A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 12/2 - Page 31 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I love the shot of the pair of eagles in the tree. Good for you for spotting them! I so wish this excursion was available throughout the season, although I suppose the wildlife sightings wouldn't be as good.
I'm guessing that's why it's not offered the whole season long.
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Wow! It's like you are in the middle of your own nature documentary! The eagle shots are awesome!
It was exactly like that and, if I remember right (it was a while ago I wrote this) that's the comment I had later on in the excursion, so you must've read my mind!
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Thursday 3 September – part five: watching the bears!
We made our way along the Chilkoot Lake and the water was just so blue, it reminded me a lot of Norway in that way.
We made our first stop, which was just a little bit further up from where they count the salmon, and you did read that right. They have to check hoe many are passing through, as they need to keep a stock and then once they reach the required number, the gates come back up and the rest of the fish are free to go on their way and be fished…
There’s no stopping at this point, because with so many salmon around, bears are often nearby. I’m not sure where that leaves the guy doing the counting.
Anyway, no sooner than our guides had said that and a bear was stood right there. He was in the distance, or should I say she, as we later discovered it was a she. You can only tell by the direction they pee apparently and finally when she went, it became apparent she was a girl. For those who want to know, girls pee backwards and males forwards. There you go. Things you never thought you’d learn on PassPorter.
We watched the bear for a while from inside the bus and then we headed out. We were all focused on that one bear, but soon the shout went up and another bear had been found. We watched one and then the other for I don’t know how long.
I was shocked at how easy it was to get photos and it was so cool to watch them behaving completely naturally, right in front of us. We watched them fishing for salmon and we were quite shocked at how picky they appeared to be, as often they would get a fish and then they would drop it again. Sometimes we thought that they perhaps let it go by accident, as the fish were very good at fighting back, but we were also told that the bears wanted only the female salmon for her eggs. Again, it felt like we were part of a nature documentary with all the action taking place in front of us.
I had already decided that this trip was well worth its money, even if we didn’t see any bears and here we were, watching two for ages. But we still had more sightings to come…
Things you can learn on PassPorter. I'm loving this excursion so far!! They're so cute and dangerous at the same time.
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Tanya
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Your photos are truly stunning! I was sharing the details of your TR with my DM and told her that it's convinced me to take a cruise to Alaska, and now she wants to join me!
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Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
Your photos are truly stunning! I was sharing the details of your TR with my DM and told her that it's convinced me to take a cruise to Alaska, and now she wants to join me!
Oh gosh, that's even better! I know the single supplements on the ships are quite something, so if she's joining you, you won't have to worry about that.
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I so wish this excursion was available throughout the season, although I suppose the wildlife sightings wouldn't be as good.
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and, if I remember right (it was a while ago I wrote this) that's the comment I had later on in the excursion, so you must've read my mind! 
He was in the distance, or should I say she, as we later discovered it was a she. You can only tell by the direction they pee apparently and finally when she went, it became apparent she was a girl. For those who want to know, girls pee backwards and males forwards. There you go. Things you never thought you’d learn on PassPorter. 
We watched one and then the other for I don’t know how long. 
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