Springing back to Iceland to see it in the green! COMPLETED 6/29 - Page 8 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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What a stressful day you had and it was certainly taking its' toll on you! Glad you arrived at your hotel in dire need of a good nights' rest, which I hope you succeeded in!
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October 6, 2017-Enjoying an amazing dinner at Victoria & Albert's with PP's Dot and Drew
My TR from my most recent trip is now underway. Includes: Universal Studios Florida, Disney World and Sea World Orlando Trifecta TR -Updated December 10th! TR is now COMPLETED!
What a stressful day you had and it was certainly taking its' toll on you! Glad you arrived at your hotel in dire need of a good nights' rest, which I hope you succeeded in!
Friday 28 April – part one: “bring my bloody crutch back”!
So much yet again for the hotel wake-up call. I requested 5:00am when we checked in last night, and nothing this morning. This is why I never trust hotels to do this, as we’ve been let down so many times now. Thank goodness I know and set my phone for a wake-up call. I finally had a good night’s sleep, after a number of nights where I hadn’t slept very well. I think it was the codeine I’ve been taking for my ankle. That stuff is supposed to make you sleep. Not me!
We got going quicker than I expected, and we were leaving the hotel just after 5:30am, so I called the valet parking company to let them know we’d be earlier than our predicted arrival time of 6:10am.
As we drove into the airport, there was a beautiful sunset, which I just managed to capture…
It was an absolute nightmare working out where to go for the meet and greet parking. We had the instructions, but even with those, nearly went completely wrong, as it wasn’t clear. Even better was to come when we got there, as they didn’t have any record of our booking. I couldn’t understand that, as when I’d called, they had all the details…
I headed back to the car to tell Mark they just needed him to drop the car keys off, and he set off with the luggage cart he’d managed to find, complete with my crutch on it! I was limping after him, with him going at a fair speed, yelling “bring my bloody crutch back”! Of course he didn’t hear me, so it took me the whole way until he got to the counter to catch up with him. When we were talking about it in the elevator up to departures, the couple in there with us thought it was hysterical. Me… not so much!
As we walked into the terminal building, there were a couple of airport employees standing there, so I immediately asked them where we could find special assistance, and they pointed out where to go. It wasn’t too far away, and baggage drop was nearby. There was quite a line for baggage drop, but thankfully there was a special assistance line with no-one waiting, so we headed over there.
After the cases were safely deposited, and we had a new boarding pass printed out for me that specified special assistance, we headed over to that area.
We settled down to wait, but every so often, I could hear Mark sighing, so I asked him what was wrong. “Nothing”. Well, I knew that was a lie… I knew what the problem was. He wanted breakfast, and was getting antsy. In the end, I asked one of the staff members how it worked and she said they’d take us straight through to the gate. Ok… not really going for work for us, as we wanted food. When I explained that, she said we could have a wheelchair, and Mark could push me, then we just needed to go to the special assistance area “one level down the other side of security”. Those were the only directions we got… remember this.
They told us to head for Fast Track at security, but the rather snotty guy there told us we were supposed to be in the next line across for special assistance. Ok, we’re just doing what we’re told… They also told us Fast Track had quite a wait, which frankly turned out to be a massive lie. Oh well.
We didn’t have long to wait, although trying to manoeuvre myself out of the wheelchair, and everything else was fun to say the least… not! As well as our one piece of carry-on luggage each, I also had my handbag and camera. We both had heavy coats, as we knew it would be cold when we got to Iceland. Then there was the crutch. It was a lot to get into one wheelchair, and then get out of it.
I was pretty much waved through a much simpler X-ray device, the kind everyone used to go through before they got the “put your harms over your head” version. I have to say the security staff were super helpful, and very attentive, and kept asking if I was Ok, and if they could do anything for me. It was a very pleasant change from the usual miserable looks you get from security staff at airports.
Once we had the wheelchair back (that was seriously swabbed down, and probably got more attention than anything else, which was a bit weird ), we loaded up again, and off we went. Our first challenge (well, apart from not running down any children or adults, as everyone just seemed to walk out in front of us! ) was to find the elevator. They seemed to be very far and few between.. Finally we found one, and headed down a level.
At that point, we couldn’t see special assistance. Ok, not a problem, as we need breakfast. However, the signage was absolutely lousy here. You had no idea where the restaurants where at all, so we set off in one direction, just hoping we’d find something, and eventually we lucked out with a Wetherspoon’s pub, a chain name over here. I was a bit worried about where we’d put the wheelchair, but the staff obviously have experience of this, and found us a table where it could go right next door.
Mark had the large breakfast, which had a bit of everything as you can see!
I went for the asparagus benedict, two poached eggs on toasted sour dough with char-grilled asparagus, Dorset cream, and hollandaise sauce, and oh my goodness, this was excellent!
Oh my goodness, mine was excellent. As Mark said, it may have been pricey, but it was good, and just what we both needed.
On the way out, I hobbled over to the restrooms on my crutch, as I didn’t want to load up the wheelchair just for the short journey, as this was a real pain. Then we set off to look for special assistance. We’d been given some guidance by the staff at the restaurant, but it wasn’t where they said it was. We decided to ask at customer services.
We must’ve waited about five minutes, then she explained how to get to it, and off we set, with me taking photos, and Mark complaining about how he was getting his workout. I was beginning to think it would’ve been easier to have just stayed in the original special assistance area.
Next: “Your flight is leaving at 7:55am, and it’s now 7:20am, and you’re going from B44?”
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Sounds like you're experiencing a bit of what we find when Mike uses his wheelchair - oblivious, and sometimes rude people. We ended up not using special assistance at Heathrow because the area they sent us had the staff yelling at each other, it was disorganized, and after waiting 20 minutes to even try talking to someone, we gave up. Which was too bad, since we didn't have a wheelchair with us last summer.
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Glad you arrived at your hotel in dire need of a good nights' rest, which I hope you succeeded in! 
This is why I never trust hotels to do this, as we’ve been let down so many times now. Thank goodness I know and set my phone for a wake-up call. I finally had a good night’s sleep, after a number of nights where I hadn’t slept very well. I think it was the codeine I’ve been taking for my ankle. That stuff is supposed to make you sleep. Not me! 
I couldn’t understand that, as when I’d called, they had all the details… 
I was limping after him, with him going at a fair speed, yelling “bring my bloody crutch back”! Of course he didn’t hear me, so it took me the whole way until he got to the counter to catch up with him. When we were talking about it in the elevator up to departures, the couple in there with us thought it was hysterical. Me… not so much! 
As Mark said, it may have been pricey, but it was good, and just what we both needed. 
Alaskan Mom aka Bonnie
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