A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure COMPLETED IN THIS FORUM 12/2 - Page 35 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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I really liked the fact they had tried to do something unique with this meal - it did seem to be reasonably similar to Norwegian cuisine I've had before.
Glad you did get to try the tart! That and Mark's appetizer were 2 of my favorites of the whole cruise. I think in part because they were from a completely new menu (I'm so tired of the Pirate night menu!). And I also loved the dessert pannekaken. I didn't mind the cream cheese, but I think we use that in more recipes here in the US than you do in the UK?
Glad you did get to try the tart! That and Mark's appetizer were 2 of my favorites of the whole cruise. I think in part because they were from a completely new menu (I'm so tired of the Pirate night menu!). And I also loved the dessert pannekaken. I didn't mind the cream cheese, but I think we use that in more recipes here in the US than you do in the UK?
There's definitely more cream cheese in sweet recipes in the States - that's why I don't like American cheesecake.
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That is really cool that they paint the cliffs with the ships in port. Glad that they were able to accommodate you for dinner. It looked really delicious.
All I can say about your day is WOW!!! Your bear sightings were incredible along with the bald eagles! The landscape of Alaska is just breathtaking. Your meal back on the ship looked delicious. It was just the perfect day all the way around.
Wow! I am so jealous of your bear sightings! I would have loved that! I held off booking a bear excursion for our Alaskan cruise (a bit of sticker shock) but once I decided to do one, they were sold out if we cruise Alaska again, it will likely be in August so I'm making note of this excursion.
That is really cool that they paint the cliffs with the ships in port. Glad that they were able to accommodate you for dinner. It looked really delicious.
All I can say about your day is WOW!!! Your bear sightings were incredible along with the bald eagles! The landscape of Alaska is just breathtaking. Your meal back on the ship looked delicious. It was just the perfect day all the way around.
Wow! I am so jealous of your bear sightings! I would have loved that! I held off booking a bear excursion for our Alaskan cruise (a bit of sticker shock) but once I decided to do one, they were sold out if we cruise Alaska again, it will likely be in August so I'm making note of this excursion.
Right, finally normal service is resumed! My goodness, I couldn't fathom out what the problem was this morning, but eventually I worked out that I hadn't a) uploaded photos for this day to Photobucket and b) the photos I thought were resized for the trip report weren't! It would've just taken too long to sort all that out before I went to work and it's just taken me 20 minutes tonight, but finally I am there!
Friday 4 September – part one:
Well, the first thing I naturally said to Mark when he woke up was - incidentally I made it to almost 6:00am this morning, so that wasn’t bad going!
I got out his birthday cards from family and friends, and then got out my present, which was tiny. I told him it was a TARDIS (from Doctor Who for those who don’t know), i.e. bigger on the inside, and it certainly was….
After some help from some friends ( so much guys), I came up with the idea of doing a digital photobook…. Now some of these shots aren’t the best, as I was rushing to do them while Mark was out, but hopefully you’ll get the idea…
Hopefully you’ve got the idea of his birthday present – a week’s stay in Reykjavik in Iceland in late February, including whale watching, tour of the Northern Lights, sightseeing tour of the main sights in the country, and a spa treatment at the Blue Lagoon. I can’t wait!
We were still heading into Juneau when we got up…
… but we were soon docked, and I have to say this is a much larger place than I remember. Having said that, in all honesty, all I remember was that it tipped with rain all day when we were here last. Today was thankfully very different.
We headed out for breakfast just after 7:20am, and took a stroll around the deck, as I wanted to see where the Mount Roberts Tramway was. I really wanted to do it, but there was no way it was going to be do-able today. The Pacific Princess, which we’d seen yesterday in Skagway, was berthed in the dock we’d had the last time we were here. From there, the tramway was literally just a couple of minutes’ walk, but over here, it would have been a pretty long walk, I’m guessing at least 15 if not 20 minutes each way. It wasn’t that far away, but we’d have had to have walked a fair way round to get to the exit of the port, which was a shame, especially as it was such a nice day. Mark told me maybe we could do it again if we came back to Alaska for a third time…
We wandered up to the other end of the ship to take a look at the view from that end…
.. then we made our way into Beach Blanket Buffet for breakfast, with me getting my usual selection of fruits, cheeses, salmon, pastries, and pancakes with maple syrup. We ended up sitting outside, as it was fairly mild, although after a few minutes, it did get cold out there.
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It was just the perfect day all the way around.
if we cruise Alaska again, it will likely be in August so I'm making note of this excursion.
It would've just taken too long to sort all that out before I went to work and it's just taken me 20 minutes tonight, but finally I am there! 
- incidentally I made it to almost 6:00am this morning, so that wasn’t bad going! 
so much guys), I came up with the idea of doing a digital photobook…. Now some of these shots aren’t the best, as I was rushing to do them while Mark was out, but hopefully you’ll get the idea… 
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