I'll be home for Christmas - Trip Report - UPDATED 1/5 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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!
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We finished with our lunch, paid the tip and we were off. The stand by line wasn’t too bad so we queued up and within a few minutes we were in our vehicle. Just passed the hippos we were stopped for a while as there was an animal in the road up ahead. I got quite a few good shots of the vultures.
They were just there staring at us, thinking maybe lunch was in order. We then took off for our safari. I got a new zoom lens and was very anxious to try it out. It didn’t disappoint at all.
We stopped for a little bit to let some giraffe’s cross the road. They were right near the truck as we moved on by.
When we got near the cheetah enclosure there was burlap all around, same with the warthog section. I loved my zoom when we were near the Lions.
We saved Little Red, oh wait that’s another story line and back to the unloading zone.
We were a little tired so we decided to go back to the room, but we stopped to take some more pictures of the Christmas Tree.
Once back we split up for a little bit, meeting up later as we were going to see the Osborne Lights at 6pm. I took a walk around the resort and found just how far it was to the Food Court and purchased my refillable mug.
We left about 5:15pm and drove over to see the Osborne Lights at the Studios. We arrived just as it was getting dark. We made our way over to the Streets of America. It was perfect, not too many people this evening. We found a nice curb and sat down for a while. We got to see the opening of the Osborne Lights, it was amazing. I captured it for some friends “live” on qik with my new phone. We stayed for over an hour just in amazement. The pictures and videos just don’t do it justice. We loved the fact that it wasn’t crazy busy with people either. We could wander around check out all the displays.
We were getting tired so we made our way back out to the car, and then off to the resort. We arranged to meet up the next morning as we were going to start our day off at Magic Kingdom.
Love the pix of the animals. What size is your tele? You really got some great pictures. I have never ben able to get that kind of closeups. And have never been stopped on the ride. Now that I see the opportunities caused by that, I hope that it will happen to me on a future trip.
Love the pix of the animals. What size is your tele? You really got some great pictures. I have never ben able to get that kind of closeups. And have never been stopped on the ride. Now that I see the opportunities caused by that, I hope that it will happen to me on a future trip.
The zoom is a Canon EFS 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS. I love the way I could zoom into the Lions, I could never get a good picture before. So I'm happy. And yes sometimes stopping on the ride does have it's perks.
Your lens is a little stronger than mine. I have a nikor 55-200 vr. In my last two trips to the world I have found that I need to upgrade the equipment at some time. Love your TR.
What pics I could see were great. You have a great camera.
Loved the Osbourne Lights video. I don't know what the loud guy kept saying, it sounded like "one". Did that drive you crazy?
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