National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Tuesday 6 September – part three: so how do you know these Americans?
We were soon out on the freeway and heading steadily towards the border...
We were told that it should only take us 45 minutes to get there and that was about right. I wasn’t sure what to expect when we got there, but it was actually really neat, with some great border markings and a lovely monument. It was somewhere you’d almost be happy to visit.
The signs had been telling us that it would be a 25 minute wait, but in all honesty, it was more like 15 minutes and then we were being questioned about how we knew Sue and Steve, which was interesting. When I told the guy we’d known them “a number of years”, he asked how many that was. We worked out probably about eight years and we’d first met seven years ago.
We had a few more questions, particularly about the work that both Mark and I do at home, then we got the classic question about were we bringing in any alcohol or tobacco. : to that one. The next question threw us though – were we bringing in any ecstasy or marijuana. Oh my goodness – not what we expected at all! The guy just said to us that it was all in the reaction and we obviously looked shocked enough to pass just fine...
Then we were on our way, with a quick shot of the artwork that’s just across the border. It’s supposed to be a billboard, according to Wikipedia anyway...
Then we were into Washington state and immediately two things strike you about this state – the trees everywhere, with one or two starting to turn, and the snow capped mountains. It made for some beautiful photos.
This seemed like a very neat idea, to effectively have your bus station right on the freeway
Although it was another couple of hours’ drive down to Seattle, the time seemed to go by quickly enough and soon we were starting to see the skyscrapers of the city...
I can't believe the beautiful weather you've had in Vancouver and Seattle. You caught us on some of our few good days this year!
When I was young, we actually picnicked at the Peace Arch park just because it's so pretty.
I'm going to enjoy looking at Seattle through your eyes.
I remember the story of crossing the border from Sue's report. Clearly you were a very shady-looking group, up to no good! Beautiful photos of the scenery on the way to Seattle.
I can't believe the beautiful weather you've had in Vancouver and Seattle. You caught us on some of our few good days this year!
When I was young, we actually picnicked at the Peace Arch park just because it's so pretty.
I'm going to enjoy looking at Seattle through your eyes.
We were told that by a few Seattle residents we met along the way, both in the city and then later on at the national parks - it did sound like we really lucked out with the weather!
I remember the story of crossing the border from Sue's report. Clearly you were a very shady-looking group, up to no good! Beautiful photos of the scenery on the way to Seattle.
Well, of course we were! You've seen us, you know how shady we can look when we try...
Very cool drive! I've never seen the actual border crossing there! That "billboard" across the border looks fascinating! I'm going to have to look more into that!
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Tuesday 6 September – part four: clams and PassPorters!
We hit traffic just as we got into the city, but fortunately we were soon off the freeway and heading down towards our meeting point on the city’s waterfront. There was a surprise in store for us though... I never knew that Seattle had hills just like San Francisco. Steve was out of disks for the video camera, so I filmed it instead and managed to bash the camera a couple of times on the windshield.
We found our way down fine and managed to find a parking lot just across from Ivar’s Acres of Clams, so we parked up and headed out of the car and towards the restaurant.
We headed inside and were told that the rest of our party was already seated and we were taken through to them.
They spotted us immediately and hugs were exchanged. It was so good to finally meet Debbie and to see Sarah and her family again. I couldn’t believe the size of Emilie now. Wow, she really has grown, but then again, it’s been at least five years, if not longer, since we last saw them....
Not long after I sat down, I decided to try the flash on my camera, figuring I’d get the same whirring noise and nothing would happen, but wow it actually worked! I guess it got itself screwed up through being wet in Alaska maybe? I was so glad to have it back and working!
We sat there chatting for ages and finally got round to looking at the menu. For appetiser I went for the fresh strawberry salad, which came with organic local greens tossed in a strawberry vinaigrette and garnished with fresh strawberries, fennel toasted almonds and imported goat cheese, which was excellent.
Mark had the Ivar’s seafood cocktail, lemon poached tiger prawns, white shrimp, Snow Crab claws, Dungeness crab with a mango avocado salad, which looked quite something.
Annoying, we got our entrees on the table almost as soon as we started work on the appetisers. I don’t like it when that happens. For starters, you run out of room on the table.
My entree was the Pier 54 seafood bounty with Dungeness crab, local Manila clams, Penn Cove mussels, Alaska halibut, coho salmon and prawns, all simmered together in a tomato fennel broth. This allowed me to sample a wide range of their seafood and all of it was very good, plus it also allowed me to prove to Sue and Steve that, after our crab feast, I could now deal with crab!
Mark went for Ivar’s world famous fish and chips. I will be honest, I was a bit surprised, as we have very good fish and chips at home and of course, you can guess what happened? He was a bit disappointed by it...
It’s in a beautiful setting, looking out across the water and, once the restaurant emptied out a bit, I got some photos of it....
... I also photographed the restaurant itself, which is beautifully themed. It could easily be a Disney restaurant for the theming.
We got our server to get some photos of the whole table before we left....
Then it was time to make a move. We said a sad goodbye to Sarah and her family, saying that we really mustn’t leave it that long next time. :
Then we walked back with Debbie to the car park, as her car was parked there too and we said goodbye to her. I was so glad that we’d made it on time for this, as it was a lot of fun.
Look like a fun lunch! Mark really seems to have a way with children-- that little boy is adorable! I'm surprised to see all the hills, too. Hadn't seen that mentioned anywhere. Can't wait to see a bit more of the city.
Ah, the old "Got your nose!" game. Mark had Evan going for a minute there! And as we walked away, Evan kept turning around and saying "Hey, where they going?" As for Emilie, the time does fly and she just keeps getting taller and older . . . it was 6 years since we had seen you guys last (December 2005), so she was almost 5 then! She's nearly 11 now! Yikes!
Everytime I think of the food that day, the first thing that pops into my head is Sue's sandwich and how enormous that thing was. I joked with Mike that it was about the size of Evan's head. As to the fish and chips, I got the prawns and chips and found them just "OK" as well. The batter on the prawns was a little too plain and the chips were a bit overdone. I actually had better luck, chips wise, at Ivar's Fish Bar outside the week prior!
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) section of my trip report, following our visits in August/September 2011. 
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: to that one. The next question threw us though – were we bringing in any ecstasy or marijuana. Oh my goodness – not what we expected at all! 
The guy just said to us that it was all in the reaction and we obviously looked shocked enough to pass just fine... 
I was so glad that we’d made it on time for this, as it was a lot of fun. 
And as we walked away, Evan kept turning around and saying "Hey, where they going?" As for Emilie, the time does fly and she just keeps getting taller and older . . . it was 6 years since we had seen you guys last (December 2005), so she was almost 5 then! She's nearly 11 now! Yikes!
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