A Swiss spring break with friends TRIP REPORT COMPLETED 6/27 - Page 5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
Welcome! We're happy you've found the PassPorter Community -- the friendliest place to plan your vacation to Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disneyland, and the world in general! You are now viewing the PassPorter Message Board Community as a guest, which gives you limited access. As our guest, feel free to browse our messages by selecting the forum you want to visit from the list below.
To post messages and ask questions, join our FREE community today and you'll get access to tools and resources not available to guests, such as our vacation countown timers, "living" avatars, private messaging system, database searches, downloads, and a special PassPorter discount code. Registration is fast, simple, and completely free. Just click the Join Our Community link.
If you think you've already joined, log in below now. If you don't remember your member name or password, please visit our Member Name and Password Recovery page. You are also welcome to contact us.
I hope so - there are certainly lots and lots and lots and lots (you get the idea! ) of photos to go with it....
I don't and never expect anything less from you!
__________________
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!
Registered Message Board Members save 30% off PassPorter guidebooks! When you register you'll have access to a discount coupon good for 30% off the list price of PassPorter books in our online store.
Now I've had some time to work on the trip report, it's time to get this thing started.....
Friday 4 May – part one: “don’t let me forget the Swiss francs”…
We were both at work today and, for me, that meant a visit to London for a photography course. Now I know some of you may be surprised by that, but while I love my photography in my personal life, I’m often presented with some quite dull things to photograph and I wanted to find some more creative ways of dealing with those things. It certainly gave me some ideas and I also learnt about aperture, shutter speed and things like that. I have been taught before, but they’ve been all practical courses and then afterwards I promptly forget everything. At least with this one, I could write it all down, so I have notes to refer back to.
Having finished, I headed home and worked at home for the rest of the afternoon, desperately churning out as much as I could. May is always a busy month for me at work and I had so much on my mind, I almost couldn’t think straight. Let me give you a couple of examples…
A panicked text to Mark this morning, while waiting for the bank to open on the way to my course, saying basically “don’t let me forget the Swiss francs”… A text to Graham, which I was writing, saying we were essentially packed, then I realised I hadn’t packed my sandals. Quite important, given my ankle still doesn’t like living in tennis shoes too long. Then there was the moment where I realised we needed a plug adaptor and couldn’t find any – just those for the States. Thank goodness we had one!
Ok, you now have the idea… it got to the stage where I had the passports, the currency, the medication and I figured we’d have to buy anything else. Hopefully I had it all…
In the end, we left just before 7:00pm, and headed over to Mark’s parents to drop something off for Mark’s dad, then we were on the road. It was a beautiful evening…
We were so glad we weren’t going the other way, as the queues went on for miles and miles and miles. Even worse, we had no idea why.
We made it to the airport around 7:45pm, and parked up, leaving our car with the meet and greet operator. We headed inside the terminal and hoped we could do baggage drop, as it opened at 8:00pm for early flights the next day, but we had to wait. We had about 10 minutes, so we went to check in at the Hampton, dropped everything off at our room, and admired the stunning sunset from there.
We headed down and there was quite a long line of people with no staff in sight. You had to have your passport and boarding pass checked before you could do baggage drop. Thankfully someone came out before long and we quickly sent our bag on its way…
We headed back to the Hampton and decided to go to the bar to get a drink. Oh my goodness, this was the best thing we could’ve done. Mark got a beer, but I fancied a cocktail, so I created merry you know what with the serving staff, as they couldn’t find the leaflet with the details in. An Italian guy, Stefan, said they could make something for me, but by the time I’d run through everything I was allergic to, I told him it was easier for me to pick off a menu and he agreed!
I picked a pornstar Martini and I had to wait for the bartender to return to mix it, so Stefan gave us each a bag of complimentary chips, which was very nice of him. However, we hadn’t seen anything yet.
We got chatting to him, first about football (soccer to you guys), as Liverpool (Mark’s team) had beaten Roma midweek. It turned out Stefan supports Lazio, their rivals, and as far as he’s concerned, any team that beats Roma is a friend of his.
We ended up talking holidays and we were chatting about half an hour with him. In the end, he told us our drinks were complimentary. It turned out he was the duty manager tonight and is usually the food and beverage manager. He was such a gem and we could’ve happily chatted to him all night. When we left, he gave us his business card. What an absolute gentleman.
After our wonderful encounter with Stefan, we headed to bed, as we’d have an early start in the morning.
The weather today was warm and sunny with temperatures in the high 60s. The best thing today was meeting Stefan. The worst thing today was nearly forgetting so many important things! The most magical moment today was getting complimentary drinks.
Stressful thoughts that morning! But as you say, if you forgot something then I guess you'll just have to buy it when you get there. I say the same thing!
Beautiful sunset for your drive to the airport, wow! And so glad you could finally relax for the evening while chatting with Stefan. Sounds lovely!
__________________
Tanya
Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
Stressful thoughts that morning! But as you say, if you forgot something then I guess you'll just have to buy it when you get there. I say the same thing!
That is my normal mantra, but that's usually when I've been thorough and ensured I've got everything!
Quote:
Beautiful sunset for your drive to the airport, wow! And so glad you could finally relax for the evening while chatting with Stefan. Sounds lovely!
Free drinks? Can't beat that!
Mike watched the Liverpool Roma game and called me to say “Mark will be happy!” And then they made it thru to the next round, we’ll done. Not as much joy in our house as Tottenham was knocked out earlier.
Glad you were able those last minute items for your trip! I'm always worried about forgetting something no matter whether I have lists or how many times I check that I have them!
Your trip is off to a great start already and you have yet to fly out! Great interaction with Stefan at the bar with his service and hospitality. You can't beat free booze! I hope you tipped him a bit for this but he may have refused it.
__________________
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!
Glad you were able those last minute items for your trip! I'm always worried about forgetting something no matter whether I have lists or how many times I check that I have them!
I think that was the problem this time... I didn't have any lists. I've got so used to going away for the weekend somewhere in the UK that I don't need to worry about things, as I know I can just pop out and buy anything we forget. Not quite the same for this trip...
Quote:
Your trip is off to a great start already and you have yet to fly out! Great interaction with Stefan at the bar with his service and hospitality. You can't beat free booze! I hope you tipped him a bit for this but he may have refused it.
I think he would've refused it, but we really had no way to offer it, as he just told us that it was "on the house".
PassPorter's Free-Book to Walt Disney World It’s hard to believe anything is free at Walt Disney World; but there are actually a number of things you can get or do for little to no cost. This e-book documents over 200 free or cheap tips to do before you go and after you arrive. You could save a considerable amount of money following these tips. Perhaps more importantly; you can discover overlooked attractions and little-known details most people whiz by on their way to spend money. Click here to see free sample pages from the e-book! Get this popular e-book free of extra charges when you join the PassPorter's Club for as little as $4.95. A club pass includes access to all our other e-books; e-worksheets; super-size photos; and more! This e-book is also available for separate purchase in the PassPorter Online Store for just $5.95.
About This Page: 
PassPorter Guide Author
Like
Thank
Pixie Dust
Then there was the moment where I realised we needed a plug adaptor and couldn’t find any – just those for the States. Thank goodness we had one! 
we had to wait. We had about 10 minutes, so we went to check in at the Hampton, dropped everything off at our room, and admired the stunning sunset from there. 
It turned out he was the duty manager tonight and is usually the food and beverage manager. He was such a gem and we could’ve happily chatted to him all night. When we left, he gave us his business card. What an absolute gentleman. 
Great interaction with Stefan at the bar with his service and hospitality. 
Linear Mode
