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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Thursday June 2nd (Tracy Arm Fjord)
We woke up this morning early as usual. We had some fruit loops left over from yesterday’s room service to hold the kids over till the breakfast places opened up. My dad took Austin and Wesley to BBB for breakfast. The rest of us waited a bit for Triton’s to open.
At 10am Madilyn and Austin went to the lab for Lava Flow. Winston was not interested. Winston went with my dad to walk around the top deck. It was not long before they were back in the room as Winston was complaining. I took Winston to walk deck four and he was complaining he was too tired to walk, so we returned to the room to get his stroller and then we finished our walk around deck four.
Afterwards I went to get Austin and Madilyn to go see the movie Mars Needs Moms in the Buena Vista theatre. Madilyn wanted to stay in the club, so I only had Austin and Winston. The movie started at 11:15am. We really enjoyed it.
Immediately after the movie I picked up Madilyn and we got our stuff from the room and headed to the top deck as we entered the fjord.
Wesley and Dillon spent most of Tracy Arm in the Edge and enjoyed Ratatouille Cooking School. After a while on the deck and eating lunch; I took Madilyn, Austin, and Winston to the kids club being held in the basketball goal area on deck 10.
This allowed me to go to the adult’s only area which had much more seating to enjoy Tracy Arm. My dad met up with me having just eaten the special barbeque they had set up. I headed over for a plate, but they must have just closed down.
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I spent a good bit of time watching the views on deck 9 behind the glass as deck 10 was a mad house and cold. It wasn’t too cold though as we actually had a pretty warm day in Tracy Arm compared to most of the cruise. As we approached the end of the fjord I suffered the weather and crowd onto deck 10 so that I could get some good pictures. They had a hot chocolate machine set up with an attendant deck 10 forward. We made it to the end of the fjord minus a mile and a half as some sea lion pups were on ice burgs.
At the end of the fjord we saw a couple of bald eagles also.
When the ship started turning; I went to get Wesley and Dillon from Edge and we went out to deck 7 aft so the boys could get a view of the glacier as well before leaving.
During that time I got a page to get the other kids; so I asked my dad to get them before leaving top deck and he did. Thus far into the cruise every time I left the room, I was carrying my camera bag. When I got the boys from the Edge, we stopped by the room so I could use the bathroom and I also dropped of my camera bag and went to deck 7 with only my camera. Now, wouldn’t you know the first time I leave the room without my camera bag (accessories including batteries) is the first time I need something out of it? My batteries went dead! I asked Wesley if he would mind getting them, but he huffed about it- so I made a run for them. When I got on the elevator, Donald Duck was on it also! I told him Wesley was going to be sooo jealous and they offered to take a picture of me and Donald as proof;lol. But unfortunately when they tried, I was quickly reminded as to why I was in the elevator in the first place- to get more camera batteriesL. So, no picture for proof. I was able to return to deck 7 to get a few more pictures as we left the fjord.
And this is a video I took as we exited the fjord: YouTube - ‪100_0351.MOV‬‏
We all met up in the room to get ready for dinner. Austin and Winston had not had a nap today due to Tracy Arm, so they both slept at dinner (again). I joked to our servers that I bet it wasn’t very often they had kids sleeping through the early dinner; and our server replied that this was actually the first time he has ever seen kids sleeping at the 5:45pm dinner!
Tonight’s dinner was at Parrot Cay and we had the rotational/Island menu. I had the baked crab dip app; very delish. My dad had seared ahi tuna; looked yuck but he said was good. Kids had Jamaican marinated chicken tender’s app. Dillon and I both had the mixed grill and it was delish. The other kids had their usual kid’s meals. I think my dad had the grouper tonight, but I can’t remember for sure. I had the trio dessert this night; and I believe the kids had sundaes. We all enjoyed our dinner immensely.
We were all tired and did not attend the Max Winfrey show this night. Dillon spent a little more time in the Edge before we were all in the bed as we had an early morning the next day. Up Next: Skagway, Alaska
Oh wow, I so cannot wait for that day on our cruise - the views are just amazing!
And the pictures don't do it justice...
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Sounds like a great day!
Yes, it was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pamcarey
Wow! Gorgeous views! How neat to see the sea lion pups on the icebergs.
There were a lot of pups and it was very cool to see them up close; but they are actually the reason we could not go further into the fjord- the ship is not allowed to disturb them... but I still feel we got pretty close...
Quote:
Originally Posted by duck addict
Glad you made it to the glacier Did not get that far on my cruise..too much ice
I was glad we made it in as far as we did
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Beautiful picture of the fjord!
It was beautiful!
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
I so want to do Alaska! The fjord looks breathtaking!
Friday June 3rd (Skagway, AK)
We had scheduled a 6am wakeup call this morning as we had an early excursion planned. But we were all awake, showered, and dressed to go by the time we got our wakeup call from Mickey. Beach Blanket breakfast buffet was scheduled to open at 6:30am and we got there a little early and they were already open. We enjoyed our breakfast and the kids were excited to see they had chocolate frosted donuts on the buffet. We quickly found a seat and were done with breakfast by 7am. We were dressed for our excursion and I had brought my bag with me so that we could leave straight from breakfast for our excursion.
We walked over to guest services and asked where we go to get off the ship. It was either deck 4 or deck 3 mid ship, I can no longer remember. Guest services said they ship was cleared and we could disembark any time, at that time the announcement had not been made yet- so we were actually one of the first families off the ship and it was a breeze. It was a little too easy in fact because we were now off the ship and had a full 30 minutes before we were to meet Chilkoot for our excursion. The kids were happy just to run around a little bit. We officially had our regular phone service so I sent off a few texts while waiting and Wesley talked on the phone a bit.
After a bit I spotted a man with a sign that read Chilkoot tours, he quickly directed us onto the bus and I was glad to get out of that wind. It wasn’t too cold, but the wind definitely made it chilly plus it had my hair flying all over the place. I believe there were about 15 people total on our tour; another family of four from the Disney boat; and a few couples that I believe were also sailing on the Wonder. The bus was very comfortable and had large windows that were great for being able to see out easily.
We headed for the railroad dock and were there within just a few minutes time. As we pulled in our driver/guide announced that the left hand side of the rail car was the best for viewing. Our group of about 15 had our own rail car, but unfortunately we were seated in the back of the bus and were therefore the last to get on the rail car, making us the only family that was unable to get a seat on the left hand side of the trainL.
It definitely proved true that the left side is better for going up the mountain; as the right hand side hugs the mountain and the left side has the most views. If you were taking the train round trip, it would be irrelevant as you switch seats half way- but since we were only taking it one way, the left is definitely better.
We sat on the train for a bit waiting to take off; once out of town you are allowed to go outside and stand on the railcar. This makes for great views. Thankfully only I and one other lady cared to spend much time out there so I was still able to get some good shots. My dad stayed inside most of the time, as he was not taking pictures and you can still see the views from the right side by looking out the left windows; but you can’t really get pictures unless you’re against the window or unless you want other people’s heads in all your shots.
The kids, especially the three youngest, all loved the train ride! The scenery was beautiful.
The train crosses into Canada and you have to go through customs and show your passport.
We were done with that quickly and then we re-boarded our bus with our guide that was waiting for us. The bus goes a little further north and then gives you narrative tour down with many stops along the way. After having done this tour, I must say that I strongly suggest doing the train in combination with the bus ride because the bus makes several stops and see’s things that you would miss out on if you did only the train.
We stopped at a few different lakes that are absolutely beautiful. The lakes had this purple and green color that made them look breathtaking.
I have maxed out my picture allotment- So, I will post the rest of Skagway either later today or tomorrow; depending on how long it takes me to figure out how to erase old pics to free up memeory.
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, so we returned to the room to get his stroller and then we finished our walk around deck four
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; I took Madilyn, Austin, and Winston to the kids club being held in the basketball goal area on deck 10.
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