A Swiss spring break with friends TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/27 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I love when the weather works out on a flight and you get to see everything!! That is truly awesome. Yes, Switzerland is stunning - and that's just from the air! Looking forward to more pics from the ground now!
Lots (and lots and lots and lots - you get the idea! ) still to come from the ground, the mountain, the lake etc...
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Quite efficient with the luggage and bathroom breaks indeed. I would have panicked for a minute too wondering where my husband went!
I did have visions of having to go outside and tell Graham and Sarah that we'd lost our drive for the weekend... That wouldn't have been a great start.
What a nice easy flight! A bit like flying from DC to New York. Fast!
I thought maybe Mark had already met up with Graham and Sarah on his own. Glad he didn’t get lost!
What a nice easy flight! A bit like flying from DC to New York. Fast!
It was a bit like that!
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I thought maybe Mark had already met up with Graham and Sarah on his own. Glad he didn’t get lost!
I wondered if he'd done that as well, but I figured not, as that was the "point of no return" - you couldn't come back into baggage claim once you went outside. I was right!
We headed outside into the arrivals area of the airport where Graham and Sarah were waiting for us and we headed for the rental car counter, which is where the kind guy with the wheelchair left me.
Now here’s where things didn’t go quite so smoothly, but it was no-one’s fault, it was just that law, if you know what I mean. All the other car rental places were deserted, but Alamo/National/Enterprise had a long line and only two reps working the desk. It wasn’t as bad as when we left – I think Mark joined third or fourth in line and there must’ve been about 10 people in line by that point, but it took long enough to get the car sorted, which was a pain. At least I got to chat with Graham and Sarah and catch up with them, while Mark sorted everything out.
We then had to go outside and wait for a shuttle bus to take us to the rental car centre. They said it ran every nine minutes and I hadn’t seen one arrive while we’d been waiting at the counter, so I reckon it was much longer than nine minutes. Just as I was getting to the point where I was about to pass out through too much standing (the chronic fatigue ) and we were getting gassed by the woman behind smoking (I noticed a lot more of that this trip than I have on previous trips to Switzerland, which is not a nice change! ), the bus arrived.
Wow, those drivers have their work cut out for them. There are three really tight turns – one getting into the pick-up area and one getting out and the other getting on to the road outside. The woman handled the first one and we were all going to give her a round of applause, but perhaps it’s just as well we didn’t, as she had to reverse for the other two.
We headed out past the airport, which looked very nice from the front…
… and made our way over to the car rental centre. I was very lucky, as we were one of the first one and managed to snag a seat. Phew!
We had a bit of a walk when we got there, as of course Alamo was about as far as you could get from the bus stop and then Mark had no number written down, so didn’t know which car we’d got. We checked, got the number and found our chariot for the next two days!
We made our way out…
… and tried to get the car GPS working. Thank goodness for Google in the meantime! Sarah has a car with a similar system and was able to talk us through how to use it once we got there, but I tell you, it’s not easy.
We were heading into Geneva first on an unscheduled stop on our plans, because it was such a beautiful day and we figured we might as well show them a bit of the city we’d landed in…
We drove around for a while, trying to find a parking space on the streets outside, but the parking pixie dust fairy that usually follows Mark around was not with him today. Eventually, I found a multi-storey car park on Google and we headed there. There were a lot of very small spaces with very bad parking next to them, I guess so they made sure no-one parked next to them… nice! However, we finally found something we figured we could fit into – just – it was still tight and we headed out. I had to get some photos of the car park, as it’s all underground and quite the structure…
When we emerged from the elevators at the top, we came into this – not exactly what I was expecting.
That was quite a feat getting to your adorable looking Audi!! But! You got there and now you are on your way!! Muffin still doesn't know how to work my car! Geneva looks beautiful and I'm glad the weather is cooperating!! Love the Disney sculptures!! They are very Britto looking!!
We find the car rental counters in Portugal can take hours to get through, we now try to rent from a company that comes to the airport and drops the car off. The weather looks so nice hope it continues for you.
Darn that Murphy! Well, if nothing else, it gave you time to catch up while you were waiting for Mark to get the rental car.
So glad the weather worked out for you. And that's quite the parking structure. Cripes!
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That was quite a feat getting to your adorable looking Audi!! But! You got there and now you are on your way!! Muffin still doesn't know how to work my car!
Now tell the truth... that's because you won't tell him anything, isn't it?
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We find the car rental counters in Portugal can take hours to get through, we now try to rent from a company that comes to the airport and drops the car off.
I've honestly never heard of any company doing that - very neat.
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The weather looks so nice hope it continues for you.
It did. It was just beautiful the whole time we were out there.
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Glad you found Mark and he wasn't on a carousel or something!! 
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That is truly awesome. Yes, Switzerland is stunning - and that's just from the air! Looking forward to more pics from the ground now!
That wouldn't have been a great start. 
I guess either we just didn't fly over it or my camera didn't capture it. 
) and we were getting gassed by the woman behind smoking (I noticed a lot more of that this trip than I have on previous trips to Switzerland, which is not a nice change! 
However, we finally found something we figured we could fit into – just – it was still tight and we headed out. I had to get some photos of the car park, as it’s all underground and quite the structure… 
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