The Alaskan Jewel! Welcome Aboard….You don’t Exist! updated 12/13/2015 - Page 17 - 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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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 am really not a shellfish person so I don't think getting so up close and personal with all these sea creatures would be right for me. So glad I could experience it through you... Through a smell-proof screen it really looked like you guys had such a great time!
It was so interesting to hold a live one though. It's nice reliving it with smell proof pictures too. LOL
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Originally Posted by Colexis Mom
Glad you all enjoyed the tour!
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Originally Posted by Hugmonster
Claire's close call with Death???????
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Originally Posted by Big Baloo
This doesn't sound promising....
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Originally Posted by jimmymac
Ominous last sentence. Fabulous pix again
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Originally Posted by Cam22
Thank goodness the stink could be washed away quickly! And now I'm concerned by your teaser for the next update.
Dun dun dun!!!!!
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Originally Posted by cubfancolleen
That is a neat piece of info about the crabs growing a leg back!
Can't believe some of them had been in there for six months!
I thought that was a neat tidbit to learn too.
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Originally Posted by chezp
Looks like a fascinating tour, but that teaser has me really worried.
Well Claire's idea of death and mine are slightly different.
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Originally Posted by stardust190
Looks like Alaska has some fun and different excursions!
There are so many different things to do and try. I really hope we go back in a year or 2.
Driving back to the port the guys were sharing fishing stories and tales. All very interesting.
They said the crab boats are pretty much used year round now a days as it cost $8,000 a month to let it sit. From what I got, if they weren’t using it to fish they leased it out to others to fish for different types of fishing and seasons.
As they talked, I walked around a bit. Claire said they talked about the octopus, but I missed it. But one thing she pointed out that I had not noticed (nor took a picture of) was the octopus had been put in a water tank. They said he was in time out for getting in the pot. The water was all clean when we boarded, but Claire said he “inked”. And sure enough when she had pointed that out I noticed his tanks water was very dark. I guess he was mad about being in time out. LOL.
I took pictures of the scenery and boat as I walked around.
I ended up buying myself and Skip the white shirt (like Chief had been wearing). Claire declined. I guess she didn’t want people to know she’s been crab fishing. LOL! Skip had told me he didn’t want one, but I knew it was a lie and he was happy when I showed him his and of course when we got home the first time he went away with some friends to a Tractor Pull he was wearing that shirt.
While in there Chief was in there as well and he was so friendly and talkative. We talked with him for several minutes. He was telling us how they have been doing these tours for 10 years now. Wow! I hadn’t realized that the show had even been on that long, though when I got home and looked it up; it has been on much longer than I thought. He said the first 2-3 years was very slow and people didn’t realize what it was about and the show hadn’t caught on as much back then. He said once people started taking the tour and giving reviews the business just totally took off. They are one of the top excursions in Ketchikan now. Very highly rated on Tripadvisor too. We told him how much we enjoyed the tour and we were so glad to have a chance to do it.
Chief was so nice and we talked for quite some time before we headed back out to find Skip.
When we pulled into port we still hadn’t gotten our picture but the guys said to just let them dock the boat and then they would come back. We were in no rush so it was fine by us. A few others were still waiting as well.
As we decided what to do next, Claire started whining. She wanted to go back on the ship. We said no, we are in Alaska and we didn’t come all this way to hang out on the ship while in port. We were here for Alaska. She started in with how she was starving and she needed to eat. Let’s go back onboard so she can have a steak. NO! We are not going back for steaks! At this point she was about to die. She was so hungry she couldn’t walk another step. Had she been a 2 year old I am pretty sure she would have thrown her body to the ground.
We looked over some options of places to eat and decided to try this place out.
Claire went on about how she doesn’t like fish. Too bad!... No, really we were sure there would be something there she would like, but she was too weak to even walk there. The poor kid.
The restaurant is on the 2nd floor and we took an elevator up. Of course there was a wait…..I think about 15-20 minutes, but we were fine with that….well Skip and I were. Claire was now close to death. It was so sad to see my child…who just had a package of Goldfish less than an hour ago…dying from starvation.
Lots of people were getting crab legs. Skip asked if I was going to but I said no. In my vision on how this trip would work out, I would be eating crab legs in Juneau. I should’ve just gotten them here and Juneau as a bonus….as we all know, you can plan all you want but it doesn’t always work out.
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Pixie Dust
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it really looked like you guys had such a great time!
The restaurant in Ketchikan looks very interesting. 
Dreams, Wishes, Hopes... these are the parts of childhood we should never lose.
And poor Claire! 
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