A Hop, NO Skip, and Many Mishaps to a Disney Dream - Page 54 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Ugh. I hate that sick in the stomach feeling. Hope it all turned out okay afterwards.
Nice pictures of the dolphins. I always like the friendly look in their eyes. (Yes, I know I'm anthromorpizing them, but so what?)
Haha about your dad and Claire's mapreading skills!
Fantastic photos of the beautiful dolphins! What a pain to have to deal with finding the charger. Those anxious moments can really spoil a trip.
I hate when i do stuff liek this. It was totally my fault, and I made myself queasy over it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
What beautiful dolphin pictures!
thanks. I am glad I got to do the feed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Baloo
Ugh. I hate that sick in the stomach feeling. Hope it all turned out okay afterwards.
Nice pictures of the dolphins. I always like the friendly look in their eyes. (Yes, I know I'm anthromorpizing them, but so what?)
Haha about your dad and Claire's mapreading skills!
I think Dolphins look friendly too, but these even had a hungry look in there eyes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jennie622
Claire is a future VIP tour guide!
She likes to be in charge, so that would probably work for her.
WOW, this is really a Murphy's law trip. Sorry for the added problems. Hope the battery and charger were found. Your shots of the dolphins are great. Looking forward for the continuation of this trip and your newest trip.
WOW, this is really a Murphy's law trip. Sorry for the added problems. Hope the battery and charger were found. Your shots of the dolphins are great. Looking forward for the continuation of this trip and your newest trip.
Yes it was. I think Skip actually put a little curse on the trip since we went without him. LOL!
The big news before we set sail on the Dream was that the whale that had killed a trainer had finally been let back into the show. I was a little leery on this. I don’t see why it had to be let back in. I thought I had originally heard that this whale wasn’t in many of the shows to begin with and I didn’t get all the hype about this. I personally think the whale should’ve not been let back in the show…I don’t think it should be put down, or anything like that, but they have had trouble with this whale in the past, which to me means he is just meant to interact with humans.
The show started and right away I can tell you I was not super impressed. Again I am used to Sea World Ohio when they used to get in the tank and the show was fabulous. I wasn’t a fan of the storyline, and I had read many others didn’t care for it either, but that wasn’t to matter much longer, because I think a few weeks after they premiered their new show. The whales are impressive beast though. There was also a baby (though he wasn’t very baby looking. LOL) and he was so cute, sticking next to his momma. I took some very short video clips and pulled out the SLR and used some of the last of the battery left.
video…
More video…and remember, I am NOT very good with video; I usually make myself motion sick when I watch it. LOL!
There’s the baby!
I think this is the baby as well…isn’t she tiny. LOL! She was born in Oct, so that would make her about almost 6 months at the time.
I have done some research on some of the whales since our trip. I am amazed at how many are still “wild”, meaning they were actually captured years ago, many from Iceland area. The Mom of the baby was one of the captures and I think she is 34 years old. I think she has had 7 calves. The father of that baby is the one who killed the trainer, I think his name is Tillikum, and he was also captured and it sounds like at times he was given only a small pen to stay in (not with Sea World, but another park) I believe he has fathered something like 10 calves. Sea World FL also had one that could only interact with Tillikum as she was very aggressive (and I believe she was born in captivity). She has attacked other whales and even her own calves. It was kind of funny, but they say she is now on birth control so she can’t have any more since she has tried to injure all her children. She has since then gotten pregnant one more time and died last summer with a stillborn birth complications.
Tillikum is the biggest whale in the entire world in captivity. I believe he is 12000 pounds. (pictures of him later)
And then we had an unscheduled guest appearance. LOL!
Spinning Shamu! He didn’t light up like the spinning Mickey’s do though. LOL!
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