A special birthday, a diamond anniversary and a west coast adventure UPDATED 9/7 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Pre-trip report – part five: remember when I said that the plan for the side trip to Victoria had bitten the dust? Well, yeah… … about that…
Now at this point, there are a couple of other things I should say about the Alaskan cruise. We’ve had a regular string of emails from Disney Cruise Line about our forthcoming cruise, one of which was basically reminding us about filling in the online check-in signature form. Well, we’d done that online, but the one bit I hadn’t done was print the thing off and actually sign it. Ok, I guess we’d better do that then…
The next email was again another reminder about how you could go into the website to get lots of information in the planning centre. Oddly enough, I’d been there, done that just once or twice… or three or four or five times… They did have a link to the packing list, which was nice, although I have to say I’m quite happy with the packing list I get from (I think) one of the e-worksheets through the PassPorter club.
Here I will say a bit about our packing. There’s a national retailer over here called Mountain Warehouse that we’d kept popping into, thinking we should get some stuff for Alaska, but every time we went in, they didn’t really have their full winter stock in. I went in one Saturday, and not only did they have a lot more winter stock in, but also they had a 50% off sale. I ended up getting a fully waterproof coat, and bearing in mind I’ve only ever really had showerproof jackets, that was a major step forward for me.
I came home, raved about what I’d bought and persuaded Mark to come back into town with me later in the day to see if he could find anything. He also got himself a waterproof coat, and I was able to find a couple of pair of crops, which won’t necessarily come in useful in Alaska, but could put in an appearance in California, and possibly on future Florida vacations. However, I did get some waterproof coveralls that I tried on over my jeans and they fitted fine, so now I have waterproofs for both my top and bottom half.
I know that a lot of people talk about getting hiking boots for going to Alaska, but we haven’t. It’s something that perhaps we will need more this cruise than last time, given our excursions, but I struggle to find shoes or boots that fit me – something to do with having very wide feet and also an old ankle injury. Trust me, every time I find some footwear that fits, it’s like a hallelujah moment with angels singing above – that’s how bad things are.
We both trainers (tennis shoes) that we’re very comfortable in, and hopefully those will be fine. Equally, I did manage to find a new pair of ankle boots that have some quite good grip, so I may take those with me as well. Given though that I bought them in July, I doubt I’ll get the chance to wear them in much before we leave, so whether they’re the sort of thing I’ll want to wear all day, and physically will be able to do a lot of walking in remains to be seen…
The email also talked about the Freezing the Night Away with Anna, Elsa and Friends. Sure enough, when I clicked the link in the email, there was a page that talked all about it, which I wouldn’t have found otherwise. In fairness, the party was only part of the page, but all the same, it was still interesting to read.
So now we’ve looked at everything we’re planning on doing on board the Wonder, but what about the rest of our vacation? There’s still another week to account for…
Now remember when I said that the plan for the side trip to Victoria had bitten the dust? Well, yeah… … about that…
I knew we had a whole day once we got back to Vancouver and got off the Wonder, and my plan had been to spend that day either in Whistler or going to the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain. I’d already got a car booked for the day, so we could go wherever we wanted. Well, the days and weeks dragged on, and I couldn’t make up my mind what to do. Every time I looked at one or the other, they just didn’t seem to do much for me.
I figured sooner or later, I’d make my mind up, and one would jump at me, but it didn’t happen. One day I was photocopying my Pacific Northwest book, something I often do, so that I have just the relevant pages I need, rather than taking the whole book with us. As I did that, my eyes focused on the pages on Victoria, and I realised just how much I wanted to go there, but it wasn’t an option… was it?
I knew that Disney tell you not to book anything on the day you disembark before midday, so I had a look at flights, and sure enough, I could get some out to Victoria after that time, have a good amount of time there, and then fly back. The cost was about £200 ($300), but I figured I’d look into the other options. A seaplane there and back would’ve been very convenient, given it flies literally from right outside the cruise terminal, but a) what we do with the luggage?, b) we wouldn’t really need a rental car for the day, and c) the price! That was the killer… We’re talking £400 ($600) for return flights… Their website even had the nerve to say they were affordable… to who?
The third choice was the one I was least enthused about, being as how I’m not that great a sailor, and before anyone says anything – taking a cruise is a little bit different. Anyway, I had a look at BC Ferries, and eventually figured out where they sail out of. It was about an hour away from the cruise terminal, and you have to be there at least half an hour before the sailing. Given they go on the hour, and we were due to be all ashore that morning at 8:00am, I figured the earliest we could go for was 11:30am. I went ahead and did a dummy reservation with that as our outgoing time, and our return being at 7:00pm. Each way, the sailing is an hour and a half, so that would give us about six and a half hours in Victoria itself.
Ok, that all seemed to work – now what about the price? This was when it suddenly became very do-able. The total price was just over £100 ($150), and even better, they only wanted to take the reservation fare when you book it – and that was just $30 CAD or £15 to me and $23 to you guys. Sold!
I did do a bit more research to check that this would indeed work, as there was no point in booking it, no matter how good the deal was, if there wouldn’t be enough time to do and see things out there. I worked it out, and figured we’d have a couple of hours in Victoria itself, enough time to at least see the major sights. If we had time to visit the Royal BC Museum as well, all the better, but if not, then no worries. We’d also have enough time to visit Butchart Gardens on the way back to the ferry, which is somewhere I’d always wanted to visit.
So… I broached the subject with Mark just to see if he was wedded to the idea of going to Whistler or Grouse Mountain and the Capilano Suspension Bridge, and he wasn’t, so that was it – settled. I went ahead and booked, and we were all set with a sailing to Victoria for that day! If the worst happens, and for some reason, we can’t make the sailing out there, then heck, we still have the car, and can always revert to one of the earlier plans, but as it stands, we are finally going to Victoria, somewhere I have always wanted to see!
We’re spending the night at the Fairmont at Vancouver Airport, which is right at the airport itself, and if we have enough time on the way to the ferry terminal in the morning, we’ll drop our luggage off there, so we don’t have to take it with us to Victoria, but if we can’t, it’s not the end of the world. We’ll return the rental car in the evening, then head to bed, as the next day we have even more fun adventures to look forward to!
I will just say here that I have some Canadian dollars, and I still can’t get over the fact that the Queen is on them! I know it’s obvious, given that they are part of the Commonwealth, but it’s still weird to me, as I’m so used to American dollars.
That part about the sea plane being affordable...to who? literally made me laugh out loud! So happy you found a way to get to Victoria. Looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing the pics! Now, are you sure you can't fit in a trip to Whistler too? You know, just for research for those of us that maybe were planning on using your info to convince their husbands to go on a fun ski trip there...
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Nice shopping! I'm hoping you don't actually need the waterproof stuff, but at least you're prepared.
Victoria!! This will be a grand adventure for you both, I hear it's just beautiful. Glad you were able to find an actually affordable way to get there!
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I'm so excited for you that you'll have the chance to visit Victoria! I went there on a trip last year and Butchart Gardens was absolutely spectacular and we also did the Empress Hotel tour which was so much fun and very interesting!
That part about the sea plane being affordable...to who? literally made me laugh out loud!
Oh I know! I have to tell you this as well - I really put my foot in it yesterday with friends we had over for lunch. Her daughter was in Vancouver with their grandson (they flew back home last night) and they were talking about how they'd seen the sea planes taking off and landing all the time. I then commented about how much they'd cost when I looked at them to get to Victoria, only to find out her daughter had taken a flight on one - and they both thought they were really cheap! They were a bit shocked at the prices and couldn't believe how much she'd spent on it...
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So happy you found a way to get to Victoria. Looking forward to hearing all about it and seeing the pics! Now, are you sure you can't fit in a trip to Whistler too? You know, just for research for those of us that maybe were planning on using your info to convince their husbands to go on a fun ski trip there...
Oh if only... but I'm sure you know the problem, too little time in vacation!
Nice shopping! I'm hoping you don't actually need the waterproof stuff, but at least you're prepared.
Oh my goodness, never mind Alaska, I needed it last Thursday, when the heavens opened and we had torrential rain. Honestly, I needed an ark too that day, that's how bad it was. I made the mistake of going out in my showerproof Disney Cruise Line jacket and I was drenched by the end of my five minute walk...
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Victoria!! This will be a grand adventure for you both, I hear it's just beautiful. Glad you were able to find an actually affordable way to get there!
So am I! I've heard so many wonderful things about it and all the photos I've seen just look amazing.
I'm so excited for you that you'll have the chance to visit Victoria! I went there on a trip last year and Butchart Gardens was absolutely spectacular and we also did the Empress Hotel tour which was so much fun and very interesting!
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Yeah, Mark, adult animation! 
… about that… 
Ok, I guess we’d better do that then… 
They did have a link to the packing list, which was nice, although I have to say I’m quite happy with the packing list I get from (I think) one of the e-worksheets through the PassPorter club. 
That was the killer… 
We’re talking £400 ($600) for return flights… Their website even had the nerve to say they were affordable… to who? 
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