National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 7 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 absolutely loved the flowers in the market. Didn't they smell delicious. DS lives at the other end of Post Alley. When we left his apt. to go to the market, I had no idea we were headed to THE market! Boy, was I delighted when I looked up to see the fish throwing exhibition right in front of me. Did you see the gum wall in Post Alley?
Another beautiful market! Those desserts had me drooling....
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All caught up!! Great pictures from the Space Needle, the museum looks really cool, and great pictures from the Market! Hope that lady is enjoying having her backside viewed by everyone on the internet!
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I remember the mini donut stand from when we were in Seattle in 2009 for work - talk about YUMMY!! There was a HUGE line - and it was SOOOOO worth it!!!
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Wednesday 7 September – part five: Seattle from the water
We headed for pier 55, which is where the harbour cruises from Argosy Cruises leave from, that are also part of the Seattle City Pass. We got there at about 1:10pm and easily got tickets for the 1:30pm cruise. We had a few minutes to wait and then we were boarding.
We headed up to the top deck, where I lathered up with sunscreen, as by now, it was very pleasant and warm and sunny and in the 80s. I knew that, combined with being out on the water with the possible wind burn from that, could be deadly for me in terms of burning, so I was taking no chances. :
We were quickly off and got some lovely views of first the seafront....
... then of the Space Needle with the Olympic sculpture park in front of it...
... then the Olympic national park. What I thought might be some cool glacier in fact turned out to be a fire that we’d heard about on the news this morning. It was certainly bad if we could see it this far away.
We ended up walking around and moving around to get shots as the cruise progressed, making sure we got the best possible views – and there were plenty of those.
We saw the granary site that they use whenever it’s dry. The guy narrating told us that it’s very rare to see it not in use on such a nice day. And for the record, he also told us, that despite its reputation, Seattle is not even in the top 20 wettest cities in the States. I seem to recall Miami and New York both getting more rain, but I could be wrong on that...
Then it was up to the marina where it seemed nothing was too much trouble for the people staying there. They would even a get a hair stylist to your boat if that’s what you wanted. Unbelievable. How the other half live, eh?
We saw these cute guys:
We were soon passing the docks area, where a naval ship was undergoing work behind closed curtains of course...
We saw the coastguard ice breaker, which are red, so that it’s easier for helicopters to land on them.
We also saw a freight ship loading up, with the cranes apparently expected to shift cargo every 60 to 90 seconds....
We also learnt that Seattle’s new cruise terminal was built in the late 1990s and then became something of a white elephant, sitting empty for three years before the first cruise ship came in. There are now two cruise terminals in Seattle and it’ll be interesting to see which one the Wonder uses when she comes here next year... We certainly saw and learnt a lot.
Then there were the sweeping views of the city skyline. It may not be the biggest in the States, but it’s certainly got some serious style to it and you could see that from the water. Plus where else do you find the unique Space Needle on the skyline? Seattle is definitely a special city and I was falling in love with it.
Soon, our cruise was over and tipped our narrator, noting that no-one else did that we saw. We thought he’d done a good job with explaining everything we saw and had taken a couple of photos of the two of us together, which I thought deserved a tip. We were also texting to and fro with Barb and Bob, who asked about the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. We asked our guide and he told us that it was very pricey and not that great, although it was getting better, so we passed that on to them.
Great pictures! I once took a harbor cruise in San Diego and really enjoyed that as well. It gives you a different view of the city, plus you learn a lot!
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Every click helps feed .6 bowls of food to rescued animals. Give a quick click every day and help animals in shelters! www.theanimalrescuesite.com
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we didn't.
Katie's graduation
It was certainly bad if we could see it this far away. 
How the other half live, eh? 
before the first cruise ship came in. There are now two cruise terminals in Seattle and it’ll be interesting to see which one the Wonder uses when she comes here next year... We certainly saw and learnt a lot. 
We were also texting to and fro with Barb and Bob, who asked about the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. We asked our guide and he told us that it was very pricey and not that great, although it was getting better, so we passed that on to them. 
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