National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 56 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Tuesday 13 September – part nine: are we ever going to get anything to eat here?
Not long after Kanab, we hit a very painful stretch of roadworks, which lasted for about seven miles and included a couple of stretches of one-way traffic, meaning fairly long waits, which was a bit of a pain.
Once we were through that, we were treated to some lovely views of the sun illuminating the valley...
... while elsewhere, someone was getting the rain.
That soon came our way, but it did also bring the most amazing rainbow that was near as darned it complete, something you don’t usually see.
Soon, we started to see water and the signs for Lake Powell.
Passing the Arizona state line – can you tell I wasn’t expecting to see it?
Before we knew it, we were entering another national park and having to pay another $15. I joked that this was getting expensive and the woman asked us where else we’d been and we explained. She told us an annual passport would be much cheaper, the first time anyone had said that to us. I had looked into it online, but the price to supply it to overseas addresses was crazy. She told us all we needed to do was provide our receipts and she told us she could do it now. The problem was finding the receipts from Yellowstone and Bryce... but she told us she’d be on duty in the morning and, if we could find them, she’d sort it out for us.
From there, we next needed to find the Lake Powell resort. Finally, we made it down to the marina area and found it. I went inside to check in and found about four people in line before me, but that was nothing to what I’d see later...
This was the line later when we went back there...
We were given our building number, three, which was pretty near the main reception, so I walked over there and Mark followed. We were on the ground floor and had a patio overlooking the car park. Suddenly I was glad I hadn’t paid the extra for the lake view, as it meant that we could easily get the luggage up the path to our patio.
The room was very big and it was obvious from the bathroom that the reason for that was that it was an accessible room, which didn’t bother us. It was nice to have the room!
The first thing we did was try and find the receipts from the various national parks – we got as far as Zion and Yellowstone, but couldn’t find Bryce anywhere. We did have a receipt from our comped dinner at the Lodge, and you’d have to have paid for admission to get in there, so we figured we’d give that a go in the morning.
We stayed in the room until we started to get hungry and then we headed for the main building. On the way, we saw a really stunning view of the moon over the lake...
We walked in and tried for the Rainbow Room, which I wasn’t overly keen on, as it didn’t have the greatest reviews on TripAdvisor and fortunately, they didn’t have space for another hour, so we asked where else we could get food. They told us the Driftwood Lounge next door, so we headed there and grabbed two seats at the bar.
The system was very confusing. At home, you kind of wait to be seen and catch the bartender’s eye. Here, it seemed if you holler loudly, someone would come. We discovered that one the hard way, when a guy caught the bartender’s eye and got his Jack Daniels straight away, in front of us. In fairness to him, the guy felt really bad when he realised and apologised profusely – and repeatedly, but from then on, we had learnt...
We finally got served and ordered a three cheese pizza to go for me and chicken wings for Mark. We asked for it to go, as it was just insane in that lounge and the bartender was certainly earning her money. She didn’t stop running around the whole time we were there and we were probably a good 20 minutes waiting for our order. It came to $20, including tip and we headed back to the room, via the gift shop, with me getting a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream bar and Mark getting some snacks.
As we headed back to the room, we saw the moon was casting some beautiful shadows on the lake beneath....
We had our dinner in the room and, considering mine was supposed to be a “little pizza”, I dread to think what their idea of a big pizza was as there were four big slices and I couldn’t finish it, not with my Ben and Jerry’s ice cream bar to come yet... I think Mark enjoyed his chicken wings, although they were a bit spicier than he was hoping for...
We watched a bit more TV, finding an episode of Raising Hope that we hadn’t seen and then it was off to bed.
The weather today was mainly dry and warm with temperatures in the 80s, with some rain. The best thing today was sunrise at Bryce Point. The worst thing today was trying to get dinner. The funniest thing today was the cute posing animals in Zion! Today we tried visiting Zion National Park And the result was it was lovely, but didn’t wow us as much as Bryce Canyon did. The most magical moment today was watching the sun rise.
Ugh to the road work, but what beautiful scenery with the dramatic light once you were through. I love looking at the moon reflected in water... for some reason a very emotional sight.
What a beautiful drive you had that day, despite the construction. When we were in Arizona, we also saw a full rainbow! (and have about 15 pictures of it ) Dinner to go sounded just right. Great photos of the moon and lake too!
__________________
Tanya
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I hope you were able to get your Annual Pass.... I am planning to order our America the Beautiful Pass here soon.... I was trying to wait till closer to our trip as it expires one year from the time you order it....
Wednesday 14 September – part one: dinosaurs and dams!
I tell you what, being in this time zone is screwy! We were on Pacific Standard Time (that is what Los Angeles and Seattle are on right? ) an hour earlier than Utah time, yet Arizona is an hour forward. It was really messing with my head when I saw the clock in the room, so we just kept our watches the same and went by those instead...
We got going and encountered the most bizarre shower ever. It took forever to get something other than freezing cold or burning hot going, so once we found a decent temperature, we just left it going for both of us, which wasn’t great for conserving water, but get an easier to operate shower guys!
We headed over to the main building to get some breakfast and were seated immediately – a big improvement on last night. The restaurant is very nice, with some lovely views over the lake outside.
The view as we walked over from our room
The buffet was pretty good, with an omelette station, where I got one made for me, that was excellent. However, after last night’s big pizza, I just couldn’t fully do it justice.
We then took a quick wander around outside, before heading back to the room to finish packing up.
Our building
We went to check out, and just as with check-in, I stood in line for about five minutes, which was a pain. It just seemed as if this place really isn’t geared up to handle the numbers who are coming through here.
We set off and went back to see the girl who’d been on duty last night about upgrading to an Annual Pass for the national parks, but try as we might, we couldn’t find the receipt for Bryce Canyon, which really annoyed me, as I was sure I knew where it was, but it turned out I didn’t. I was hoping that our receipt from dinner at Bryce Canyon Lodge would be enough, but apparently not. She told us to have another look and if we could find the missing receipt, then we could upgrade when we got to Arches.
We headed out of the national park and set off....
... it wasn’t long before we saw signs for the Glen Canyon Dam visitor centre and decided to pull in and have a look. It was a fascinating place and they’d certainly poured the money into it.
The main focus, as well as the dam itself, was about the dinosaur remains they’d found here and that’s something you wouldn’t expect to learn about here. :
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Great pictures once again. It is very tricky with the time zones in Arizona. One of the places we stayed in, we had one time in our room and it was different time in my father's room. It was quite confusing to tell which was the exact time especially since my father wanted to keep his watch on Eastern time so we could take advantage of our body clock's and being able to leave very early in the morning.
i know how you feel about the time zone in Arizona. I think my mother is sick of me asking what time it is there every time I call her. She has been there for 4 years and I keep calling at lunch time or dinner time. I'll figure it out soon.
Interesting area. I guess it's because of the reflection of the overcast skies, but the lake doesn't look watery! Looks like it's made of hard sand! Hope you're able to find the missing receipt before Arches.
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We did have a receipt from our comped dinner at the Lodge, and you’d have to have paid for admission to get in there, so we figured we’d give that a go in the morning. 
as there were four big slices and I couldn’t finish it, not with my Ben and Jerry’s ice cream bar to come yet... 
) Dinner to go sounded just right. Great photos of the moon and lake too!
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