National parks, natural beauty and a bit of Disney wonder! COMPLETED - Page 14 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 had so much to catch up on...I hate that I have hardly been able to get on lately, I think I check in once a day if that but I don't get to read much. Today was quiet and I had on my to do list...read Chezp's report, so that is what I did.
So much to comment on, the museum in Seattle looked very interesting and I loved the Pike Street Market, I love markets like that with everything available...and those fruits and vegatables looked so delicious.
Loved the pictures from the boat as you headed to the aquarium...glad you enjoyed and the city pass definitely seemed worth it. I loved the jelly fish and the sealions and otters. The jelly fish all lit up reminds me of that scene from Nemo.
The visitors center in Pioneer Square looked so interesting, so many people left to make it rich, yet so few made it or even made anything. Your evening at the Space Needle was such a beautiful view at night...loved the colors.
The airport in Montana reminded me of a Forest Lodge with all the wood and stone, I can see why you liked it so much. So far loving all the pictures of Yellowstone and to think you just got there so looking forward to seeing more.
Did enter through the north entrance? We entered through the west entrance, and it's funny because your pictures of Gardiner look the same as the town of West Yellowstone.
I'm glad to see there isn't more touristy sprawl outside the park entrance. The town is nice-looking and fits into the landscape as much as it can. I think I was expecting it to be a mini-version of the highways leading into WDW, with T-shirt and souvenir shops and Walmarts and chain restaurants.
I seem to recall Googling Wal-Mart at some point and discovering there either weren't any at all or only a couple in the whole of Wyoming.... or that might've been Utah. Whichever it was, it was a revelation to me, as I thought EVERYWHERE in the States had a Wal-Mart!
That's the best time of day to spot animals, I'm so glad you did! Mountain goats are amazing; I don't know how they walk on the side of mountains like that! Love the light in the photos - that not quite sunset but not quite daylight either. Perfect!
And I honestly think that you only get light like that when it's starting to go into the fall. Somehow, the light is never like that during the summer months.
Your photos of Yellowstone are absolutely amazing!
I'm curious, is the $25 fee for just one day, or is it for an extended period of time?
I think, from memory, it's for a week. I know the $25 also covers the Grand Tetons, as well as Yellowstone, which is excellent value. We said a number of times that they could easily double that and it would still be great value.
I had so much to catch up on...I hate that I have hardly been able to get on lately, I think I check in once a day if that but I don't get to read much. Today was quiet and I had on my to do list...read Chezp's report, so that is what I did.
So much to comment on, the museum in Seattle looked very interesting and I loved the Pike Street Market, I love markets like that with everything available...and those fruits and vegatables looked so delicious.
Loved the pictures from the boat as you headed to the aquarium...glad you enjoyed and the city pass definitely seemed worth it. I loved the jelly fish and the sealions and otters. The jelly fish all lit up reminds me of that scene from Nemo.
The visitors center in Pioneer Square looked so interesting, so many people left to make it rich, yet so few made it or even made anything. Your evening at the Space Needle was such a beautiful view at night...loved the colors.
The airport in Montana reminded me of a Forest Lodge with all the wood and stone, I can see why you liked it so much. So far loving all the pictures of Yellowstone and to think you just got there so looking forward to seeing more.
Glad you were able to catch up again. I hadn't thought of that scene in Nemo, but you're 100% right about the jellyfish.
Did enter through the north entrance? We entered through the west entrance, and it's funny because your pictures of Gardiner look the same as the town of West Yellowstone.
we did - my original plan was to come through the west entrance, but the GPS took us another way, which worked out fine, as actually it was a lot closer to our stop for the night.
Great pictures already, and you just entered the park! I really want to get to Yellowstone some day! So far, I can't decide which I liked better - Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. Or Acadia. But leaning toward Yosemite.
Great pictures already, and you just entered the park! I really want to get to Yellowstone some day! So far, I can't decide which I liked better - Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. Or Acadia. But leaning toward Yosemite.
You wait - the best is yet to come!
Out of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, I think the Grand Canyon wins for me, although Yosemite is beautiful, just like all the other national parks we've been to so far.
Thursday 8 September – part five: the most amazing place to spend the night!
Soon we were arriving in Mammoth Hot Springs and I had no idea that it was going to be like this. :
It’s like a little town and the guy who helped us with our luggage, Frank from Germany, explained that’s because there are 3,000 park employees during the summer and many of them live here too. Some of the buildings we could see in this area were for the 300 people who worked at the hotel and neighbouring restaurant. It was certainly a beautiful area.
We got ourselves checked in, after a bit of a mis-understanding with Frank, who thought we already were and started to take us to our room and then headed for our hot tub cabin, which was the closest one to the hotel. It was a perfect location and you wait until you see it....
.... now I have to do a bit of a build-up here...
... are you ready yet?
... Sure?
Ok, then – here goes, feast your eyes on this!! Isn’t this amazing?
We had it all to ourselves and Frank immediately gave us telling us about the 8:30pm Yellowstone and music show they have in the hotel lobby. As he said “a hot tub trumps that, you won’t want to go to the show” and we didn’t. :
Here’s the rest of the cabin:
As soon as Frank had sorted out all our luggage for us, we dived into the hot tub and took full advantage of it. It wasn’t that cold, although there was a nip in the air, now the sun had gone down. I will be honest – I’ve never understood the likes of the Scandinavians who do this sort of thing – go into hot springs in the freezing cold, but tonight I got it. It was so nice to get so warm and then it actually wasn’t that much of a shock to the system when you came back out.
I couldn’t get over how quiet it was out there, although we did see some bats and heard a wolf or coyote howling - I actually thought I’d heard one earlier as well just as we arrived. It was weird to look up and see no light pollution at all and just to see the trees moving overhead in the wind, but it was beautifully peaceful as well.
Finally, we headed out of the hot tub to warm up and catch up on reading, trip report, photos and Doctor Who!
The weather today was hot and sunny in both Seattle and Bozeman, with temperatures in the 80s, with a tiny shower on the way to Yellowstone. The best thing today was the drive to Yellowstone and our hot tub cabin. The worst thing today was getting singled out for nice special treatment at airport security. Today we tried flying with Air Alaska And the result was it wasn’t bad, but not as good as with Air Canada. The most magical moment today was going in the hot tub!
Next: “this is the most amazing sight I’ve seen in two days at this park”
O-M-G...nice cabin. In the begining of your trip report, when you said you were staying in a cabin, well, let's just say I pictured something a little more rustic and old.
O-M-G...nice cabin. In the begining of your trip report, when you said you were staying in a cabin, well, let's just say I pictured something a little more rustic and old.
I wasn't sure what to expect, except I knew it would have a hot tub but I thought perhaps old and rustic as well...
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Whichever it was, it was a revelation to me, as I thought EVERYWHERE in the States had a Wal-Mart! 
we did - my original plan was to come through the west entrance, but the GPS took us another way, which worked out fine, as actually it was a lot closer to our stop for the night.
: 
and then headed for our hot tub cabin, which was the closest one to the hotel. It was a perfect location and you wait until you see it.... 
and heard a wolf or coyote howling 
- I actually thought I’d heard one earlier as well just as we arrived. It was weird to look up and see no light pollution at all and just to see the trees moving overhead in the wind, but it was beautifully peaceful as well. 
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