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 The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk.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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Day Two – Sunday, August 26 Those animals are definitely wild!
I slept well, even the though the beds had foam pillows. I don’t usually have trouble sleeping on any surface (I could probably get a good night’s rest on a concrete floor), but I did notice that I didn’t like the foam pillow (not that I had any trouble getting to sleep with it – it was just the feel of it).
I got ready and packed up the few things I’d pulled out for my super short stay. I dropped off my bags at Bell Services for the transfer over to AKL and then set about getting some breakfast. I considered the food court for a moment and then remembered that the food court “next door” had a unique item, so I strolled on over to POFQ for some beignets!
Breakfast of champions deep-fried dough covered in sugar
They were hot and fresh from the fryer, so they weren’t a bit greasy. In fact, I had to wait for them to cool off before I could eat them. They were huge, so I only managed to eat two of them. And I managed to avoid getting powdered sugar all over myself as well! Then I headed for the bus stop.
The bus stop was very crowded and I had to wait 15 minutes before an AK bus arrived, all the while watching buses come and go for every other destination. Finally, two AK buses arrived at once. I noticed that one was AK/BB and one was listed as AK only, so I took that one. There were so many people waiting to go to AK that both buses were nearly full by the time they left POFQ. I was right about the bus not going to BB. In fact, we didn’t even go to POR, so we were at AK in no time.
It was after park opening, but still early enough that I knew the standby for EE would be short.
I walked right through the queue, stopping only just before the boarding area. This made me think of my DN Isaiah (it’s his favorite ride). I considered calling to tell him I was riding, but I knew they were probably on the way to the airport, and I didn’t want any distractions there.
I noticed a couple of things on the ride – first, they’d cut back a lot of the foliage in the beginning part of the ride so that I could actually see parts of KRR and second, disco yeti is back. I guess that’s an improvement over the drunken frat boy I remember.
I decided the line was short enough for another spin, so I had another trip up the forbidden mountain, barely escaping the yeti. Well, it wasn’t as harrowing as I just made it sound.
After that, I decided to do the MJT.
I have a talent for unknowingly choosing the worst day, weather-wise, for AK, and this day was no exception. I think the humidity was 105%. It was gross. It was sort of raining, but not really. It was more like the air was actually sweating. And yes, it was as gross as that sounds.
I figured I’d head over and do the safari next, in case it actually started raining rather than sweating. No such luck. But the sweaty weather did make the animals forget that this was a Disney safari! I saw some inappropriate behavior. Lots of it! Animals walking out in front of the moving truck was mild! Pooping was just the start of it. There were “excited” animals and junk. And even an animal offering itself up for lunch – but I’ll get to that in a bit. With so much inappropriate behavior, I don’t have many pics – I did see plenty of animals, though.
This is the best shot I’ve ever gotten of the cheetahs!
And instead of a male and female lion, I saw two lionesses (probably a good thing, with all the inappropriate behavior going on ).
Then there was an oryx. Poor thing must’ve been depressed or something. First, it moved out in front of our vehicle, nearly getting run over (well, not really). We stopped in plenty of time. Having been foiled, it then climbed up to the area right in front of where the lions were! It freaked out some of the people in the truck. Others were like “All right!” I wasn’t worried because I knew the lion couldn’t actually get to the oryx, but I’m not entirely sure the oryx knew this. The lions noticed, though!
I zoomed in on the photo with Photoshop to show the expression on the lioness’s face.
“Just come a little closer…”
Either the oryx was truly suicidal, or it was kind of a jerk and all “Don’t I look delicious? Too bad you can’t eat me!” Anyway, it was quite the interesting safari, to say the least. I don’t know if the sweaty weather had anything to do with the odd behavior. I’ll have to ride KS again the next time the weather gets that gross.
The driver had stopped temporarily, and when we started moving, some folks protested. The driver assured us that the oryx would be just fine, as lions don’t like the taste of oryxes (oryx? orxi?). And maybe they’re stringy, and the lions don’t have dental floss.
After the safari, I checked to see if there was a gorilla over by the waterfall. There was. I got some photos.
Then I went on the PFET, in search of more gorillas (and other animals). These animals didn’t seem to be affected by the sweaty weather.
The gorillas were pretty active and a bunch of them were in the viewing area where they can come right up to the glass.
That’s the only shot I could get of Lilly! She was too busy running around and playing
Gino, Lilly’s dad, was sitting right at the glass watching people. Some wisenheimer kid came up to him and started making gestures and sounds at him. He’s so brave with like 6 inches of Plexiglas to protect him. Anyway, a CM noticed the boy taunting him right away and stepped in, and the coward… err, kid stopped immediately, before the CM even had a chance to say anything (which proved that the kid knew what he was doing was wrong ), and before Gino could get agitated. Some people!
I moved on (to mostly get away from that jerk-in-training ).
He was taking a drink
It was still gross and by this point I was wishing it would just go ahead and rain already. Anything was worse than the sweating. I figured I’d had a pretty productive morning and was ready to leave the park, but not before grabbing a frozen lemonade. I just love those!
On the way out, I was excited to get to see the anteater roaming around his/her enclosure. It was moving pretty fast, so I didn’t get a great photo, but I got a pretty good one!
Then I got the bus to AKL, which surprisingly arrived before even 5 minutes. And even more surprisingly, it left right away, without a shift change or waiting for additional passengers.
Up Next: Solo no more
__________________
Mickey's so happy to see me back, he can barely contain himself!
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I loved looking at both of your snacks, secretly wishing I had both of them in front of me right now! As for the breeze expert roaming around...I really have no words.
Such a funny update. I guess zoo-born oryxes don't have finely-tuned survival instincts. Crazy that it got so close. That lioness was definitely interested! Amazing shots of the other animals, especially the cheetahs.
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What a great start to your trip. Loved all the details from the Royal Room, they look wonderful, definitely need to stay there on a short trip. Your salted chocolate...I did not have a very filling lunch so now I am sitting here craving salted chocolate from Germany...not nice I tell you, needs to be a warning in there, if you are hungry pass over
Sorry it was so hot at AK, not that it is never not hot, I still remember one December trip when it was maybe 60 degrees, get to AK we were all sweltering...it is just never cool....the air sweating did not sound like fun at all, but at least you had an interesting safari.
OMG...sweaty weather! I am laughing so hard! We saw some inappropriate behavior on our safari, too, and my kids were all "What's that? Why's that lion on top of that other lion?" and then and elephant peed AND pooped and my kids were in awe. I guess if you have small children be prepared for the questions...
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What a funny update! I had to try so hard to contain my laughter so my husband wouldn't think I'm nuts. What was up with these animals and their inappropriate behavior, were they auditioning for an episode of "Animals Gone Wild"?
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deep-fried dough covered in sugar 
Then I headed for the bus stop.
There were so many people waiting to go to AK that both buses were nearly full by the time they left POFQ. I was right about the bus not going to BB. In fact, we didn’t even go to POR, so we were at AK in no time.
And yes, it was as gross as that sounds. 
First, it moved out in front of our vehicle, nearly getting run over (well, not really). We stopped in plenty of time. Having been foiled, it then climbed up to the area right in front of where the lions were! It freaked out some of the people in the truck. Others were like “All right!” 
I wasn’t worried because I knew the lion couldn’t actually get to the oryx, but I’m not entirely sure the oryx knew this. The lions noticed, though!
Anyway, it was quite the interesting safari, to say the least. I don’t know if the sweaty weather had anything to do with the odd behavior. I’ll have to ride KS again the next time the weather gets that gross.
He’s so brave with like 6 inches of Plexiglas to protect him. Anyway, a CM noticed the boy taunting him right away and stepped in, and the coward… err, kid stopped immediately, before the CM even had a chance to say anything (which proved that the kid knew what he was doing was wrong 
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