My "first" trip to WDW!! (1/25-2/1) - Page 13 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Great photos of the animals! Can't wait to see the scrapbook layout for this.
Thanks! I can't believe I forgot to upload the scrapbook pages of this one...
I'm not a huge fan of either page, they are just "eh" IMO...
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
Great updates! Love the mandrill!
Thanks!! He was quite the character! I took a video of him, it's not the best because he's not really doing much for most of it, but you can watch it by clicking on the link below. He does his little posing about 20 seconds into it!
Great start to your AK day! Your safari pictures are great!
Thanks! The rest of the day was great too, although you'll have to wait to see (read? LOL!) I really loved AK and I will definitely spend more time here next trip!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCEANGRLLG
Great pics! So did you get your Safari Mickey ears?
Well you'll just have to keep reading! Can't give away any secrets now...
After the safari, we headed over to Rafiki’s Planet Watch on the first train of the day. There was a CM outside the entrance almost begging people to come on. We had to wait a few minutes for more people to come, although it wasn’t very full. It was a quick ride (I don’t know who told me 15 minutes but it was more like 5!) , it was cool we saw some animals in their pens in the “backstage” area, and we were soon at our destination. We took some time to look around the outside and then headed inside. The first thing we saw was a little girl who was crying, so we went over and turned out she was lost. My mom stayed with her while my dad and I went to find a CM. My dad found one first and she came over and told the little girl her mom was on the other side and even though the girl knows not to go with strangers, it’s okay to come with the CM because she works for Mickey. We were really impressed with how they handled it, but I guess it’s a common occurrence!
After our little delay, we headed to the main section, where we saw Jiminy Cricket just coming up, so I stopped for a quick autograph and picture session! We then saw a group of people crowded around a window, so we went to investigate, and saw they were performing surgery on a lioness! I *think* they said it was a hernia operation or something similar. It was really cool to watch and listen to the veterinarians talking about everything. They were also clipping the lioness’ toe nails, I’m guessing you don’t want to do that until she’s asleep LOL!!!
Unfortunately, I think I read in someone else’s TR that the lioness had died, the CMs did say she was quite old and not in the best of health so I think it was just a matter of time. But I’m glad she was so well taken care of. After the surgery we walked around looking at the different animals... although I stayed far away from the snakes, haha I enjoyed the turtles and frogs though! Once finished inside we headed outside to the little petting zoo. About half of the animals were active and walking around, while the other half were being lazy and sleeping in the little sheltered playground in the middle. Living the hard life LOL! The funniest part was we ran into the lady with the Eeyore ears, and she was walking with a wooden cane (covered in Minnie stickers!) and one goat came over and started to eat the cane! LOL It was quite cute. Once we were done with the animals, we walked over to the train station to head back to the main part of the park, but first we stopped at one of the souvenir shops and I saw the cutest t-shirt!
I couldn’t resist! I also looked to see if they had the Mickey Ears, but I didn’t see them here.
Rhino backstage on the way to Rafiki's
Jiminy Cricket
Lioness operation (and toe nail clipping)
Cute little frog eh? Yah try one of the most poisonous creatures in the world (Poison dart frog). Not so cute anymore!
Tasty cane!!!
Well it's head is cut off but it didn't really want to spend long in one spot!!
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Great update! We were told one of the lionnesses had died. There are apparently two pairs and we were told that they'll now wait until the lion dies and then get a brand new pair.
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What a cute shirt! You always look so happy in your pictures! It just makes me want to be at WDW right now!
Thank you!! I love my shirt, I wear it all the time! LOL! And the pictures totally make me want to be back in WDW too! (especially since they say tomorrow's high is 9C/48F)!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovedisney247
What a great time at Planet Watch! I'm glad you got to see some active animals as well as a procedure!
It was a fun little trip, I really loved the little petting zoo! I've always loved animals and such!
Quote:
Originally Posted by chezp
Great update! We were told one of the lionnesses had died. There are apparently two pairs and we were told that they'll now wait until the lion dies and then get a brand new pair.
Thanks for the update about the lions. Hope the lion isn't too lonely by himself!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Great pictures from Rafiki's Planet Watch!
Quote:
Originally Posted by OCEANGRLLG
Very cute shirt! Great pics!...................Still no hat yet hope you find one!
No not yet, you'll have to wait one more update to find out!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cam22
Glad you all enjoyed Rafiki's Planet Watch! We've not gotten to see a surgery yet, except when we took the Backstage Safari Tour.
I was told if they happen they tend to be in the morning, so I was hoping maybe we'd see one, but I wasn't crossing my fingers! I had almost forgotten about it until we got there and was like "OMG yah they do surgeries!" LOL!!
I didn't really update much this week because it was finally sunny and warm! But they are calling for rain all week now, so yah... LOL!
Earlier in the week I had worn my Tink earings to work (I haven't gotten there in my TR, so spoiler alert: I buy Tinkerbell earings! LOL!), and at night I noticed I only had one on. I recalled seeing them in the car on my way home from work, but we searched everywhere and could not find it Oh well I was just planning to turn the solo earing into a necklace. Then Friday my mom comes downstairs and says "Look what I found!!" Turns out it was in the tracks of our patio door! Strange place for them to have fallen, but I'm glad to have both earings again!
It was about 11am now and we were hoping to catch the 11:30 showing of Flights of Wonder, so we decided to just walk around the area and enjoy the weather (it was quite sunny and warm) until the show began. We started walking when we noticed a crowd of people (this seems to be the story of the day, well maybe trip!), and stopped to look and it was DiVine! My parents were completely confused, and I had to explain it was a real person. I really enjoy it, but my parents found it a bit weird! We also stopped to take a photopass picture in front of the tree. We got a whole bunch of tree photopass picture it seemed! LOL! Oh well, it’s so amazing I really don’t mind! So we starting walking towards Flights of Wonder, and the CM was standing outside the entrance holding a big owl, so we stayed until the show started. It was really interesting as she was kind of quizzing us and telling us neat facts about owls and other birds as well. They let us in about 10 minutes before the show, so we got a good picking of our seats, although the theatre never filled up completely. The show was great! I have a little pet budgie, and although I love him, he’s not the smartest! LOL! I was amazed and some of the tricks they could do, it was pretty awesome to see. The little skit was cheesy but in a cute way! I loved the bird singing, he sang two songs including “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window”. I tried to teach my budgie to talk, but he just chirps (loudly!) Love the bald eagle at the end... he just looked so stoic and proud up there.
But the best part was that I got to go up on stage!!!! They asked for volunteers with a camera, so I stood up and waved my arms like crazy (which if you knew me, is sooo not like me, I’m pretty shy and prefer to blend in). I guess Disney got me out of my shell a bit My mom took this video of me: (the flash on my camera was being stupid, hence why I keep pushing it down!!)
IT WAS SO COOL! LOL, haha... I don’t know if you can hear at the end, but I’m trying to take a picture of the bird from the back and the CM is like “That’s a horrible picture” LOL!!! I got a little certificate too at the end (although they spelt my name wrong, lol!) So needless to say that was a highlight of the day for sure!
DiVine
Can you spot her in this shot?
Back of the Tree of Life, I love how the foliage around it almost looks superimposed
One of many Tree Of Life Photopasses (it was a bit cool still, hence the sweaters, but it warmed up quickly afterwards!)
Outside Flights Of Wonder
Singing Birdie!!
The bird flying towards me, still a bit far away!
A wee bit closer now (you can see my dad in this one)
From the side! I was a little shaky, so it's a little blurry!
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Can't give away any secrets now...
We then saw a group of people crowded around a window, so we went to investigate, and saw they were performing surgery on a lioness! I *think* they said it was a hernia operation or something similar. It was really cool to watch and listen to the veterinarians talking about everything. They were also clipping the lioness’ toe nails, I’m guessing you don’t want to do that until she’s asleep 
I also looked to see if they had the Mickey Ears, but I didn’t see them here.
hope you find one!
I got a little certificate too at the end (although they spelt my name wrong, lol!) So needless to say that was a highlight of the day for sure!
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