quiet in your photo. Beautiful beaches!
There doesn't seem to be too many cars going through this part, I guess it just adds a little excitement to the meal.
This was my first Mother’s Day without having my 2 DD’s with me, but they thought ahead and sent a card for me to open.
We had one of our favourite breakfasts, sautéed bacon, tomatoes and peppers; it was a great start to the day. We both did our own thing and my DD’s called me later to wish me a happy Mother’s Day.
For lunch we went over to the Tio’s house and had mint chicken noodle soup, chicken, salad, potatoes, fruit cups and pudding flan.
It was very good and we were very full. After lunch we went for a walk and stopped in a little café where we ran into Tio, he treated us to a Mini (small beer), we visited for a while before heading back to the house to relax. We spent the evening visiting the Tios and relaxing.
Best thing about today: no getting in a car and no spending money.
Tia is a great cook. I really need to spend some time learning her recipes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shazza
A nice Mother's Day - thoughtful of your girls to send along a card.
All of your food photos are great - the food looks delicious.
I may have dropped a hint or two about missing Mothers day, funny thing is that Mothers day in Portugal is the week before, so I got confused and phoned my Mom only to be told it was the next weekend.
Today DH and I were heading to the Algarve to celebrate our 25th Anniversary. We woke up, got ready, and were on the road by 9:00 am. Since we were not in a hurry and couldn’t check into our hotel until 3:00 pm we decided to take the non-toll, scenic drive.
I like how the trees provide a canopy.
Cork trees, notice the bark missing.
Notice the birds nests.
Scenery along the way. 90 % of the houses in Portugal are white with red tile roofs.
We ran into a lot of road traffic and we were on two lane roads so it was not easy to pass other cars. We stopped at a gas station for lunch and they had a pretty nice little café, we had to 2 pao com chorizo (bread stuffed with chorizo), 2 drinks, and a small can of paprika pringles. It was a nice drive; I don’t think I will ever get used to driving along and seeing castles and ruins. The landscape in Portugal is ever changing, you can start out with mountains and then come to flat open fields, then you will travel through groves of olive trees and end up with palm trees. We passed a lot of giant wind turbines and arrived at our hotel at 3:00 pm.
Getting more tropical.
Almost there.
Thats hot.
We were spending 5 nights in an ocean view room at Rocha Hotel Apartamento, in Portimao. Check in was straightforward and pretty soon we were headed to room 703, with a fabulous view of the ocean. It was a very modern room, with a nice balcony. We had a fridge and flat top stove, and of course 2 twin beds.
We unpacked and got into our swimsuits and headed across the street to the beach. We went for a long walk and then dove into the cold water, let’s just say I learned a valuable lesson: do not shave your legs and then go into salt water, boy it stings. After a refreshing dip we headed back to the room.
Our hotel was in a great location, there was a small grocery store behind the hotel and we were surrounded by restaurants and just down the street from the casino.
After taking some pictures from the balcony, we headed out at 6:30 pm for dinner. We went to La Gioconda Pizzaria & Trattoria, the place was empty, a theme that would be repeated all week. We started with garlic bread with cheese, I had a pizza with smoked ham, DH had a huge steak with olives, tomatoes, cheese, fries and rice. We split a crepe with chocolate and bananas, we had some beers (maybe a few too many) and they then brought us a complimentary shot. We headed back past the hotel and walked around (some may say staggered) for a while before calling it a night.
DH enjoying a beer.
Me enjoying a beer.
My Pizza
DH's dinner the first picture is what was left after he made his plate in the second picture.
Dessert
Although it was still early in the season you sure could see how the bad economy was hurting the Algarve, a lot of British expats had left and I believe unemployment was at 30%. All the restaurants were empty and they really tried to lure you in when you walked past.
Costs today:
Gas 39.18 L @ € 1.563 = € 61.24
Lunch € 7.70
Dinner € 33.20
Water € 4.80
Tips € 8.80
Hotel for 5 nights $676.54 cdn, included breakfast and parking
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I should've had breakfast before reading this! 
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