Things Don't Always Go As You Planned TR 12/11 - 12/18/11 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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When we were done with lunch, I checked the show time for FOLK and one was just about to start. By the time we fought the crowds and got to CMM, we were too late to get in. We had some time to kill before the next show and decided to finally go see some characters. The line for Mickey was longer than we could wait so we went to visit Minnie and Goofy, who were looking very lovely in their Holiday attire.
Minnie's Tree
Goofy's Tree
I can’t remember who else was there but after our two visits we really didn’t have much time to see anyone else because we needed to get in line for FOLK.
The line was relatively long and at first it kind of looked like we were not going to get into the show. We were led up a path that went behind the building, hmmm this is new? When we entered the building we were actually at the very top back of the giraffe section. Ok, this is different never been this far back before but we picked a bench and waited for the show to begin.
What can I say about the FOLK, I LOVE this show, it makes me everytime and is one of the 5 things I come to AK for. The others being KS, EE, Nemo and Dinosaur. In fact if I could only do one thing at AK it would be FOLK.
After the show we decided to head towards Asia and ride one of my other faves EE. We had rode this for the first time on our last trip and we all loved it but somehow I managed to miss the Yeti. So my goal for this ride to keep my eyes wide open and spot that Yeti. The wait time was 20 minutes and sure enough it was right on the money and before we knew it we were on our way up the mountain to begin our expedition.
This ride is so fun and even though Justin and Frankie said they didn’t want to go on it, they came off loving it once again. Now back to the Yeti, I had thought that the Yeti was a huge animatronic thing that jumps out at you at some point during the ride. So I had my eyes wide open and looked all around for the beast but only saw a computerized shadow image of him.
Now can someone shed some light on this for me, I am wrong about the animatronic or did I completely miss him again.
By the time we were done with EE it was about 3:15, the boys wanted to head back to the Poly and do a little swimming. Well, I really wanted to catch my two other faves but since it seemed the crowds were getting bigger, I agreed and we headed towards the gate taking some pictures along the way.
While crossing one of the bridges we noticed this guy swimming around the lake.
So cool to see a gator in the wild but then it got me wondering if they were in any other bodies of water around WDW. I did see a thread about this very subject and was amazed to find that other people have spotted them around WDW. I better not tell the boys because they may not go near Bay Lake again.
Luck was on our side this time because when we got to the bus stop there was one waiting and ready to take back to the Poly.
Up next dinner with Mickey, a journey to Neverland and the perfect spot to watch Wishes.