On the road (1) – Six countries, nine days COMPLETED - Page 9 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Friday 19 March – part one: “we’re off on our first big adventure .... from the UK anyway”
It was an early start to the day, around 5.30 to be precise. We were quickly up and sorted, with the rest of our stuff loaded into the car. Fortunately, much of the hard work had been done the night before and all we needed to do today was load up the car fridge and the food from the fridge, along with a few last minute items and we were set.
We set off just after 6.00, with Mark saying the immortal words “we’re off on our first big adventure .... from the UK anyway” and he was right. Usually our big adventures take the form of flight, and often those are to the States, but there would be no plane involved in this trip. Bearing how much we were taking with us, it was probably just as well. Having said that, it was so nice to be able to pack as much as we wanted to take with us and not have to worry about how many suitcases were coming with us and how much we might get charged for them on internal flights within the States. It was also nice not to have to worry about weighing the things, although by the time it came to put them into the car, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing....
We grabbed a newspaper from the local shop and off we went. As we drove down the motorway to the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone, which is about 35 minutes drive from us, it got murkier and murkier, as you can see from these photos...
The fog descended further and further down and, by the time we got to the terminal building, it was very depressing...
As we arrived at Eurotunnel, we put our credit card in and, at this point, it usually confirms your reservation and offers you a place on the next available train. That’s always been our experience every time we’ve used it before. As we were there before 7.00, I figured we’d get on the 7.20, but no, it came up and told us we were on the 7.50 train that we’d originally booked on. It was a shame, as it meant more waiting around.
As we got into the terminal building, we could see why we couldn’t get on the earlier train. For this early in the morning, it was really busy in there and a lot of the people we saw were obviously Lille football fans, who had been playing Liverpool, the team Mark supports, in Liverpool the night before. I guess they were all heading home now...
We browsed the shops and Mark bought a couple of paperbacks in one of the shops. We were a bit disappointed to find that some of the shops weren’t open at this hour of the morning, which we thought was a missed opportunity.
With the displays saying that it would be just a few minutes before we would be called for boarding, we headed out to the car and got ready to leave. As we did, messages started to flash up that there had been “system failures” and that all the shuttle trains would be running 30 minutes late, which wasn’t what we wanted to hear.
We sat and ate our breakfast of chocolate croissants that we’d bought from the local supermarket the night before, deciding that we’d go back into the terminal building after we finished them to see if any more shops were open. We didn’t get that far, as out of the blue, suddenly our letter for boarding was called. So much for being running 30 minutes late! We headed through security and passport control and, as usual, no-one was around or remotely interested in seeing our passports. I do love the way we can travel around Europe without having to show them, but sometimes it would be nice to get some more use out of them.
We boarded and set off on time. As usual, we didn’t even realise we were moving, until the announcements started and, before we knew it, we were into the tunnel.
Now that’s dedication for you – working on the trip report as we went through the tunnel
It seemed like it was only a few minutes later and we were emerging from the tunnel and into France. And it was a lovely welcome – as the sky was even greyer than we had left home and it was raining. Great!
We headed out of Calais, marvelling at how many other cars with British number plates were going the same way as us. The last time we drove over here, to Disneyland Paris in December 2008, we barely saw any other British plates, but today it was packed with them.
We set off along the A26 heading towards first Arras, then Laon and finally towards our destination for lunch of the city of Reims.
We were surprised that there wasn’t more to see as we drove along. About the only thing we did see without fail was wind turbines and lots and lots of field, generally given over to agriculture. We knew that the French had a huge farming industry and, my goodness, you really see that in this part of the country. It seemed a bit out of keeping to see farmers out spraying their fields with wind turbines whirring behind them, but that was the scene that greeted us.
The inside of that train car always fascinates me, I don't know why. It's just so foreign to me!! Love all the road signs in France, it's the little things that amuse me!!! Great photos, keep 'em coming!!!
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Tanya
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Great start! The train is so interesting. Is there any way to actually DRIVE your own vehicle through the tunnel, or can you only go through on the train?
Great start! The train is so interesting. Is there any way to actually DRIVE your own vehicle through the tunnel, or can you only go through on the train?
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Having said that, it was so nice to be able to pack as much as we wanted to take with us and not have to worry about how many suitcases were coming with us and how much we might get charged for them on internal flights within the States. 
It was also nice not to have to worry about weighing the things, although by the time it came to put them into the car, maybe that wasn’t such a good thing.... 
We headed through security and passport control and, as usual, no-one was around or remotely interested in seeing our passports. I do love the way we can travel around Europe without having to show them, but sometimes it would be nice to get some more use out of them. 
Melanie
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