National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 22 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Yikes, I was four days behind! This whole work thing is really getting in the way!
Your pictures continue to amaze me. It is just so beautiful. Which side of the ship was your cabin? And would you have had those same views from the other side of the ship on the way in through Tracy Arm?
VERY cool that you were able to get that picture of the Queen, too! What an honor.
We were on the starboard side. I don't know if you'd have got the same views from the other side of the ship - you certainly would coming in and going out, as you get to see one side on the way in and the other on the way out. I think on the port side, you would've got good views of the glacier as well.
Friday 2 September – part one: wow, this is one small town!
We were up stupidly early this morning at 6:00am, as we had to be ready to head out on our shore excursion by 7:20am. The first thing I did was look outside to see what Skagway was like:
As agreed last night, we met up with Sue and Steve at 6:30am and headed out to Beach Blanket Buffet. When we got there, it wasn’t too mad and we definitely did the right thing, as we saw it was a lot busier a few minutes later.
It wasn’t the greatest breakfast. I didn’t think the selection was anything spectacular and as for the hot drinks... They were disgusting. I first commented on my tea, then Sue and Steve said the same about their coffees. We figured that it might have something to do with being there first in the morning. Perhaps the water was left from the night before? Eeeeewwww.... Steve mentioned something on the way out, as we headed back to our rooms to get our stuff.
We headed down to Wavebands at the appointed time, but my goodness, it was like salmon swimming upstream, as other shore excursions were just setting out. It wasn’t great planning on Disney’s part. :
Our group for the White Pass and Yukon Railway and Suspension Bridge tour for adults only wasn’t that big – maybe 20 of us? We set off from the ship and immediately both Mark and I commented on how much colder it was outside on the dock than it had been on our veranda earlier. Oh boy, that’s a lesson to learn.
We got on our bus and met our wonderful driver, Brian, who was so much fun. We knew the second that he made the comment about it being adults only didn’t mean there was a pole in the bus that we would have a great time with him and we were right!
We learnt a lot from him as we drove along. Skagway would be, by far, the smallest town we’d be visiting during our time in Alaska. It’s home to just 850 permanent residents, although another couple of thousand join for the summer season. It has one DIY store, one bank with the only ATM in the town, one post office, one library (Brian made the joke that it was closed because the only book had been lent out ) – you get the idea. Basically, it’s a really small place, literally a town of just seven blocks, meaning everything’s within easy walking distance. We heard that the school has just 65 students and this year just two graduates from it. As I say, it’s a small place.
There are some facilities that they don’t even have. : They have a medical centre, but no regular doctor. The doctor and dentist both visit once a month, as does the vet, and if you need to go to hospital, you’re more likely to be medi-evaced to either Juneau or even Seattle. Not an appealing thought to me at all.
We even saw the only police car on the way out of the town. Of course, as is usual everywhere now, it was laying in wait for some unsuspecting driver...
Once we got out of Skagway, we slowly started to wind our way up towards the White Pass, with regular stops at various viewing points. The views were absolutely stunning.
We crossed over a wonderful bridge at one point, although sadly much of the view was obscured by fog.
By the way, the pole you can see in front of the bridge is to guide the snow clearers in the winter
Oh, boy, not good to hear that breakfast at the buffet was so unappealing, and that the drinks tasted as if they were made with yesterday's water. Did they at least have nice, fresh fruit? I always looked forward to that on the Wonder and Magic, but wonder if they can manage the supplies up north. It's so amazing to think what the arrival of these huge cruise ships do to a tiny town like that!
I am hoping that you had good views (and therefore got some good pictures) from the White Pass RR. I would love to see the views! Sadly, our trip was plagued with fog . It was the most disappointing part of the trip for us.
That's a lot of fog! Hoping it cleared for you!
Funny, so much now looks familiar in these port towns, after reading several Alaska TR. But there's always something different in each report, so I feel like I'm getting a 360 degree view of it all!
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Oh, boy, not good to hear that breakfast at the buffet was so unappealing, and that the drinks tasted as if they were made with yesterday's water. Did they at least have nice, fresh fruit? I always looked forward to that on the Wonder and Magic, but wonder if they can manage the supplies up north. It's so amazing to think what the arrival of these huge cruise ships do to a tiny town like that!
I'll be honest, I don't remember the fruit - I think that probably says it was Ok, but nothing special, as I would've remembered if it had been really good or really bad.
I am hoping that you had good views (and therefore got some good pictures) from the White Pass RR. I would love to see the views! Sadly, our trip was plagued with fog . It was the most disappointing part of the trip for us.
Fortunately we did, so you will get to see the views. Sorry about your trip.
That's a lot of fog! Hoping it cleared for you!
Funny, so much now looks familiar in these port towns, after reading several Alaska TR. But there's always something different in each report, so I feel like I'm getting a 360 degree view of it all!
I think that's one of the nicest things about reading trip reports, as you can feel familiar with a place before you visit it. It's nice to arrive and think "I've seen that before" even when it's your first visit.
Wow, that is one seriously remote location! I could never live in Skagway, but the photos you took look rather appealing. I'd love to visit the town on a day when no cruise ships are docked to get a feel for what it's like to actually be living there. It reminds me a lot of Honningsvag (town nearest to the North Cape) - which was equally remote in location but has a constant stream of visitors from the Hurtigruten cruise ships during the summer.
Wow, that is one seriously remote location! I could never live in Skagway, but the photos you took look rather appealing. I'd love to visit the town on a day when no cruise ships are docked to get a feel for what it's like to actually be living there. It reminds me a lot of Honningsvag (town nearest to the North Cape) - which was equally remote in location but has a constant stream of visitors from the Hurtigruten cruise ships during the summer.
That's a really good point. It would be lovely to have a day there without the extra visitors and get a feel for living in the town.
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We took exactly the same tour with Brian. He was great, wasn't he? Fortunately, our trip was blessed with great, clear weather. The only day we had rain and overcast skies was Juneau. We were not blessed with whales though. We only saw a couple on our whale watch in Juneau and they weren't very active. Here's a picture of the suspension bridge without the fog.
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They were disgusting. I first commented on my tea, then Sue and Steve said the same about their coffees. We figured that it might have something to do with being there first in the morning. Perhaps the water was left from the night before? Eeeeewwww.... 
: 
that we would have a great time with him and we were right! 
) – you get the idea. 
Basically, it’s a really small place, literally a town of just seven blocks, meaning everything’s within easy walking distance. We heard that the school has just 65 students and this year just two graduates from it. 
As I say, it’s a small place. 
Sorry about your trip. 
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