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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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We went on a day tour to see the Puffins last week, and I thought some folks might be interested in hearing about our little trip.
I booked the tour back in March, partly as a way to say thank you to our friends who took care of our dog when we had to travel unexpectedly. We were going to see puffins on Machias Seal Island, which is in the northeast part of Maine - about an hour or so from Acadia National Park. Our friends spend the summers in Machiasport, Maine - which is about 20 miles from where the puffin tour would depart.
We drove up to our friends' house Wednesday evening, and we were all ready to go bright and early on Thursday morning. The Tour was booked through Bold Coast Charters with Captain Andy, and we had to be in Cutler by 9am.
Cutler is a small fishing village - there is no dock, you have to ferry out to the tour boat in a smaller skiff:
This is not our tour boat
Here comes Captain Andy to pick up a group of passengers - there were 15 adults and 5 kids on our tour.
We would be on the Barbara Frost - a 40 ft boat that was actually quite comfortable. Lots of seating, an area under cover, and even a small cabin with a toilet.
Once we were loaded up, we headed out of the cute little harbor in Cutler. Right off the bat, we saw a Bald Eagle in the trees:
Then, we passed the Little River Lighthouse:
It took us about 50 minutes to travel the 9+ miles out to Machias Seal Island. We have been having a heatwave in Maine, but it was cool on the water. The seas were a little rough, but it wasn't bad. Once at the Island, we saw another Lighthouse:
This is a working Lighthouse. The situation is interesting, as there is apparently a disagreement over jurisdiction between Canada and the US for Machias Seal Island. There is a sign on the island stating it is Canadian, yet we didn't need any passports or custom checks. It seems a friendly dispute, since people from both countries come and go.
We also saw lots of birds in the water. There were puffins, and a few other types of birds. The puffins who live here are Atlantic Puffins, also called Common Puffins.
Aren't they cute? See - I told you this would be a tiny report ... but wait, there's more. We actually get to go onto the island where will have even better views of the puffins.
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Love the puffins and LOVE the coast of Maine! I always think the Horned and Tufted Puffins from Alaska are wearing eye make-up, while the Maine birds are natural beauties! Such wonderful birds.
I like your tiny TR so far. I had to laugh when I saw the seats on the skiff - certainly easy enough to replace - but they look like they'd make the boat top heavy with people sitting in them. I do have to ask though, why the 2 colors - did he teach everyone port from starboard with them?
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I love this. I have friend that lives fairly close to Machias and we are going up to visit them in 2 weeks. The tour looks interesting, i think I'll look into it for us.
Love the puffins and LOVE the coast of Maine! I always think the Horned and Tufted Puffins from Alaska are wearing eye make-up, while the Maine birds are natural beauties! Such wonderful birds.
We saw the Tufted Puffins in Alaska - now just have to find the Horned Puffins!
Quote:
Originally Posted by CinderAbby
I like your tiny TR so far. I had to laugh when I saw the seats on the skiff - certainly easy enough to replace - but they look like they'd make the boat top heavy with people sitting in them. I do have to ask though, why the 2 colors - did he teach everyone port from starboard with them?
Darlene - I need to take you on a photo tour with me; you are much more observant than I am! LOL - those seats were high tech - and they came off the skiff and back on the boat for extra seating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
for doing this tiny report! I adore puffins! They look so cute and sweet in the water. Can't wait to see more!
I think they are cute too - there will be more coming up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DrDolphin
LOVE Puffins!! Need to get to Maine (I did take field trip there for work) - of course Acadia NP is on the NPs left to do list.
Acadia is beautiful - stop by and say hi when you get this way
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
I love puffins, so the second I saw this, I was really excited! I can't believe that shot you got of the bald eagle - beautiful!
The eagle was sitting in the tree, then he started to fly off as we were watching.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawnam1868
I love this. I have friend that lives fairly close to Machias and we are going up to visit them in 2 weeks. The tour looks interesting, i think I'll look into it for us.
Sent from my LG-LS840 using Tapatalk 2
It was a great tour. Here is the link for Captain Andrew: www.boldcoast.com
Darlene - I need to take you on a photo tour with me; you are much more observant than I am! LOL - those seats were high tech - and they came off the skiff and back on the boat for extra seating.
I'd love to go on a photo tour with you. I absolutely love the photos you show so instead of just glancing at them to get to the next one, I actually stop and look at each one so it's easy that way to pick up on some of the things you capture. Other times things I see that I want to comment one but when I get to the next photo (and so on and so fourth) I'm just amazed at what I see so my comments are forgotten.
I'd love to go on a photo tour with you. I absolutely love the photos you show so instead of just glancing at them to get to the next one, I actually stop and look at each one so it's easy that way to pick up on some of the things you capture. Other times things I see that I want to comment one but when I get to the next photo (and so on and so fourth) I'm just amazed at what I see so my comments are forgotten.
I think some people are much more observant than others - and you are one of them. I often miss things until after I see the photos - making me wonder what else I should have photographed
I do have a lot of photos of the birds, so I'll upload some now, and maybe some more tomorrow.
We had to transfer to an even smaller skiff to go from the big boat to shore. The Captain made a couple of trips. Not everyone signed up for the landing part of the tour.
Once on land, we were taken to a patio area by the Lighthouse - you had to walk only on the path, no stopping and no photos. This was to minimize disturbance to the birds. We then split up into groups of 3-4 and were taken to the blinds closer to where the birds are. We had an hour in the blind; you could leave earlier and come back to the patio area, but then you were not allowed to leave that area.
Here are a couple of the blinds, and the gal who was in charge for the day.
It was a little cramped inside the blind, but not too bad. There were multiple windows you could open in order to see out and take photos, but we were requested to not have too many open at once - again, to keep from disturbing the birds.
It was amazing when we first looked out of the blind - so many birds, so close!
Some came even closer. In fact, they didn't seem bothered at all once everyone was in the blinds. We kept hearing them land on top of the blind, and run around. We saw two types of birds - the Puffins, and also Razorbills. Both are members of the Auk family. The razorbills are the black and white birds that look like little penguins.
That's probably enough for now ... thanks for looking.
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for doing this tiny report! I adore puffins! They look so cute and sweet in the water. Can't wait to see more! 
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Mary - not enough trips!
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