A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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A tale of two cities… and a few other places… COMPLETED
A tale of two cities… and a few other places…
Pre-trip report – part one: when is the best time of year to visit you?
Dates: Saturday 16 – Saturday 23 September Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (44) and DH Mark (52) Destinations: Paris, London, Leeds Castle, Bath, Stonehenge, the Donkey Sanctuary and a few other places along the way Resorts: Hilton Charles de Gaulle, our house, and a few bed and breakfast places Meets: Jan, the widow of our very own Bill (LizardCop) on the boards Celebration: a very strange one – Jan is coming over here to be away from home on the second anniversary of Bill’s death
I guess if I’m really starting from the beginning, that would be all the way back on 22 September 2015. I’ll take you back to what I wrote at the start of my Bagman Days trip report:
Some of you won’t, but some of you will, and I’m guessing those that will are also the same people who knew Bill Myers, otherwise known as LizardCop on the boards. That date was the day he was murdered, shocking all of his friends on the PassPorter boards. We were at a hotel near Heathrow Airport, as we were due to fly out on our New England trip the next morning, so I remember very clearly how I found out. It was actually a status update from Marnie (ColexisMom) on the boards, saying that Bill was dead. I was just stunned, and stared at the news, desperately hoping it wasn’t true, but I’ve known Marnie for many years, and I knew it was, as there was no way she’d have posted it otherwise.
Bill had been a police officer, hence the cop in his screen name for PassPorter, but he’d retired, and then only gone back to earn a bit more money to take his granddaughter to Disney, when he was killed. Bagman Days was created, which was the wonderful idea of commemorating Bill’s life on the first anniversary of his death. 22 September in 2016 would be on a Thursday, and the suggestion was for a four day weekend. We joined the trip, and so did many, many people. To give you an idea, here’s a photo of all of us who attended the sunset meet on the BoardWalk on the actual anniversary of his death.
We were then fortunate enough to have been invited to a private viewing of IllumiNations with Bill’s widow, Jan, who I’d stayed in touch during the previous year. Here’s a photo of us with her and our friends Angie and Sue:
At the time, here’s what I said in the trip report: It was a very emotional and tough meet but I am so glad we were there and so privileged to that Jan invited us. As she said to us “you’re like family” and I hope she makes it to our side of the pond to see her British side of the family…
Well, I guess that’s where this tale picks up. Jan messaged me on Facebook in January…
So when is the best time of year to visit you?
How far are you guys from Stonehenge?
Ok…. She had said she wanted to visit us one day, but now it looked as if this would actually happen…
We messaged a bit more and she told me that she wanted to come over in September, so that she wouldn’t be at home for the anniversary of Bill’s death. She’d found it easier to be away for the first anniversary and, at some point in the intervening time, she’d told me she doubted she’d ever be able to be at home during that time of year. That, I can understand.
We chatted a bit more with her and both asked for the week of 18 September off from work. We’d been talking about going away then anyway to Bath and the Donkey Sanctuary, and they’re both relatively close to Stonehenge, so I asked her if she’d like to do both of those. We have a voucher for a free return to the Bath Spa, as they were working on it the last time we were there, and the Donkey Sanctuary – well, do I need to say any more than it’s got my adopted donkeys, and heck everyone loves donkeys, right?
It was at that point Jan started to get more serious about her plans, although it took quite a lot of time to firm them up, as she’s including more in this trip than just the visit to us. Afterwards, she’s flying to Dublin to spend some time in Ireland, then she goes to Scotland to spend some time with another friend.
In the intervening time, we gave her a lot of advice on who the best airlines were to fly with, and we ended up suggesting she fly into Paris, as that would cut out quite a bit of travel to get there. We were keen to drive, and given it’s a three hour drive from the Eurotunnel terminal in Calais to Paris, it’s the best part of a day getting there and back.
Now, at first, we were just talking Disneyland Paris, but then Jan said she wanted to see Paris as well. Ok, we can arrange that.
The next thing I heard from Jan was in early June, when she asked about flight times into Paris, and whether 7:50am wold be too early an arrival time. We figured that would be fine, especially as she’d still have to clear customs and immigration, so we were set with some plans. She was so excited when she messaged me after she’d booked her tickets, saying “OMG this is finally happening – yay!”
It was a few weeks later that I realised something had got lost in translation along the way, shall we say? I’d sent through an itinerary to Jan, which she’d said she was absolutely fine with. As she hadn’t really bitten on the idea of London, I figured she wasn’t interested, and therefore it wasn’t in the itinerary. She didn’t say anything about that, but a few weeks later, she mentioned something a little worrying about what we’d be seeing in London. Ok, now here we have a problem… London’s not in the itinerary.
I emailed her back and said that, and she came back to me, and said to me that was fine. However, I went away and thought about this, and then I thought about it a bit more. Mark and I discussed it, and I sounded out a couple of friends. After all, our initial reaction was “she can’t come all the way over here and not see London”, and that’s what they said too. Ok, so can I just squeeze in a day in London?
Well, I went through the itinerary with a fine tooth comb and I tried to change things, move bits around, and nothing was working. The problem was that it would take half a day to get home from Paris. I did go back to Jan and ask if she’d rather see London instead of Disneyland Paris, and she came back and told me it was fine, to leave things as they were.
Except… I still wasn’t happy with that. I kept thinking that I wanted to get London in there somehow. I came up with a plan, but it would involve a tough decision, so I went back to Jan to ask her what she wanted to do…
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What a wonderful thing you are doing for Jan. There are no words for how much this will mean to her and her healing process. You and Mark are such wonderful thoughtful people. I hope one day we will have a chance to meet.
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What a wonderful thing you are doing for Jan. There are no words for how much this will mean to her and her healing process. You and Mark are such wonderful thoughtful people.
Thank you so much. It will be lovely to see her and spend more time with her than we got to last year, so we didn't even think twice about it.
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I hope one day we will have a chance to meet.
I hope so too. That would be great. I don't suppose you have a Disney trip planned for January? Long shot, but I may as well ask....
I hope so too. That would be great. I don't suppose you have a Disney trip planned for January? Long shot, but I may as well ask....
Actually our trip is officially booked for February 28 - March 12. I am over the moon excited. It will be our longest trip and I am hopeful for good weather and happy participants. [emoji2]
I love that you guys are able to be with each other during this time. Passporter is the best.
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Tanya
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Actually our trip is officially booked for February 28 - March 12. I am over the moon excited. It will be our longest trip and I am hopeful for good weather and happy participants. [emoji2]
Oh darn, we'll miss you by a month. We fly home on 26 January.
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but I am so glad we were there and so privileged to that Jan invited us. As she said to us “you’re like family” and I hope she makes it to our side of the pond to see her British side of the family…
She had said she wanted to visit us one day, but now it looked as if this would actually happen… 
That, I can understand. 
I’d sent through an itinerary to Jan, which she’d said she was absolutely fine with. As she hadn’t really bitten on the idea of London, I figured she wasn’t interested, and therefore it wasn’t in the itinerary. She didn’t say anything about that, but a few weeks later, she mentioned something a little worrying about what we’d be seeing in London. 
Ok, now here we have a problem… London’s not in the itinerary. 
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It will be lovely to see her and spend more time with her than we got to last year, so we didn't even think twice about it. 
Waiting for our next adventure after enjoying our Alaska cruise. 
Jenn
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