National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! PRE-TRIP AND DURING TRIP REPORT COMPLETED - Page 18 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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.
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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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National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! PRE-TRIP AND DURING TRIP REPORT COMPLETED
National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder!
Pre-trip report – part one: “I wonder if Sue’s OK waiting another year?”
Before I officially start this pre-trip report, I’ll just briefly explain how it will work... I’m posting this introduction into three different forums, as our trip will take in distinct different elements. Those forums are:
Globetrotting trip reports
Disneyland trip reports
Disney Cruise trip reports
Rather than putting the pre-trip report into all three, I’m going to put it into the Globetrotting one (and if you’re reading this is another forum), you can follow the link through to it to find it.
When it gets to the actual report, any live updates we’re able to do while we’re away will go into the relevant forum, as will the full report when we return.
Hope that all makes sense?
Dates: Friday 26 August – Sunday 18 September
Adventurers: Me, Cheryl (38) and DH Mark (45, turning 46 during the trip )
Destinations: cruising Alaska with Disney and exploring the American west coast and mid-west national parks and some cities along the way
Resorts:
26/08-28/08: Villas at Grand Californian, Disneyland
28/08-30/08: Pan Pacific Hotel, Vancouver
30/08-06/09: Disney Wonder cruising Alaska
06/09-08/09: Homewood Suites Convention Center, Seattle
08/09-09/09: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, Yellowstone National Park
09/09-10/09: Old Faithfull Inn, Yellowstone National Park
10/09-11/09: Colter Bay Village, Grand Tetons National Park
11/09-12/09: Hampton Inn, Provo
12/09-13/09: Bryce Country Cabins, Bryce Canyon
13/09-14/09: Lake Powell Resort, Page
14/09-15/09: Blue Mountain Inn, Blanding
15/09-16/09: Hampton Inn, Rifle
16/09–17/09: Club Quarters, Chicago
Meets: we’re cruising with Sue (rescuesk) and husband Steve, Barb (GrammyGrumpy) and husband Bob and Bruce (zazu) and wife Marta. We’ll also be meeting a few other people along the way:
· our friends Mari and Raleigh, who we first met on our Med cruise in 2007, PassPorter e-book editor Carrie (elastigirl) and her husband Patrick, in Disneyland at the start of the trip
· our friend Joy (grumpygal) in Vancouver
· fellow PassPorter guides Debbie (DebiDebiDebi) and Sarah (DopeyGirl) in Seattle
Celebration: a once in a lifetime trip to see Alaska and some of America’s national parks.
I’d better not be rude, as I usually am and miss the introductions out. I must be honest, I figure that I post so much here that everyone must know who we are, but just in case you don’t, here’s a brief background for you....
Hi! My name’s Cheryl and I’m a Disney-holic, like most people here. My Disney history started, like many, with a family visit to Walt Disney World when I was a child with my parents. We later went back twice more as a family and I was bitten by the Disney bug.
Not long after I met my future hubby Mark, he headed out to Disney on a family trip and I remember enviously hearing about what he had been up to, while missing him hugely. So, when it came to planning our honeymoon in 1999, Disney World, along with Washington DC and New York, was a natural choice. Since then, we’ve been heading to WDW most years, with our visits becoming more frequent since we became Disney Vacation Club members in 2002.
However, we’ve branched out since, with three Disney cruises to date, the first in 2004, a three night one just to get our feet wet. We enjoyed it so much that we took the inaugural Disney cruise around the Mediterranean in 2007, with the most recent one on the Dream earlier this year. We’ve also made two visits to Disneyland in California together, to add to one I took with my parents in the 1980s.
Of course, living relatively near to Disneyland Paris, we’ve made regular visits there and our collection of Disney theme parks was finished off with a visit to Hong Kong and its Disneyland park in 2008, and finally a dream trip to Tokyo Disney in 2009.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, we love to travel and, like many others, we have a bucket list of places we want to see. For as long as I can remember, Alaska has been on Mark’s list, while I’ve always loved the idea of seeing Yellowstone and some of the other national parks in the mid West of the States, but we’ve never made it to any of them, until now that is...
This trip idea must have been born sometime in 2007 or 2008, at which point our friend Sue, who we met through the PassPorter boards, told us that she wanted to do an Alaskan cruise for her 50th birthday (oops, sorry Sue, was that a secret? ) for her 50th birthday in September 2010. We were immediately up for that, as I knew that Mark had always wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and we told her to sign us up for that one!
The plan was that we would all use our Disney Vacation Club points to cruise with Holland America, which sounded like a plan. It became less of a plan when they removed themselves from the DVC and the last cruises to Alaska with them took place in either 2008 or 2009. Great... so we started doing some research into which cruise line we might want to go with for 2010, but to be honest, we didn’t get very far. I think Sue liked one and I preferred another and I told Sue we’d go with her choice, as it was her birthday treat after all. We did both say though, on many occasions, “what a shame Disney don’t do cruises to Alaska”....
Fast forward to August/September 2009, the time of the first D23 convention and what do Disney do? They only go and announce that, with the arrival of the Disney Dream into the fleet from 2011, that will free up their existing ships to go and do something do, with the Wonder heading up to Alaska for the first time ever. I remember hearing all about how they unveiled the news and immediately thinking “I wonder if Sue’s OK to wait for another year to go with Disney?” Sure enough, she was thinking along exactly the same lines as me and I think she e-mailed me to suggest that. Ok, cool! Now we could use our DVC points once again for this cruise!
About This Page: 
PassPorter Guide Author
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My name’s Cheryl and I’m a Disney-holic, like most people here. My Disney history started, like many, with a family visit to Walt Disney World when I was a child with my parents. We later went back twice more as a family and I was bitten by the Disney bug. 
So, when it came to planning our honeymoon in 1999, Disney World, along with Washington DC and New York, was a natural choice. Since then, we’ve been heading to WDW most years, with our visits becoming more frequent since we became Disney Vacation Club members in 2002. 
) for her 50th birthday in September 2010. We were immediately up for that, as I knew that Mark had always wanted to do an Alaskan cruise and we told her to sign us up for that one! 
We did both say though, on many occasions, “what a shame Disney don’t do cruises to Alaska”.... 
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